Free Republic

According to Frank Luntz's Fox News focus group, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz won the latest Republican presidential debate. Though hardly a scientific measure in the usual sense, the finding is nonetheless informative and will help shape the race in the closing days before the crucial first in the nation Iowa caucuses. Cruz is battling New York developer Donald Trump for the lead, which probably explains why Trump - who in the past had nothing but kind words for the first-term senator - has finally opened fire on his erstwhile ally. Cruz has become too big a threat to ignore,...

Iranian officials, concerned about selling a flood of new oil exports on the cheap, said they are studying options such as bartering the country's crude for European goods, investing in foreign refineries and changing the benchmark used to price its petroleum. Western sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program are expected to be lifted within days, allowing the Islamic Republic to export its oil freely and do business with the U.S. and Europe for the first time since 2012. The end of sanctions comes at an inauspicious time for oil exports though. Prices for Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell...

A Virginia judge has convicted a 31-year-old daycare teacher this week on child cruelty and assault charges, some two years after she was arrested for running an alleged "baby fight club." Sarah Jordan was initially charged back in 2013 after police say she encouraged 1-year-old children under her supervision at the Minnieland Academy in Woodbridge, Virginia, to fight. According to court records, police also claim Jordan tripped the children, stepped on their toes on purpose, and sprayed them in the face with a water hose.

SOUTHWEST ASIA, January 15, 2016 — U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted five strikes in Syria: -- Near Mar’a, three strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and wounded an ISIL fighter. -- Near Manbij, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle. -- Near Raqqah, a strike struck an...

WASHINGTON DC, January 15, 2016 (C-Fam) As the homosexual agenda has risen in popularity and draws enormous amounts of money, other movements are latching onto it. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, used to track exclusively the presence of racialist hate groups such as the KKK and the Aryan Nations. In recent years, it began to track Christian groups that are critical of the homosexual agenda. ACLU almost went bankrupt in the 1990s, until it adopted the homosexual agenda as a prime issue and wealthy donors along with it. Planned Parenthood has followed this model. In its end-of-the-year list...

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - With two weeks to go until Iowans head to the polls in the first vote of the 2016 primary season, Republican front-runner Donald Trump ramped up his attacks against rival Ted Cruz on Friday, while Jeb Bush scored a key endorsement for his White House bid. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham announced he is backing Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, praising the former Florida governor's approach to national security. "I have concluded without any hesitation, any doubt, that Jeb Bush is worthy to be commander-in-chief on day one," Graham said Friday at a...

Byron York had an interesting piece on Donald Trump that is worth reading. At least anyone who might be interested in the real Donald Trump. Trump appeared in front of the “non-partisan” No Labels group who desperately wants candidates that will “compromise” even though it is never clear what compromises will result in. Donald Trump told this group, "Let me just tell you, the word compromise is not a bad word to me. I like the word compromise. We need compromise, there is nothing wrong with compromise, but it's always good to compromise and win. Meaning, let's compromise and win."...

A town in western Germany has banned male refugees from a swimming pool after complaints of harassment from female bathers and staff -- news that comes as a national poll Friday showed that Germans are becoming increasingly concerned about the country's ability to integrate the huge numbers of asylum-seekers who arrived last year. Markus Schnapka, who heads the social affairs department in Bornheim, said other visitors had complained of sexual harassment by men living in a nearby asylum-seeker shelter. He said none of the complaints were on the criminal level and the pool had agreed the ban would end once...

Under Trump's immigration plan almost all of 11 million illegal aliens (save for a small minority with criminal records) will get to return and get permanent legal status to stay here in America. Trump supports amnesty. On the Kelly File Thursday, Trump's son Eric expressed frustration that the media overlooks this: The point isn't just deporting them, it's deporting them and letting them back in legally. He's been so clear about that and I know the liberal media wants to misconstrue it, but its deporting them and letting them back legally. Eric Trump is right. His father has been crystal...

World oil prices slumped more than 6 percent to below $29 a barrel on Friday, as a further fall in the Chinese stock market and the prospect of an imminent rise in Iran's crude exports deepened fears of a longer supply glut. After closing higher for the first time in eight sessions on Thursday, U.S. and Brent crude futures slumped to new 12-year lows, taking this year's losses to more than 20 percent, the worst two-week decline since the 2008 financial crisis. The slump was not over yet, some analysts warned, as the lifting of sanctions on Iran opens the...

