Free Republic

If you’re still looking for the one-percenters, you might try checking out college campuses rather than corporate boardrooms: As tallied by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 36 college presidents were paid more than one million dollars in 2012. Meet the big men and women on campus: • Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—$7,143,312 • John L. Lahey, Quinnipiac University—$3,759,076 • Lee C. Bolinger, Columbia—$3,389,917 • Amy Gutmann, Penn—$2,473,952 • Charles R. Middleton, Roosevelt University—$1,762,956 • Susan Hockfield, MIT—$1,679,097 • David W. Leebron, Rice—$1,522,502 • John E. Sexton, NYU—$1.404,484 • Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Rockefeller University—$1,381,341 • Richard C. Levin, Yale—$1,375,365 • Robert...

Chris Christie sparks social media firestorm for sitting with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones during Eagles' loss(full title)New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Dallas Cowboys fan, sat with team owner Jerry Jones during the Dallas Cowboys' 38-27 victory over the Eagles on Sunday night — and the political lightning rod sparked a Twitter blaze.

Radical Muslim cleric Sheik Man Haron Monis has been identified as the hostage-taker in Sydney who held people in a Lindt store against their will for over a dozen hours. Monis is known for writing letters to the families of fallen soldiers and comparing their dead loved ones to pigs. He is also being investigated for rape and was charged for murdering his ex-wife. Allegedly, he stabbed then lit his ex-wife on fire. He was out on bail.

Actor Andrew Garfield may be booted from the Spider-Man movie series, according to the latest revelation from hacked emails at Sony. The correspondence reveals that Sony - which was reportedly already not happy with Garfield - might give up the franchise to comic book giant Marvel. It is believed that Marvel would prefer to start the series from scratch, putting Garfield's role as Peter Parker, which he has played in two movies, in jeopardy.

An 11-year-old Arkansas girl on a mission pilfered $10,000 from her grandmother and called a cab — to go to Florida. Like so many rash decisions that feel like destiny, young Alexis Waller figured it was the only way she could reunite with a boy she met while vacationing two years earlier. They had been communicating ever since, she told KARK. So Waller gathered up the cash her grandmother kept in a sock drawer and quietly left their Bryant home after nightfall. Unsure where to go, she walked to a nearby gas station and convinced a stranger to take her...

We don't know how the Sydney siege is going to end yet but of one thing we can be pretty sure: the main concern of Australia's national broadcaster ABC will not be the suffering and fear experienced by those innocent people who have been held hostage; rather it will be that there might be some anti-Muslim backlash. How do we know this? First, because ABC is so left wing it makes the BBC look like Fox News. Second, because this is how sensitive, progressive types always respond to incidents of this kind. (One of the BBC's first reactions after the...

In the aftermath of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report focused on Bush-era techniques, the Obama administration's own counterterrorism practices are coming under increased scrutiny. Gruesome details of forced rectal feedings without medical necessity, waterboarding, and sleep deprivation were chronicled in the report's executive summary, dredging up harsh practices employed during the George W. Bush administration. But on Capitol Hill, Republicans charge that the Central Intelligence Agency's approach to counterterrorism has not grown more humane—it's merely shifted. "Obviously, we don't interrogate prisoners anymore," says Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who chaired the Intelligence Committee during the Bush administration....

Tourists have always taken selfies of themselves at Sydney's most iconic landmarks, but on a day that has horrified the city many people are taking macabre snapshots for old times' sake as well. All day people were uploading selfies of themselves on Twitter from as close as possible to where the hostage siege was taking place. Just to make the photos more authentic some even took them with television cameras in the background. Two onlookers even looked like they were taking a 'celebration selfie' than one at a hostage siege. Others smiled happily as if they were standing in front...

There has been a lot of grumbling among the leftist hordes of the Democratic Party that indicate something less than overwhelming enthusiasm for the coronation of Hillary Clinton as their standard-bearer in 2016. It is difficult to imagine why, considering her charm, effervescence, eloquence, and unquestionable past, there would be anything but unanimous support for the good lady – unless it is because none of those qualities are attributable to her. Now comes the proposition that since she has signed on for paid speaking engagements (virtually the only thing she has been successful at) until March of 2015, Hillary can...

Sports on MSNBC? News Outlet Will Launch Streaming-Video Hub To Test New Shows, Hosts MSNBC is getting ready to debut a new show about sports. And one focused on books. And another that will examine celebrity and popular culture. In all, the NBCUniversal-owned cable-news network has 14 new programs ready to roll. You won’t see any of them on MSNBC. At least, not yet.

