Free Republic

Many Americans miss having President Barack Obama in the White House, but he doesn’t seem to be one of them. It “is obvious to most people who are watching that he is relieved to no longer be bearing the burden of the presidency,” Josh Earnest, who worked with Obama since his 2008 presidential campaign and served as his press secretary, told The Hill in a report published Monday. “I think there's no doubt that he is more relaxed and more at ease and more unburdened than he's been in a decade, and it shows,” Earnest said. The 44th president has...

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was married to the late Nelson Mandela, has died after a long illness, her family confirm. Her family said she died "peacefully" after a long illness. They said she had been "in and out of hospital since the start of the year".

When are the leaders of unsuspecting nations going to realize that if Obama would take down his own country, with no apology or shame that he will try the same thing on theirs? Like the typical Marxist that he truly is under the skin, former President Barack Obama is already diving in to fill the vacuum left behind by Facebook and other social media. Even with all of the advantages stacked on their side, latter day social media is failing at a rate that the masses are noticing. The first thing that Communists, Socialists and Marxists do when companies and...

The conversation has become predictable. A friendly acquaintance — a neighbor, a fellow parent, our real estate agent — asks about my work. I say I’ve been writing a book about the pope, and the acquaintance smiles and nods and says “Isn’t he so wonderful?” or, “That must be an inspiring thing,” or, “I have a friend who would love to read it.” And then eventually I find myself saying, uncomfortably, “Well, they should know that it’s not entirely favorable.”

This week, Congressional Democrats released a detailed tax hike plan that they promised to implement if given majority control of the House and Senate after the 2018 midterm elections. So much for the crocodile tears about the deficit--Democrats want to raise taxes not to reduce the debt, but rather to spend that tax hike money on boondoggle projects. As you might expect, hold onto your wallets. Here are the details: Increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. This nearly 3 percentage point increase in the top personal rate is not only a hike in...

“National Security Action” Launches to Take on Trump’s Dangerous Foreign Policy, Offer Affirmative Progressive Vision More than 50 national security leaders and experts advise the new group Washington—More than 50 preeminent national security leaders and experts have come together to launch National Security Action, an advocacy organization committed to advancing a progressive vision of American global leadership and opposing the Trump administration’s reckless foreign policy. Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and Jake Sullivan, who held senior foreign policy positions during the Obama administration and served as the Clinton campaign’s Senior Policy Advisor in 2016, are Co-Chairs of the...

The U.S. was rather late in establishing a National Portrait Gallery - and in creating the conditions for commissioning official portraits of presidents and first ladies. There is little doubt that the Obamas were the most stylish and sophisticated first couple since the Kennedys and, as powerful individuals in their respective roles, the Obamas elected to each choose a different painter, thus breaking the tradition of commissioning official portraits from one - always white and always male - artist. But nothing is typical about the Obamas. They were the first African-American couple in the White House, and nothing is typical...

Mallory Millett: How bizarre it is to have to argue the obvious; to have to prove over and over again what is self-evident so let me be as offensive as I possibly can: Men are men and women are women. They are essentially different and designed for a natural division of labor. Period. I get a kick out of the feminists’ love affair with the word “empowerment.” They have clever formulas for ensnaring hapless souls into their deceits. One of their slicker moves is to create a vocabulary designed to get around long-held beliefs, mores, taboos or fears. “Pro-choice” is...

A conversation with the feminist icon’s sister. Feminist icon Kate Millett passed away recently in Paris at the age of 82. Her 1970 book Sexual Politics, called "the Bible of Women's Liberation" by the New York Times, had a seismic effect on feminist thought and launched Millett as what the Times called "a defining architect of second-wave feminism." In a cover story that same year, TIME magazine crowned her "the Mao Tse-tung of Women's Liberation." Fellow feminist Andrea Dworkin said that Millett woke up a sleeping world. Kate's sister Mallory, a CFO for several corporations, resides in New York City...

The Church offers people 'the soothing remedy of prayer, almsgiving and fasting' during Lent, the Pope said Catholics should use the season of Lent to look for signs and symptoms of being under the spell of false prophets and of living with cold, selfish and hateful hearts, Pope Francis said. Together with “the often bitter medicine of the truth,” the Church – as mother and teacher – offers people “the soothing remedy of prayer, almsgiving and fasting,” the Pope said in his message for Lent, which begins on February 14 for Latin-rite Catholics. The Pope also invited all non-Catholics who...

