Free Republic

Scott Walker enters the Republican presidential race with far stronger ties to the party’s biggest fund-raisers than any other candidate besides Jeb Bush.Roughly half of the nation’s top 250 Republican donors have given money to Mr. Walker in his campaigns for Wisconsin governor, according to an Upshot analysis of Federal Election Commission records and state records. By comparison, 30 percent have given to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 20 percent to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 10 percent to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.A presidential campaign is a chance for candidates to introduce themselves to top fund-raisers, and...

FUN THINGS TO NOTE FROM THE BIBLE: Remember what Jesus said: 'He will put His sheep on His right and the goats on His left.' (Matthew 25:33). Jesus also told Peter that if he wanted to catch fish do it from the right side of the boat. They did and filled the boat with fish. John 21:6 (NIV) ... He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish." Origin of Left & Right... I...

The U.S. grew at a meager 0.2% annual pace in the first three months of 2015, a period marked by severe weather, a major port dispute and a soaring dollar that curbed American exports. Consumer spending, the main engine of growth, slowed sharply to 1.9%, below the average 2.3% increase since the recovery began in mid-2009.

Jon Jones has been stripped of his UFC light heavyweight title and suspended indefinitely following his arrest in New Mexico on a hit-and-run that police say left a pregnant woman with a broken arm. The UFC announced the extraordinary penalties Tuesday night for violations of its athlete code of conduct policy following Jones' latest arrest in a string of misbehavior. "Got a lot of soul searching to do," Jones posted on his official Twitter account Tuesday. "Sorry to everyone I've let down." UFC President Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta apparently met with Jones in Albuquerque before making their decision,...

Video at link -- it the link to shep smith reporting works.

Former New York Governor George Pataki opened the Republican Jewish Coalition spring conference last nite. “BDS IS ANTI-SEMETIC” “There is no more loyal ally to America than Israel.” “We must move American embassy to Israel.” Pataki said every GOP candidates to adopt the following five principles, which he deems as vital for America. In private meetings, it is believed that Pataki will urge Republican Jewish mega-donors to make support of these principles a pre-requisite to receive financial support. •The Jackson Rule: Anyone involved in recruiting or fundraising for ISIS, Hamas or any other terrorist organization will face criminal charges in...

What does the State Department’s Wendy Sherman do with her spare time when not negotiating weak nuclear deals with rogue regimes? The same as the rest of the Obama foreign-policy team: threaten Israel with diplomatic isolation at the United Nations. Sherman issued some thinly veiled threats yesterday in remarks to a gathering of Reform movement leaders in which she made clear that the administration expects the next Israeli government to do its bidding with respect to supporting a two-state solution with the Palestinians. While there’s nothing new about this insistence, Sherman’s language followed the same pattern as other remarks issued...

Hearing former president George W. Bush speak on Saturday night at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas sent me into a nostalgic reverie. The president was in top form, speaking lucidly and compellingly about the threat from Iran and Islamic State. So this is what it’s like to hear a world leader speak about evil with moral conviction. Oh yes, I remember this. And yes, I know, I know: president Bush made plenty of mistakes. In his speech he fessed up to a few. But he also gave the world moral direction and served as the scourge of tyrants....

Here’s an astonishing statistic; more than 30pc of all government debt in the eurozone – around €2 trillion of securities in total – is trading on a negative interest rate. With the advent of European Central Bank quantitative easing, what began four months ago when 10-year Swiss yields turned negative for the first time has snowballed into a veritable avalanche of negative rates across European government bond markets. In the hunt for apparently “safe assets”, investors have thrown caution to the wind, and collectively determined to pay governments for the privilege of lending to them. On a country by country...

Baltimore Gang Members Unite To Protect Black-Owned Businesses, Direct Looters Towards Chinese- And Arab-Owned Stores Crips, Bloods and Black Guerilla Family gang members reportedly stood guard in front of some black-owned businesses to protect them from would-be looters and arsonists. Instead, ne’er-do-wells were directed to businesses owned by Arabs and Chinese, according to The New York Times. Reports began circulating Sunday night that members of the three competing gangs had agreed to a cease-fire in a show of solidarity over the recent death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Gray, who was black, died a week after being arrested on April 12....

