Free Republic

Retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness has launched Gator PAC, a political action committee which the group says “will work to inspire and recruit conservative activists and citizen leaders who are committed to accountability in government, constitutional principles, certainty and prosperity.” "Running for office was never about me, and it never will be - it's about us, our country and becoming an active voice for conservative solutions," Maness said in the release about the launch of the PAC, provided to Breitbart News ahead of its public release. "The reality is Washington D.C. is a swamp, career politicians are the Gators...

The UK's highest court has told two Catholic midwives they do not have the right to avoid supervising other nurses involved in abortion procedures. The Supreme Court in London ruled that Mary Doogan and Connie Wood should have to support staff who are caring for patients having terminations. Ms Doogan, from Garrowhill in Glasgow, and Mrs Wood, from Clarkston in East Renfrewshire, were employed as labour ward co-ordinators at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. Gillian Smith, RCM director for Scotland, said: "This ruling is sensible and both women and midwives will welcome it. "The ruling gives extensive definition to...

Last week, Robby wrote here about how "students are so coddled by the feelings-protection regime at university campuses that they now believe disheartening national news developments—such as the grand jury decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases—entitle them to final exam extensions." Columbia Law School delayed final exams for students who felt unable to take them in the wake these developments. Students at Harvard and Georgetown began demanding their universities follow suit.One might think that Oberlin College, known for it's ultra-crunchy reputation, would be all about this. At least one professor at Oberlin, however, is having none of...

Sony Hack: Activists to Drop 'Interview' DVDs Over North Korea Via Balloon by Paul Bond 12/16/2014 4:03pm PDT This story also appears in the Jan. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Whether or not North Korea is behind the Sony hack, Kim Jong Un better brace himself because The Interview is headed to his country. Human rights activists are planning to airlift DVDs of the Seth Rogen comedy into the country via hydrogen balloons. Fighters for a Free North Korea, run by Park Sang Hak, a former government propagandist who escaped to South Korea, has for years used balloons...

Mike Bird December 17, 2014 After a brutal sell-off Tuesday, the ruble shot up in early trading Wednesday morning, rising by nearly 7%, from 68 to the dollar to 63.16 at 8:09 a.m. GMT. The rise came as the Russian finance ministry intervened in the currency market, according to Bloomberg. That means it's selling off a chunk of its dollar reserves to buy rubles, driving the currency's value up. By 9 a.m., though, the exchange rate fell back to where it started, and the ruble is falling again: down 0.68% at 68.51 as of 10:15 a.m. GMT. Here's how the...

Torture is one of those topics that often overwhelm sober reason with lurid emotion. Even people who usually are clear-eyed and rational sink into sloppy thinking and incoherent argument when it comes to torture. Peggy Noonan’s recent Wall Street Journal column about the Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation techniques illustrates this phenomenon perfectly. Noonan is usually an astute analyst, but her column on the report is riddled with received wisdom and unexamined assumptions. For Noonan, the “important lesson” of the report is not that progressives, as usual, are shameful hypocrites and partisan hacks who will damage their country’s interests...

When students at Columbia and other law schools around the country demanded that exams be postponed because they were traumatized by the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, we and many others responded with ridicule. In today’s National Law Journal, a third-year law student at Harvard named William Desmond says that we got it all wrong: the request for extra time for exams was a sign of the students’ strength. For entertainment value, you should read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts: [O]pponents of exam extensions have declared that to grant these requests would be a disservice to...

JNS.org - European Parliament members on Tuesday declined to propose an initially planned motion that would have urged the European Union’s (EU) 28 member nations to recognize a unilaterally established Palestinian state. Instead, the EU Parliament’s lawmakers proposed a resolution asking for the continuation of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Negotiators for the European People’s Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, parties that together hold a majority of the EU Parliament seats, issued a resolution stating that the EU Parliament “supports in principle recognition of Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution, and believes these...

Blacks didn't begin rioting in America until white Communist taught them how. In fact, the Watts riots were the first urban race riots driven by blacks. Acting a fool has never affected change for the better. Eric Garner is dead, due in part, to excessive liberal regulations. Michael Brown is dead because he beat down a cop, attempted to take his gun and then charged the officer like he was trying out for the NFL. Berkeley students burdened and trained in the art of "white privilege" are incensed because their professors tell them they should be, and though Al Sharpton...