The head of the Cleveland Police Union is demanding an apology after Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt before Sunday's game that read, "Justice for Tamir Rice - John Crawford." Rice, a 12-year-old boy, died last month after he was shot by a Cleveland police officer who reportedly mistook his air gun for a real firearm. Crawford was shot and killed by police in August while holding an air rifle in a Wal-Mart.

A man who video recorded Denver police repeatedly punching a man in the face, causing his head to bounce off the pavement, before tripping his pregnant wife and causing her to fall on her face – sparking an FBI investigation into the department – was arrested Thursday in what appears to be a case of retaliation. After all, Denver police not only arrested him on what they called a “newly activated traffic warrant” from a nearby county after he had just left the FBI office with whom he is cooperating on the federal investigation, they refused to allow him to...

It is unlikely that any of the protesters clogging the streets of New York, Washington, and other cities this weekend over alleged police abuse would sympathize with Nancy Genovese, but I do. The New York Post reports (hat tips: Instapundit, Breitbart and iOTW Report: A Long Island mother of three arrested for taking pictures of an Air National Guard base in the Hamptons ​– ​while ​armed to the teeth with a licensed assault rifle in her car — has been awarded ​$1.12 million​ by a federal jury over her false prosecution by Suffolk County authorities.  As Breitbart noted, “armed...

Midway through the last game of the 2013 Carolina League season, after he’d swept peanut shells and mopped soda off the concourse, Ed Green lumbered upstairs to the box seats to dump the garbage. Green was already 12 hours into his workday. He rose at dawn to lay tar on the highway. As the sun sank, he switched uniforms and drove to BB&T Ballpark, where he runs the custodial crew for a minor-league baseball team. Now it was dark and his radio was crackling. It was his boss, asking him to head back downstairs. Green walked onto the first-base line...

Just when shippers thought things could not get any worse with the West Coast port labor “slowdown,” dockworkers proved them wrong. The latest tactic employed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has been to cease contract negotiations for next 12 days. “We have made it abundantly clear that we believe these negotiations are of the utmost importance and should continue at full strength until the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) spokesman Wade Gates. “We are disappointed the Union is not showing the same urgency to resolve the issues between us.” Three weeks after initiating a coordinated...

The suspected jihadist holding up to 15 people hostage in a Sydney cafe is an Iranian murder and sex assault suspect known for sending hate mail to the families of Australian soldiers killed overseas, police confirmed. As the standoff entered its 15th hour, with police and news crews surrounding the shop as frightened hostages looked out through the front window, police identified Man Haron Monis as the gunman holding captives inside Lindt Chocolat Cafe. His identity was known early on to police and media alike, but was only released for the record by police sources as night fell on Sydney...

The most important characteristic of the U.S. oil industry is inertia - or to put it another way, drilling and production respond sluggishly even to a large change in prices. Since 1974, there have been four episodes in which oil prices declined sharply over a relatively short time (ignoring the brief price spike and equally rapid reversal in 1990 associated with preparations for the first war between the United States and Iraq). These price slumps occurred between (1) December 1985 and July 1986; (2) January 1997 and December 1998; (3) November 2000 and December 2001; and (4) July 2008 and...

The so-called cromnibus bill funding the federal government through this fiscal year was passed over the objections of (some) House conservatives and (some) self-proclaimed progressives, for familiar reasons: Conservatives, eager that the Republicans should begin governing like they have a majority in Congress before they actually have a majority in Congress, argued that the bill locked in long-term support for too many of Barack Obama’s priorities — to hell with an amnesty fight in February or gutting Obamacare after the new majority is seated, they cannot wait to start scrapping. The Democrats’ left flank, led by Nancy Pelosi right up...

Myles Udland December 15, 2014Industrial production had a huge rebound in November. Industrial production rose 1.3% in November according to the latest report from the Federal Reserve. Expectations were for the report to show industrial production rose by 0.7% in November, better than October's 0.1% contraction. October's number was revised up to 0.1% from -0.1%. Capacity utilization also rose sharply, to 80.1% from a revised reading of 79.3%. Capacity utilization was expected to rise, to 79.4% from 78.9%. This rate of capacity utilization is now equal to its long-run average spanning 1972-2013 and hit its highest level since March 2008....

Parties and protests don’t typically overlap, but the “Selma” cast made an exception and a statement on Sunday night following the film’s Manhattan premiere. At one point during the otherwise splashy festivities, director Ava DuVernay took to the steps of the New York Public Library with actors David Oyelowo, E. Roger Mitchell, Wendell Pierce, Omar Dorsey, John Lavelle, Stephan James, Kent Faulcon, Lorraine Toussaint, Andre Holland, Tessa Thompson and Colman Domingo, donning “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts over their partywear and raising their arms in the “don’t shoot” pose. It was not just an unusually sobering photo op, but also a...