Free Republic

I just got called to join in a couple of minutes ago.. There's a man named Mark running it..

American opinions continue to erode when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal. A bare 51 percent majority supports the agreement and 41 percent oppose it, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Opinions have moved from a 2-to-1 margin in support in March (59-31 support-oppose) before the final agreement was negotiated between Iran, the United States and five other world powers. Support was lower still, 45 percent, in a separate support question which included fewer details about the agreement. The decline in support has been driven by Republicans, who moved from 47 percent support in March to 30...

Nothing really changed after a New Jersey state social worker banged on Christopher and Nicole Zimmer’s front door, and yet everything was different. Over the next two hours, the social worker quizzed their 15-year-old son, Chris, including questions on whether his parents fought or did drugs. She wanted to see his homeschool curriculum. She wanted to inspect their firearms. She told the Zimmers to sign papers agreeing to turn over their son’s medical records. And then she left, and the Zimmers never saw her again. But they can’t let it go. They can’t erase the memory of what it felt...

According to a July Gallup poll, public approval of Congress has fallen to near-record lows. On average, 34% of the population approves of a given Congress. The current 114th Congress has a 17% approval rating. Americans have reason to be concerned. According to GovTrack.us, the last two Congresses have enacted fewer laws than any other Congress since 1947. And the 114th Congress may just surpass them all in terms of doing nothing.

Listening to that was like listening to Bloomberg. Close your eyes and you cannot tell the difference. If he is the nominee, I am staying home.....and I have never done that.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday asked Oil Minister Sherif Ismail to form a new cabinet within one week after the government submitted its resignation, a statement from the presidency said. It was not immediately clear why the government resigned but officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Sisi had been unhappy with the performance of several ministries. The announcement comes almost one week after the authorities arrested Egypt's agriculture minister over corruption allegations. Egypt is battling an insurgency headed by an affiliate of Islamic State while trying to attract more foreign investment in an economy reeling from...

Egypt’s President Sisi has appointed Sherif Ismail, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, as Egypt’s new Prime Minister less than an hour after news emerged that the government had resigned. Egypt’s cabinet, led by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb, had resigned and submitted its resignation papers to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The resignation, which included all cabinet members, was accepted by President Sisi on Saturday morning. However, the President ordered the cabinet to continue carrying out their duties until a new cabinet is formed. The surprise resignation comes days after Egypt’s Agriculture Minister resigned and was arrested amid allegations of corruption....

A Washington, D.C. woman is taking on the Virginia Lottery after she bought a winning ticket worth $20,000 but is not getting the money. The lottery said the ticket was issued in error. "When I saw that $20,000, you don't know how excited I was," said Ardella Newman. On Aug. 22, at a lottery machine inside Shoppers in Alexandria, Newman thought she hit it big. On a $2 scratch-off ticket she matched the number 16--for $20,000.back.

When the ACLU of Colorado likened a baker who won't supply cakes for gay weddings to a police officer who refuses to protect a church or synagogue, it blurred the distinction between private action and state action, which is vital to a free society. Conservatives who defend Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who last week went to jail rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, are making the same mistake. Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said a federal judge's decision to hold Davis in contempt of court amounted to "the...

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced that she will appear at a rally in Washington this week protesting the U.S. nuclear agreement with Iran. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will join Palin at the event along with several politicians, broadcasters, and other leaders concerned about a deal that President Obama has secured enough support for in the Senate to stop the GOP from blocking it. “We walked away from the draft of that treaty giving a win to Iran, our sworn enemy,” said Palin. “Iran, who immediately after the deal was struck, started mocking us...

Di Leo: Black Lives Matter - But Not To Democrat Politicians By John F. Di Leo - Something changed in America in the summer of 2014. A criminal, as low a lowlife as a man can be, knocked down a store proprietor and robbed his shop for drug supplies, sauntered down the middle of the street, attacked a policeman, and died in the struggle… exactly as it often goes, when a violent thug attacks a policeman (that’s one of the main reasons that, traditionally, criminals don’t attack policemen!). … And instead of America uniting in sudden recognition of the dangerous...

