Free Republic

Since the French Revolution, Americans have glanced over to our friends across the Atlantic Ocean as a model of what a country should not do. That tradition continues. France’s centralized planning of the economy, health care, education, the family, religion, and so on is not working. The New York Times reports: The pervasive presence of government in French life, from workplace rules to health and education benefits, is now the subject of a great debate as the nation grapples with whether it can sustain the post-World War II model of social democracy. Well, those who champion economic, moral, and political...

President Obama considered veteran Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel a political hack and had such little regard for Jesse Jackson that he “effectively banned” the civil rights leader from the White House, a new book claims. The political tome about the 2012 presidential campaign, “Double Down,” says Obama had little patience for “professional left” activists and “vanishingly close to zero” for what a White House aide called “professional blacks.” “Apart from Georgia Congressman John Lewis and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Obama had nearly as much contempt for the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) as he did for the Tea Party Caucus,”...

The state has charged Matthew Pinkerton with 2nd Degree Murder. Their sole basis for this charge is that he should have called 911. There is no nationwide average response time for a 911 call, however unless they are faster than 1,310 ft/s, there really is no point in calling 911 in the case of a hostile home invasion. While the Assistant State’s Attorney, Glen Neubauer, maintains that he should have called 911, and that even the act of grabbing the gun in the first place is “bizarre behavior in itself,” Pinkerton’s lawyer, Peter O’Neill, said it best when he acknowledged...

I'll just share one more memory of a real leader before I get back to my regular programming....Keep the memory of Reagan alive and we can win again!I've told the story of working in the Reagan White House many times. But this is the first time I have shared this memory. 25 years ago on Wednesday, November 9, 1988 White House staff gathered in the Rose Garden to cheer the President as he walked to the Oval Office in the morning after the big win for George H.W. Bush in the presidential election which cemented the legacy of the Reagan...

They said: Rep. Cantor Falsely Implies Democratic Plan Doesn't Allow Americans To "Keep What They've Got If They Like It" Rep. Cantor: "I think next what you will see in our plan is we really will provide a way for people to keep what they've got if they like it. And that means we've got to provide the flexibility for employer-based plans to stay in the game, so that we can have the innovation that has proven to bring down costs." [Cantor Appearance on CNBC, 6/17/09] They also said: President Obama Has Repeatedly Said That People Who Like Their Insurance...

JERUSALEM (AP) — A pair of testy public exchanges this week appear to have undone whatever good will was created between the Israeli and U.S. governments during a high-profile visit by President Barack Obama early this year. Tensions burst into the open during a swing through the region by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. In an interview broadcast on both Israeli and Palestinian TV, Kerry questioned Israel's seriousness about peace with the Palestinians. Hours later Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back, vowing not to cave into concessions to the Palestinians — and also saying he "utterly rejects" an emerging...

**SNIP** “For Chelsea, it’s a last-ditch attempt to save her marriage,” said a source. “Bill and Hillary have continually distanced themselves from Marc, and Chelsea thinks that fathering their grand­child would bring Marc closer to them.” Marc is reportedly concerned over Bill tapping one of Chelsea’s closest pals, Eric Braverman, for the fam­ily’s charitable organization, The Clinton Foundation.

When Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers hit theaters 16 years ago today, most American critics slammed it. In the New York Times, Janet Maslin panned the “crazed, lurid spectacle,” as featuring “raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys.” Jeff Vice, in the Deseret News, called it “a nonstop splatterfest so devoid of taste and logic that it makes even the most brainless summer blockbuster look intelligent.” Roger Ebert, who had praised the “pointed social satire” of Verhoeven’s Robocop, found the film “one-dimensional,” a trivial nothing “pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans.” But those critics had missed the point. Starship Troopers is satire, a ruthlessly...

With a new FDA proposal to outlaw trans fats, this may be the end of what was once considered “a great boon to Americans’ arteries.” But surprisingly, science has only been against trans fats for the past few decades. Through the late 1980s, animal fat substitutes like Crisco and margarine were all the rage, and for a brief moment were even considered a health product. Here’s the story of how America fell in love with, and then quickly slid away from, hydrogenated oils. In the 1980s, some scientists began to associate heart disease with saturated fats, and in response, groups...

