Free Republic

As of December 2012, the total population of the United States -- including members of the Armed Forces stationed overseas -- equaled 315,255,012, according to the Census Bureau's estimate. At some time during 2012, according to a study the Congressional Research Service published last month, approximately 134,800,000 people qualified for one or more of "nine major need-tested benefit programs" and approximately 106,000,000 actually received benefits from at least one of them. That means about 42.7 percent of the U.S population was eligible for one or more of these government benefit programs at some time during 2012 and about 33.6 percent...

january 27, 2016What Trump Plans to Do During Tommorrow's GOP Debate by VERONICA STRACQUALURSI Donald Trump has not yet changed his mind. The GOP presidential front-runner announced yesterday that he will not participate in tomorrow's Fox News debate. "I'm not going to do the debate. I'm going to have something else in Iowa," Trump said yesterday. Tomorrow's debate is the last one before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. Instead of appearing on stage with his presidential competitors, Trump said he will host an event for veterans in Des Moines, Iowa, during the debate. "He will...raise money for the Veterans...

Beware the latest nasty virus sweeping the East Coast, particularly the most elite citadels of New York City and Washington, D.C. It is a fast-moving, highly contagious disease that attacks the nervous system. Early stages include inexplicable, fast eye-blinking, light palsy, stammering and overbearing snobbery. Sometimes redness of the face and shortness of breath accompany. ........ While researchers are still confounded about almost everything about DTDS, they do believe that early detection could be vital. Here are symptoms and remedies they recommend: The disease-stricken often say things like, "He is Hitler!" It is best to calmly explain to the person...

Democrats should encourage former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to run for president. She would be a far better choice for president than Hillary Clinton who would never have gotten any place in politics if her husband Bill hadn’t served as President of the United States.

CV cannot remain on the sidelines any longer. As Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the 2016 nomination process, we owe you our thoughts. While we are not officially endorsing a candidate at this time, we believe it is important to share some critical thoughts on the race, or at least on one candidate in particular. As Catholics, we are called to participate in the democratic process. The Church does not endorse candidates for public office. That job rests with us, the laity. No candidate is perfect, and no simple checklist is sufficient. Prudence is a necessity. Some...

Incremental change simply will not do. The world is changing too quickly and dangerously for a hesitant successor or one that fails to recognize that the entirety of Obama’s foreign policy must be rejected from the outset.-snipCruz ..... isn’t in politics to make a deal. He is in politics to make a difference.Cruz opted out of a lucrative career in the private sector because he believed that it was more important for him to serve his country. Over his four years in the Senate, Cruz has worked tirelessly to block Obama’s domestic and foreign policy agenda. He has been Israel’s...

Oil prices surged by midday on Wednesday on comments from Russian officials hinting at possible coordination with OPEC on production cuts in an effort to arrest the decline in prices. The day didn’t start off on such a positive note. The EIA reported a massive increase in oil storage levels – a jump of 8.4 million barrels last week. Inventories are at their highest levels in at least 80 years. That pushed oil prices down in early trading on Wednesday.

A 17-year-old girl who was physically and sexually attacked in Sønderborg will herself face charges for using pepper spray to fend off her assailant. The teenager told police that she was attacked in central Sønderborg on Wednesday at around 10pm by a dark-skinned English-speaking man. She said the man knocked her to the ground and then unbuttoned her pants and attempted to undress her. The girl was able to save herself from further assault by using pepper spray on the attacker, but now she may be the one who ends up in legal trouble. “It is illegal to possess and...

HUMBLE, Texas - The DeLorean is going back to the future and into production. We first saw the iconic time machine three decades ago in the movie, "Back to the Future", but the last time a real DeLorean was built was about 35 years ago. Soon that will change at the DeLorean Motor Company in Humble, Texas. "It's fantastic. It is a game-changer for us. We've been wanting this to happen," DeLorean CEO Stephen Wynne said. "That was a green light to go back into production. That was prohibited. It was against the law to do it." Wynne brought the...

As the war between Fox News and Donald Trump ratchets up, Roger Ailes is fighting off criticism from his senior executives over his handling of the crisis. According to one highly placed source, last night, Ailes sent out the now-famous statement mocking Trump as being scared to meet with the "Ayatollah" and "Putin" if he became president. "That was Roger 100 percent," the source explained. "A lot of people on the second floor" -- where top Fox executives work -- "didn't think it was a good idea."

Transatlantic relations What Donald Trump learned from his German grandpa Friedrich Drumpf Want to understand the phenomenon called Donald Trump and his surprising rise to the top of the Republican presidential field? Then you'd better check out his German roots, Trump biographer Gwenda Blair tells DW.