Trump beats Hillary Clinton 45 percent to 40 percent, with 16 percent of voters undecided. He wins a huge share of the Democrats’ non-white base — 25 percent of African Americans, 31 percent of Hispanics and 41 percent of the relatively small Asian vote. That’s a heart attack for the GOP establishment, which predicts that the arrival of even more low-wage foreign workers will yield more votes from low-wage Hispanics, and also more donations from the wealthy investors who pay the salaries of GOP consultants, pollsters, and advertising executives. In contrast, Trump is committing GOP heresy by touting a border...

Yesterday, Rand Paul articulated a path forward after Obergefell that would provide equal treatment under the law while preserving the free exercise of religion, which is to get government out of the marriage business. “All Americans have the right to contract,” Paul wrote, and enforcing contracts falls clearly within the purview of government. By defining social constructs, Paul warns, creates “a danger that a government that involves itself in every nook and cranny of our lives won’t now enforce definitions that conflict with sincerely felt religious convictions of others.”Indeed, and this is one reason among several that I have...

White House aide beaten and robbed in violent attack by two suspects who stole his government issued Blackberry cellphone A White House aide was beaten and robbed in a violent attack that occurred earlier this summer in Washington, D.C. The victim, who is a junior White House aide, was jumped by two suspects when he was walking near the Columbia Heights Metro Station on Irving Street, NW on July 14 around 11:30pm, WTTG reported. The aide was jumped from behind and punched in the face twice by his two assailants. The suspects went through the victim's pockets when he fell...

Ohio lawmakers reacted angrily Sunday to the White House's announcement that President Obama would formally rename Alaska's Mt. McKinley — North America's highest peak — "Denali" during his trip to The Last Frontier this week. "Mount McKinley ... has held the name of our nation's 25th President for over 100 years," Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, said in a statement. "This landmark is a testament to his countless years of service to our country." Gibbs also described Obama's action as "constitutional overreach," saying that an act of Congress was required to rename the mountain, because a law formally naming it after...

While the US has had a surge in violence over the past several years, its defining feature was the generally chaotic and uncoordinated nature of each such - usually lethal - act. That changed over the weekend when the FBI announced three US citizens - Brian Cannon, 37, Terry Peace, 47, and Cory Williamson, 29, - were sentenced to 12 years in prison for "conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in attacks against federal government agencies. The defendants planned to attack critical infrastructure while motivating militia groups in other states to rise up and join them in removing...

A week ago, City Journal published “Crazy Like a Visionary,” [1] a review essay I had written about Ashlee Vance’s new biography of Elon Musk [2], the man behind Tesla Motors, SpaceX, SolarCity, and sundry other starry-eyed, high-tech enterprises.As I explained in the essay, my interest in “Green energy” and interplanetary space travel is minimal at best — or, to be more accurate, I am indifferent to space travel. I like it here on terra firma, thanks very much, and I am positively hostile to the Green Lobby, which is full of cynical opportunists like Al Gore, who have...

With all these food and nutrition programs in place, why are American citizens falling through the cracks of hunger, nutrition, and need? Why is the nation as a whole deemed obese? As liberals complain that people are going hungry and the first lady transforms the school lunch fare to “healthy” offerings nobody seems to like, the federal government is spending plenty on “domestic food assistance to provide food for the hungry and other vulnerable populations in this country.” According to the Congressional Research Service, there are many agencies that offer food assistance to the needy in this country, citizens, non-citizens,...

Here's my taxi question. If a person is law-abiding, has a driver's license, has a car or van that has passed safety inspection, and has adequate liability insurance, is there any consumer-oriented reason he should not be able to become a taxicab owner/operator? Put another way: If you wish to hire the services of such a person, what right does a third party have to prevent that exchange? Many cities have granted monopoly power to taxi companies — the right to prevent entry by others. Sometimes this monopoly takes the form of exclusive government-granted rights to particular individuals to...