Free Republic

RUSH: Here's John in Winter Haven, Florida, as we head back to the phones. Hello, sir. CALLER: Rush, what an honor. I go back with you from the day I found you on the dial 30 years ago or so. But I feel like I've gotten a PhD in not only conservative politics, but what I call Founding Father values. RUSH: Right, you have. We don't award any degree. Degrees are not given, but you have the equivalent of one. If you've been there that long there is no question you have a tremendously high education here as a result...

Guess when you're as brilliant as Mike Barnicle, it's OK to ridicule others for their supposed lack of smarts. Today's Morning Joe was teasing an upcoming segment about a tough question that reporter Kasie Hunt had posed to Rick Perry. Mockingly trying to imagine the question, Barnicle offered "she asked him what day it was." View the video here.

Did you bury a teenage girl alive after shooting her? Are you on death row after a string of crimes too gruesome to describe? Or are you just a member of Al Qaeda dedicated to destroying America? If so progressives will fight for you. Just dial 1-800-IAM-VICTIM and the leftist waiting to take your call will insist on your presumption of innocence. Its activists, reporters and lawyers will exploit every pretext to get you off the hook and they will call that justice. The judicial process, they will say, matters more than public safety, public outrage or the victims. When...

It has become a mainstay on supermarket shelves across the UK: fresh green asparagus, flown in to satisfy culinary desires well beyond the brief domestic growing season. But Britain's love of year-round asparagus could now be at risk - due to climate change. Of the 14,000 tonnes of asparagus imported to the UK last year, the majority - some 8,000 tonnes - came from Peru, the world's biggest exporter of the crop. Experts warn that Peruvian production of the vegetable, which has soared in the past decade, is likely to be hit by extreme weather that scientists say will become...

Call it the mysterious case of the Incredible Shrinking GOP. Barely one month ago, the party sailed to victory in one of the biggest rout election waves of the past century. They ran the board and took control of the U.S. Senate. They grew to historic levels in the U.S. House. The Democratic Party was left in tatters in state, local, and governor races across the country. But today, just a few weeks later, before GOPers even take hold of their new reins of power, the party is crying poverty. They are stricken with paralysis. House Speaker John A. Boehner,...

An effort to require students in Florida public schools to watch a controversial documentary by conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza gained ground this week with the support of a state House member. Rep. Neil Combee, a Lakeland Republican, filed a bill seeking to mandate that all eighth- and 11th-grade students view the film America: Imagine the World Without Her. His legislation is identical to a measure filed by Sen. Alan Hays in November. Hays, a Umatilla Republican, received heavy criticism that he was foisting propaganda on children when he announced his plan. But legislation in just one chamber doesn't go far....

Feminists have been lying to women about sex for the better part of a century. It was just a couple generations ago that feminists argued that all sex between men and women constituted rape. The feminists have done a complete reversal in the last few decades. These days sex is declared a right that is both physically and emotionally meaningless. Further still, feminists argue sex is empowering for women. Because feminism relies almost exclusively on stereotypes, their argument these days is that because men get away with engaging in casual sex without consequences so should women. Instead of elevating women,...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Abraham New International Version (NIV) So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. 2 Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold. 3 From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier 4 and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord. 5 Now Lot, who was moving about...

A majority of American voters want any ISIS terrorist captured by the United States sent to Guantanamo Bay rather than a federal prison. That’s a key finding of the latest Fox News poll, as President Obama wants to close Gitmo amid widespread fears ISIS will try to strike the homeland soon. If an ISIS fighter were to be captured by the U.S., where should that prisoner be sent? By a 59-29 percent margin, voters say the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Veterans are more likely to think the prison at Guantanamo Bay should stay open by nearly 50 points...

We have two cautionary from overseas today.One of them is from Iran and the other is from France. Both of them demonstrate how wrongheaded, obtuse and shortsighted Democrats are on their policies and prescriptions for what ails the county.To battle unemployment France is considering a body of laws that would make it easier for French firms to hire people, including allowing shops to open on Sunday and relaxing labor laws that make it virtually impossible for French firms to fire someone. If you get a job in France, you apparently get a job for life whether your employer is a...

