Free Republic

‘Refugees are welcome’ is a completely safe political statement for people in my uncle’s ritzy neighborhood to make, because they know it isn’t something they’ll ever have to deal with. I was up in the Berkshires a few weeks ago to visit my uncle. Every day, we’d go into the main town closest to him, Great Barrington, to eat breakfast. The place is loaded with rich folk of a particular caste: “It’s more Volvos and Subarus than Mercedeses and Porsches up here.”You know, weekend warriors. Hedge fund managers decked head-to-toe in North Face gear, ready to hike the Appalachian Trail...

<p>Rose McGowan called out actresses who plan to wear black gowns to the Golden Globes to protest gender inequality.</p> <p>The actress took to Twitter on Saturday, writing, "Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @GoldenGlobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real change. I despise your hypocrisy. Maybe you should all wear Marchesa." Marchesa, a womenswear company, was founded by Georgina Chapman, Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife. Weinstein himself is presumably the "Pig Monster" in McGowan's tweet.</p>

Amber Athey of the Daily Caller exclusively reported last night that NBC paid large sums of money - upwards of tens of thousands of dollars- to Chris Matthews' assistant producer in 1999 after she brought forth sexual harassment complaints against the current MSNBC “Hardball with Chris Matthews” anchor.Two anonymous MSNBC sources told the Daily Caller that Matthews paid $40,000 to settle a sexual harassment complaint with the unnamed woman, but an MSNBC spokesperson officially denied those monetary claims. However, they did say that the company paid the woman “significantly less as part of a severance package" and confirmed an incident...

Democratic Party leaders are calling for Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D., Nev.) to resign over sexual harassment allegations, but he is refusing to do so—and even making counter accusations. Kihuen told ABC News that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), as well as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (N.M.), knew about the allegations last year and did nothing. "I do find it interesting that the DCCC, Leader Pelosi and Chairman Ben Ray Lujan—they knew about these allegations last year," Kihuen said. "They looked into them. They didn't find anything, and they continued investing millions of dollars...

There are a few topics that usually elicit startling hypocrisy from both major political parties, depending on whether or not they hold power. One is judges and filibusters (although the GOP's application of the Reid Rule seems to have ended that debate), another is deficit spending (after applauding President Obama for nearly doubling the national debt over eight years, Democrats have rediscovered this problem, wielding it to oppose a plan to let Americans keep more of their own money), and yet another is good governance 'process.' The party in control tends to prize victory over pristine process, whereas the 'out'...

Before this month, Roy Moore was best known nationally for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama state supreme-court building. Now, the aspiring senator is accused of hitting on teens at an Alabama mall and inappropriately touching a 14-year-old girl. These allegations may be the end of Moore. Congressional Republicans have started disowning him, and he’s tentatively dropping in state polls. But it’s possible that the reputation of evangelical Christians will also suffer. Despite condemnations from a number of nationally prominent Christian leaders and a few in Alabama, many of the state’s faithful continue to back the...

The Democratic Party is trying to figure out how it feels about sexual misconduct when the accused party is an elected or prominent Democrat.  After many years of reflexive excuse-making, victim-mocking and wagon-circling on Bill Clinton's behalf, a number of Democrats and liberals are belatedly coming around to the stance that perhaps he should have been run out of office in the late 1990's after all.  Others are forcefully pushing back in his defense, while still others are contorting themselves in order to blame for their own moral confusion and inconsistency on Republican partisanship, or whatever.  Presented with 'The Bill...

Over the last 18 months, evangelical Christians have been asked how they could vote for a serial adulterer like Donald Trump while condemning the alleged serial adulterer Bill Clinton as unfit for office. The general response has been: 1) Trump was certainly not our ideal candidate and we do deplore his past; but 2) he seems to have made some changes and is open to our input; and 3) it was either him or Hillary Clinton, and for the sake of the unborn, for the sake of our religious liberties, and for the sake of our security, he got our...

The verdict is in. I pronounce Democrat leaders, left-wing feminists and Beltway journalists guilty of gross negligence and hypocrisy over a dirty rotten sleazeball in their midst. For the past 11 weeks, Bob Menendez has been on trial for 18 counts of bribery, fraud and corruption involving nearly $1 million in gifts and donations. The jury remained deadlocked as of Tuesday. A new Media Research Center analysis reported that ABC, CBS and NBC devoted 40 times more of their morning and evening TV newscast coverage this past week to Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore's alleged sexual assault accusers than...

