Free Republic

No one looked particularly good. But Cruz is the only one who lost. It might not be the exact moment that sinks Cruz's candidacy. Donald Trump appears to deserve the credit he's taking for that. But it was definitely the moment when the bitter animosity people feel toward Cruz — his fellow candidates, his fellow senators, and even, apparently, Fox News — broke out in the open. At the heart of the attacks on Cruz is that behind his claims of conservative purity, he is, in fact, no better than the establishment candidates on the stage. He may not flip-flop...

Buford Arning, a retired building-supply executive in Statesville, N.C., went to church each week until a pinched nerve made it hard for him to leave his house. He believes in living a faith-filled life. But he does not demand piety of his preferred presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. “Am I a Bible toter that gets out and preaches on the side of the street and tries to convert everybody? No,” said Mr. Arning, 62, who calls himself an evangelical voter. He said he believed that Mr. Trump was “a Christian man,” and that was good enough. Mr. Trump may not...

Assistant Professor Melissa Click has merely resigned from a “courtesy appointment” in the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, a separate entity from the Department of Communications, in which she holds her salaried teaching position. The main effect of a courtesy appointment is to enable her to sit as a member of the thesis committees of doctoral candidates in the J-school. For the record, the MU J-school is generally regarded as one of the top 3 schools of journalism in the United States and is a crown jewel of the campus. Its faculty and administration are obviously humiliated to have...

A 15-year-old Deltona boy told investigators that he drank alcohol and had sex twice with a 23-year-old woman for two days while his family couldn't find him, an arrest report states. The teen said he spent his time away in an apartment with 23-year-old Jessica Belue, her 5-year-old son and a 31-year-old man, the report states. Belue is charged with lewd lascivious battery sexual activity with a person under the age of 16. She was being held Friday at the Volusia County Branch Jail on $5,000 bail. The boy's mother, whose name is not being published so that the teen's...

Today, comedian Rosie O’Donnell said “women’s rights“ are under attack in America and that politicians are undoing all the advances abortion activists have made. The Hill reports that O’Donnell told Jenny Hutt on SiriusXM’s radio program that she believes there is a war on women. She said, “Bigger than any specific people, there is a war on women that is happening in this country. Women fought for equality in this country, and right now, politically, it’s being taken away from us.”Then, unbelievably, O’Donnell said she would like to do this to pro-lifers: “I’d like to take my period blood I...

For most of my life, if I’ve thought at all about the bacteria living on my skin, it has been while trying to scrub them away. But recently I spent four weeks rubbing them in. I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic, developed by AOBiome, a biotech start-up in Cambridge, Mass. The tonic looks, feels and tastes like water, but each spray bottle of AO+ Refreshing Cosmetic Mist contains billions of cultivated Nitrosomonas eutropha, an ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) that is most commonly found in dirt and untreated water. AOBiome scientists hypothesize that it once lived happily...

<p>Topeka resident William Marotta had argued that he had waived his parental rights and didn’t intend to be a father.</p> <p>Shawnee County District Judge Mary Mattivi rejected that claim, saying the parties didn’t involve a licensed physician. “The parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician in the artificial insemination process, and the parties’ self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,” Mattivi wrote.</p>

A uniformed NYPD sergeant was caught on video unleashing a vulgar tirade against a group of Brooklyn men — threatening them with his gun even while condoning their criminal behavior, The Post has learned. * * * “I have the long [expletive]. You don’t,” the cop bragged. “Your pretty face — I like it very much. My [expletive] will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don’t [expletive] with me. All right?”

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88 In Islam, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21). Thus he is exemplary even in his marriage to a child: Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine:...

No one can say they don’t know what Newt Gingrich will do after his inauguration. He’s got big plans… He pledged to have a full list of his proposed executive orders and presidential findings published online by October, so that every voter will know exactly what they’re getting. He wants every Republican candidate to campaign with him on a pledge to hit the next Congress in a monster jam session that repeals the job-killing centralized corruption of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley by the time he’s sworn in… … and that’s just an appetizer. Within two hours of plopping his Dilbert...