For more than 30 years, Joel and Ethan Coen have created droll spins on classic genres, from the fresh noir of their first film, “Blood Simple,” to the intense newfangled western of “No Country for Old Men” and the goofy, musical Depression-era “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” The Coen brothers’ love of movies finally takes center stage in “Hail, Caesar!” Set in early-1950s Hollywood, the comedy follows a fixer at the fictional Capitol Studios (Josh Brolin) who tries to retrieve a kidnapped star (George Clooney). But the film, which opens Feb. 5, is driven by five wildly varied movies-within-the-movie that...

BLOOMFIELD, Iowa - James and Brooks Schooley are raising a young family in this tiny Iowa community. They support Ted Cruz and brought their kids to an old church near the Bloomfield town square to hear the candidate, along with Iowa Rep. Steve King and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The Schooleys like Cruz's faith and his fealty to the Constitution. But their choice is also shaped by their wariness of the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump. "He's not principled," James Schooley told me, referring to Trump. "He just goes by emotion." "I feel like he doesn't stick to the Constitution...

BERLIN (AP) -- The German government on Wednesday banned a far-right Internet platform that it accused of spreading "racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-Islamic content," and federal prosecutors said two people were arrested. The ban on the Altermedia Deutschland platform is "a clear sign that the rule of law doesn't allow hate crime," Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. The prosecutors' office said that two Germans, identified only as Jutta V. and Ralph Thomas K. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested on suspicion of founding a criminal organization and incitement. Three other suspects weren't arrested. Raids were conducted...

When Ronald Jackson found a text he thought was rude and inappropriate on his then-12-year-old daughter's phone in September 2013, he took the cell away. But the child's mother, Michelle Steppe, balked at his action -- and she called the police. Steppe and Jackson have not been a couple for years, and Steppe is now married to a Grand Prairie, Texas, police officer. When the police showed up at Jackson's door later that day and asked for the iPhone 4 back, Jackson refused. "At that point I decided the police don't interfere with my ability to parent my daughter," he...

A sneak preview of what you'll hear from Cruz on Thursday night in the highly unlikely event that Trump doesn't show. You'll find all the points you'd expect in the clip below: Trump is snubbing Iowans by skipping the debate; Trump is too mercurial to be president; Trump is afraid to defend his record from Cruz; and the ever-popular "I'll debate you one-on-one anywhere" challenge that’s never worked in all of political history. Depending on how daring Cruz wants to be, you may hear a variation on this point on Thursday night too. Reaaaaally iffy to attack Trump for doing...

Eight Hamas members are missing after heavy rains caused a tunnel to collapse, AFP reports. The tunnel was located in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip. "The resistance tunnel collapsed last night due to the weather and flooding," said a security source. He added, "There were 11 resistance men inside. Three of them escaped in the first hour after the accident, but the security operation... continues to search for the eight others." Jabalia is located about six kilometers from the Nahal Oz kibbutz...

I'm honored to be with you today at Faneuil Hall, where American history has been made over the course of almost 300 years. I was thinking this morning – as I wasn't shaving – that I've been speaking for Massachusetts Citizens for life for 30 years. Today, I want to talk to you about the latest threat to life – which is called assisted suicide or doctor-assisted suicide. Proponents think that hitching the word "doctor" to death-on-demand will somehow sooth skeptics. I mean, if your doctor is helping you, how bad can it be? But when a similar proposal was...

In the 16th century, Daniele da Volterra was mocked by contemporary artists for agreeing to paint loincloths on Michelangelo’s nudes in the Sistine Chapel. Italian protocol officials must now know how da Volterra felt. Italy’s opposition leaders, commentators and media grew increasingly vocal in their criticism on Wednesday of ancient nude statues being covered by white boxes in Rome’s city hall and museum complex for a visit by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani. Italian newspapers ran photographs of the boxes on their front pages and even the minister of culture called the decision “incomprehensible.” He suggested a different venue could have...

Trump’s refusal to participate in Thursday night’s debate as long as Kelly is moderating smacks of sexism. She doesn’t call herself a feminist. “But every so often, as all [women] know, you have to stop and slap somebody around a little bit who doesn’t understand that we are actually equals and not second-class citizens,” Kelly said in the article. When Kelly returned to Fox News Channel from maternity leave in 2011, she challenged on her show the conservative radio host Mike Gallagher, who had called her three months off with her baby a “racket.” “I want you to know that...