Free Republic

Hillary Clinton is by far the most qualified person in the United States to serve as President. If she runs, I will support her. I have known Hillary for almost twenty-five years. We first met when I was the governor of Vermont and she was the First Lady, giving us the opportunity to work together in various capacities, particularly on expanding health care access. During those years, I have learned that she is one of the most conscientious and competent people I have ever met. She has an enormous capacity to analyze and solve problems. She has a work ethic...

Putting American lives on the line for a political payout On Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the 500-page executive summary of the report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation of terrorist detainees. Democrats, the media and Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are using it as an opportunity to hammer the CIA and the Bush administration, while American embassies, military units and other U.S. interests are preparing for possible reprisals. But adding further threats to Americans already in harm’s way matters not. Beleaguered congressional Democrats are desperate for a political boon and have turned to an old standby: sabotaging national security...

The United States has plenty of enemies in the world that want it to fail. It is insane that we harbor one as a federal agency. When the Republican Party takes over majority control of Congress in January, it will face a number of battles that must be fought with the Obama administration ranging from its amnesty intentions to the repeal of ObamaCare, but high among the battles is the need to rein in the metastasizing power of the Environmental Protection Agency. In many ways, it is the most essential battle because it involves the provision of sufficient electrical energy...

On January 16, 2013 Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, said it will ship back home all 374 tonnes it had stored with the Banque de France in Paris, as well as 300 tonnes held in Manhattan by the US Federal Reserve, by 2020. Fast forward a year and Buba, as the Federal Bank of Germany is affectionately (or maybe not) known, has only managed to bring home a paltry 37 tonnes of gold. And a mere 5 tonnes of that came from the US, the rest from Paris. The US Fed holds 45% of the total 3,396 tonnes German gold....

Story that the Left, progressive media are covering up even today for political reasons. Covering it up for themselves, covering up their incompetence, their partisanship, and their total corruption At his 2003 State of the Union message George W. Bush spoke these 16 words: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” After a majority House and an unanimous Senate vote passed Bill Clinton’s IRAQI LIBERATION ACT of October 1998, followed by Bill Clinton signing off on the Act that was ratified after Clinton arm-twisted congress, the liberal world remained silent....

Is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush too moderate for the Republican Party? That is all the talk. But here’s a surprise: Adam C. Smith, political editor of the liberal Tampa Bay Times, authored this piece last Friday refuting with evidence that Bush as governor was “arch-conservative” and far from a “moderate squish.” — Ed. Respected Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley told the Washington Examiner recently that Jeb Bush is the latest in a line of Bushes who oppose Reaganism. Radio host Mark Levin has dismissed Florida’s former governor as “a very good moderate Democrat,” while pioneering conservative activist Richard Viguerie...

Letting actual FACTS determine what the true story actually is would be a "huge mistake." That, in a nutshell, is the mindset of the modern Leftist. The Left and the Right are vastly and irremediably irreconcilable. This much ought to be obvious to just about anyone with two functioning neurons in their head. The worldview that drives the Left, “progressives” and the rest, is so starkly different from the way normal people think that it’s no wonder we’re seeing the sort of strife we are today. This is hardly made plainer than in the attitude and treatment of each side—the...

Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in United States v. June, a case that has received little attention, but will have far-reaching implications. The case boils down to this: Can the federal government actively conceal material evidence in order to escape liability? Common sense says no. The Obama administration says yes. June involves the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) and a doctrine called “equitable tolling.” Prior to 1946, the doctrine of sovereign immunity prohibited citizens from filing suit against the government. That all changed in 1946, when a military plane crashed into the Empire State Building, killing and...

BRANSON, Mo. -- The story of a unique tip given to a waitress in Branson has not only caught the attention of the community, but thousands of people on social media. Cindi Grady is a waitress at Cracker Barrel, and while people tend to be a bit more generous around the holidays she says a gift she recently received came at the perfect time. "I was in a spot where I was depressed," says Grady, "Just feeling like nobody cares, it's very different now." Grady says she loves her job, it's just that getting to work was a bit of...

House Passes Kinzinger Resolution Condemning Russian Aggression 12/04/14 Washington, DC- Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) today released the following statement after the House approved his legislation, H.Res. 758, a resolution condemning Russia for its policy of political, economic, and military aggression against neighboring countries. The legislation calls on Russia to reverse its illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and remove its military forces and equipment from Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Additionally, H.Res. 758 encourages our NATO allies and US partners in Europe to suspend all military cooperation with Russia. The resolution passed the House 411 votes to 10. “The Russian Federation...