'He’s pro-choice. He’s pro- gay marriage. He’s against traditional values. He’s New York, and he’s got to talk about that.'

a 33-year-old Muslim migrant to Canada, Walid Mustafa Chalhoub, was convicted of 24 charges of sexual assault and extortion against ten teenaged girls in Montreal. He pled guilty yesterday, part-way through his trial. ... Chalhoub would find teenaged white girls, get them drunk and high, have sex with them and film it. Then he'd threaten to expose them, unless they paid him money, or had more sex with him. One 16-year-old victim testified: "He said he could set my house on fire, to think of my family, that he was part of the Mafia. Chalhoub raped more women than Paul...

Apple's board is telling investors to reject a new diversity proposal, calling it "unduly burdensome." The company, like other big tech firms, has been criticized in recent years for being mostly male and predominantly white. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook sang the praises of a diverse workforce. He said diversity is a "readily solvable issue" that can be fixed. But Apple's board of directors opposes a new proposal to increase diversity among its board and senior management. The proposal, submitted by Apple shareholder Antonio Avian Maldonado, would require an accelerated recruitment policy to change the company's organizational makeup. The...

As President Barack Obama prepares for his final year in office, the optimism that greeted his 2008 election - that the nation may finally have begun to divest itself of the racial animosities that separate black and white America - has significantly faded. Rather than an era of progress, the administration of the nation's first African-American president has seen race relations appear to devolve in many ways. Recent history is reflected in a series of names - Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray - that have become shorthand for the understandable perception among many in African-American communities that...

Another move to ban child marriages in Pakistan has fallen at the first hurdle. The bill to prohibit underage marriages has been withdrawn after the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) declared it un-Islamic. The ruling party lawmaker, who moved the bill, withdrew her proposal on Thursday following staunch resistance from the council, which advises the legislature whether or not a certain law is Sharia-compliant. The CII has already ruled the minimum age stipulated for marriage in the Child Marriages Restriction Act of 1929 does not comply with Islamic laws. In May 2014, amid severe criticism from various quarters, the council...

Donald Trump is being accused, along with the entire Republican Party, of being a NAZI who wants to round people up and send them back to their native countries in box cars when all he is doing is promoting a proposal seriously considered by the Senate in 2007. Hillary Clinton equated Republicans with NAZIs Friday. Presidential candidate Clinton, who is facing a possible indictment for violating the Espionage Act, thinks if you want borders and have concerns about illegal immigration then you are a NAZI putting people in box cars. No candidate has proposed putting immigrants in box cars. Trump’s...

When an individual moves far away from the place where he or she may have grown up or lived for years, it means a lot. It’s also meaningful for economists, because migration may be the single best indicator of quality-of-life differences between states. People only move for important reasons, which can include following job and career opportunities, or just looking for a nicer climate or view. The good migration news for Michigan is being considered a “balanced” state in the 39th annual United Van Lines Migration Report: The household mover reports that the number of customers heading out of Michigan...

The poll, once again, shows Donald Trump leading and Ted Cruz in second place. That's no surprise at this point. But it's long been thought that much of this was due to overcrowding of the field — that after many of these candidates drop out, someone like Marco Rubio could consolidate the establishment-friendly vote and ride it to victory. According to this poll, though ... not so much. In a three-way contest between Trump, Cruz, and Marco Rubio, Trump leads with 40 percent, Cruz is in second with 31 percent, and Rubio is far back with 26 percent.

A new lawsuit filed on behalf of several Atheist plaintiffs argues the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. money is unconstitutional, and calls for the government to get rid of it. Sacramento attorney Michael Newdow filed the lawsuit Monday in Akron, Ohio. He’d unsuccessfully sued the government at least twice challenging the use of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Throughout much of his lawsuit,the word appears as "G-d". Newdow claims "In God We Trust" violates the separation of church and state. One plaintiff says his atheism is "substantially burdened because he is forced to bear...

Imagine having an operation without anaesthetic. Before 1846, when the first procedure using pain-numbing drugs was carried out, this was was the norm. Hamfisted and brutal, surgeons cut patients open, cracked bones and tied up arteries while they were completely conscious. Not for the squeamish, a new book contains detailed images from rare surgical textbooks discovered from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The gruesome images show eyeballs pierced, brains being sliced and feet being hacked off – and all without anaesthetic. The book, called Crucial Interventions, was drawn from The Wellcome Collection’s library, and narrated by medical historian Richard...