Free Republic

Gwen Ifill, the longtime PBS news anchor who had served as a co-host of PBS’s NewsHour and as moderator of “Washington Week,” has died after a battle with cancer, PBS has confirmed. She was 61. “It is with extremely heavy hearts that we must share that our dear friend and beloved colleague Gwen Ifill passed away this afternoon following several months of cancer treatment,” PBS NewsHour said in a statement on Monday. “She was surrounded by loving family and many friends whom we ask that you keep in your thoughts and prayers.” "I am very sad to tell you that...

Do Democrats Care about Chavez and his Oppression of the Jews? Ed LaskyAmerican Thinker has long noted that many leading Democrats seem to have a special warm spot for Hugo Chavez, the increasingly dictatorial President of Venezuala. He is a supporter of the FARC terrorist group operating inside our ally Colombia's territory. He is a fomenter of radicalism throughout South America, a partner and good friend of the Iranian regime. In short, he is an anti-American tyrant who lately has been trying to impose Nazi-like police powers in Venezuala. He has had a high-level summit meeting with the Holocaust-denying, Holocuast-planning Presdient of Iran,...

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is trying to bring what he calls a social revolution to his country. One of his most far-reaching experiments toward that goal is the institution of community councils, which could reshape the way government operates in Venezuela. Thousands of the councils have been formed nationwide, and they have made decisions on everything from trash collection to school construction. Chavez calls the councils the fifth engine in his campaign to transform the world's seventh-biggest oil exporter into a socialist state. At first glance, they may appear like neighborhood watch groups. But the councils have government funding, thanks...

A 50-year-old principal was found naked in his school office while watching gay pornography on Tuesday, according to sources. Sex toys were found nearby, the sources added. Police said John Acerra was a longtime teacher and principal in the Bethlehem Area School District, but was also allegedly selling crystal meth out of his school office. Acerra, of Allentown, was the principal of Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem, and was arrested minutes after he arranged to sell the notoriously addictive drug to a police informant, according to investigators. Police arrived and found meth and drug paraphernalia on his desk, according to...

For the last couple of years, Bob Woodward, the renowned Washington Post investigative journalist who became famous for breaking the Watergate scandal, has been in a bad mood. You see, when he attended those liberal cocktail parties on New York's Upper East side there were people who didn't think Woodward's liberal credentials were still in good standing after his two books on George W. Bush. Woodward presented Bush in what some say was a positive light and this kind of thing doesn't set well with the Manhattan crowd who sees the president as the incarnation of the anti-Christ. Well, perhaps...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For weeks, the rumor mills have been working overtime to claim that Oscar winner Meryl Streep based her portrayal of the Machiavellian mom in the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate" on Hillary Clinton. The rumors are not even remotely true, Streep told reporters over the weekend. But the actress added that she was imitating a person that no one has yet guessed. Streep plays a U.S. senator intent on seeing her son become president, assuming the villainous role played by Angela Lansbury in the original 1962 political thriller. The remake from Paramount Pictures is slated to...

<p>Unabomber Ted Kaczynski has asked the U.S. government to return his personal papers and other materials, including a bomb confiscated by the FBI seven years ago. In papers filed at federal court in Sacramento, Kaczynski asked that the government ship the materials to a University of Michigan archive that already contains more than 15,000 of his papers.</p>