Free Republic

Here are the numbers that explain why the Russian economy is imploding in the face of a tumbling oil price and Western sanctions. Oil and gas energy represents two thirds of exports of around $530bn (£339bn). Without them, Russia would have a massive deficit on its trade and financial dealings with the rest of the world - which is why Russia's central bank expects a capital outflow of well over $100bn this year and next.

The usual suspects are attacking Ted Cruz for doing his job.Republicans and a chorus of conservative commentators are dumping on the sole conservative Republican senator from Texas because–the horror!–he dared to force his Senate colleagues to publicly take sides on President Obama's shameful extralegal unilateral immigration amnesty.Apologists for Republican cowardice claim to be upset with Cruz because, as they claim, his parliamentary maneuvers to stymie the amnesty somehow allowed some objectionable Obama nominees to move forward in the confirmation process.Of course, they're lying. All Obama nominees are objectionable–remember, our president is a red diaper baby–yet the Senate eventually caves to...

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27

RUSH: I allowed one interruption from what I said the agenda for this hour was going to be, because you have to hear this. You just have to hear this. This afternoon in Washington on the Senate floor. You've heard, by the way -- I don't remember who said it, but -- it's been said in recent days that if women were running this show, none of this would have happened. There wouldn't have been a shutdown. I think the... (interruption) (SNIP) RUSH: I am reminded of Jimmy Carter, who said once that he learned everything about nuclear warfare from...

The ruble collapsed by 10 percent against the U.S. dollar Monday earning the Russian currency the dubious laurels of the world’s worst-performing currency this year. The Russian currency has now fallen 49.3 percent against the greenback since January, according to data from the Moscow Exchange. The drop takes it below the Ukrainian hryvna, which has weakened 47.9 percent in 2014. Monday’s plunge was the largest single-day fall for the ruble since the financial crisis of 1998 when Russia was forced to default on its debt after exhausting its reserves in a fruitless bid to prop up the currency. In evening...

accusations of sexual assault, torn clothing, and at least three victims who say he bit their lips... Bill Clinton has a Bill Cosby problem. Eileen Wellstone, 19-year-old English woman said Clinton sexually assaulted her... in 1969. Juanita Broaddrick... said he raped her in 1978. Mrs. Broaddrick suffered a bruised and torn lip Carolyn Moffet... in 1979, said “When I went in, he was sitting on a couch, wearing only an undershirt. He pointed at his penis and told me to suck it. I told him I didn’t even do that for my boyfriend and he got mad, grabbed my head...

At the height of the debate over a $1.1 trillion spending bill last week, we examined the similarities and differences between Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who protested the measure from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Later, as the bill approached passage and won approval over the weekend, we saw a key distinction emerge: Cruz was willing to hold up the process to make his point. Warren was not. Warren opposed the bill because of a provision that would relax a restriction on Wall Street banks. In press conferences and Senate floor speeches, Warren spoke out...

A group of artists have claimed responsibility for hanging three effigies of lynching victims around the University of California-Berkeley campus this weekend. The artists, who say they are a 'collective of queer black and (people of color) artists, posted a message on a campus bulletin board today saying that the images - which many students and faculty found deeply offices - were part of an art project. The statement said the perpetrators are from the San Francisco Bay area - but does not state whether the people behind it are students. The artists did not identify themselves, but said that...

Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu (R) told Neil Cavuto on Monday that as many as 20 million illegal immigrants will qualify for President Obama’s executive amnesty. Sheriff Babeu came to this figure from a memo from Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson. “The fact is it’s not just the 5 million that President Obama promised, we learned that Jeh Johnson the Secretary of Homeland Security, put out a six page memo, and he said that anybody who’s been here since January of this year, anybody prior to that date, they are allowed to stay here. There will be deferred...

Remember when pundits loved the president? The conditions are right for that old feeling to return. Remember when pundits loved Barack Obama? It’s been quite a few years now. But I suspect some of the adoration is about to come back. There are three reasons. The first is that politically, Obama’s immigration gamble is working. Fearful of alienating Hispanics or shutting down the government, Republican leaders have largely abandoned hope of overturning Obama’s move. What’s more, Obama’s approval ratings are up 15 points among Hispanics but have not dropped among Anglo whites. Add immigration to health-care reform and the fiscal...

STOCKTON — Law enforcement officials and defense attorneys in San Joaquin County remain divided over a controversial law that was approved by California voters in the November election. Proposition 47, also known as the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” has reduced several felony crimes to misdemeanor offenses, resulting in lesser penalties for certain drug possession and property crimes. Voters approved the law with nearly 60 percent of the vote, but 22 of the state’s 58 counties voted against it, including San Joaquin, Calaveras and Amador counties. The law calls for misdemeanor sentences for drug possession, petty theft, receiving stolen property...

