Free Republic

Seasoned conservatives celebrated when Ted Cruz announced his bid for presidency. Mr. Cruz is the Tea Party's favorite candidate and he is despised by liberals. Ted Cruz refuses to set aside his belief in traditional values to appease "moderates" and "swing voters". Ted Cruz knows that we need to look to our freedom loving, Christian past to get this nation back on track. The sad thing is that Rand Paul also announced he will run. Mr. Paul is one of these "libertarians". Even the word itself, "libertarian" sounds too much like liberal. Rand Paul is liberal on social issues such...

Star Wars 7 - Coming December 18th.

Ten days ago, the real-estate investor Ian Reisner and his business and former romantic partner Mati Weiderpass — who, among other things, own the Out Hotel on West 42nd Street — had a dinner party at the duplex they still own together on Central Park South. Their guest that night was the vehemently conservative Texas senator and Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, and his wife. Their old friend Kalman Sporn, an advisor to Cruz’s team on the Middle East, was the man who brought them all together, and after the food, they settled into the Art Deco chairs and had...

The race for the Republican presidential nomination will gain three new candidates this week: a retired physician, a former corporate chief, and a former governor and media personality who face long odds of success but who could help shape the primary-season debate and the calculations of front-runners trying to build winning coalitions.

The FDNY for the first time in its history will allow someone who failed its crucial physical-fitness test to join the Bravest, The Post has learned.Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed.“They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training.Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and...

Sometime after 1200 BCE, civilization collapsed, and a dark age prevailed. The Late Bronze Age collapse of societies throughout the Levant, the Near East and the Mediterranean some 3,200 years ago has been a mystery. Powerful, advanced civilizations disappeared, seemingly overnight. Now an archaeologist believes he has figured out what lay behind the cataclysm. The trigger seems to have been the invasion of ancient Egypt in 1177 BCE by marauding peoples known simply as the “Sea Peoples,” as recorded in the Medinet Habu wall relief at Ramses III' tomb. The relief depicts a sea battle (and also carts full of...

“I think we, as a country, have to do some soul searching” about the rioting in Baltimore, President Barack Obama said Tuesday. Bunk. “We, as a country” are not to blame. First and foremost, blame resides with the thugs who looted stores, burned buildings and automobiles, and assaulted police officers and shopkeepers. Next in order of culpability are the politicians whose belated and timid response allowed the thugs to run amok. The conduct of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has been especially appalling. When violence broke out April 25, city officials protected those who protested peacefully the death in police custody of...

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, whose infamous order to police to "give protestors space to destroy," sheepishly apologized to residents who participated in looting stores, burning buildings, and assaulting passersby for using the term "thugs" to describe their behavior. "My use of the word 'thugs' implied that these people were engaged in criminal acts," she said. "I have since been informed that stealing toilet paper, trashing the businesses of owners who had nothing to do with the death of Mr. Gray, and beating up white people foolish enough to venture into the streets were acts of righteous rage." The Mayor maintained...

BOSTON (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Sunday for reversing his position on climate change despite the predictable political fallout that helped cost the South Carolina Republican his seat in Congress. Kennedy's grandson, Jack Schlossberg, presented the award to Inglis on Sunday at the JFK Library in Boston."My grandfather's legacy is kept alive by Bob's courageous decision to sacrifice his political career to demand action on the issue that will shape life on Earth for generations to come," said Schlossberg, son of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg.

As MMOs Continue to Grow Leaving Old Areas Behind, Gaming Archaeology has Risen Up to Explore and Remember their Past.MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars have been going strong for years now continually growing their player base and the areas open to them. They’ve become so large that the games have taken on the same traits as real world cultures. As they continue to grow the community moves to new areas, new hub cities, leaving the old ones behind. Just as real world cities are abandoned and forgotten old hub cities in MMOs are quickly forgotten. Yet...

Question: “Pastor John, what should a church council or board do if one of their pastors asks to officiate a same-sex wedding?” I don’t feel like I can answer that question without dropping one level down. This is so sensitive and explosive and politically agitating that I want to go down to the bottom, and then come back up to the practical question. The practical question is relatively easy once you get the other things, which are not easy, sorted out. The emotional and physical sensations that we call same-sex attraction are disordered emotions and disordered sensations. And that disordering...

just felt a shake here in the east bay...

Prosecutors seeking to convict six Baltimore officers in the death of a young black man severely injured while in police custody will focus not on what the officers did but on what they allegedly failed to do: provide medical attention to 25-year-old Freddie Gray inside a police van on April 12.

Dear Family and Friends, Though you have not confronted me or organized an intervention, I know many of you do not understand why I dislike Obama, vote Republican, and joined the Tea Party. Y'all think, Obama is black, we're black -- so, what is my problem? Dad told me that grandmother, 101 years old when she passed, cried when Obama was elected. I get that and totally understand. Still, I could not go brain-dead and hop on the elect-the-first-black-president bandwagon. As a matter of fact, I was stunned by how alone I was in considering who Obama was as a...

The skier Lindsey Vonn said on Sunday that she and the former world No 1 golfer Tiger Woods have decided to end their three-year relationship. Vonn, an Olympic champion, said on Facebook that she and the 14-time major winner lead “incredibly hectic” lives that had required them to spend most of their time apart. The pair announced their relationship in mutual social media postings in March 2013. There was no immediate word from Woods on the split.

There was a time when libraries had microfilm of old newspapers. I cannot find anything like that today. I am specifically looking for articles published in 1983 and 1984 by the Los Angeles Times.

SAN MARCOS, Texas – A reserve sheriff's deputy is facing aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges after police say he opened fire on a truck driver he thought had cut him off. After nearly 15 years behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler, Frank Collins III thought he had seen it all. He was wrong. "Never seen nothing like this," the 56-year-old said. "It's just too far-fetched." But what the Fort Worth man experienced late Sunday night actually happened, according to San Marcos police. Collins was driving along an Interstate 35 frontage road outside of Austin when he says he...

Rising immigration from the 1820s to the Civil War drove down wages for free black Americans and immigrants alike. Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert's macroeconomic history shows that between 1816 and 1856, the American Northeast was transformed from the "Jeffersonian ideal" to a society more typical of developing economies with marked income inequality and very low wages for laborers. As badly as new immigrants often were treated by established Americans, even worse treatment was meted out to black Americans by the immigrants. Organizing themselves into trade unions, immigrant laborers helped set the terms of hiring at many urban workplaces. Not...

A survey targeting local low-income families has found that 40 percent of respondents felt they have very little or no job security, according to results being released this week. That kind of instability makes it challenging to commit to car loans, apartment leases and tuition payments – steps often necessary to improving a family’s economic standing. Of those participating in the survey, more than 1 in 2 has received free groceries or meals and about 1 in 4 has needed help with housing, utilities or health care. The 502 responses reflect the experiences of those who continue to struggle in...

Pope Francis weighed in on a thorny topic in California history Saturday when he spoke at length at a Rome Mass about Father Junipero Serra, the controversial California mission founder set to become America's first Latino saint later this year. Addressing an audience that included many American priests, including Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, the pope referred to the 18th century Franciscan priest as “one of the founding fathers of the United States” and praised his willingness to abandon the comforts and privileges of his native Spain to spread the Christian message in the New World. I wonder if...