Free Republic

After a half century of travel and trade embargoes against Cuba, American businesses will soon be able to return the island nation and establish offices there. Today, the U.S. government announced a new slate of revised Cuba-related regulations that will ease restrictions on commerce and tourism. Starting on Monday, according to the Treasury Dept.’s Office of Foreign Assets Control [OFAC], a variety of American business types “will be allowed to establish and maintain a physical presence, such as an office, retail outlet, or warehouse, in Cuba.” Among the allowed types of businesses: news bureaus; exporters of authorized goods, including agricultural...

A group of 20 university professors are hoping the federal government will try to prosecute climate change skeptics. The group sent a letter to the White House earlier this month comparing those who are a bit doubtful regarding man-made global warming to the tobacco industry. We appreciate that you are making aggressive and imaginative use of the limited tools available to you in the face of a recalcitrant Congress. One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the...

The GOP’s populist base can help win big battles for the party’s business donors in 2017, if it just shuts up for the next few months, GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)52% suggested in a low-drama interview with Politico. McConnell offered nothing to the party’s populist base, except finger-wagging. The pro-life push to transfer funding away from abortion-giant Planned Parenthood “is an exercise in futility… that’s not going to happen until you have a president who has a similar view,” McConnell didn’t offer any opposition to President Barack Obama’s effort to amnesty millions of illegal immigrants, or his promise to...

ROWAN COUNTY, Ky. —Late Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to extend the temporary stay of a federal court order involving Rowan County Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis.The federal court previously ordered Davis to issue marriage licenses to the plaintiffs who filed suit against her.Liberty Counsel represents Davis and appealed that order.The lower court order was temporarily stayed until Aug. 31, but now that the Supreme Court has declined to act, the stay of the order is no longer in effect.In light of these developments, Davis released the following statement:I have worked in the Rowan County Clerk's office for 27 years...

You can rightly complain about the things which go on inside the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department or the EPA and all of the headline grabbing controversies which erupt from them. None of them, however, may be up to nearly as much mischief as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) though it doesn’t seem to catch the attention of the media nearly as much. This week they were at it again and while a bit on the wonky side, a new wrinkle in the rules could spell big trouble for America’s employers and many, many workers....

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, GOP front runner Donald Trump is firing back at the Club for Growth. “They’re a pack of thieves,” Trump told Breitbart News as he was leaving Nashville’s Rocketown facility. He had just finished delivering a high-energy speech to an overflow crowd of more than 1,000 people. Trump was attending the annual convention of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, which describes itself as “the grassroots Republican wing of the Republican Party.” “They [the Club for Growth] came to my office looking for money. I turned them down. That’s why they’re after me,” Trump...

The Denver City Council has stalled a deal to renew the lease of a Chick-fil-A restaurant at Denver International Airport, citing the company's reputation as an opponent of same-sex marriage. The Business Development Committee on Tuesday stalled the seven-year deal with a new franchise of the popular chicken chain for two weeks. "I think the airport also has a question about our reputation," said Robin Kniech, a Denver City Council Member, during Tuesday's meeting. "It has been the corporate philosophy [of Chik-fil-A] to use the dollars they earn to fund discriminatory lawsuits and to fund discriminatory political rhetoric. So that's...

I am honestly getting a little scared of what I see happening in politics at the moment. Trump seems to be creating a personality cult where his supporters don’t seem to care what they are supporting provided he attacks the people they don’t like. I am starting to feel a little bit like a German citizen in the early 1930’s watching normally rational conservatives start to cultishly follow a strong leader who they thought would fight back and stop the communists. Seriously if I had to pick a political philosophy for the Trump movement I would say that it is...

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”—Martin Luther King Jr. There’s an ill will blowing across the country. The economy is tanking. The people are directionless, and politics provides no answer. And like former regimes, the militarized police have stepped up to provide a façade of law and order manifested by an overt violence against the citizenry. Despite the revelations of the past several years, nothing has changed to push back against the American police state. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats...

Last week's column highlighted college campus absurdities and the ongoing attack on free speech and plain common sense. As parents gear up to fork over $20,000 to $60,000 for college tuition, they might benefit from knowing what greets their youngsters. Deceitful college officials, who visit high schools to recruit students and talk to parents, conceal the worst of their campus practices. Let's expose some of it. Christina Hoff Sommers is an avowed feminist and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She's spent a lifetime visiting college campuses. Recently, upon her arrival at Oberlin College, Georgetown University and other campuses,...

