Free Republic

I want to beat Hillary Clinton next year. I want to beat her with a Republican who is not just another party apparatchik surrounded by lower level party apparatchiks within the Republican Party. But I know we cannot beat Hillary Clinton with this level of anger. We won’t be able to draw people to our side and our cause like this. I get the anger. I do. I am angry at the betrayal and the repeated lies from Washington Republicans who say they love children, but won’t even defund Planned Parenthood. I get the anger of voters who sent men...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is clearly tired of talking about rival presidential candidate Donald Trump. In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Bush dismissed two questions about the real-estate magnate whose controversial immigration comments have drawn reams of headlines. Asked about Trump's success in the polls, Bush replied: "I don't know if he's having success. We'll see in the long haul." Bush was then pressed if he felt Trump's candidacy was harming the broader Republican Party. He declined to answer. "I've already stated my views about Donald Trump," he said. With some light prodding, Bush said he wouldn't...

Sean "Diddy" Combs was arrested Monday afternoon at a UCLA athletic facility and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

I have got to hand it to Amy Chozick of the New York Times for her deadpan article on Hillary Clinton’s “quandary” over what to do about the Hamptons this summer. You see, she and Bill have for years vacationed there, among the show business and Wall Street elites who rent or own fabulous mansions along the shore of eastern Long Island, mingling with one another. It takes a lot money:  In 2011 and 2012, there was the eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot East Hampton rental with a heated pool that the couple took for part of August, the kind of house...

The unemployment rate has fallen by nearly three percentage points and the U.S. economy has added 4.6 million jobs since President Obama won re-election in November 2012, but voters in the midterm elections gave him no credit for the improvement. Analysis of exit polls from Tuesday’s elections shows that voters who say their finances are getting worse voted 2 to 1 for Republican candidates, and that 6 out of 10 voters were dissatisfied with the Obama administration’s management. Obama pointed out Wednesday in his post-election press conference that although many economic indicators are improving, "there are still a lot of...

A simple addition problem seems to become a little more complicated under Common Core. That is made very clear in a new “Homework Helper” segment that recently aired on WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York. In the new educational segments, local teachers attempt to help confused parents better understand their children’s Common Core homework. In the introductory segment, a math teacher takes nearly an entire minute explaining why 9 plus 6 equals 15. “Our young learners might not be all together comfortable thinking about what 9 plus 6 is. They are quite comfortable thinking about their friend 10,” the teacher says...

According to CBS This Morning host Gayle King on Monday, unless an illegal alien is doing something "illegal," Americans should leave him or her alone. Mike Hogan from Vanity Fair appeared on the program to discuss a new poll about ethical dilemmas and how people respond. Guest host Vinita Nair wondered, "Who's more likely to report an illegal immigrant living next door?" Hogan discussed the responses of Republicans, Democrats and independents. He then quoted an off-air discussion: "I think Gayle [King] in the green room said, 'As long as they're not doing anything illegal, you know, let them live.'" Standing...

With public school students using #ThanksMichelle to tweet photos of their skimpy, stomach-turning school lunches, I decided to look at what Michelle Obama's daughters are served at Sidwell Friends school, and it turns out the girls dine on lunches from menus designed by chefs. While the Obama daughters have enjoyed dishes like chicken coconut soup, local butternut squash soup, crusted tilapia, they also get their fill of what Mrs. Obama might consider junk food. This week, for example, they'll enjoy meatball subs, BBQ wings, and ice cream, in addition to chicken curry, deviled egg salad and the intriguing "Chef's Choice."...

You have to hand it to the game-makers in the two major parties: they have done an outstanding job of putting the problems of the world into a convenient left-right paradigm. To the average conservative out there, Republican equals conservative, which equals good – while Democrat equals liberal, which equals bad. And to the average liberal out there, Democrat equals liberal, which equals good – while Republican equals conservative, which equals bad. So, all the party game-makers have to do is paint the other guys as liberal or conservative and all of the sheeple within the two parties will blindly...

