Free Republic

OPEC members which backed an output cut at the group's meeting last month are coming around to the view of Saudi Arabia that they need to focus on market share, further reducing the chance of any action to defend prices. While Venezuela - which campaigned for output cuts in the run-up to the Nov. 27 meeting - has continued to call for measures to prop up prices, other nations which usually back such action such as Iran and African members have been silent. "The producers have not blinked. We are just watching and selling oil at whatever the price is,"...

...Before Opening Their Mouth Glick JPost.com’s Senior Contributing Editor responds resolutely to the Danish Ambassador Jesper Vahr’s statement that Israel is better than the Palestinians and therefore being judged by different standards. It almost sounds like a compliment until Ms. Glick takes apart his premise and expalains why his statement is profusely antisemitic. We need more advocates like Caroline Glick. More young people need to learn the facts and continue to defend Israel knowledgably.

A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a ruling ordering Massachusetts prison officials to provide taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for an inmate convicted of murder. Michelle Kosilek, born Robert Kosilek, is serving a life sentence for killing spouse Cheryl Kosilek in 1990. Kosilek has waged a protracted legal battle for the surgery she says is necessary to relieve the mental anguish caused by gender-identity disorder. [Snip] Kosilek, now 65, told The Associated Press in 2011 that the surgery is a medical necessity. "Everybody has the right to have their health care needs met, whether they are in prison or out...

Better him than somebody who still has a meaningful political career. Since John F Kennedy, Presidential foreign policy towards Cuba can be summed up in one sentence: Let my successor be the one who has to be the guy that let Fidel Castro win. Well, guess what: Barack Obama volunteered to be the poor, stupid sad sack that has to eat the pavement on that. CNBC reports: “The U.S. is starting talks with Cuba to normalize full diplomatic relations and open an embassy, according to U.S. officials. The expanded relationship would also open imports of Cuban cigars somewhat, according to...

Sure, Joe, Bill Clinton might have that reputation, but he’s settled down quite a bit now that he’s a grandfather and very possibly in line to become the first male FLOTUS (or whatever we’re calling that). In fact, check out this photo of Clinton in a diner respectfully discussing economic justice with a group of nuns. Oh, wait. Sorry, Joe, that’s you again. Well, what is Bill Clinton up to?

It is already setting in as received wisdom among liberals both within the Republican party and without that Ted Cruz will be made to shoulder the blame for the nominations the Democrats rammed through the Senate this week. A good example of that comes from the arbiter of objective fairness to conservative Republicans, the New York Times: snip Nevertheless, it’s at least possible to believe that not withstanding Reid’s promises, the Republicans might have been able to run out the clock on the year. Fine, I was willing to suspend judgment on that point, until now. It turns out, the...

Great 3:23 minute video interview at link. President Obama reportedly is using a unique form of executive action known as the “presidential memorandum” at a historic pace – a tactic that allows him to, technically, claim he’s not over-using executive orders while still pursuing high-level policy changes without involvement from Congress. A review by USA Today, published Wednesday, shows that, in fact, Obama has issued more memoranda than any U.S. president in history. He’s issued 198 – more than the 195 executive orders from his White House. The executive action is strikingly similar to an executive order, with only slight...

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo) is demanding an investigation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s “Operation Choke Point” practices. Under these practices, the FDIC pressured banks to freeze or close accounts of businesses that the US Department of Justice designated as “anti-social enterprises.” Among the businesses targeted by DOJ are firearms sellers, coin dealers, and pharmaceutical sales. Martin Gruenberg, chairman of the FDIC, admitted that “while these businesses are not illegal, per se, the president has made it very clear that they are outside the boundary of the type of businesses he thinks we ought to have in our society. There...

