Free Republic

Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young white adults in the United States to levels not seen since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago — a turn of fortune that stands in sharp contrast to falling death rates for young blacks, a New York Times analysis of death certificates has found. The rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it. The...

The Iowa Caucuses are unique. In a recent piece I wrote last week for Breitbart News I explained what makes the First in the Nation Caucus state unique. The Iowa Caucuses, unlike a primary where you can vote all day, are party-organized meetings....

After the GOP debate last Thursday night the big issue was "New York Values" and the next day it looked like New Yorker Donald Trump had dealt with the issue by invoking the shades of the fallen 9/11 heroes. But now it all comes clear to me. "New York Values" is how Ted Cruz intends to take the air out of Donald Trump's balloon. It's obviously a strategic decision that the Cruz campaign has thought long and hard about. They intend to flood the airways with negative ads showing that Donald Trump is, at heart, just a New York liberal...

Two weeks ago, I assumed that - as candidates such as Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich floundered - the GOP establishment would migrate to Marco Rubio and then Ted Cruz before coalescing around Donald Trump if and only if he emerged as the inevitable nominee. I may be wrong. Simply put, I keep underestimating establishment distaste for Cruz. In conversations with establishment figures I respect - people who love this country and have nothing substantial to lose from either a Trump or Cruz presidency - I'm detecting a preference for Trump. Erick Erickson has written that this preference...

Following the Thursday GOP presidential debate, the campaigns are trying to make the most of their gains and minimize their problems coming out of feisty face-offs with their rivals. Donald Trump is continuing to bash Sen. Ted Cruz over his "New York values" slur; Cruz responded with a snarky dig at liberal politicians, which was non-responsive considering his crack was about the values of New York. More forcefully, Trump is keeping the flap going about Cruz's Goldman Sachs and Citibank loans, telling Jake Tapper, "How are you going to be president if you didn't know about a million-dollar loan from...

Conway, N.H. - Ted Cruz says the Republican presidential primary has reached a "new phase." He's acting like it, too. Less than a month ago, the Texas senator was predicting the contest would narrow, as it typically has, to a two-man race between a conservative and an establishment favorite. But it turns out 2016 may have surprises in store even for Ted Cruz. On Monday afternoon, as his campaign bus barrels down the highway here, Cruz appears to be surveying an altogether different landscape from the one he'd anticipated: Instead of a potential showdown with Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush,...

GERMANY was rocked by yet more migrant sex attack allegations today after it emerged one refugee told his victim she was “just there for sex” as he groped her whilst another group STONED two women in the street. Horrific details of another bout of sex attacks allegedly carried out by recently arrived refugees provoked more fury across the country tonight as calls to clamp down on mass migration continued to grow. Police reports from the city of Dortmund released today claimed that a recently arrived refugee told one young woman that German girls are “just there for sex” after he...

Pretty much everybody I know now believes Trump's special guest in Iowa tomorrow night is now going to be Sarah Palin.

A 2012 rule change made to help the establishment may come back to bite the party if Donald Trump does well in key states. Charleston, South Carolina - Every presidential election, the Republican Party's elected leaders get together to agree on rules over how to run their national convention. Their internal debates-usually hashed out behind closed doors over byzantine, obscure issues-rarely draw attention. But this year, a rule-tweak from the last election cycle intended to boost the Republican establishment just might backfire on them and end up helping someone many see as Republican enemy #1: Donald Trump. It started in...

After months of facing minimal opposition advertising, Donald Trump could confront a choppy final two weeks before the Iowa caucuses as allies of Ted Cruz mount a major assault. Keep the Promise I, the leading super PAC behind the Texas senator's presidential bid, told the Washington Examiner on Monday that the digital ad it unveiled targeting the New York celebrity businessman "will likely go on TV in the near future." Meanwhile, the new spot is being jointly pushed as well via the digital networks of the group's sister pro-Cruz super PACs: Keep the Promise, Keep the Promise II and Keep...

https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/bracken-the-alienork-way/ The Alienork Way My name is Naku. This is the story of my people, who live on the great Island of Plenty. Our island is so vast, and the need for travel so small, and it being very difficult to cross the high mountain ridges, people most often live near where they are born. Food is easy to grow or to pick everywhere and at all times of the year, and there are plenty of fish to catch as well. But from time to time a traveler might visit, sometimes by boat, and sometimes by climbing over the sharp-topped...

Grateful Dead playing at the Giza Pyramids in 1978. The "Blues for Allah" era.

How sucking up to The Donald for months has backfired on the Texas senator... ...In August of last year, I described Cruz's behavior toward Trump as feeding the alligator in hopes that it eats him last. As painful as it is for his fans to admit it, there's only one person to blame for the situation in which Cruz now finds himself and that's Ted Cruz. For six months now, Cruz has played the role of eager understudy and Trump lickspittle, praising nearly everything that spews from Trump's mouth. Not only did Cruz set a land-speed record racing off to...

Leaflets outlining the benefits of remaining in the EU will appear in millions of letter boxes in England this week as a possible agreement on the reforms demanded by Britain begins to take shape. Some 10 million brochures will be sent around England -- the part of Britain where opposition to the European Union is at its highest -- by Britain Stronger in Europe, the campaign group leading the movement to stay in. Among the mostly economic arguments made in the leaflets are the jobs created by EU membership, greater consumer choice, lower prices as well as the investment coming...

European borders are gradually becoming more opaque, as national governments struggle to come up with answers to the refugee crisis. The Catholic Church has criticized moves to limit the number of refugees entering the country. EurActiv Germany reports. According to the latest opinion polls, 75% of Austrians want the country to stop admitting refugees. Although their choice of words may differ, the two coalition partners appear to be working towards the same goal, namely, reducing the size of the influx of people. Minister of the Interior Johanna Mikl-Leitner (Austrian People's Party) has not minced her words and now has the...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) finally set a confirmation hearing for Eric Fanning, who President Barack Obama nominated months ago to be the secretary of the Army. Fanning will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which McCain chairs, on Thursday. If confirmed by the full Senate, he will make history as the first openly gay person to fill the post. Fanning has served in a number of senior positions at the Defense Department, and he had been filling in as acting Army secretary since he was nominated in September. But last week, the Pentagon announced Fanning was pulling...

Many people are becoming familiar with a common ‘truth-stretching trait‘ of Ted Cruz that appears to be infecting his followers and supporters.

The former head of the "Christian Social Union" party and former Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber delivered an ultimatum to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, demanding reduce the number of refugees in the country until the end of March, 2016. According to Oxu.Az, Stoiber called for the permanent closure of the refugee border with Austria. ...

Rose is back! Formerly the Rose half of the Quinn & Rose Morning Show, she is back on the air and ready for the fight! Catch her on Pittsburgh's 1250 AM The Answer WPGP, from 8AM to 10AM Monday through Friday or via live stream at www.am1250theanswer.com, where you can also get the podcasts. Join us for real no-nonsense conservative talk with a passion that only Rose can deliver! Grab a cup of joe and lets discuss Rose's latest show. Lots of good guests and and a round table discussion on Fridays!!

Microsoft just dropped a bombshell. Older versions of Windows will not be supported on the newest chips from Intel and others. The crux of a statement from Terry Myerson, executive vice president at Microsoft, is that new processors won't run older versions of Windows reliably -- and won't be supported. "Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support," Myerson wrote, in a blog post addressed to "enterprise customers," aka, businesses. So, in the future, don't expect to be able to run Windows 7, for example, on the newest...