FULL TITLE: Beijing hotel workers already 'fed up' with Obama entourage in 3400-square-foot, $8,350-per-night suite inconveniencing 'pretty much everyone' – and the first lady's mother is 'barking at the staff' Michelle Obama and three of her family members are staying in a $8,350-per-night Beijing presidential suite, but despite a 24-hour butler and other perks that come with the lodging, her entourage has inconvenienced 'pretty much everyone' and made the hotel staff 'fed up,' a well-placed hotel staffer has told MailOnline. The sumptuous pad at the Westin Beijing Chaoyang hotel – its website calls the room 'an oasis of comfort –...

As conservatives, we're all aware that progressive liberals have been waging an all-out war on traditional values, especially that of marriage. It seems that they won't be content until a man can marry a goat, his sister, and his best friend all at the same time. While we get caught up in fighting for what has kept society stable for millennia, we can lose focus on what else we can glean from the liberal obsession with marriage. I speak of elitism and of control. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Colorado Marriage Education Act ballot measure requiring brides...

Liberal New Republic editor Jonathan Cohn admits that under Obamacare, the California networks have become exceedingly restrictive regarding doctors and hospitals. He even points out that one of Los Angeles’ finest hospitals, Cedars-Sinai, isn’t in the new Obamacare networks. But don’t be upset, Cohn coos; Cedars-Sinai isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And people just wanted to go there for the snob appeal, anyway, in order to hobnob with the rich and famous. […] Cohn ignores the entire topic of liberty and choice, as though it is of no importance whatsoever. And to Cohn, perhaps it isn’t—at least, for...

If rumors are true that the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, is on Maui, the security around Oprah Winfrey’s Upcountry Maui estate is compelling evidence, as is the national attention via various media outlets.

Billionaire Warren Buffett tossed lifelines to a handful of blue-chip companies during the financial crisis. Five years later the payoff on those deals is becoming clear: $10 billion and counting. Mr. Buffett approached that figure after he collected another hefty payment last week, bringing to nearly 40% the pretax income on his crisis-era investments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Carmel Ross, 66, an artist and caretaker for the elderly, thought about the town's future amid the splintered trailers that now surround the mobile home she rents for $430 a month. "Who rebuilds a trailer park?" she asked, laughing through tears. "Lyons is going to become a different story now. It's a loss of a way of life. The things could always be bought again, but there will no longer by any low-income housing in this town." Former mayor Tim Combs said the new Lyons might look more like Aspen, a tony, celebrity refuge that began as a working class...

For the last 70 years, American higher education was assumed to be the pathway to upper-mobility and a rich shared-learning experience. Young Americans for four years took a common core of classes, learned to look at the world dispassionately, and gained the concrete knowledge to make informed arguments logically. The result was a more skilled workforce and a competent democratic citizenry. That ideal may still be true at our flagship universities, with their enormous endowments and stellar world rankings. Yet most elsewhere, something went terribly wrong with that model. Almost all the old campus protocols are now tragically outdated or...

All over the country, people are worried about how Obamacare will affect the cost and quality of their health coverage. Members of Congress and their staffs were especially panicked, because it appeared that the Affordable Care Act required them to purchase coverage on the law’s new insurance exchanges, but without the generous subsidy they receive for their current coverage. Capitol Hill collectively exhaled yesterday, when it came out that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management would allow members and their staffs to keep their insurance subsidies. Obama gets personally involved According to John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman of Politico, President...

Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to prohibit certain large sugary drinks from being sold by certain city purveyors was dealt a blow this morning when an appellate court upheld a previous decision — by a judge named Milton Tingling, you may recall — striking down the ban. Both Bloomberg and Health Commissioner Thomas Farley had said in May they were "confident" that Tingling's ruling would be overturned. The case can still be appealed to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. DaIn a unanimous decision, the court declared today that the ban "violated the state principle of separation of powers," Reuters...

Children who don’t get a pre-kindergarten education, ideally from birth to age 5, might fall behind and “may as well drop out” by third grade, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said on Wednesday at an event to garner support for President Barack Obama's $75-billion proposal to increase pre-school enrollment across the country.

A proposal by the Miami Dolphins to use taxpayer money to help finance an upgrade of the NFL team's stadium failed on Friday to win broad support among Florida state lawmakers, dealing a potential blow to Miami's bid to host the 2016 Super Bowl. The Dolphins, owned by real estate tycoon Stephen Ross, lobbied the state legislature for months to back a bill to increase hotel taxes in Miami-Dade County to finance nearly half of a proposed $350 million renovation of the Sun Life Stadium, which is privately owned.