The New York Jets are in the midst of a pathetic season with a dismal 3-11 record and a sure-to-be last place finish in the AFC East, which has fans wondering if Jets owner Woody Johnson will make any big changes in the offseason. Well, look no further than Johnson’s Twitter feed for an answer:

Today Barack Obama normalized relations with Communist Cuba. The president said the current policies were not working.Castro already is making demands from the US. Castro: "The blockade…must cease" #Cuba— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) December 17, 2014 The blockade must cease. Raúl Castro: Diplomatic relations will be restored, but the economic blockade should be stopped.— Sjamme van de Voort (@SjammevndVoort) December 17, 2014 Castro also gave a speech today in response to the announcement. LIVE: Pres. Obama, Pres. Castro holding news conferences to announce changes in relations: http://t.co/YoGbFPNqdI pic.twitter.com/iuKHaBbYWd— ABC News (@ABC) December 17, 2014

John McAdams, a Marquette University associate professor, says he is being "treated like a potential terrorist" after being suspended with pay and banned from campus while the university investigates his conduct, presumably because he publicly criticized a teaching assistant for not allowing discussion of gay marriage in an ethics class. A student had objected to the teaching assistant's handling of the class discussion weeks ago and, after class, recorded his conversation with her. The teaching assistant told the student that "some opinions are not appropriate, such as racist opinions, sexist opinions." She suggested if someone in the class were homosexual,...

“Independent journalist” Jeremy Scahill is a blogger at The Intercept, which was co-founded by Glenn Greenwald. He is also a colossal moron: I'm very glad I was able to visit Cuba several times before US tourists try to turn it into Cancun

Strange Moments In Liturgical History – How a Paragon of Liturgical Tradition May Have Caused Unintended Effects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn the modern struggles and disagreements over the Liturgy, there tends to be a list of friends and opponents depending on one’s stance. For those of us with a more traditional leaning, Pope St. Pius X looms large as a friend and an image of tradition. He is usually seen as a defender of the tradition and a great proponent of what is called today the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)—so much so that the Society of...

"There is no equivalence between an international aid worker and convicted spies who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against our nation." ~~~SNIP~~ Menendez said the swap "sets an extremely dangerous precedent." "It invites dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans serving overseas as bargaining chips. I fear that today’s actions will put at risk the thousands of Americans that work overseas to support civil society, advocate for access to information, provide humanitarian services, and promote democratic reforms."

Most of the people of the world have concluded that the decades of warnings about “global warming” and its successor, “climate change”, is just idiotic nonsense. Few believe that humans ever had or ever will have any role in what the weather will be tomorrow or a thousand years from now. They are right. One of the most distinguishing factors about the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory has been the way its advocates have always predicted major changes decades into the future. When the future arrived, as it has since the first doomsday predictions were made in the late 1980s, they...

Taliban terrorists allegedly burned a teacher alive and made the students watch during their attack on a Pakistan school which left over 130 people dead. According to a NBC News report, citing an unnamed military official, the terrorists stormed the Army Public school in Peshawar, in north-west Pakistan, and committed the horrific act as well as detonating a suicide bomb which killed a number of students. "They burnt a teacher in front of the students in a classroom," the unnamed military source told the US TV network. "They literally set the teacher on fire with gasoline and made the kids...

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) criticized President Obama for swapping three Cuban spies for imprisoned American Alan Gross on Wednesday's "America's Newsroom" on the Fox News Channel, calling President Obama the "worst negotiator" since Jimmy Carter.

Girls Just Wanna Have Guns zeros in like a bullet on the truth about guns... the young lady behind this video means business. And she’s seeking funding to make a 90-minute motion picture “intended for all audiences that will serve as a wake-up call to all Americans.”Watch the video here.

President and Michelle Obama personally identify with everyday experiences of racial bias in America that have underpinned recent protests across the country, they told People magazine in an interview to be released Friday. “Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs,” Michelle Obama told the magazine. On one occasion, she said, her husband “was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie dinner, and somebody asked him to get coffee.” President Obama said he’s even been mistakenly treated as a valet. “There’s no black male my age, who’s...

Following the assassination of JFK in November, 1963, the word “conspiracy” would enter common parlance. Defined as “A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful” [Oxford Dictionaries], the term leaves plenty of room for interpretation. At the very least, who decides what is “unlawful” or “harmful”? How can we be sure that the entity determining this is not itself a conspiracy? As the kids might say, “How meta can you get?” In the health field, most alleged conspiracies involve either a major life-threatening illness that supports lucrative therapies, or a chronic condition in which conventional allopathic...