Media Malfeasance: In less than two weeks, bombshell stories of a vicious gang rape and a millionaire teen investor were exposed as frauds that never would have made it into print but for gross negligence and liberal bias. Over the weekend, Jessica Pressler, a "star reporter" at New York magazine, told the story of an underage teen who'd already made $72 million trading stocks on his lunch break. It was part of a series on why people should love the city. The story spread like wildfire, showing up in the New York Post, Marketwatch, the New York Daily News, Fox...

Russia has lost control of its economy and may be forced to impose Soviet-style exchange controls after "shock and awe" action by the central bank failed to stem the collapse of the rouble. “The situation is critical,” said the central bank’s vice-chairman, Sergei Shvetsov. “What is happening is a nightmare that we could not even have imagined a year ago."

Jonathan Gruber should have been Time's Person of the Year. The magazine gave it to the "Ebola Fighters" instead. Good for them; they're doing God's work. Still, Gruber would have been better. Time's Person of the Year designation has lost a lot of its stature over recent years. Part of its decline can probably be attributed to the fact that it's come to be seen as an honorific. It was originally conceived to recognize the person who, "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year." So Adolf Hitler (1938) and Josef...

Southeastern convenience-store chain The Pantry Inc. is nearing a deal to be sold, according to people familiar with the matter. The Cary, N.C., company, which does business primarily under the Kangaroo Express banner, has a market value of $685 million, at Tuesday’s closing. Using a typical takeover premium, an acquisition of the company could value it at more than $850 million.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15xhG6pVUw Pundits on different sides of he aisle, brothers Brad (Democrat) and Dallas (Republican) Woodhouse were just beginning to go after each other on CSPAN's Washington Journal when host Steve Scully took a call from Joy in North Carolina. It wasn't until she started to speak that the two brothers realized it was their mother calling to tell them their arguments were ruining the holidays. As soon as host Scully announced the call, the brothers exclaimed how happy they were getting a call from the South. Until they heard the voice. "You’re right, I’m from down south. And I’m your...

Europe Should Learn Ethiopia’s ‘Islam Lesson’Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On December 17, 2014 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments Originally published by VIE.Yet another Christian church was destroyed by Muslims in Ethiopia—this time by local authorities.Heaven’s Light Church, which served some 100 evangelical Christians, was demolished last November 28.  The church had stood and functioned in the Muslim-majority city of Harar for five years.  In the days preceding the destruction, officials forcibly removed the church’s exterior sign and warned believers not to worship there, citing complaints by a local Muslim.  Officials further told church members who had...

Rep. Jim Bridenstine: ‘Weakness Is Provocative’Posted By Frontpagemag.com On December 17, 2014 @ 12:51 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment Below are the video and transcript to Congressman Jim Bridenstine’s keynote speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event took place Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.  Rep. Jim Bridenstine: A lot of people might remember, it wasn’t too long ago, I went down to a military base in my state called Fort Sill.  I went down there to visit with the commanding general, and the reason I went is because...

.... Obama says he's a black man who has been mistaken for the valet. Obama tells People magazine that every black professional male his age has had someone hand over their keys while waiting outside a restaurant. That happened to him, he said.

Vladimir Putin is suddenly feeling the squeeze. The Russian president, earlier this year a swashbuckling land-grabber who seemed to confound the West, finds himself in a three-way economic vise — tumbling oil prices, punishing sanctions and now a collapse in his country's currency. "He really is going to be hit by a perfect storm," said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "Although much of it is his own making." The value of the Russian ruble plunged by as much as 20 percent on Tuesday despite a desperate attempt by the central...

I was only 11, so I was wondering who was the preferred candidate of those of us who were old enough to vote back then. Of course H.W. Bush won the nomination. I remember Bob Dole, Pat Robertson, Peter DuPont, and I think Jack Kemp running. Did Bush have trouble convincing conservatives to vote for him, or did everyone just figure that if he was good enough to be Reagan's Vice President, he was good enough for the nomination?

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