Free Republic

So how much do Democrats value basic transparency, accountability, and honesty in their presidential candidates? Not bloody much, if you go by the handy polls over at RealClearPolitics. The six national polls taken this January and February, before the email scandal first broke, averaged out to a whopping 43 percentage-point lead for Hillary Clinton. How about the next six, in March and April? Plus 50. The 11 polls in May and June, when Berniementum first started sweeping the country, came in at +48, and the most recent five in July stand at +41.

Six years ago Friday marked the last time since the federal minimum wage was increased, and now with talks of raising it again, here is a look back at its impact. The federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009 as part of a three step plan. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 first increased the federal minimum wage to $5.85. After that it automatically increased to $6.55 in 2008 before finally landing on $7.25 per hour in 2009. The hope was it would help to reduce poverty.

Police in Oklahoma say they have turned to social media posts for clues about the motive of a teenager accused in the stabbing deaths of his parents and three siblings during a late-night attack that left bodies strewn through the family's home. A booking document filed by police in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow accuses Robert Bever, 18, of five counts of first-degree murder and a count of aggravated assault in the attack Wednesday night. Bever's 16-year-old brother also was being held. Because he is a juvenile, officers have not released his name or announced charges against him. Broken...

Former President Jimmy Carter has said in an interview that he does not believe Jesus Christ would support abortion in most cases, identifying the "only conflict" he's had between his political duties and Christian faith. "I have never believed that Jesus would be in favor of abortion, unless it was the result of rape or incest, or the mother's life was in danger. That's been the only conflict I've had in my career between political duties and Christian faith," Carter told The New York Times in an interview posted on Friday. The Democrat made the comments in response to a...

A mentally ill gunman killed two and injured at least seven more people before taking his own life at a crowded movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, late Thursday night. As seems to always happen within minutes of these types of shootings being reported, the gun control crowd immediately moved to politicize the incident: Luke O'Neil Nutcase Rachel Zarrell, the author of the “don’t pray” tweet above, is a news editor for BuzzFeed. Luke O’Neil, who displayed his anti-gun violence bona fides by pining for the mass murder of all gun owners, is a Boston-based journalist who’s written for publications such...

LANCASTER, Ohio (Tribune News Service) — The armed civilians who have been guarding a military recruitment center here are gone, ordered off the property after one of them accidentally discharged his rifle on Thursday. No one was injured. U.S. Properties Group Portfolio Four LLC, the owner of the shopping center near the River Valley Mall that includes the multi-branch military recruitment center, ordered the armed volunteers to leave just hours after the shot was fired. A Lancaster police officer delivered the order to several of them outside the Armed Services Career Center, saying, “God bless you,” but they had to...

Our country is good at reinventing itself, at trying on new clothes, as if an outfit changes the qualities and personality of the wearer. We did it in 1910 when the Union of South Africa was birthed by the British. We did it in 1948 when our new apartheid laws turned us into the most unethically dressed nation in Africa. We did it again in 1961 when the National Party declared South Africa a republic, free from the British Commonwealth. Our newest outfit, the dress from our historic Autumn/Winter 1994 collection, is now 21 years old, and evidently in tatters....

A gunman who killed two schoolteachers and wounded nine others last night at a Louisiana movie theater reportedly had a history of mental illness and aggression. John Russell Houser, who also shot and killed himself at the screening of the film Trainwreck, had a certain fondness for Adolf Hitler, as well. “Hitler is loved for the results of his pragmatism,” the 58-year-old wrote last year on a stateofmind13.com message board. “There is no question of his being the most successful that ever lived. At this time the US is no more than a financially failing filth farm. Soon the phrase...

Ted Cruz today received the endorsement of Brent Bozell, conservative stalwart and president of the Conservative Victory Committee. Bozell released this video announcing his support of Sen. Cruz’s candidacy for President. “Make no mistake: If the Republican Party repeats what it has done the last two presidential elections, Republicans will lose. I guarantee it,” Bozell said in the video. “On the other hand, if we nominate a principled, passionate conservative America can count on to restore her greatness, there will be an outpouring of support.” Bozell continues, “We need a courageous conservative who tells the truth and does what he...

A year after announcing efforts to revise third-class medical certification requirements, no specific proposal has yet been developed, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told the audience at the annual Meet the Administrator session at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. “I know it’s extremely frustrating, and I know you want to hear something definitive about it, but it’s important to acknowledge the pilot’s perspective is not the only perspective on this issue,” Huerta said, as he addressed several topics critical to general aviation. Among the reasons for delay in moving forward, Huerta said, is getting sign-off from the executive and legislative branches, as well...