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Saul New International Version (NIV) 6 Now Saul heard that David and his men had been discovered. And Saul was seated, spear in hand, under the tamarisk tree on the hill at Gibeah, with all his officials standing at his side. 7 He said to them, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds? 8 Is that why you have all conspired against me? No one tells me when my...

The U.S. could export anywhere between 0.2 trillion cubic feet and 10.3 trillion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas annually by 2040, according to the latest government projection. Where along that spectrum the actual figure lands will be determined by global energy prices and the availability of U.S. natural gas, the agency said in a Tuesday rehashing of projections made in the Annual Energy Outlook for 2015. The wide range of outcomes hasn’t stopped U.S. companies from proposing dozens of new export facilities. While market watchers have said that it’s unlikely all of these facilities will come online, several are...

Bruce Jenner “came out” as a transsexual after a long is-he-a-she guessing game.  Hey, I’m a live and let live guy, so if he wants to surgically transform himself into a eunuch with accessories, I say have at it.  For that matter, if he had wanted to implant quills in his skin and resemble a human porcupine, or file his eye teeth into fangs to resemble a vampire, he would get no static from me.  There are, however, limits to my suspension of disbelief, and like most people who aren’t consumed by fantasies of being something else, I arrive at...

The smoldering tensions between protesters and police in Baltimore flared briefly Tuesday as the battered city fought to recover from a violent night of riots in response to the April 19 death of a black man, Freddie Gray, while he was in police custody.

The White House gave a sneak peek today at the food and décor for the Tuesday night State Dinner in honor of Japan’s prime minister and his wife. The guest chef for the evening will be Masaharu Morimoto of “Iron Chef” and the Morimoto restaurants in New York and Philadelphia. The first course for tomorrow’s State Dinner is a toro tartare and Caesar sashimi salad.Morimoto has been working with White House Executive Chef Cris Comerford and Executive Pastry Chef Susan Morrison on the menu, a celebration of American cuisine with Japanese touches. The first course, Toro Tartare and Caesar Sashimi...

IT HAS BEEN the hallmark of socialism in Venezuela: free, high-quality medical care. Late President Hugo Chávez changed the constitution to guarantee such right to all Venezuelans. But that same health care system is now crumbling under the weight of an economic crisis, causing a severe shortage of normal medical care and many avoidable deaths. Venezuela has grown increasingly alienated from the United States and its Central American neighbors, but its political estrangement doesn’t justify the lack of urgency from the international community. Although many places call out for medical intervention, Venezuela’s growing medical collapse deserves a significant dose of...

Last week I visited Washington, D.C. for some meetings. As I flew into Reagan National Airport we took the flight path that brings you over the city from the northwest. Out of my window I was able to take in the magnificent view looking along the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol Building. As a retired soldier, it gives me great pride knowing that those symbols of liberty, freedom and democracy were defended by the service, sacrifice, and commitment of our service members. Then reality sets in as I pondered what this great city has become....

".....Even as he shifts to the right, however, Walker, a preternaturally careful candidate, is avoiding any explicit suggestion that he is the champion of disaffected white voters. Still, key policy positions — particularly his changing stance on immigration and his attacks on public sector unions — reveal a carefully directed appeal. In 2011, Walker successfully sponsored legislation repealing most collective bargaining rights for government employees. Walker’s anti-union initiative has made him a folk hero to conservatives concerned about what they see as the expanding power of government. In a recent paper, “The Whiteness of Wisconsin’s Wages,” Dylan Bennett, a professor...

Science, modern science that is, has engulfed nearly our entire gaze. It has become the transparent self-effacing tableau on which we experience the world, the glasses we wear to judge the truth, the standard we hold against our experience. Self-obvious to most, the material, quantitative vision of the Universe that has developed since the so-called Enlightenment has become both the largest bludgeon wielded against religion whilst simultaneously being raised as the final stand of “truth”, the last fragile barricade erected by some religious proponents against an unstoppable onslaught. The scientific world machine is so pervasive, so iron cast that it...

In previous essays in this series, I have tried to emphasize that genuine constitutional republican government rests upon a foundation of the rule of law, which restrains government to fulfilling only certain, constitutionally-defined roles. Within legitimate governments, these roles are, in turn, defined by the principles of natural law and should serve to reinforce, rather than to undercut or overrule, the natural rights of the citizens. Our American Constitution was designed by our Founders to operate within this system of limits upon the power of government, as were the governments of the several States through the constitutional stipulations that each...