Free Republic

As usual the MSM got it wrong: they’re all celebrating Hubble’s 25th birthday today when in fact it is the 25th anniversary of his launch into deep space. I should know, as Hub is my twin brother: I am a fraternal twin (female). My brother (Hub) is the mirror in the Hubble telescope. We are Cassegrain reflectors of Ritchey-Chretien design, and were conceived in 1979 at the Corning New York factory when 2 conjoined blanks of ultra-low expansion glass were sandwiched around a honeycomb lattice. (I didn’t mean to get into the sex stuff, but a lot of people are...

IT should surprise no one that Gallipoli is a hard place to get to. AFTER all, that's the reason 10,500 Australians and Kiwis are here: to commemorate a disastrous loss for the Allied forces who tried to invade this stony strip of land a century ago. Any geographic difficulties posed by the Gallipoli peninsula, however, are only amplified by the enormous security machine that squeezed tighter in recent days and now has clamped shut on Anzac Eve. ..... The steel security curtain extends far beyond the national park where the famous Gallipoli cemeteries are: the nearby ferry port towns of...

Mr. Steve Inskeep In a March 27 on-air exchange with David Wessel of the Brookings Institution on the impact of right-to-work laws, you focused on a “single phrase that was mentioned in a news story earlier this week” (transcript here). This phrase was sourced in the NPR story to a 2013 study coauthored by Dr. Michael Hicks and myself. Unfortunately, your conversation proceeded to completely mischaracterize this study. The “single phrase” was this: “Actually, since World War II, income and job growth have increased faster in right-to-work states.” Wessel initially confirmed this observation with his own look at the data...

In a preview 'Fox News Reporting: The Tangled Clinton Web', Bret Baier reports on the accusations that Bill and Hillary Clinton used Haiti earthquake to enrich themselves by making sure many of the more lucrative contracts to help rebuild the country went to either Clinton supporters or donors.

Republican congressional leaders have admitted defeat in their effort to thwart President Barack Obama's plan to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen met with a number of her fellow lawmakers last week to strategize way to prevent the de-listing of Cuba in a bill she planned to introduce this week, but the lawmaker was told that Congress legally can't prevent the White House from removing Cuba from the list. "We can't undo it. We just got the word from the parliamentarian: It's a no-go," Ros-Lehtinen said, according to the Miami Herald....

It was sort of inevitable that on his first day of campaigning as an announced candidate for president earlier this month, Rand Paul would be asked whether he supported a ban on abortions in cases of rape or incest. Reporters have been asking Republican candidates that question ever since 2012, when the Missouri Republican Senate candidate said he supported such a ban and added that pregnancies were unlikely in cases of "legitimate rape." But Paul's reply wasn't what the reporter expected. "Why don't we ask the (Democratic National Committee) is it OK to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus?...

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush supports President Obama’s trade deal, praises his management of the National Security Agency and agrees that Congress should have moved faster to hold a vote on new attorney general Loretta Lynch. And that’s all since last week. It’s an unusual approach for Bush to take in seeking the nomination of a conservative party that mostly loathes the current president. The former Florida governor has gone out of his way at times to chime in on issues where he agrees with Obama — bolstering his attempt to be a softer-toned kind of Republican focused on winning...

Accessible only by car via miles of winding, dusty Croatian roads, Gornja Siga – current population zero – is an unlikely testing ground for a plan to shape the world’s political future. It is a secluded area where verdant forest meets white sand on a western bank of the river Danube. The only signs of life are a single dilapidated building with a curious flag flying outside, pheasants, deer, the occasional wild boar, and eagles and falcons overhead. Yet last Monday the Eurosceptic Czech politician Vit Jedlicka and two other libertarians declared this 7 sq km of Serbo-Croat no-man’s-land the...

During the ramp-up to the 2014 midterm election, we were given many promises of what would be done if we would support Republican candidates and put them in the majority. We held our nose after primary shenanigans that favored some incumbents, poured donations into so-called Tea Party groups that blew off the candidates they supported. Some of us even believed the new-found conservatism some incumbents suddenly embraced in the weeks prior to November 4th. And it didn’t take long after the midterm election for the Republicans to look at us all like chumps as they excused themselves from the promises...

A controversial US pastor has defended trying to buy a $65million private jet with worshippers' donations and responded to critics by claiming 'the devil is trying to discredit' him. Reverend Creflo Dollar, 53, launched an appeal last month for 200,000 people to each donate '$300 or more' so that he could purchase a Gulfstream G650 to replace his current damaged aircraft.

