Free Republic

Germany's first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, supposedly once said that there was "a special providence for drunkards, fools and the United States of America." Apparently, late 19th century observers could not quite explain how the U.S. thrived when by logic it should not. That paradox has never been more true than today. The U.S. government now owes more than $18 trillion in long-term debt. Even after recent income tax hikes for the very wealthy and huge cuts in the defense budget, the Obama administration will still run an annual budget deficit of nearly $500 billion. No government official dares to...

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In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". calumny \KAL-um-nee\ noun 1. a misrepresentation intended to harm another's reputation 2. the act of uttering false charges or misrepresentations maliciously calculated to harm another's reputation Example sentences: The notion that the mayor knew about the problem before the newspaper broke the story is nothing but calumny. "Some say that showing respect for your opponent after heaping disrespect upon him … and having disrespect heaped upon you civilizes our politics. In truth, however,...

We all know people who believe that they know more than we do, who look down on us and believe that they are better than we are. They believe they are smarter than the rest of us, and if they have control, then they can control the outcome and make whatever it is better. This is the same belief that led the U.S.S.R. into centralized planning and control. We all know what happened to the Soviet Union. Contrast this to President Reagan's belief that "There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination...

Health Overhaul: Jonathan Gruber isn't the only one who got rich off ObamaCare. Several big government contractors are raking in megabucks to help the government take over the nation's health care system. Gruber made news when it came to light that the Obama administration had paid the stupid-American-calling MIT economist roughly $400,000 to help build ObamaCare, and several states paid him big bucks as well to build their exchanges. But this is just the tip of the ObamaCare bonanza.

Teresa Sullivan, the president of the University of Virginia — the campus at the heart of the Rolling Stone magazine debacle over its since-debunked rape claim piece — has become the target of a Change.org petition that calls for her immediate firing. The petition has only gathered a few signatures so far, but its text is blunt. It reads: "University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan vandalized our legal system by immediately assuming the guilt of innocent men after an anonymous accuser without evidence cried, 'Rape!' Sullivan suspended activities of all fraternities (not just the one fraternity the accuser mentions), and...

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber lied to Congress when he said that he did not write Obamacare. Gruber said in a heated exchange with Wisconsin Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis at Tuesday morning’s Oversight hearing that he did not write Obamacare.

Mystery surrounds the fiery weekend death of Jessica Chambers, but the Mississippi teen may have given firefighters a clue in her killing, a prosecutor said Wednesday. The volunteer fire department that responded to her car blaze Saturday night got there quickly because it was at another call a couple of miles away, said John Champion, district attorney for Mississippi's 17th Circuit. When firefighters arrived at the scene near Courtland, Mississippi, Chambers approached one of them and spoke. She was not on fire, as has been widely reported, the prosecutor said.

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May I make two requests? Love me, but remember that you cannot be more merciful than God. It isn’t mercy to affirm same-sex acts as good. Don’t compromise truth; help me to live in harmony with it.Over thirty years have passed since same-sex attraction rushed up from deep within my twelve-year-old frame. This attraction was unbidden and unwanted, yet simultaneously forceful and compelling. As a Christian, the conflict between my sexuality and my faith would become the deepest and most intense of my life. Now in my forties, I’ve gone from being closeted to openly lesbian to celibate to heterosexually...

The health insurance industry is firing back at Republicans' decision to cut government payments that could help plans struggling under the healthcare law. America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) blasted legislation changing ObamaCare's "risk corridors" program and predicted that it would raise healthcare costs for families. "American budgets are already strained by healthcare costs, and this change will lead to higher premiums for consumers and make it more difficult to achieve affordability," said Clare Krusing, AHIP spokeswoman. "Our focus should be on changes to the law that will lower costs — like repealing the health insurance tax — not those that...

Formerly the "Fans of Quinn and Rose Discussion" thread, our group been meeting here since 2008. We still hold out hope that our favorite talk show hosts will come back on the air but, whether they do or not, our friendly group will still meet to start the day. So if you are preparing to go to work, are getting home from work - or happily retired - stop in and say mornin' and share the latest news, discuss the weather, share a recipe, or whatever!

<p>And in a vivid display of just how far self-hating Americans will go to smear their own country, look no further than this quickly infamous leftist-generated so-called CIA report. Its title as bequeathed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program.</p>

Prime Minister Stephen Harper put on a show for Conservative faithful in Ottawa on Tuesday, jamming with his new band on stage to the delight of Tory MPs and staffers.

Remember the truth? Not “the truth,” but “truth”—those irrefutable realities that were backed up by facts. The old “2 + 2 = 4” sort of truth about which there was no debate. It’s now dead. Truth, facts, honesty – these were all, individually and collectively, important aspects of human life and society. Now they’re inconveniences, brushed aside in favor of whatever narrative someone is seeking to push. Want to pass a major government seizure of one-sixth of the U.S. economy? Cook the books, lie to the people and tell them if they’re happy with what they have now this new...

The question about the origin of oceans on Earth is one of the most important questions with respect to the formation of our planet and the origin of life. The most popular theory is that water was brought by impacts of comets and asteroids. Data from the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft indicate that terrestrial water did not come from comets like 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The findings were published today in the journal Science. Researchers agree that water must have been delivered to Earth by small bodies at a later...

WASHINGTON – In a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday that sounded like the first foreign policy address of a presidential campaign, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for a return to the international politics of President Ronald Reagan. Cruz contrasted Reagan’s approach with the Obama-Clinton policy of not putting distance between the U.S. and traditional allies, such as Britain and Israel, in the hope of “domesticating” long-standing enemies such as Russia and Iran. “This backfired,” Cruz argued. “The end result is that Churchill is no longer welcome in the Oval Office. He recalled one of Obama’s first acts...

“Notorious piracy website The Pirate Bay was taken offline yesterday, as part of a raid by Swedish authorities,” Electronista reports. “The server raid in Stockholm, which took place yesterday morning, is said to be performed as part of a large operation to protect intellectual property, with several servers and other computers seized for further examination by the police.” “Yesterday’s event joins copious others in the history of The Pirate Bay where authorities have attempted to reduce piracy,” Electronista reports. “It also occurs just over a month after co-founder Fredrik Neij was arrested in Thailand, after fleeing Sweden following his 2009...

Classic battles: Ali vs. Frazier. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Toddler vs. iPad? Well, not exactly. CNNMoney gave two nursery school classmates a brand new iPad Air 2 and let them loose in our studios for a (very) non-scientific stress test. Good news for iPad owners: You can literally throw the device from the top of a 12-foot staircase and see it survive. (A note: CNN's newsrooms have a thin layer of carpeting, but the iPad endured nearly a dozen such plunges.) We mistakenly thought that when the toddlers grew tired, we'd see how well the tablet withstood a full-blown tantrum....

AUSTIN, Texas -- Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced on Wednesday that two of his staffers had accepted leading positions in the Office of the Texas Attorney General, taking the opportunity to follow in his footsteps and serve their home state. Scott Keller, Cruz’s Chief Counsel, and Bernard McNamee, his Senior Domestic Policy Advisor, will both join Attorney General-elect Ken Paxton when he takes office in January. McNamee will be Paxton's Chief of Staff, and Keller will serve as the next Solicitor General of Texas, a position once held by Cruz. Keller graduated from Purdue University and the University of Texas...