Free Republic

Despite advocates’ cheers about paycheck equity, the Obama White House has paid women less than men for years.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience in New York that the news media has a “double standard” against women in powerful position, and offered advice to younger women on how to overcome it. “There is a double standard,” Clinton said, according to Politico. “We have all experienced it.” Clinton was speaking on a panel at the “Women in the World” conference in New York Thursday, along with International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and moderated by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “The double standard is alive and well, and I think in many respects the media...

Above: El Presidente is shocked -- shocked -- that the U.S. doesn't want his poorest and most criminally-minded citizens.by John Urban | Top Right News Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he is "indignant" at the United States' deportation of Mexican migrants and described U.S. lawmakers as demonstrating a "lack of conscience" in failing to pass immigration reform.Translation? Mexico's head Conquistador is sore that the peasants they have worked so hard to export to the chumps in El Norte are being sent back to them. There I said it.Mexico does everything it can to rid itself of its poorest and brownest...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Known for navigating the state Capitol's backrooms and this city's complicated political landscape, state Sen. Leland Yee now is accused of consorting with notorious felons, accepting money for his cash-strapped political campaigns in exchange for favors and promising undercover FBI agents he could deliver connections to international gun runners. In a stunning development that almost certainly torpedoes Yee's quest for statewide office, the San Francisco Democrat wound up glum and disoriented in a federal courtroom Wednesday. The politician who introduced anti-gun-violence legislation is now charged with trafficking in firearms and public corruption in an FBI undercover operation...

(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Paul Taylor) (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told the European Union on Wednesday it cannot rely on the United States alone to reduce its dependency on Russian energy, as relations with Moscow chill over its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. Speaking on a visit to Brussels to discuss trade relations and the Ukraine crisis, Obama said concluding a new transatlantic trade pact, now under negotiation, would make it easier for Washington to license more gas exports. :snip: During a 65-minute lunch, European Council President...

When good people do not express their scandal, evil people go on undisturbed. The person of the Pope and the Papacy are separated. Of course they are. The latter is a divinely appointed office, the former is a fallible man elected by fallible men; men who may, or may not, ask for the guidance of the Holy Ghost during a Conclave. Therefore, logic demands that it be allowed to criticise the fallible man – harshly, if his shortcomings are so extreme as to make it necessary – without this impinging on the sacred institution. On the contrary, the Pope is...

White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended President Obama’s weekend vacation in Key Largo, despite the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, arguing Obama would be able to monitor events from Florida. “What the president will be doing this weekend in Florida is essentially what the president would be doing back at the White House. It’s just that the weather will be a little warmer,” Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. -snip- Hey, at least he’s being frugal about it. The rooms are only $2500 per night. There is at least one critic of the idea that a president should be taking...

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez needs a new hairdresser — or a new stance on gay marriage. Martinez was recently dropped by her hair stylist, Antonio Darden, who is gay. Darden told a local news station that he cut the governor’s hair three times, but won’t do it again as long as she continues to oppose gay marriage. “The governor’s aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in,” he told KOB-TV. “Because of her stances and her views on this, I told her aides no. They called the next day, asking if I’d changed my mind...

The life of consecrated religious communities worldwide “is really enjoying good health at this moment,” Archbishop José Rodriguez Carballo, the secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious, has reported. His evidence? The archbishop told an EWTN interviewer that in his travels around the world he has found many convents and monasteries where religious lead exemplary lives. There are problems, he conceded, but “there is a lot of holiness in our monasteries.” He issued a challenge: “Whoever doubts of the holiness of consecrated life, let him go to monasteries.” That’s not good enough. Would you trust a doctor who pronounced his...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said Tuesday that a large segment of the GOP is “anti-government, anti-science and anti-Obama” and that while Democrats opposed much of President George W. Bush’s agenda, Republican obstruction to President Obama is “something quite stunning.” “What’s interesting to me is that Democrats and Republicans know what they believe,” Mrs. Pelosi said on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown.” “They know what they believe, and that’s what’s happening in Congress … what’s happening here now is we have a large segment of the Republican party that is anti-government. We don’t want any more government than we...