"security has to preside...and be pre-eminent" "if anyone wants to listen to my phone calls, it's fine" "I think we have to err on the side of security" "we don't love it, but we have probably not much of a choice" "it doesn't seem to be very popular, what [Rand Paul's] doing" "Most people seem to feel the way I do" "My best trait will be security"

The federal government has a plan to kill all cell-phone service in certain areas when officials decide it’s necessary. But you aren’t allowed to see the plan. And the fact that you cannot learn what might justify its use or who has the authority to push the kill button is the focus of a new case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Pulling the plug on local cellular service already has been done. In 2011, officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in San Francisco cut off service inside four transit stations for three hours after a BART security officer...

One week after calling for a government shutdown if necessary to defund Planned Parenthood, presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed willingness to let the abortion giant receive federal tax dollars for non-abortion services, Breitbart reports. In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Trump said Planned Parenthood is “like an abortion factory, frankly” and professed to “feel strongly about” cutting off government funding for abortion. But he went on to say that as president he would “look at the individual things they do… I’m sure they do some things properly and good and that are good for women,” because “we have...

In 1944, Ludwig von Mises published one of his least-known masterworks: Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War. Drawing on his prewar experience in Vienna, watching the rise of the national socialists in Germany (the Nazis), who would eventually take over his own homeland, he set out to draw parallels between the Russian and German experience with socialism. It was common in those days, as it is in ours, to identify the Communists as leftist and the Nazis as rightists, as if they stood on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. But Mises knew differently. They...

...A 2014 study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere...

DALLAS — A Texas Christian University student has been disciplined after posting online comments seen as racially offensive about current events, including rioting in Baltimore and the rise of the Islamic State, TCU officials said Friday. TCU said Harry Vincent, a 19-year-old sophomore, violated two Student Code of Conduct provisions concerning “infliction of bodily or emotional harm” and “disorderly conduct.” He has seen his campus access restricted by receiving a one-year suspension from extracurricular activities, on-campus living and the use of non-academic facilities such as the cafeteria and recreational center. Among the comments are a Facebook post that reads: “These...

Conservative billionaire Charles Koch told his ultra-rich friends that they face a “life and death” decision whether to keep lobbying for tax breaks and government subsidies. “Business leaders (must) recognize that their behavior is suicide, that it is suicide long term. To survive, long-term, they have to start opposing, rather than promoting, corporate welfare,” Koch told about 450 allies at an Orange County, Calif., summit that began Saturday. ....“Obviously, this prescription will not be an easy pill for many business people to swallow. Because short term, taking the principled path is going to cost some companies some profits, as it...

The California Superior Court has issued a narrow temporary restraining order preventing the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a pro-life group, from releasing further undercover video footage taken of three top-level staff of StemExpress. CMP is the organization behind the series of three videos released over the past three weeks exposing the alleged harvesting and sale of body parts from aborted babies by Planned Parenthood – body parts that are then purchased by StemExpress. CMP has alleged that the fees paid by StemExpress to Planned Parenthood violate federal law prohibiting the sale and trafficking of human tissue. While Planned Parenthood...

After two shocking videos caught Planned Parenthood doctors discussing and arranging the sale of body parts of aborted babies, a third video has been released today catching a Planned Parenthood vice president negotiating the sale of aborted babies and attempting to get as much money as possible from the deal.As LifeNews reported, the first video of undercover footage shows Planned Parenthood Federation of AmericaÂ’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted unborn children and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts.In the second video, Planned Parenthood...

Remember that picture of Chris Matthews looking upset at the announcement of a Republican sweep in the midterm elections?There he was — arms crossed, frowning intensly — looking at the results like a man who just lost a lot of money at a game of cards.It was gleefully shared around by Republicans and conservatives rejoicing in the fact that Congress was now back in the hands of the GOP, with the hope that President Obama’s agenda would finally be put in reverse.If only Matthews and those same Republicans could see what would happen in the GOP-controlled Senate on July 26.The...