Free Republic

He was a fantastic actor and his passing should be noted.

What goes up, must come down! Russian army’s rocket launch test goes terribly wrong when missile drops straight back down and explodes in front of them [Whole title.] S300 barely takes off before plunging back to the ground Minute-long clip shows people dashing for cover as rocket hits ground Mishap comes shortly after footage of crash killing missile engineers Embarrassing footage has emerged of a missile launch going spectacularly wrong in Russia. The minute-long clip shows the S300 rocket barely managing to take off before plummeting back down to earth. A small thud can be heard and bits of debris...

I gather from the increasing hysteria of the feminists that Democrats are beginning to rebel at having a loser of a presidential candidate being foist upon them, in the person of Hillary Clinton. The same way the national tea party leaders are a thorn in the side of the Republican Party, constantly challenging incumbent Republicans with untested candidates who then go on to lose to Democrats (in Delaware, Indiana and Nevada, and nearly in Kentucky, Kansas and Mississippi), the feminists are a thorn in the side of the Democrats, saddling them with utter mediocrities like Hillary. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz...

Senior U.S. officials pressed Saudi leaders for fear of making matters worse Senior U.S. officials pressed Saudi leaders in a series of messages to quickly wrap up their air campaign in Yemen for fear of making matters worse, people familiar with the matter said, before Riyadh declared Tuesday it was ending the offensive. Yet on Wednesday, Saudi airstrikes resumed in several parts of the country after Iranian-linked Houthi militants took over a military brigade in the southern city of Taiz, provincial security officials said. There was no sign of peace talks, though the Saudis had said they were shifting to...

Today’s official announcement that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is running for president changes everything in the 2016 presidential campaign. Ted Cruz isn’t running for Vice President or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Jeb Bush administration. Every Republican candidate for president will have to move to significantly to the right, starting with Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, and define their position on amnesty for illegal aliens, on fighting and winning the war radical Islam has declared on America, on spending, the deficit and the debt, and on repealing Obamacare, against the positions Ted Cruz will talk about...

(CNN)The family of Michael Brown, the black teen killed last year by a white Ferguson police officer, plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, attorneys for the family said. The civil suit will be announced Thursday morning in front of the St. Louis County Courthouse. Attorneys Anthony Gray and Daryl Parks promised the lawsuit in early March after grand jury and Justice Department decisions not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting. Michael Brown's family to file civil lawsuit Michael Brown's family to file civil lawsuit "They have accepted (Wilson's) self-defense," Parks told reporters at the...

Cruz and Rubio climb, and Paul slides, after their official campaign launches.Three Republicans have officially announced they're running for president—but only two of them improved their standing since Hotline's previous edition of its GOP Presidential Power Rankings. Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio kicked off their campaigns in early spring, with Cruz and Rubio in particular demonstrating unexpected financial might and taking advantage of the moment. Meanwhile the most memorable moment from Paul's rollout was a clash with the press. Still, as we mentioned last time, if you're going to make mistakes in the presidential race, it's better...

A new paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that India and the United States should collaborate on building New Delhi’s next Vikrant-class aircraft carrier, the 65,000 tons nuclear-powered INS Vishal, expected to enter service in the 2020s. “Working in concert to develop this vessel would not only substantially bolster India’s naval combat capabilities but would also cement the evolving strategic bond between the United States and India in a truly spectacular fashion for many decades to come,” Ashley J. Tellis, the author of the Carnegie study, underlines. In January 2015, both countries announced a joint working group...

Hope, Arkansas is set to have the national political news spotlight return once again when Mike Huckabee announces his decision to run for president on May 5. Huckabee is scheduled to make the announcement 10 a.m. at Hempstead Hall on the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope campus. Mike Huckabee was born in Hope which is also the hometown of President Bill Clinton.

The Betrayal Papers, Part VI: The Chicago Connection This, the sixth and final installment of The Betrayal Papers, will explore various projects, schemes, and associations that tie Obama and his associates together. A preponderance of these project are based out of Chicago, the crossroad of the global Left, Islamic “civilization jihad,” and the Communist mafia. The themes to observe in each case are deception, greed, and power. To have any chance to retain our freedoms and personal safety, we must recognize the depth of the treason from within; we must name the perpetrators and conquer them before they end America....

