Free Republic

First-quarter profit at General Motors rose nearly eight times above a year ago as U.S. consumers spent big on pickups and SUVs and the company didn’t have to set aside a huge stack of money to pay for recalls. The Detroit automaker said it made $945 million, as consumers got used to lower gasoline prices and decided to buy bigger vehicles. That’s right in GM’s sweet spot, with trucks such as the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and Cadillac Escalade large SUV. Profit margins on the trucks are sizable, with analysts estimating that GM makes more than $10,000 per vehicle. In the...

I’m not sure if this is a “bombshell” report from the New York Times this morning or if it’s just more of the same old same old when it comes to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The Paper of Record has been digging into more details from Peter Schweizer’s upcoming book, Clinton Cash, and finds that there was a lot of money changing hands between interests in Russia, Canada and the United states at a time when Russia was moving to try to gain control of a significant portion of the world’s uranium supplies. (It’s something they seem to...

Half of Turkey—44 of 81 provinces, 40 million people including those living in Istanbul and Ankara, suffered a massive power outage that lasted a solid twelve hours. It happened on Tuesday, March 31st. It happened because Iran wanted it to happen. The blackout in Turkey was caused by a cyber hack that originated in Iran. This cyber attack was payback, a taste of what Iran has to offer. Everything went down. Computers, airports, air traffic, traffic lights, hospitals, lights, elevators, refrigeration, water and sewage, everything simply stopped. In an instant, Turkey was transported back to the stone ages.

An airport immigration officer who repeatedly asked a woman personal questions, including whether she slept with other men while her husband was away, has been arrested and suspended from duty while a full investigation takes place. The victim was a female passenger about to depart India for Hong Kong. While waiting at the immigration counter before boarding the flight to meet her husband, she was stopped for questioning. The immigration officer started by asking probing and seemingly unnecessary questions “like how many children I have, do I drink, do I smoke or eat chicken”, the woman told Indian news channel...

Sen. Marco Rubio has emerged as the strongest candidate in the GOP presidential field, topping the rest of his announced and potential rivals for the nomination and running best against top Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll Thursday.

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – The family of Michael Brown announced they will file a civil suit against the City of Ferguson. They will claim wrongful death of Michael Brown Jr. Members of the Brown legal team plan a press conference Thursday at the St. Louis County Courthouse in Clayton. Attorneys Benjamin Crump, Anthony Gray and Daryl Parks said they would have no statement before the press conference. The attorneys said six weeks ago, that while a county grand jury and the Justice Department accepted Wilson’s claim of self-defense, “We do not accept his self-defense” One of the attorney’s says the...

<p>The Queer Student Union at California Polytechnic University recently orchestrated a three-day “shit-in” at which students preached “Gender Diversity” and encouraged students to use solely gender-neutral bathrooms on campus.</p> <p>“Put yourself in the shoes of a trans*/gender non-conforming student and take the pledge to use only all gender bathrooms,” a post from the organization’s Facebook page read.</p>

Mary Doyle Keefe, the model for Norman Rockwell’s Rosie The Riveter painting, which was used to help inspire American women to work on U.S. soil throughout World War II, has died at the age of 92. Mary Ellen Keefe, Mary Doyle’s daughter, confirmed that her mother died after a brief illness in Simsbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday. Keefe, who grew up in Arlington, Vermont, which is where she first met Rockwell, posed for the image when she was just 19 years old. At the time of the painting, she was working as a telephone operator. However she became immortalized when the...

St Paul writes to the Philippians of the glory that our currently lowly bodies will one day enjoy: He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified Body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself (Phil 3:19).

Before Iowa and New Hampshire, GOP candidates are competing in the Sheldon Adelson primary, and some will travel to his posh Venetian hotel in Las Vegas this in hopes of winning it. But one candidate — Marco Rubio — has emerged as the clear front-runner, according to nearly a half-dozen sources close to the multibillionaire casino mogul. In recent weeks, Adelson, who spent $100 million on the 2012 campaign and could easily match that figure in 2016, has told friends that he views the Florida senator, whose hawkish defense views and unwavering support for Israel align with his own, as...

