Free Republic

“It’s time” for Hillary, and who can disagree? It doesn’t matter that no one who isn’t being paid to say it sincerely believes she can lead the country. She is precisely what the American system is designed to produce. Mencken said of American government: “All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of...

The Chicago Public Schools — already facing a federal criminal investigation of its CEO and a projected $1.1 billion budget deficit next school year — now must pay a price for those problems through higher interest rates on a new $300 million bond deal. The rates lured investors to buy the bonds, which CPS says it will use to pay off recently completed construction projects. But they also mean Chicago taxpayers will pay more over the life of the borrowing deal, financial analysts said Wednesday. The main bond issue — for $280 million to be repaid over 25 years —...

Former CIA Director David Petraeus, whose career was destroyed by an extramarital affair with his biographer, was sentenced Thursday to two years' probation and fined $100,000 for giving her classified material while she was working on the book. The sentencing came two months after he agreed to plead guilty to a federal misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The plea agreement carried a possible sentence of up to a year in prison. In court papers, prosecutors recommended two years' probation and a $40,000 fine. But Judge David Kessler increased the fine to "reflect seriousness of the...

As I’ve been saying for months now, she’s toast: The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.” The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium...

You probably saw the story yesterday that McDonald’s had yet another rough quarter, with sales down globally yet again. I didn’t think it was worth blogging again after reading this part, but please indulge me before we get to the good stuff: Shares of the fast-food company were up almost 5 percent in early trading. At midday, they remained 3 percent higher at $97.70 as investors shrugged off declines in quarterly earnings and sales.McDonald’s global sales at restaurants open at least 13 months fell a worse-than-expected 2.3 percent in the first quarter, and the company warned of another drop in...

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the four Minnesota men arrested this week will be held until they can be tried on charges that they planned to leave the Twin Cities to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIL, overseas. In the morning, after nearly three hours of testimony from an FBI agent, U.S. Magistrate Judge Becky Thorson said officials have gathered substantial evidence against the men. Attorneys for the men argued that officials had built a thin case primarily on the testimony of another man who eventually served as a paid confidential informant. They had asked...

<p>Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was already on a plane and flying back to Texas Thursday afternoon when the Senate held its final confirmation vote for Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, a Cruz campaign aide told TheBlaze.</p> <p>As a result, Cruz was the only senator not to vote on Lynch’s confirmation earlier in the day. The Senate approved Lynch, a candidate that Cruz has argued against for months now, in a 56-43 vote.</p>

BATON ROUGE, La. — THE debate over religious liberty in America presents conservatives and business leaders with a crucial choice. In Indiana and Arkansas, large corporations recently joined left-wing activists to bully elected officials into backing away from strong protections for religious liberty. It was disappointing to see conservative leaders so hastily retreat on legislation that would simply allow for an individual or business to claim a right to free exercise of religion in a court of law. Our country was founded on the principle of religious liberty, enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Why shouldn’t an individual or business...

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks on climate change at Everglades National Park,

Following a brief feint in which the White House masterfully exploited the servility of congressional Republicans to create the impression that Barack Obama was still firmly in command of the country’s destiny, the revolt of liberal lawmakers over a proposed free trade has made it clear that the president is very much a lame duck. The internecine fight among Democrats over the Trans-Pacific Partnership has elevated Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to the status as chief liberal opponent of a Democratic White House. “The government doesn’t want you to read this massive new trade agreement. It’s top secret,” Warren said...

Video of Interview with Texas Tribune Reporter In light of a New York Times report that GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz took a different tone on same-sex marriage at a Wednesday reception at the home of two gay businessmen, here's a look at his comments on the topic to Tribune reporter Jay Root. At the reception, the Times reported, Cruz said he would be OK with his daughters being gay, and did not bring up his personal opposition to gay marriage. 

