Free Republic

Back in 2005, Peggy Noonan wrote about the increasingly public friendship between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton: What bothers me about the fervid friendship of the Bushes and Mr. Clinton — and the media celebration of it — is the faint whiff of superiority, a sense they radiate that all those slightly icky little people running around wailing about issues — tax reform, the relation of the individual to the state, the necessary character of a president — and working the precincts are somehow . . . a little below them. There is an air of condescension...

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)...

Story from August 2014. I'd like to see the chain of evidence demonstrating that the lyrics and video and pics are indeed of Mike Brown. In any event, enjoy. ---------------------------- “Gentle Giant” Mike Brown Liked Drugs, Ho’s, Killas, and Murders! 21 Aug 2014 Posted by Eric Reed So much for Mike Brown being the “Gentle Giant.” With each passing day, more information is uncovered about his “thug lifestyle.” While none of these things single-handedly justify shooting somebody, the compounding facts and evidence revealing the true character of Mike Brown lend much more validity to Officer Darren Wilson’s account of the...

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Not only is the pending Republican—controlled Congress scaring the daylights out of ardent Democrats and liberals throughout the nation, but are causing one famous actress acute anxiety. Controversial producer, actress, and HBO "Girls" producer Lena Dunham, who ignited a storm of controversy recently over revelations that the reported rape she recounted in her bestselling "memoir" (despite that Dunham is only 28 years old) "Not That Type of Girl" at the hands of a Republican while in college have been all but proved false, said Tuesday that she "already feels" the pending GOP Congress in January "invading her...

As many as 550 drilling rigs may have to sit on the sidelines of U.S. shale oil patches over the next few months, analysts say, as oil prices have folded nearly in half since this summer. The projections come a few days after Texas drilling rigs led the nation in a 1.4 percent weekly decline in the U.S. active rig count, according to oil field services firm Baker Hughes. Oil companies cut 20 rigs in the Permian Basin, a sharp turnaround from the flurry of rigs and hydraulic fracturing equipment that had rushed to West Texas earlier this year. “We...

The White House announced President Obama will deliver remarks on Cuba later today. In the afternoon, the President will deliver a statement on Cuba from the Cabinet Room at 12:01:30pm. There will be limited pool coverage.

MADRID (AP) -- A regional government in southern Spain has filed a complaint with Roman Catholic Church authorities over what it believes are church moves in recent years to blot out the Islamic past of Cordoba's ancient mosque-cathedral, one of the country's leading tourist attractions. The Andalusia region's tourism department said Monday the practice by church authorities who own the complex of calling it simply "The Cordoba Cathedral" on its website and on pamphlets and tickets could hurt tourism and confuse the 1 million-plus tourists who annually visit the "mezquita" (mosque), as it is known popularly. Tourism chief Rafael Rodriguez...

On Tuesday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he will “actively explore” a bid for the White House. While Bush has not yet formed a presidential exploratory committee, he’s “running” for president by any practical definition of the term. If he proves to perform poorly in the “invisible primary,” failing to gather support among donors and influential Republicans, he could withdraw later on, before the first votes are cast in Iowa. What might those influential Republicans think of Bush? He has sometimes been critical of his fellow Republicans, having questioned the GOP’s partisanship and lack of tolerance for dissenting...

Joe Scarborough has a warning for conservatives: going after Jeb Bush will make him more likely to run for president. According to Scarborough, speaking on today's Morning Joe, Jeb is "his mother's son," "kind of "cranky" and "rough around the edges." If conservatives think they will drive Jeb out of the race by attacking him, "they've got him played exactly backwards." To the contrary, conservative attacks will make Jeb more likely to run "to prove them wrong."View the video here.

It's the week before Christmas, which means it's time for a hallowed holiday tradition here at Shorpy: The Office Xmas Party! Which has been going on for close to 90 years now. Will Clarence in Sales ever get up the nerve to ask out Hermione from Accounting? Washington, D.C., 1925. "Western Electric Co. group." There are enough little dramas playing out here to keep the forensic partyologists busy until Ground Hog Day. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.