Being a fighter pilot, in general, sounds like a sweet gig on the surface. You fly in fast jets, and you get to wear sunglasses a lot. But to the 100 Saudi fighter pilots bombing Houthi rebels in Yemen right now, it just got better. Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal promised each and every one of them a Bentley. Oddly enough, bin Talal deleted the tweet shortly after, but I think the offer still stands. In case your Arabic is a little rusty, the original reads: I congratulate your success of Operation Decisive Storm and the start of Operation Restore...

Just say no, Obama. Flaming water, poisoned air and destroyed lives — that’s what I found when I traveled to Dimock, Pa., in 2009 to see the impacts of fracking firsthand. Six years later, this tragic story is one shared by countless Americans, too many of them with no choice in the matter. Ten years after the Bush-Cheney administration exempted fracking from key parts of some of our nation’s most important environmental and public health laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, the science is finally catching up to the process — and...

African-American participation in baseball is on the decline. This isn't a new development. Over the past couple years, a number of black athletes have addressed the issue.This isn't just an issue for other black players, it's becoming an issue for black fans, according to comedian Chris Rock. Rock gave his take on the alarmingly low rates of blacks in baseball for HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumble." (WARNING: NSFW Language).Rock's rant is humorous, obviously, but it also points out some discouraging facts about why fewer black people are playing, and watching, the game. The fact that Howard, a prominent...

Introduction: April 28 is the Feast Day of Saint Louis Marie De Montfort - A Great Marian Apostle. He wrote 4 Books which have become quite popular among catholics in the past 4 decades. They are as follows: 1) A Letter to the Friends of the Cross 2) The Secret of Mary 3) The Secret of the Rosary 4) True Devotion to Mary. Here is something about his life in France where he was born and ordained a Catholic Priest. Saint Louis Marie De Montfort was the second son of his Parents, who had 18 children in all. Several of...

What began as a banner day for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his quest to secure his party’s presidential nomination on Monday ended as a unique disaster. According to Nicholas Confessore’s reporting in the New York Times on Monday, the libertarian billionaire David Koch told a crowd at a Manhattan fundraiser that Walker had all but secured his endorsement and the support of his and his brother’s donor network. “When the primaries are over and Scott Walker gets the nomination,” Koch is reported to have told the crowd. “We will support whoever the candidate is,” Koch supposedly added in a...

While the House Select Committee on Benghazi was originally expected to reveal its findings by the end of this year, the release of the highly anticipated report could be delayed until 2016. The delay would cause the report to be released during the key months of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Republicans on the committee sought to put the blame for the potential delay on Clinton and other members of the Obama administration. "Factors beyond the committee's control, including witness availability, compliance with documents requests, the granting of security clearancesand accreditations—all of which are controlled by the...

To get back to healthy levels, we would have to cut our emissions by 98 percent. “Could you imagine living on 2 percent of your annual income?” says David Battisti, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington. “That’s the problem: People can’t envision how you’d actually get this done.” 1.    Fake a volcanic eruption. When particularly explosive volcanoes erupt, they blast ash and sulfuric acid droplets into the atmosphere, which then morph into tiny reflectors that shield Earth from the sun. The result of this natural cycle is a global cooling effect. 2.    Make clouds brighter. Clouds keep things cool by...

First he had the Koch endorsement. Then he didn't. Why? A Glenn Beck interview where Walker moved wackier than Cruz. According to a number of well-respected journalists, the Koch brothers are putting their heft and muscle behind Scott Walker for president. Or maybe not. It depends on whom you ask. First, let’s acknowledge once again that the Great Whitebread Hope from Wisconsin seems to have everyone in the political establishment mesmerized by his alleged strategic and tactical brilliance. Sure, he makes epic gaffes over and over again, but that cannot take anything away from the fact that he barely won...

CHANNELVIEW, Texas – The pregnant Popeyes manager, who was fired less than 36 hours after a robbery, has been offered her job back. Marissa Holcomb, who is a mother of three with a fourth child on the way, had a meeting with Z & H Foods owner Amin Dhanani on Wednesday, a day after our original story aired of her firing. "He just apologized and pretty much offered me if I wanted to go back to his business and work there again," she said. Holcomb says she was originally terminated because she refused to pay back money that was stolen...

This is a matter of real, palpable fear. Saying anything that goes against liberal orthodoxy is now grounds for a firin’. Even if you make a reasonable and respectful case, if you so much as cause your liberal students a second of complication or doubt you face the risk of demonstrations, public call-outs, and severe professional consequences. My friends and colleagues might well agree that the student-teacher relationship ban is misguided, but they’re not allowed to say as much in public. C-can you guys see the problem, here? Personally, liberal students scare the shit out of me. I know how...