A self-described Marxist professor at San Diego State University, who is a leader within the international communist movement, has told his students that “grading is a quintessentially bourgeois practice,” and is blaming the capitalist system for unfairly grading students on their individual academic ability. This message, from professor Emanuele Saccarelli, is in a syllabus for a class on Marxism which he has used for the past five years.

In his new message for the World Day of Peace, Pope Francis has denounced those who question the wisdom of mass migration, accusing them of demagoguery and promoting xenophobia. Those who decry “the risks posed to national security or the high cost of welcoming new arrivals,” are guilty of “demeaning the human dignity due to all as sons and daughters of God,” Francis said in the New Year’s message. To resort to such “rhetoric,” the Pope continued, people “are sowing violence, racial discrimination and xenophobia, which are matters of great concern for all those concerned for the safety of every...

Barack Obama’s legacy may be under attack by President Trump — but he still has bragging rights as the most admired man in the world, according to a new Gallup poll. The poll found 17 percent of people questioned named Obama the man they admired most, a drop from 22 percent last year. Trump took second place with 14 percent, while Hillary Clinton was named the most admired woman for the 16th year in a row, with 9 percent of mentions, Gallup found. Obama has now been named the most admired man 10 times in a row, trailing only Dwight...

Science editor for the site’s U.K. operation quickly disables her Twitter account after coming under fire A science editor at BuzzFeed UK raised a few eyebrows last week after some curious remarks about Communism. “All I want for Christmas is full Communism now,” editor Kelly Oakes tweeted — before locking down her account after it was picked by right-wing media and the always ferocious James Woods. The screenshots tell the story. A spokesperson for BuzzFeed declined to comment on the matter. Oakes, who does not report to the website’s U.S.-based science desk, did not immediately respond to a request for...

After making its way through local approvals, the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), proposed for Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side, will now face its first round of federal review. Set to take up over 20 acres of the Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux-designed park, the future of the OPC is now in doubt after becoming entwined with the merger of the nearby Jackson and South Shore golf courses. Because the two projects would monumentally alter usage patterns in the historic park, an environmental review process has been triggered for each proposal under both the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)...

As an outsider, I can’t help but wonder whether the pope and the USCCB were particularly provoked by Weinandy’s suggestion that Jesus had allowed this controversy in order “to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church, even among too many of her bishops.” Catholics will have to make up their own minds—but I’ll admit I have questions about the faith of Pope Francis, which seems, if not weak, at least different from that of the Catholic tradition. Even before the release of Amoris Laetitia in March 2016, Francis had caused many to question his fidelity...

Are we about to see chaos in the streets in major cities all over America? Antifa and other radical leftist groups are promising that a series of protests will begin on November 4th that will never end until “the Trump/Pence regime” is “removed from power”. And as you will see below, Antifa has openly and publicly embraced violence and the Department of Homeland Security says that they have engaged in domestic terrorism. Hopefully these “protests” will fizzle out after a few weeks, because political organizations that believe in “the necessary use of violence” have no place in our society....

WARSAW, POLAND — When the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution falls this autumn, Christian communities across the former Soviet Union will commemorate the persecutions it unleashed upon them. But they'll also recall the religious meditations born in the country's prisons and labor camps, some of which deserve to rank with the best in Christian history. "Soviet-era sufferings affected not just the churches but the whole of society, atheists included," said Msgr. Igor Kovalevsky, secretary-general of Russia's Catholic Bishops' Conference. "Secular writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Nadhezda Mandelstam may have become the most famous. But themes of witness and martyrdom also...

Hillary Clinton has blamed her election loss to Donald Trump on pretty much everyone and every thing — most recently telling CNN's Fareeed Zaharia that sexism kept her from shattering America's ultimate glass ceiling. It's the latest attempt by the former Secretary of State and two-time presidential loser to recast her 2016 loss, so we decided to compile all the reasons Clinton has given for why Donald Trump is sitting in the Oval Office instead of her: Sexism Barack Obama Bernie Sanders James Comey Self-Hating Women The Media Uninformed Voters Voter Suppression Russia Her Campaign Staff The Democratic National Committee...