By setting several new precedents, the FDA's decision on trans fats may bring some of our most beloved ingredients -- salt and sugar -- under new scrutiny by the agency, they predicted

<p>JOHN Kerry has added credibility to a conspiracy theory that John F. Kennedy's assassin may not have worked alone.</p> <p>The US Secretary of State has become one of the highest-ranking politicians to publicly doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone conspirator in Kennedy's murder, admitting to a journalist that he was suspicious of the government’s official finding.</p>

Dramatic new footage has been released of the moment a Greenpeace ship was raided by the Russian authorities following a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic. The footage, shot on 19 September, shows a Russian helicopter hovering over the deck of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise. Armed men drop on to the deck, while members of the Greenpeace crew are seen with their hands in the air. The footage also shows the ship being towed towards Murmansk, where the 30 people on board were taken ashore and arrested. The families of all six UK nationals being held by the Russian authorities...

On Pentecost Monday 1975 a prophecy was given by Ralph Martin in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, in the presence of Pope Paul VI. The Prophecies were given during the Closing Eucharistic Celebrations (Pentecost Monday 1975) of the International Conference of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. This is for your discernment, but it seems like a powerful one to me. Here are the prophecies: "Because I love you I want to show you what I am doing in the world today. I want to prepare you for what is to come. Days of darkness are coming on the world, days of tribulation…...

AT the recent New York Times forum in Singapore, Eleonora Sharef, a co-founder of HireArt, was explaining what new skills employers were seeking from job applicants, but she really got the audience’s attention when she mentioned that her search firm was recently told by one employer that it wouldn’t look at any applicant for a marketing job who didn’t have at least 2,000 Twitter followers — and the more the better. She didn’t disclose the name of the firm, but she told me that it wasn’t Twitter. At a meeting with students at Fudan University in Shanghai a few days...

OK, after having searched the internets in vain for a balanced (i.e. not history rewritten by America-hating libtards) reading list on modern U.S. Military history, perhaps you can help. If you can personally recommend books covering the following, I'd greatly appreciate it: World War II Korean War Vietnam War Operation Desert Storm Operation Iraqi Freedom Operation Enduring Freedom others...?

TEPALCATEPEC, Mexico – For lime grower Hipolito Mora, it was time to organize and pick up arms when a packing company controlled by a brutal drug cartel refused to buy his fruit. For Bishop Miguel Patino Velazquez, it was seeing civilians forced to fight back with their own guns that made him speak out. For Leticia, a lime picker too afraid of retribution to give her last name, it was the day she saw a taxi driver kidnapped in front of his two young children that convinced her to join those taking the law into their own hands.

MINNEAPOLIS — Voters in Minneapolis have sent a Somali-American to their city council for the first time, a sign of the immigrant community's growing strength in the city. Abdi Warsame took 64 percent of the vote in Tuesday's election, well ahead of incumbent Robert Lilligren. Both the Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio reported that Warsame will become the highest-ranking elected Somali-American in the U.S. when he takes office. Warsame, 35, left Somalia as a child and spent much of his life in England. He moved to Minneapolis in 2006 and heads a tenant association in a Minneapolis high-rise that...

The president came out Thursday with a public apology for saying repeatedly that "If you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan" with Obamacare and yet, the cancellation notices poured in like acceptance letters from Hogwarts to Harry Potter. (Remember that scene where the letters come pouring in through the chimney? Watch the clip.) And yet, the White House website still says "If you like your plan you can keep it and you don't have to change a thing due to the health care law."

Under ordinary circumstances, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are probably not in the habit of attending the birthday parties of elderly Christian preachers in the North Carolina mountains. But they were both among the hundreds of well-wishers at the party on Thursday marking Billy Graham’s 95th birthday. Graham spent his career leading revivals around the globe, following a long tradition of evangelists who have traveled far and wide to urge sinners to accept Christ. But his birthday guest list shows that he is no ordinary preacher. He is a cultural icon, the most famous face of traditional Protestant Christianity. “We...

Progressive liberals just can't help themselves. They're so wise and all-knowing that us common peasants need them to come down from their elated heights to make decisions for us. The nanny state mentality is one that is a core component of the progressive liberal psyche, and while they cloak it with talk of good intentions, it's all about controlling every aspect of your life. Sadly, the nanny state is going national. I never worried about Nanny Bloomberg's crazy edicts as I don't live in New York City, but his trans fat madness is now being picked up by the FDA....