Adversaries welcome Obama’s conciliatory actions that turn Machiavelli on his head, and they are likely to be joined by others, emboldened by a perceived window of opportunity remaining open through the end of the Obama administration The most quoted political wisdom from Machiavelli is that “it is better to feared than it is to be loved.” President Obama’s Middle East policy may well go down as the turning point in U.S. policy in which Machiavelli was turned on his head, setting the stage for the whirlwind of chaos and war. What is one to think about the Obama administration’s extended...

Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear cases that will likely determine whether same-sex marriage will become a legal nationwide. The justices have rolled four cases together that will allow them to decide two questions: must states recognize other states' gay marriages, and does the Constitution require states to allow same-sex marriage? Some believe the justices have already decided to create that right before hearing the case. But others say the matter is far from decided. On Wednesday, a panel discussion at the Family Research Council was swimming upstream against conventional thought on the issue. That is, it's a...

The North Korean email hack of Sony continues to haunt Hollywood. The leftist group WikiLeaks recently posted a searchable set of the documents and the London Daily Mail found a new scandal subject: Ben Affleck ... and PBS. Harvard black-studies professor Henry Louis Gates produces a show for New York PBS superstation WNET called "Finding Your Roots." Gates tells celebrities about their ancestors. A few years back, NBC had a show just like this called "Who Do You Think You Are?" It's now on cable, on TLC. Why PBS believes it's right to use taxpayer money to copycat commercial television...

With the Obama administration increasing the number of Muslim migrants into the U.S. comes the Islamization of the West — an intentional, gradual overthrow of democracy and freedom by using that same democracy and freedom that’s afforded to them. Ironically, Muslims flock to Western countries and demand the laws be changed to implement Islamic laws that are already in place in their own nations. So, why do they feel the need to create yet another Muslim country when they already have over 90 across the globe? Because their allegiance to Islam requires them to hold nothing above it, not only...

The Clinton Foundation is now refiling its IRS returns for five years based on stories from the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Hillary Clinton’s campaign releases rebuttal to stories about her corruption and greed: “There isn’t a shred of evidence.” That’s true. Not a shred. A mountain. A $140 million mountain that landed at the Clinton Foundation, courtesy of Vladimir Putin, who may have also sent a bouquet of roses with the money transfers. Team Hill adds: “It’s a RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY financed by the Koch Brothers!” Sure it is. Questions keep arising about the largest deposit-only ATM machine in the...

<p>As a boy in pre-war Baghdad, Adil Faraj dreamed of becoming a dancer, inspired by a Michael Jackson performance he watched on DVD.</p> <p>For more than a decade, he pursued his passion despite daunting challenges and harassment by strangers and police. He taught himself by moving to dance videos in his cramped family home — hiding from a conservative society scornful of the art form and from the chaos that engulfed Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.</p>

The lawless Attorney General’s perfect successor In a move destined to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many Americans, the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch, currently U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, as United States Attorney General. The 56-43 vote occurred after a delay of more than five months, and Lynch was put over the top when 10 Republicans broke ranks with their colleagues to confirm Eric Holder’s successor. Those Republicans are Kelly Ayotte (NH), Orrin Hatch (UT), Lindsey Graham (SC), Susan Collins (ME), Jeff Flake (AZ), Mark Kirk (IL), Rob Portman (OH), Thad Cochran...

In what is an ongoing frustration for many Catholics, the Vatican continues to insist on friendly relations with Islam. It started with Nostra Aetate #3 and Lumen Gentium #16, neither of which are particularly compatible with what the saints previously said about Islam. Since the Second Vatican Council, this innovative understanding of a religion Catholic thinkers like Belloc have characterized as a “great heresy” continues to spiral. In Evangelii Gaudium #253, Pope Francis asserts that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” More recently, there has been common prayer in the...

Make no mistake: the war everyone fears is already here War must be averted. This is the appealing narrative, the glue that has held the theater of the Iran nuclear negotiations together for more than a decade as Western and UN powers try to talk it out with the Islamic Republic in Geneva. It makes sense, in its own right, as nobody should want a war—as in a confrontation where bombs are falling, cities are destroyed and a lot of people end up dead. The Obama Administration has been steadfast in presenting war as the only alternative to the marathon...

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