Terrified Democrats moved into full attack mode against Herman Cain on Sunday. Politico reported “two women” in the 1990s “accused Herman Cain of inappropriate behavior.” The accusations are thus far vague, non-sourced, unsubstantiated, and reminiscent of the viscous Democratic attacks on Clarence Thomas. Herman Cain came out on top in the Des Moines Register poll released Saturday night. The Hill reported, Businessman Herman Cain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are the front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination in Iowa, according to a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday night. Cain, who has shot to the top of national polls...

Spike Lee Ridicules Herman Cain: ‘Negro, Please’ Posted By John Nolte On October 19, 2011 @ 3:22 pm In Celebrity News, Politics | 147 Comments The New York Times piece Lee refers to here is the most appalling piece of race-baiting I’ve read in years. You can read my write-up about it at Big Journalism [1]. The reaction the Times was looking for is exactly this kind of thing from Spike Lee.

They were meant to be the saviours of the ailing network. Rosie was supposed to bring back her famous chat show charm and Oprah was going to share the lessons she had learnt in 25 years of her show. But the only lesson Oprah seems to be offering on her ailing channel OWN, is when the going gets tough, turn to drink.

Steve Jobs Rosebud. Seventy years ago Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane, which critics still praise as the most innovative film ever. Welles modeled the main character, Kane, on a famous northern California magnate who revolutionized the media of his day, William Randolph Hearst. "Rosebud" was Kane's dying declaration, and the narrative structure of the film emphasized the work of a reporter trying to figure out the meaning of that word and the meaning of Kane's life. Everyone he interviewed saw Kane through the prism of his own preoccupations. The reporter ended up much like the blind man feeling different parts...

Court Orders Fisherman to Apologize to Eagle (Sioux Falls, SD) A peaceful Sunday of fishing turned sour for Josh Williams recently. The problems started when Mr. Williams hooked a nice smallmouth bass, and a bald eagle took notice. While the eagle swooped in, attempting to catch the bass in its talons, Mr. Williams was observed by a Fish and Wildlife Service officer trying to scare the eagle away by throwing stones at it.

A supermarket in Germany was evacuated last Friday after a worker reported seeing one of the world's must deadly and vicious spiders -- a Brazilian Wandering Spider -- jump out of a banana crate. The store is due to reopen Monday after it was sprayed with pesticide -- but the beast has not been found.

White House Says It Wasn't Responsible for Picking Rowdy Basketball Arena for Arizona Memorial Service Thursday, January 13, 2011 By Fred Lucas Washington (CNSNews.com) – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the White Houes was not responsible for choosing a basketball arena, as opposed to a church or a smaller auditorium that might be more conducive to a solemn event, for Wednesday's night's memorial service in Tucson, Ariz. The McKale Memorial Center, an athletics facility at the University of Arizona, was packed with a reported 14,000 people, who repeatedly broke out in cheers and screams of a...

Where can you find oral sex, drug use, a fondness for big government social programs and addictions to multiple sexual partners? If you immediately thought of the Clinton Presidential Library, you’re close, but it’s not the only library dedicated to debauchery. I have spent the last week reading books and magazines I randomly selected off the public library shelves. I literally closed my eyes and just started grabbing stuff, which makes what I found that much more disturbing. The results of this experiment are filled with leftist brainwashing, explicit sex, foul language, drug use, alcohol abuse, permissive parents, abusive parents...

A Wisconsin prison guard allegedly coerced male inmates into letting him give them oral sex in exchange for bringing them contraband, and his superiors initially failed to stop the assaults despite warning signs, according to previously confidential records obtained by The Associated Press. Now the Wisconsin Department of Corrections' handling of the three-year-old case involving Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution guard James Trentin is costing taxpayers money. The state this year paid $150,000 to avoid a lawsuit by a former inmate who says Trentin gave him oral sex four times, according to documents obtained by the AP under Wisconsin's open...

<p>NEW YORK -- Museum patrons know that touching the art is a no-no -- and that means live, naked performers too.</p> <p>Several nude models who are featured in Marina Abramovic's new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art have complained of being groped by some patrons. The museum has declined to talk about specific incidents, but acknowledged that it has had problems with some visitors touching performers.</p>