First Lady Michelle Obama turns 50 today, and although the big White House celebration planned by President Obama isn’t until Saturday, that doesn’t mean you have to wait to celebrate. If your invite to Saturday’s dance party in Washington went missing, here are 50 other ways to honor the first lady on her big day — by doing some of her favorite things, from wearing stylish dresses to eating your veggies to doing the Dougie, preferably with Jimmy Fallon. 1. Dance to Beyonce 2. Eat your vegetables 3. Move into a massive new house with your family and invite your...

Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein revealed Wednesday that he plans to make an anti-gun movie targeting the National Rifle Association. It's no secret, however, that the multi-millionaire Democratic donor has profited heavily from movies featuring guns and violence. Here are some of the biggest movies featuring guns produced by Harvey Weinstein:

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Mike Huckabee says he won't be seeking the title of "America's pastor" if he decides to run for president in 2016. Instead, he would seek to be a servant leader who is both "salt and light" in today's culture. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who ran for president in 2008, said he won't make any political announcements until after the midterm elections. A busy speaker and the host of "Huckabee," the Fox News channel talk show, he said his concern for the nation's direction could be the deciding factor. "I just feel like our country is...

While President Barack Obama continued what the Weekly Address to accuse Republicans in Congress of going home for the holidays while less-fortunate Americans suffer. Just a few days after Christmas, more than one million of our fellow Americans lost a vital economic lifeline – the temporary insurance that helps folks make ends meet while they look for a job. Republicans in Congress went home for the holidays and let that lifeline expire. And for many of their constituents who are unemployed through no fault of their own, that decision will leave them with no income at all. We make this...

Oh! and BTW. Is that not the most arrogant, smug, pompous looking face you ever wanted to slap silly? (Covering Your Back Just in Case The NSA is Snopping Around.) Oh, and speaking of Algore, let me introduce someone who had he survived would have been the biggest supporter of Algore's running joke on Global Warming, someone who had his very own Enviro"Mental" Planet Earth Catastrophe Scenario of Destruction but never knew how to monetize it, having popularized, prostelyized a similar sounding catchy scheme in which to inject the fear of the End of Days as his very own...

Actor Andy Serkis is set to direct an upcoming movie adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm. But there will be a slight deviation from the story’s original focus: rather than serve as a cautionary tale about Communist totalitarianism, this updated version will address Hollywood’s predictable, go-to embodiment of evil, the Darth Vader of our time: corporate greed. Orwell’s brilliant allegory Animal Farm was written during World War II as a satire on Soviet Communism (and very nearly wasn’t published, critical as it was of our Russian ally). It has since been adapted to film twice, a British animated...

Pope Francis may have been named Time magazine's Person of the Year, but he has come under scathing criticism from a growing number of traditionalist Catholics for cracking down on a religious order that celebrates the old Latin Mass. The case has become a flashpoint in the ideological tug-of-war going on in the Catholic Church over Francis' revolutionary agenda, which has thrilled progressives and alarmed some conservatives. The matter concerns the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a small but growing order of several hundred priests, seminarians and nuns that was founded in Italy in 1990 as an offshoot of the...

In the interest of transparency, Gov. Mark Dayton has released his tax returns for every year since 2009, back when he was just a candidate for the governor's office. He dropped his 2012 returns yesterday afternoon, and they reveal that last year was a prosperous one for our governor: Dayton took home his state salary of $116,125, as well as $92,381 from the family trust, and $130,291 in capital gains, for a total income of $343,234. That income puts Dayton among Minnesota's highest earners. Yet, according to his records, Dayton donated just $1,000 to charity in 2012.

Obama’s Education Secretary recently said that opponents to the Administration’s “Common Core” Standards are merely “white suburban moms” who are, all of a sudden, learning that their kids aren’t real bright. Arne Duncan (wow. . . Perfect name for a 1970’s sitcom) made the degrading remarks to a group of state school superintendents on Friday. According to the Washington Post: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of...

As CNN points out, that is simply false: Sebelius is actually legally allowed to get insurance over the exchange but she would have to forego the employer contribution to her premiums. In the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, that employer contribution accounts for a majority of her premiums. In order to get a private health insurance plan through Obamacare, Sebelius would have to pass up what surely amounts to more than $10,000 in annual compensation.