Democratic state lawmakers on Thursday shot down a proposal that would have required all California state legislators to get their health insurance from Covered California, the benefits exchange set up to implement Obamacare in the state. The Assembly Rules Committee split along party lines, with seven Democrats opposing AB 1109 and three Republicans in support of the bill by Assemblyman Scott Wilk. The measure would have forced lawmakers to give up the taxpayer-subsidized health plans provided by the Legislature and individually sign up for Covered California. Wilk introduced the measure after hearing complaints from several constituents about difficulties in signing...

Armenian President Warns about Danger of Genocide Denial, Brazilian Congressman Marco Feliciano Denounces Genocide of Armenian Christians By Julio Severo Armenian President Serge Sargsyan warned Wedsnesday about the danger to the world of the denial of the genocide of over 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim hordes of the Ottoman Empire. The national day for the remembrance of this massacre, which hit especially Armenian Christians, will be held in Armenia next Friday. “Genocide is a failure of the international community and its impunity is the premise for its repetition,” said Sargsyan in his opening speech in an international forum on the...

Being a single mother or witnessing a gang crime could be enough for Central American illegal immigrants to get on the path to asylum under guidance the Homeland Security Department issued last week, opening up new ways for the current surge of illegal immigrants to gain a legal foothold in the U.S. The guidance, a 27-page training document from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, says women who flee Central America because they fear being a single woman at the head of a household can be deemed to be part of a targeted social group, and can make a claim that...

Good news for Obamacare supporters: It's quite a bit less unpopular than it was a few months ago. The uptick leads to the question: Will the Affordable Care Act ever actually be popular? Looking at the long run, Republicans may have done the law a favor by naming it Obamacare. Former presidents usually bask in a nostalgic glow after they leave office. While events could still make a difference, Obama is well-positioned to take advantage of that effect: To date, at least, he has no major wars to regret, and the nation hasn't plunged into a new recession. If long-term...

Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg News Apple opened the App Store for its Apple Watch Thursday, just ahead of the first shipments reaching customers who pre-ordered the new device. The store is third branch of the App Store, alongside areas hosting apps for the iPhone and the iPad. Apple says more than 3,000 Watch apps will be available when the store opens later Thursday. The Watch has a smaller screen than the phone or tablet and must work in tandem with an iPhone. That’s forcing developers to decide whether a Watch app should be an extension of an iPhone app, or a...

snip from the end The Obama administration wanted Hillary Clinton to use official government email. She didn’t. The Obama administration also demanded that the Clinton Foundation disclose all its donors while she served as Secretary of State. It didn’t comply with that request, either. The Clintons’ charitable initiatives were a kind of quasi-government run by themselves, which was staffed by their own loyalists and made up the rules as it went along. Their experience running the actual government, with its formal accountability and disclosure, went reasonably well. Their experience running their own privatized mini-state has been a fiasco.

The alarm system at the Texas home of the former President George H.W. Bush was broken for at least 13 months before the Secret Service fixed it, according to a federal report released on Thursday. The disclosure is in a report by Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth who said that Secret Service personnel protecting the first President Bush noticed a failure in the alarm system at Bush's Houston home in September 2013. The alarm had outlived its recommended period of operation, the report found. The Roth report also found security equipment problems at the homes of other former presidents....

And so it begins. The New York Times and the Washington Post on Thursday published separate investigative reports digging deep into the finances of Hillary and Bill Clinton, their family foundation, and the overlap between their interests and those of their global patrons. Neither report provides a smoking gun, but both illustrate a politically fraught dynamic that is expected to dog Hillary throughout her 2016 campaign. As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman...

The latest 'HotAir Primary' results show Ted Cruz and Scott Walker leading the GOP pack by a significant margin. The first question in HotAir's unscientific poll asks "If the Republican Primary were held today, who would you vote for"? Ted Cruz leads with 668 votes, which represents 37.5% of the people surveyed. Scott Walker, by comparison, got 616 votes, which represents 34.6% of the people surveyed. Marco Rubio finished with 10.7% of the respondents, followed by Rand Paul with 6.3% of the votes.The other statistic that's jumping off the page for the Walker campaign is that Gov. Walker is the...