Just a quick prayer request for my pet Buster. He's having surgery this morning to remove a well-contained tumor in a lymph node. It should go well, but I ask for prayers for him and the medical staff working with him this morning. He's in good shape to recover and we're asking for everything to go smoothly and for a good recovery. Thanks,

With nearly no public notice or debate, Congress on Wednesday approved legislation that critics say blesses the warrantless collection, dissemination and five-year retention of everyday Americans’ phone and Internet communications. The controversial language was quietly incorporated into an intelligence authorization bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday and then the House on Wednesday. The legislation, privacy advocates say, sanctions for the first time the executive branch’s warrantless collection of American communications under Executive Order 12333, issued in 1981 to authorize the interception of communications overseas. Section 309 of the intelligence bill sets a five-year limit, with many exceptions, on the retention of U.S. persons' communications collected...

Vanessa Williams went public in 2012 about being sexual assaulted by a woman when she was 10, writing about it in her memoir “You Have No Idea.” Recently, Teri Hatcher and Lady Gaga spoke out about sexual assaults in their past. Williams told FOX411 why she decided to share her traumatic event, and how she can relate to Bill Cosby’s alleged victims. “I wanted young girls to be able to identify to know you’re not alone. The scary thing is the people that come up to you that have similar stories," Williams said. "It’s the most disturbing part of it....

After a 3-year study of American women’s religious orders, undertaken because of problems that are both grave and obvious, the Congregation for Religious has released a report that avoids direct criticism of religious orders, instead suggesting that the communities should evaluate themselves. But for Catholics who long for a genuine revival of religious life in America, today’s report should not be too disheartening. First, because we knew this was coming. Second and more important, because another Vatican inquiry, aimed specifically at the Leadership Conference for Women Religious (LCWR), is still underway. This battle isn’t over yet. When the process began,...

The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials. The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.

RUSH: I just got a note. "Hey, you know, this is a good thing that you're talking about here, the loss of honest media, targeting anything conservative. Do you do you take any hope in people seeing what you're talking about more and more?" Yeah, I do. Look at the last two midterm elections. I think the American people see clearly what's happening here and they don't like it. I think the American people are totally -- those voting, anyway -- are very aware of all of this. And they're voting to stop all of this stuff. All of this...

You’ve got to be careful what you share online. Over the weekend Facebook and Twitter were suddenly inundated with links to a new recording of the Christmas hymn “Angels From the Realms of Glory” mashed up with “Angels We Have Heard on High.” It was recorded by The Piano Guys and features David Archuleta, a one-time runner up on American Idol. It is a creative recording that intersperses shots of the musicians with video taken to record the world’s largest nativity scene. The song is beautifully sung and the music is rich; it is no surprise that it quickly gained...

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D.) announced on Monday that he will seek to reinstate a restriction on gun sales that limits individuals in the state to one handgun purchase a month. The law was repealed during the previous administration of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R.). McAuliffe’s request for the Republican-dominated legislature to reinstate the law is likely to fall on deaf ears, according to a report by Reuters.

The U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command’s recent announcement that it has successfully completed tests on its GhostSwimmer unmanned underwater vehicle prompted an immediate rebuttal from Russia: They, too, are close to unmanned submarine drones. The U.S. Navy first trumpeted its successful test on Friday.

The late Richard John Neuhaus famously wrote of bioethicists: Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on the way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as unexceptionable. In my over 20 years engaged in trying to push back against the bioethics movement, I have found that to be an absolutely accurate formula.Take, as one example, dehydrating the cognitively devastated to death–a slow and potentially agonizing death. That was once unthinkable, it became debatable in the 1980s, and is now unexceptional.Allowing infanticide has now reached the “debatable on the way...