A good point, posted by a friend of mine on his Facebook page: "Notice none of the people in either party calling on Moore to get off the #ALSen ballot are calling on Menendez to resign, even though he's under indictment for bribery and is alleged to have traveled overseas to have sex with 13 YEAR OLDS!" We're waiting.

An Oregon masseuse filed a complaint last year accusing Al Gore of sexual abuse following a nearly three-hour massage session at an upscale Portland hotel in 2006, reports the Portland Oregonian. The alleged incident took place at the Hotel Lucia Oct. 24... “He pleaded, groped me, grabbed me, engulfed me in embrace, tongue kissed me, massaged me, grabbed my breasts,” the woman says in her detailed complaint to Portland police officers and posted by the Fox 12 Oregon TV station. At one point, she says Gore pinned her down, resulting in an injury to her left leg and knee, and...

Five years ago at the Democratic National Convention, I went to a Planned Parenthood rally, where one speaker was TV actress Lisa Edelstein. “Do not go to the polls alone,” she told us. “Drag somebody, if she’s a woman especially, because those women are going to vote for Obama—if they know what’s good for them.” Edelstein is hardly the only Hollywood figure to make the case that liberal policies are crucial to women’s happiness and welfare. Yet, with the media still reeling from the revelations about powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s behavior toward women, it’s time to examine both the...

After making a public statement about the sexual-abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck is facing accusations of his own. The actress Hilarie Burton tweeted yesterday that Affleck grabbed her breast while she was interviewing him on TRL in the mid-200os. (You can see video of the alleged assault here). And this afternoon, Hollywood makeup artist Annamarie Tendler tweeted that Affleck groped her at a Golden Globes party in 2014. “He walked by me, cupped my butt and pressed his finger into my crack,” she wrote. Tendler added, “Like most women in these situations I didn’t say anything but I...

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the skeletons in other celebrities’ closets have been coming out. Twitter user Austen Fletcher shared an old clip of Jimmy Kimmel (from The Man Show) playing a game with women on the street where they had to guess what’s in his pants using their hands.

"Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom's instruction." (Proverbs 29:18) Ancient wisdom from a Higher Authority, which is available to anyone who takes the time to consider it, was provided to constrain people like Harvey Weinstein from acts he has been accused of committing. In an age when we have cast off most restraints -- from restrictions on abortion to sanctioning same-sex marriage to normalizing the use of nudity, crude language and sex in Hollywood films, not to mention wisdom -- why is anything off limits? Who decides where the...

...(But so is Trump) • Lorne Michaels was filmed leaving SNL's after-party in New York at about 4am • When he was asked why the show avoided the Weinstein controversy, he smiled and responded: 'It's a New York thing' • An audience member has since revealed the cast did try out a Weinstein joke during a dress rehearsal but it was cut before it went to air • The joke apparently got a big reaction from the audience • SNL regularly pokes fun of President Donald Trump who hails from New York

Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is wearing custom cleats with the words "Pray For Vegas" on the side in Week 5 against the Detroit Lions. The shoes pay tribute to those affected by the mass shooting in Las Vegas last Sunday.

Singer-actress Nancy Sinatra blasted members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Twitter this week, writing that the “murderous” group members should face a “firing squad” for their support of firearm rights. The “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” singer has called for tougher gun control measures in the wake of the mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music concert this week that claimed the lives of 59 people and left more than 500 others injured. “The murderous members of the NRA should face a firing squad,” Sinatra wrote on Twitter in response to a Daily Kos article posted...

"It certainly was my takeaway that the commissioner was looking for a way for the protests to end," Smith said Friday when asked about his 30-minute conversation with Goodell, while declining to offer specifics about what was discussed. Goodell declined to comment, but a league source did not dispute Smith's account. "Knowing the league the way I know the league, they are first and foremost concerned about the impact on their business," Smith said. "That's always their first concern. I mean, who are we kidding?" Nobody was kidding when many of the NFL's highest-profile owners, including Robert Kraft of the...

President Trump, in an exclusive interview with "Fox & Friends," said that NFL owners are “afraid” to act against their players protesting the national anthem at games across the country. “The NFL is in a box and they have to do something about it,” Trump told Fox News' Pete Hegseth, in the interview aired Thursday morning. “I think they’re afraid of their players, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said. In the same interview, Trump also touted the newly released Republican tax reform framework, describing the plan as the “largest reduction in terms of dollars in any plan...