Free Republic

Every president is entitled to the confidence of the nation that he means well. That includes Barack Obama, even when he retreats to his other home in a universe far, far away. He just doesn't understand what's going on here on Planet Earth, where the rest of us live. Meaning well is not enough. He seems to understand now, after it was explained to him at some length, that America is indeed the exceptional nation that Abraham Lincoln said it is, but not for the reasons Mr. Obama thinks. "The United States of America is the most powerful nation on...

Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Inarritu says he feels sorry for Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump—because Trump’s strong stance on illegal immigration stems “from ignorance.”

Sen. Ted Cruz’s attack on “ New York values” has attracted the ire of a prominent New Yorker: Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In three TV interviews on Friday, the morning after the most recent GOP presidential debate, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, excoriated Mr. Cruz, the Texas senator, for his comments the previous evening. “We’re not judgmental, negative and hostile, the way Cruz was,” Mr. Cuomo told NY1. “In one, 30-second sound-bite, he was offensive to gays, he was offensive to women, he offended 18 million New Yorkers — one of the largest Congressional delegations, by the way, in the country.” A...

After attending last week's Trump rally in Vermont, I wrote: It's assumed by the GOP establishment that once the field narrows Trump will bump up against his natural ceiling. I think the opposite is true. Trump has essentially sat out these stupid ten-man TV debates and then resumed his rise once they're over. If it came down to a four- or three- or two-man race, the man I saw on Thursday night would be a formidable debate opponent. And I don't doubt he could hold his own against Hillary. We got a preview of that last night. Having endured "these...

With less than half an hour until the close, we asked the Atlanta Fed - the most accurate predictor of GDP - which was scheduled to post an update of its Q4 GDP NowCast following today's ugly economic data, if it was was planning on releasing its latest Q4 GDP estimate before or after the close, something it usually does just before noon.

With a close race here between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz hinging on turnout for the Republican presidential caucuses in just 18 days, Trump supporters are taking matters into their own hands with a grass-roots GOTV effort. But Mr. Trump's supporters, many of them new to the process and excited by the billionaire businessman's unconventional run, said they don't have to be prodded to attend the caucuses. Roger Hollingsworth, 22, said he has independently arranged to carpool three van-loads of his Trump-enthusiast friends to a caucus site. "I don't need an extra push," Shane Bohlmann, 47, a real estate investor...

A bid to ban child marriage in Pakistan utterly failed, after the Council of Islamic Ideology declared the legislation “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous.” The bill didn’t even move past the first stage in the legislative process, The Express Tribune reports. It was almost immediately pulled Thursday by Pakistan Muslim League party’s Marvi Menon following condemnation from CII, whose job it is to advise the legislature on whether bills are compliant with Sharia law. In this case, the bill clearly violated Islamic law as tradition holds marriage as acceptable when a girl hits puberty. After CII’s declaration, a parliamentary committee rejected the...

The sixth Republican debate on Thursday showed off a smaller top tier of candidates, who also showed that they’re getting better the more they debate. All of the contenders had their moments, but the main event was Donald Trump versus Ted Cruz, and Mr. Trump won handily with an big assist from "New York values," of all things. The Texas Senator this week said Mr. Trump "embodies New York values" as a way to suggest that the Manhattan businessman isn’t really a conservative. The two are fighting it out to finish first in the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, and...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Astronomers have discovered the brightest star explosion ever, a super supernova that easily outshines our entire Milky Way. An international team revealed "the most powerful supernova observed in human history" Thursday in the latest Science journal. The astronomers used a network of telescopes around the world to spot the record-breaking supernova last year.Super luminous supernovas - extra bright stellar explosions - are believed to be rare. The newly discovered supernova is especially rare: It is more than twice as luminous as any supernova observed to date, including the previous record-holders.At its peak intensity, it is...

Congressional Republicans are sending an early warning to the Defense Department that its plan to close Guantánamo Bay would break the law. "No matter how hard the President wishes it wasn't the case, transferring dozens of dangerous terrorists to any domestic location is illegal," Republican Sens. Cory Gardner (Colo.), Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Tim Scott (S.C.) said Friday. "Moving the detainees to South Carolina, Kansas or Colorado will not lead to even the smallest change in the beliefs or propaganda of radical Islamic terrorists." They added that the President Obama's push to create a "Gitmo North" location within the United...