Far-right group Pegida holds ‘Islamisation’ protest, using slogan from 1989 campaign against East German government. Its members have been dubbed the “pinstriped Nazis” and they refer to their demonstrations as “evening strolls” through German cities. But on Monday night, an estimated 15,000 people joined Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West, in a march through Dresden carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Zero tolerance towards criminal asylum seekers”, “Protect our homeland” and “Stop the Islamisation”. Lutz Bachmann, the head of Pegida, a nascent anti-foreigner campaign group, led the crowds, either waving or draped in German flags, in barking...

OKLAHOMA CITY - An Oklahoma County Sheriff's Deputy is recovering after she was attacked Monday morning by a pit bull outside a NW Oklahoma City car repair shop. Sheriff John Whetsel said 21-year-Oklahoma County Sheriff's Department veteran Susan Perkins was at Portillo's Auto Shop to serve a no-contact order to an employee. Whetsel said a blue nose pit bull by the name of 'Big Head' attacked the deputy after she knocked on the front door of the business. Whetsel said Perkins suffered deep bite wounds to both of her legs, before she pulled a handgun and shot and killed the...

" Even bad people love their children".  But do they? Its not so much, "are they capable of love", as, "do they know what love is"? It's parallel to "what is freedom"? The ability to do whatever you want? Or the ability to do what is right? Love is preferring the good of the other for the other's sake. It can be explained to a five-year-old, as simply as Rapunzel and Flynn Rider's mutual, self-sacrificial love.  (Rapunzel is willing to remain the false-mother's slave, to save Flynn Rider's life. Flynn is willing to die so that Rapunzel can become free. Self-sacrificial love that perfects their...

Laurie Bertram Roberts, Mississippi State Pres. of the National Organization of Women, comments on Margaret Sanger’s racism: “First of all, Margaret Sanger did not work on abortion. She worked on birth control. Context is everything. I will never deny that Margaret Sanger was connected to the eugenics movement, what they (abortion opponents) never bothered to say is that eugenicists also wanted to limit the birth rate of poor white people and disabled people. It wasn’t just Black people; it was a whole lot of people they deem to be unfit.” Quoted in “Thank God for Stupid Enemies” Speaker for the...

The family of a man shot in the head and killed by a Philadelphia police officer sought answers in the hours after the deadly incident during a traffic stop in the city’s Mayfair section. The deadly gunshot rang out around 2:45 a.m. along the 6600 block of Frankford Avenue after police said the suspect reached for a loaded handgun — stolen last year — in his rental car. "I would like to know why the police, law enforcement, has the right to kill instead of disabling," the victim's mother Tanya Dickerson said. "It has to stop, this is enough already."...

There’s no good reason for her not to run. When Elizabeth Warren rallied beleaguered House liberals to push back against a bank-coddling omnibus bill and the spineless White House that enabled it, she showed us some of her dynamic appeal. Her only leverage? An implicit threat to shut down the government. Hypocrisy? Sure. Consider the agitated criticism Warren and her allies threw at Republicans not very long ago. And yes, St. Warren’s righteousness was aimed at some inconsequential riders. Still, passing trillion-dollar pieces of legislation should never be easy, and disrupting the current cozy, bipartisan environment surely can’t be a...

A funny thing happened on the way to Vladimir Putin running strategic laps around the West. Russia's economy imploded. The latest news is that Russia's central bank raised interest rates from 10.5 to 17 percent at an emergency 1 a.m. meeting in an attempt to stop the ruble, which is down 50 percent on the year against the dollar, from falling any further. It's a desperate move to save Russia's currency that comes at the cost of sacrificing Russia's economy. So even if it "works," things are about to get a lot worse. It's a classic kind of emerging markets...

Murthy, 37, a physician at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, won confirmation on a 51-43 vote. He's a co-founder of Doctors for America, a group that has pushed for affordable health care and supports Obama's health care law. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said most of Murthy's career has been spent as an activist focused on gun control and other political issues, rather than on treating patients. "Americans don't want a surgeon general who might use this position of trust to promote his own personal campaign against the Second Amendment of the Constitution," Barrasso said.

Karl Eikenberry couldn't understand why the staff sergeant insisted that he take a loaded pistol to patrol the barracks. The West Point cadet was in Hawaii for the summer, serving as a staff duty officer with the 25th Infantry Division, which had recently returned from Vietnam. It was his job on weekend nights to ensure good order. "Why would I take a sidearm?" Eikenberry asked. "In case you need it, that's why," replied the sergeant. As soon as he entered a darkened barracks building, Eikenberry says, he understood why his staff sergeant was so nervous. Soldiers were gathered in small...