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas, America, from the all-year-round, no-goodwill, most anti-American president in all of history This time last year, the Obamas were figuratively thumbing their noses at out-of-work, winter-bound masses via multiple stories about their upcoming sixth-in-a-row, lavish Christmas holiday in Hawaii. This year, only one story about the annual Christmas trek to Kailua can be found in the mainstream media or on the entire internet. So far, not a peep about presidential Christmas holidays 2014 on WhiteHouse.gov. “President Barack Obama plans to return to Hawaii again this year for his annual Christmas vacation, and he and his family will...

The police officer cleared by a Staten Island grand jury in the chokehold death of Eric Garner has been questioned by the NYPD bureau investigating whether department policy was violated in the case, the officer's attorney said. Internal Affairs Bureau investigators questioned officer Daniel Pantaleo about Garner's death for about two hours Tuesday, his attorney Stuart London told NBC 4 New York. The interview comes one week after a grand jury decided not to indict the officer on criminal charges in Garner's death. The deliberative body delivered a vote of "no true bill," which determined there was not probable cause...

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT: The law is still funded, but there's no new money for it. There's also no new ACA-related funding for the Internal Revenue Service and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the two agencies most responsible for implementing the law. The bill also would cut the budget of the Independent Payment Advisory Board -- what Republicans have called "the death panel" -- by $10 million. IMMIGRATION: The bill only funds the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees most immigration policy, until February. But negotiators gave new money for immigration programs at other federal agencies. There's $948 million...

Rather than make arrests, Minneapolis police and State Patrol officials said they made on-the-spot decisions to keep demonstrators safe from traffic... As the group moved onto the freeway, officers told leaders to stop but didn’t intervene when the crowd ignored the orders.... None of the protesters was arrested or cited... Grimm and McDowell (community organizers) said the group plans more demonstrations.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7a3_1418050843 Whenever there's a sing-a-long in the car, it's always the one guy who doesn't know the words who insists on singing the loudest. In this group, it's Junior, the French Bulldog. But what he lacks in pitch and timing, he more than makes up for with passion. Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7a3_1418050843#ltZm3MqGbJEUwT3B.99

The text of the 1,603-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill was released yesterday after House and Senate leaders wrote it behind closed doors. Instead of fighting for a provision that defunds the president's unlawful amnesty, Republican leaders fought for other riders. For example, they airdropped a political earmark into the bill that increases the amount the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) can collect from individual donors from $32,400 per year to $324,000 – a tenfold increase. Since the NRSC takes sides in primaries, the new donation limit will help the DC establishment do more to support liberal incumbents. RINOIt's an...

Criminal scams are not unique to the precious metals industry, as it is but one minor niche of the massive financial markets. However, it is the industry in which I participate. Where possible, I try to help would-be buyers of physical precious metals avoid the crooks. There are many different ways that unscrupulous dealers may try to take advantage of uninformed buyers, but today I want to focus on the problem with people purchasing and paying for merchandise, then never receiving their goods. There have been some operations that never delivered promised merchandise right from the beginning. Such crooks tend...

A disturbing conversation with one of my smartest, most astute friends who is from a border state but has been observing race relations for a long time now. He is white. He is definitely idiosyncratic. This, in paraphrase, is what he said: “I keep reading in the newspapers and seeing in the mainstream media how angry blacks are at whites over the Trayvon Martin case, the Ferguson case and the Staten Island case. And what the media is missing is that as angry as the blacks are at the whites, that’s how angry many — not all — whites are...

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — Fayetteville residents have repealed a rule that would have extended housing, job and public accommodation protections against discrimination of gays. The Fayetteville City Council had OK'd the anti-discrimination ordinance in August that went beyond state and federal laws. On Tuesday, voters in the northwest Arkansas city voted to repeal the measure. If voters upheld the proposed city law, it would have been the first of its kind in Arkansas.

Explanation: Now known to be a globular star cluster at the tender age of 10 billion years, M71 is a mere 13,000 light-years away within the narrow boundaries of the faint constellation Sagitta. Close to the plane of the Milky Way galaxy in planet Earth's sky, its 10,000 or so member stars are gathered into a region about 27 light-years across near the center of this color composite view. In fact, the line-of-sight to M71 passes along the galactic plane through much intervening diffuse interstellar dust. The dust dims starlight and scatters blue light more efficiently, masking the brightness of...