Leading Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton embraced Planned Parenthood on Thursday, defending the nation’s largest abortion provider during a campaign speech in Greenville, South Carolina, and later in a statement from that speech posted to Twitter. Planned Parenthood has been under fire recently after videos were released showing its officials glibly discussing trafficking in body parts of aborted babies. Hillary Clinton Defends Planned Parenthood as Corporations Flee Abortion Provider Kristinn Taylor Jul 24th, 2015 9:43 am 1 Comment Hillary Clinton Young Cons Leading Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton embraced Planned Parenthood on Thursday, defending the nation’s largest abortion...

Common sense seems to have eluded those who placed the following hypersensitive editor's note on an article in the UCLA student newspaper about gender inequality in health care. The author's argument for free or government subsidized tampons was silly to begin with but the note placed it way over the top. Editor’s note: This blog post refers to individuals who menstruate as women because the author wanted to highlight gender inequality in health care. We acknowledge that not all individuals who menstruate identify as women and that not all individuals who identify as women menstruate, but feel this generalization is...

Breaking: Discovery of ‘Habitable’ Earth-Like Planet Announced The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute and planet hunters from The National Aeronautics and Space Administration have made a startling discovery while exploring the Milky Way Galaxy By Robin Seemangal | 07/23/15 12:20pm  Comment Artist’s concept depicts the earth-like planet Kepler-452b (NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle) The SETI Institute and NASA have confirmed the discovery of Kepler 452b, the most Earth-like planet ever encountered. Located in the Goldilocks zone of its host star, this planet would have “just the right” conditions to support liquid water and possibly even life. This extraordinary world was spotted by...

ASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, for the second time in two years, the Little Sisters of the Poor must ask the Supreme Court to protect them from the government. The order of Catholic nuns and other non-profits have been forced to ask the Court for relief due to the government’s refusal to exempt them from a regulation that makes them choose between their faith—which prohibits them from providing contraceptives—and continuing to pursue their religious mission of serving the elderly poor (see video).“The government has lost every single time they have made these arguments before the Supreme Court—including last year’s landmark...

On July 20 2015, Moms Demand Action president Shannon Watts admitted, “we’re still learning the facts about what happened in Chattanooga,” then she called for more gun control. To do this, Watts took the few facts that are known, twisted them ever so slightly, then regurgitated them in a way she believes will support gun control. For example, she took the FBI’s statement that alleged Chattanooga gunman Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez passed a background check for at least “some” of the guns he had during the attack and interpreted it to mean Abdulazeez “took advantage of the online gun sale loophole...

In fact, it appears the growers don't appear to be very mellow at all. According to an editorial in the Fresno Bee, "Acres of ancient trees are disappearing and illegal marijuana farms are popping up in their place. Streams and rivers are being sucked dry, diverted sometimes miles away through plastic pipes into tanks. Several species of fish, along with a rare breed of wild rodent, are on the verge of extinction." Evidently this is because when you are an outlaw, it's cheaper to despoil parkland and steal water than it is to buy your own land and your own...

There’s a debate whether or not to allow U.S. Marine warriors and other trained American military heroes to be armed. Seriously? The United States of America has plummeted so embarrassingly, so criminally low as to question the trustworthiness of its armed forces? Freedom-loving hearts are breaking at a scary, record rate across the once-free world. What’s next? Whether to allow firefighters access to water? The planet of the apes flew over the cuckoo’s nest meets clockwork orange Mad magazine punk’d TV. Nice fundamental transformation, traitors. Well done. When laws mandating gun-free zones fail every time to reduce carnage and loss...

No, this is not satire. On July 29, a gay pride parade is scheduled in Sweden. But, you see, this is no ordinary gay pride parade. This gay pride parade was created by Jan Sjunnesson, former editor-in-chief for the Samtiden newspaper in Sweden, which is owned by the nationalist Sweden Democrats party (for our Canadian readers, think of the Sweden Democrats as being kind of like the Conservatives or the Canadian Action Party, which means that they’re considered “extreme far-right” in Sweden). The parade is scheduled to go through Tensta and Husby – two areas where Muslim immigrants are more...

If we were going to see a stock market crash in the United States in the fall of 2015 (to use a hypothetical example), we would expect to see commodity prices begin to crash a few months ahead of time. This is precisely what happened just before the great financial crisis of 2008, and we are watching the exact same thing happen again right now. On Wednesday, commodities got absolutely pummeled, and at this point the Bloomberg Commodity Index is down a whopping 26 percent over the past twelve months. When global economic activity slows down, demand for raw materials...

Readers of this website may not realize it, but America’s foremost public intellectual, especially on matters of race, is a fellow named Ta-Nehisi Coates, who for the mainstream media and liberal elites is the go-to guy. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry, you don’t matter. Coates is a canny writer and blogger at the Atlantic magazine and the author of two widely praised books. Like President Obama’s books, one is a coming-of-age memoir, the other an “I’ve made it memoir -- but still got a lot to complain about.” He’s also written two influential articles on race. Generally,...