Free Republic

A day after endorsing Donald Trump, Sarah Palin failed to appear as expected at a campaign rally for the GOP frontrunner Wednesday morning. Trump supporters in Norwalk, Iowa, had been advised on Tuesday that Trump would appear "with a very special guest" in the wake of the high-profile endorsement by the former Alaska governor.

The Islamic State destroyed one of the oldest Christian sites in Iraq as part of its campaign against ancient sites in the country, according to satellite photographs published by The Associated Press. The monastery of St. Elijah, or Dair Mar Elia, stood for more than 1,400 years above a riverbed south of the city of Mosul, which the Islamic State seized from Iraqi forces in June 2014. The satellite photographs — taken by DigitalGlobe, a private company with headquarters in Westminster, Colo. — showed that the monastery was razed in late August or September 2014, including the site’s square complex...

A native-born employee at Disney who was fired spoke out against abuse in the H-1B visa program, explaining how he was replaced by cheap foreign labor, in a new ad campaign produced by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.Last year, Disney World fired 250 American workers and replaced them with cheaper foreign workers, through the H-1B visa program.One of those displaced American workers was Leo Perrero who said he and his co-workers were shocked and surprised when they heard the news that they were being fired."We thought we were being brought in to be delivered news of accolades, bonuses, and...

Despite freezing temperatures in New York City, dessert lovers are waiting in lines up to two hours long just to get a taste of these "hella insane" milkshakes. The artfully-designed shakes, which are almost a foot tall, sell for $15 at Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, according to the the restaurant's head chef and owner, Joe Isidori.

Every January, Glassdoor publishes its list of the best jobs of the year. For 2016, the top spot goes to data scientist. "It isn't a big surprise to see data scientist at No. 1 this year because it's one of the hottest and fastest growing jobs we're seeing right now," says Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor's chief economist. "Since all companies have an online presence these days, they all need people who know how to manage and store data that helps them make better business decisions, compared to years ago when businesses didn't have data management at their fingertips to review...

Sarah Palin's surprise endorsement of Donald J. Trump in Iowa yesterday has led to inevitable questions about whether Trump had offered, or would offer, her the Vice-Presidential slot on his ticket. Hearing that question put to Trump on TODAY caused me to reflect on perhaps the most consequential, and in my view regrettable, Vice Presidential selection in American political history. In 1980, at the GOP convention in Detroit, Ronald Reagan had secured the votes for a first ballot nomination. His difficulty in settling on a Vice-Presidential choice had led to abortive effort to place Gerald Ford on the ticket and...

The Dow dropped 520 points, or 3.2 percent, to 15,549 as of 12:30 p.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 63 points, or 3.4 percent, to 1,817. The Nasdaq lost 150 points, or 3.4 percent, to 4,325. U.S. indexes are down 10 percent or more since the beginning of the year. Bond prices rose as investors shifted money out of stocks.

Russian Strikes in Syria Hit Area of Suspected Massacre By ANNE BARNARDJAN. 19, 2016 BEIRUT, Lebanon — Russian airstrikes hit Islamic State militants Tuesday in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zour, in the village where the extremist group had been accused of massacring as many as hundreds of people over the weekend, the Russian military said. The strikes, which Russia said had killed at least 60 militants, came as intense fighting continued for a fourth day around the provincial capital, and a resident described seeing bodies of government soldiers who had been hanged, and truckloads of corpses. “I saw...

Just when we were thinking it couldn't get much worse with Hillary's email scandal, an inspector general's unclassified letter to lawmakers tells us the former secretary of state was keeping the most classified of all intelligence material -- beyond "top secret" -- on her homebrew server. Fox News exclusively obtained the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified "several dozen" additional classified emails -- including specific intelligence known as "special access programs" (SAP).

... But at least now we know how we got here. Trump is the price we’re paying for Palin and Coulter and for every other media celebrity on the Right who made a career out of being “outrageous” rather than being ideological coherent. This is what we get for putting personality over ideology. The first commandment of the Right should be, “Place not thy faith in politicians.” The second commandment should be, “Place not thy faith in media celebrities.”...

Montana legislators were able to shut down Democratic Governor Steve Bullock's attempts to expand ObamaCare in Big Sky Country for two years. But in 2015, with the help of Ohio Governor John Kasich and some legislative trickery, Bullock and his pro-ObamaCare allies got their way. A small group of moderate Republicans joined with the Democrats to change the legislature's procedural rules and yanked the bill to the floor for a vote. The bill passed narrowly, making Montana the only state in 2015 to legislatively authorize ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion. (Alaska Governor Bill Walker unilaterally expanded Medicaid in 2015, despite a clear...

The New York Daily News had no qualms with calling Donald Trump “stupid” on the paper’s front page, but these days it can be hard to tell stupid from smart on the campaign trail, particularly when candidates take the debate stage. Where does inept rhetoric give way to shrewdly construed lies?

Wow, talk about a gut punch from a that many of us on the right fell in love with. I would be telling a lie if I said I wasn't hurt. However, as much as it hurts those of us who stood behind her, I see this endorsement hurting Palin more than it helps Donald. If you don't believe me, just peruse her facebook page and see many feel like me. When will people learn that when a member leaves the conservative flock, the flock does not follow them into hell. Just ask Ann Coulter. Since Sarah was chosen...

April 15, 2009 is largely seen as the birth date of the Tea Party movement. Here’s what Trump was saying that day about President Obama: TRUMP: Well, I think he’s sort of a guy that just has a wonderful personality, a good speaker, somebody that people trust. And I also think that the comparison with his predecessor is so different — it’s so huge that it really has made a great impact on people. I think that he’s really doing a nice job in terms of representation of this country. And he represents such a large part of the country....

Turkey objects to Syrian Kurds attending Geneva peace talks Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has expressed opposition to the participation of Syrian Kurdish group the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in peace talks for Syria. On Wednesday British media referenced Davutoğlu, who paid a visit to the UK on Jan. 18 and 19, as saying that the PYD represented a “direct threat to Turkey” and cannot attend the peace talks in Syria, originally planned to be held on Jan. 25. Arbil-based BasNews reported on Monday that officials from the Syrian government and the PYD met in Kamışlı province in northern Iraq. According...

Nobody is going to care if Trump is a meanie to Cruz or had liberal social positions 20 years ago in a couple weeks if the market keeps going down 500 points each day. Watch this slow motion market crash. People vote for the strongest leader in times of crisis. That is going to be Trump going by a mile. He's the only one who has warned about China and the stock market bubble for many months. Abortion, gay marriage......not as important when you are about to lose life savings.

Shortly before Syria peace talks begin, Turkey infiltrates Syria By MAAYAN GROISMAN \ 01/20/2016 17:26 Eyewitnesses to the incursion reported that the Turkish forces have not encountered any resistance from ISIS fighters, which raises the question of possible collaboration between ISIS and Turkey. In what appears to be a well-planned strategic move committed in light of the upcoming Syria peace talks, a large number of Turkish forces crossed the border and entered the Syrian town of Jarablus on Tuesday, according to Turkish media reports. Eyewitnesses to the incursion reported that the Turkish forces have not encountered any resistance from ISIS...

It is 365 days, 23 hours, 41 minutes, 22 seconds until the crypto-Muslim President Obama leaves office. That is: 365 days 8783 hours 527021 minutes 31621282 seconds

I know she has her fans (I was among them once upon a time), but this is just the truth...

Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun.