Free Republic

In December 1950, Woody Guthrie signed his name to the lease of a new apartment in Brooklyn. Even now, over half a century later, that uninspiring document prompts a double-take. Below all the legal jargon is the signature of the man who had composed “This Land Is Your Land,” the most resounding appeal to an equal share for all in America. Below that is the signature of Donald Trump’s father, Fred. No pairing could appear more unlikely. Guthrie’s two-year tenancy in one of Fred Trump’s buildings and his relationship with the real estate mogul of New York’s outer boroughs produced...

Former New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino argues there will be an outpouring for Donald Trump.

For the first time in NFL history, a black quarterback could be named the sole MVP of the league this year. If Cam Newton can hold off Carson Palmer and Tom Brady, then Newton will become the first African-American quarterback to be named the sole winner of the award (Steve McNair was co-MVP in 2003). One of the things that makes Newton so good is his ability to run. The 26-year-old has rushed for 626 yards in 2015, which leads all NFL quarterbacks. Newton's ability to run and the ability of other black quarterbacks -- like Tyrod Taylor and Russell...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz -- who has surged in Iowa with the help of evangelical voters -- is being criticized by one opponent in the Republican presidential race over his tithing to the church. According to a report at BuzzFeed, based on tax returns released when he ran for the Senate in 2012, "Cruz contributed less than 1 percent of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010 -- a far cry from the 10 percent most evangelical leaders believe the Bible demands." Cruz, who identifies as Southern Baptist, is being challenged for Iowa's Christian conservative vote from a number...

Trying to predict who will be the next president is a sport on Wall Street. Hedge funds and banks spend enormous amounts of money, time and resources on trying to get an edge on who will win. The 2016 president election will dramatically change the asset allocation and exposure of everyone's portfolio. A few elections ago, when I was working on Galleon Group's trading desk, we spent all summer devising a game plan for each of the candidates: George W. Bush and Al Gore. We thought Bush would be great for health-care and defense stocks but Gore would be better...

Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones. Trump's political opinions have wobbled all over the lot. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV star has supported abortion, gun control, single-payer health care à la...

The price tag for implementing President Obama’s executive gun controls is $80 million, Attorney General Loretta Lynch declared during her January 20 testimony before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee. Lynch said the administration will begin pushing for the money in Obama’s 2017 budget request, due next month, according to ABC News, She’s already meeting some opposition. “This subcommittee will have no part in undermining the Constitution and the rights that it protects,” subcommittee chairman Senator Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)68% (R-Ala.) told Lynch. But another Republican lawmaker–Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)– suggested she would support the program to expand of background checks...

The U.K. press are reporting heartening results for the use of adult stem cells to treat relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), including descriptions of “remarkable” improvements and “miraculous” results. Yet this is not hype; these are descriptions from some of the doctors themselves, who treated the patients, made detailed examinations of their progress, and scientifically validated the observations. The results are part of an FDA-approved, ongoing clinical trial, with collaborations between investigators in the U.S., U.K., Sweden and Brazil. The phase 3 trial originally started in 2006, and has been adding patients and observing results since that time. The adult stem...

Audiovisual devices made by AMX for government, education and business users contain a secret backdoor that allows full remote access without detection, security researchers have found. European security firm SEC Consult discovered the hidden backdoor account by analysing an operating system program for user management on the AMX Netlinx NX-1200 AV controller, which is sold in Australia. The binary contains a function named "setUpSubtleUserAccount", which adds a hidden user with administrative privileges, SEC Consult said. Both the account username and password are stored persistently on the AMX NX-1200, meaning if an attacker has this information, they can potentially log on...

When Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to win an Oscar for best leading man in 1963, much of America was scandalised as the actress Anne Bancroft presented him with the award and gave him a congratulatory kiss on the cheek. To many, such inter-racial contact was taboo. Today, when so many of the most successful people in showbiz -- and in all other walks of life -- are of ethnic origin, such a reaction seems grotesque. ... The Academy should not follow the route of positive discrimination, or stipulations on how many nominations should go to minorities. That...

To W., or not to W., that is the question. As Jeb Bush's campaign continues its internal deliberations on how to best publicly deploy Mr. Bush's older brother - if at all - a conference call on Thursday with alumni from the George Bush and George W. Bush presidential administrations yielded yet another clue. "I wouldn't be surprised if we see 43 on the trail in South Carolina" soon, said Dorothy Bush Koch, Jeb and George W. Bush's sister, according to someone on the call.

The conservative writer who organized the big anti-Donald Trump manifesto out tonight, along with three of the writers who signed on, to explain why they do not want Trump as president and do not think he is a great vessel for conservative values. National Review is running a huge anti-Trump manifesto available online later tonight, organized by editor Rich Lowry. The writers include Glenn Beck, conservative media watchdog Brent Bozell, Erick Erickson, Bill Kristol, Dana Loesch, Michael Medved, evangelical leader Russell Moore, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Katie Pavlich, John Podhoretz, and others––for a grand total of 22 major anti-Trump...

WASHINGTON (WJZ)—The D.C. Metro area got a nasty taste of what’s to come this weekend. Chaos on the roads with just an inch of snow last night. If Wednesday night is any indication of what we’ll see this weekend, then you need to start planning ahead and avoid being outside at all costs. On Wednesday traffic at a standstill for miles. Collisions and spin outs, all from an inch of snow and black ice that coated the DC area. It’s an ugly preview of what’s to come this weekend when we’re expected to be pounded with two feet of snow....

To assess how often older patients get unnecessary screenings, researchers reviewed survey data collected in 2012 for almost 150,000 people 65 and older. Some older patients may receive screening for breast or prostate cancer even though the tests aren't recommended because they aren't expected to live long enough to benefit from treatment, a U.S. study suggests. Screening isn't advised for patients with a life expectancy of less than 10 years because even if tests find cancer, it probably won't grow fast enough to kill them before something else like heart disease or diabetes does. ... About 51 percent of these...

Human Skull Found at Former Drambuie Mansion A human skull has been discovered in the grounds of a mansion previously occupied by the chairman of Scotch whisky liqueur brand Drambuie. As reported by the Scottish Daily Record, police have found what is believed to be a woman’s skull at Gogar Mount House, where Drambuie chairman Mary Mackinnon lived until 10 years ago. The property and its 23-acre grounds was also previously owned by whisky distiller Sir Robert Usher in the 1800s. Police expanded their search for any further remains to a nearby golf course and other areas. In particular, a...

A Lincoln County family and Sheriff's Office deputy had quite a scare earlier this month when a two-year-old child ran into a busy highway right in front of a moving patrol vehicle. It was caught the evening of Jan. 9 on a black-and-white dash cam video that shows the child appear out of nowhere on U.S. 101 near Newport's northern city limits before Deputy Jeremy Bautney stopped and scooped him up. Seconds later, a large semi-trailer can be seen passing the deputy and the child. At the same time, the child's family was frantically looking for the child, who left...

Catherine Herridge: "The @FBI was able to recover [Clinton's] deleted emails ... [wipe] was not what I would call a professional standard."

While many GOP primary voters are looking for a stalwart conservative behind whom to throw their support, electability will almost certainly play a large role in how people choose their candidates in the upcoming primaries. So, just who would perform the best in a potential head-to-head matchup against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton? According to a recent Fox News poll, all of the top candidates would defeat Clinton in a national contest:

There's lots of talk today about the possibility of Hillary Clinton being indicted. For the benefit of all 13 of my website followers, here's my quick take on it: Indicting Hillary quickly, or otherwise getting her to give up her candidacy, is the only chance the Dims have to win the White House. They have to get her out of the race, and soon, to get a winning ticket, i.e. Biden/Fauxcahontas on the ballot by November. (Fauxcahontas being Elizabeth Warren, who earned the name by falsely claiming to be of 1/64th or some such fraction Native American.) If they somehow...

Cruz also distinguished himself from Dewhurst with his full-throated support for a border wall estimated by the Department of Homeland Security to cost $7.3 billion, or $6.5 million per mile. Cruz defended the border wall proposal even if it meant expropriating private property—a position that the debate’s moderators, WFAA reporter Brad Watson and Gromer Jeffers of the Dallas Morning News, said contrasted with Cruz’s message of fiscal conservatism. “One of the specific powers and responsibilities of the federal government is to secure the borders,” Cruz said. “Property can be taken with due process of law and just compensation.”