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that the sharp fall in global oil prices is the result of “treachery,” in an apparent reference to regional rival Saudi Arabia, which opposed production cuts. Oil prices have plunged by more than 40 percent since June to around $65 a barrel, placing severe strain on Iran’s economy, which is already hobbled by international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. An OPEC meeting last month failed to reach agreement on production curbs, mainly because of Saudi opposition. Rouhani told a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the fall in prices is at least partly “politically motivated,”...

In the latest sign that falling oil prices are pinching shale producers, Goodrich Petroleum Corp. announced Wednesday that it will dramatically trim its budget next year and consider selling off its Eagle Ford assets. The Houston-based exploration and production company is among the smaller publicly traded drillers in the Eagle Ford, operating about 30,000 net acres in the South Texas play, according to third quarter data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. In the first half of next year, Goodrich will explore “strategic alternatives” for all or a portion of its Eagle Ford acreage to give the company greater flexibility to expand...

RUSH: Oh, folks, I have got to tell you, I interviewed Dr. Thomas Sowell yesterday afternoon, after the program for the next issue of The Limbaugh Letter. Now, normally I would tease you with what he said as a means of hyping the purchase of subscriptions, but because I don't look at you people as pockets and dollar signs, I'm gonna tell you this. I started off by asking him, "Dr. Sowell, you and I and countless others have been chronicling the deterioration of American culture, our society, and our politics, in my case, for 25 years. We just keep...

From A New and Accurate Map of the Entire New Netherland, engraving believed to be by Carolus Allard, courtesy the Department of Records   Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the New York City Department of Records just blew the minds of history geeks everywhere.  They released the first batch of digitized documents from the first years of the city's existence, back when it was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. You can find the first batch of released documents at the city's attractive new portal here. This is the equivalent of pulling out old photo albums of you playing with...

Recently, the House passed, by an overwhelming margin, a resolution to condemn the Russian Federation for actions considered hostile and aggressive within its sphere of influence, specifically with regard to the politically torn country of Ukraine. Ten Members voted “nay,” myself among them. I wish to explain why I took this unpopular position. Above all, while Vladimir Putin’s government may well have engaged in questionable behavior toward neighboring countries, Resolution 758 was nothing more than gratuitous, needlessly provocative and shortsighted. Moreover, reasonable observers the world over can see it as tantamount to a declaration that Russia is America’s enemy. The...

When the head of the CIA's torture unit decided to destroy videotapes of his team's horrific work, he unwittingly set in motion a series of events that led to the release this week of the most massive, detailed documentation of unlawful behavior by high-ranking government officials and intentional infliction of pain on noncombatants by the United States government since the Civil War era. Here is the backstory. One of the reasons repeatedly stated by President George W. Bush for the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the maintenance of "torture rooms" by Saddam Hussein. While making this very argument,...

One shot or two? Many questions unresolved in Ebola vaccine race 2 hours ago "Administering two vaccines, one after the other, would almost certainly give far greater protection than a single shot against a deadly virus that has killed…

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm New International Version (NIV) Psalms 130:5 I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

French forces in Mali kill Islamist on U.S. wanted list PARIS Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:20am EST (Reuters) - French forces in northern Mali have killed a senior commander of the al Mourabitoun Islamist group who was wanted by the United States, a defense ministry spokesman said on Thursday. The United States has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Ahmed al Tilemsi, who took part in the 2011 kidnapping of two French nationals in Niger and of three aid workers in Algeria later that year. Al Tilemsi was a founding member of the...

The recent "rash" of police officers killing blacks is prompting "civil rights activists" to describe America -- despite the election and re-election of a black president -- as still a simmering caldron of racism. Never mind that according to the CDC, in 2012 (the most recent year with available data) 140 blacks were killed by cops -- versus 386 whites killed by cops. This dreary movie scene comes from a film about inner-city black teens called "Menace II Society." A black high school teacher speaks to two former students: "Being a black man in America isn't easy. The hunt is...