Ever since a right-wing backlash blew up the bipartisan immigration bill that Sen. Marco Rubio helped champion in 2013, the ambitious Republican has struggled to find his political footing on the issue. For two years, he has hemmed and hawed; ducked and dodged; retracted, retreated from, and repeatedly revised his immigration rhetoric in a ploy to appease conservative activists without fully forsaking his position. These days, when the subject comes up in town hall meetings or TV interviews, the silver-tongued senator — now officially running for the GOP presidential nomination — is often reduced to reciting a few stilted talking...

According to the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning, the rates of accidents, injuries, and fatalities on Michigan's roads have been decreasing for decades. Improved pavement conditions will make the roads safer, but drivers should feel at ease that transportation is less risky than it used to be. The highway safety office reports that vehicle accidents are at all-time lows. There were 289,061 crashes in Michigan in 2013, when drivers traveled 95 billion miles on Michigan roads. Thus, there were three crashes per million miles traveled. Ten years ago, it was 3.9 crashes per million. Ten years before that it...

Hillary should return all money raised from foreign nations.

The New York Times dug up some priceless anecdotes from Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) college debating career in a story published Tuesday, from a poorly received joke about regenerating hymen to his affinity for the "Les Misérables" soundtrack. The newspaper spoke with several of Cruz's rival debaters who said that the presidential candidate was a powerful speaker that could be undercut by humor. He would "unravel" when competitors deployed humor against him, according to former Yale debater Austan Goolsbee (an economist who later served on President Obama's cabinet). Cruz also fared poorly when he made jokes himself. From the Times...

As local police agencies are stressed by rising pension and other costs, they increasingly have embraced this troubling policy: Using “civil asset forfeiture” to take as much private property as possible, even from people who have never been convicted or even charged with a crime. The more they take, the bigger their budgets.

Yesterday, I cited a Congressional Quarterly analysis showing that Senate Republicans have voted with Obama more than 50% since the beginning of the new Congress – more than they did while serving in the minority. But there’s more to the story. It’s not just the fact that Republicans are voting with Obama, it’s that they have deliberately ceded structural control of the chamber to Democrats. Typically, the majority party will manipulate the floor process to block initiatives from the minority party and vote on wedge issues favorable to their side – ones that embarrass those in the minority. As such,...

“ I hope you saw the record. It’s a conservative record. It’s not a ‘Republican In Name Only’ record. Governor Jeb Bush says to a skeptical New Hampshire Republican ” Hmmm. Meanwhile, Newsmax reports otherwise: At the New England Council's ‘Politics and Eggs’ breakfast earlier Friday, Bush broke with many of his fellow presidential hopefuls by declaring that ‘the climate is changing’ and calling for a pathway to legal status for illegal immigrants. The liberal New Republic headlined the story this way: Jeb Bush Came So Close to Acknowledging Climate Change. Opening with: At an event in New Hampshire on...

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley hasn’t gotten much respect from the pundits for his plans to run for president. Since up until now O’Malley has been treating Hillary Clinton with a deference that is not compatible with a serious challenge to her grip on the Democratic nomination, why should anyone take him seriously? But the days of O’Malley bowing and scraping before the might of the Clintons may be over, and that may have more to do with Clinton’s problems than O’Malley growing a spine.O’Malley is now firing shots at Clinton about trade, indicating he plans to try to run...

Senator Rand Paul pointed out an important distinction today on Fox News about the foreign policy of some “neo-conservatives” in the Senate. Those whose foreign policy stances resemble President Obama and Hillary Clinton more than Ronald Reagan’s vision of “peace through strength.” Specifically, Paul called out Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) for being “Lap dogs for Obama’s foreign policy.” What he failed to drive home is that they are also lap dogs for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy. Analyzing these allegations against McCain and Graham, they all prove to be true. Paul accused McCain...

For those in the DC area, there is the annual ceremony for the rescue attempt fallen this Saturday at noon time in Arlington National Cemetery head to the tomb of the unknown soldier, it is right in front of the rotunda