Apple (AAPL - Get Report) stock will fall to $80 or less in the next few months, according to comprehensive technical analysis. That prediction is based on the same set of analytical tools that yielded this Oct. 2 forecast that Apple shares would rise to the $120 area after hitting an August low of $92.00. The same day that forecast was published, the stock closed at $109. By the end of November, the stock reached the target level and began to roll back down. In that analysis, the decision support engine's algorithms showed that after the stock tested $120, the...

Has Ukraine’s President Poroshenko Forgotten How to Speak Ukrainian? By Damien Sharkov On 1/15/16 at 8:58 AM Poroshenko had bold words for Russia on Thursday but not all of them were in Ukrainian.

A gas leak deep under Los Angeles has been spewing 1.6 million lbs. of methane each day, with no immediate end in sight. The months-long leak in Porter Ranch is already the worst in California's history, and environmental advocates fear it could have a long-term impact on the climate. While methane does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, it traps radiation more effectively, making it a significant contributor to global warming.

Via Reuters: A group of black pastors boycotted Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's annual Martin Luther King breakfast on Friday, over his handling of police killings, and one pastor attended the event but interrupted it with protest chants before being escorted out. A handful of religious leaders joined protesters who blocked one entrance to the Hyatt Hotel where the breakfast was being held, chanting demands that Emanuel step down.But hundreds of Chicago's African-American leaders did attend the breakfast - started in the 1980s by the city's first black mayor, Harold Washington - and the event to honor civil rights leader King."This...

A morsel from the spin room after last night’s debate. Trump is making a prudential argument, I take it, not a legal one since there’s zippo in the Constitution barring senators from holding dual citizenship, which Cruz did until 2014. In fact, Article I explicitly permits someone to become a senator even if they haven’t been an American citizen since birth: “No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that...

Watchdog group Judicial Watch has been trying to squeeze Hillary Clinton’s documents out of the State Department with Freedom of Information Act requests for years. FOIA requests have a way of turning into FOIA lawsuits before any wing of the Obama Administration responds to them. Last Friday, three years after one such suit was filed, the State Department suddenly discovered thousands of previously undisclosed Clinton documents. "This latest find of Clinton records, at this late date, is astonishing," Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton declared. "The State Department waited to last possible moment, as it did with the Clinton emails, to...

Most importantly, the average market drop during the peak to trough of the last 6 recessions has been 37 percent. That would take the S&P 500 down to 1,300; if this next recession were to be just of the average variety. But this one will be worse

Carl Gallups gives opening invocation at packed rally for GOP frontrunner. Carl Gallups hasn't endorsed anyone for president - yet. But the popular pastor and author recently found himself giving the opening invocation at a massive Donald Trump rally in Pensacola, Florida. And Gallups is warning doubters the Donald is the real thing when it comes to fighting for Christians, conservatives and America. "He loves this nation and its heritage," Gallups told WND. "He's the anti-Obama, he's the opposite of Obama. And he's commander in chief material, he has that kind of presence, and he'd be tough on our enemies."...

The Constitution says that to be eligible to be President of the United States a person must, among other things, be a natural-born citizen. Elsewhere it says that Congress is given the power to establish rules of naturalization. It is absurd to think that the passage of time and/or Congress can change the definition of natural-born, as that would effectively give the Congress (or the passage of time) the power to amend the Constitution outside the provisions of Article V of the Constitution. So to establish what WAS meant by natural-born in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted, we need...

CHARLESTON, South Carolina--Seventeen Republican presidential candidates began last year with hopes of becoming their party's nominee. Thursday's debate underscored that there are only four candidates left with a credible chance of winning: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie. The tone of the Charleston debate was set by two heated showdowns at the outset: a birther brouhaha between Cruz and Trump, and a fight between Rubio and Christie over who's a legitimate conservative. Cruz and Trump later clashed over the senator's attack on Trump holding liberal "New York values." Using his well-honed legal skills, Cruz ably turned the...