Free Republic

Wow, indeed. When this cycle began, Hillary Clinton tried running to her Left and away from Barack Obama and his administration, hoping to pre-empt Bernie Sanders and co-opt the progressive populism that has seized the Democratic Party’s primary fight. Clearly that effort has not succeeded, so Hillary appears to have decided to offer herself as the third Obama term as well as the third Clinton term. In fact, she went so far Tuesday night as to declare herself wowed by a suggestion that she keep Obama in Washington for a lifetime — as a member of the Supreme Court:...

Video at link. Under-card debate starts at 7pm EST, 4pm PST. Main debate starts at 9pm EST, 6pm PST.

The Russian economy's heavy reliance on energy, plus Western sanctions imposed because of Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict, have left the country in its worst financial position since the depths of the global financial crisis eight years ago...About half of Russia's annual budget relies on revenues from its prodigious production of oil and gas,...

A network of political groups from across the Northwest issued a call Thursday morning for supporters to flood into Burns. The request for help came on the heels of the Wednesday night arrest of Jason Patrick, a Georgia roofer who had emerged as a leader among the remaining occupiers to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after the takeover's key planners including Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne, were taken into law-enforcement custody. Bundy, Payne and several others were arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop in which occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum was killed. The deadly confrontation happened as Bundy and the others...

Europe, whose economic struggles have grown that much greater with recent problems in crucial markets like China and Russia, is rushing to do business with a newly accessible and eager, if still problematic, partner: Iran. With the lifting of sanctions after its nuclear deal with the West, Tehran has gone shopping this week, bringing its checkbook and a long list of items it had been unable to acquire for years. Despite lingering animosities and the United States' designation of Iran as a sponsor of terrorist groups, European governments and corporations have made it clear that economic opportunity is going to...

Carolina, who lives on the vertiginous hills of a Caracas slum, says she fell pregnant with her third child last year because birth control pills went scarce. When the mosquito-borne virus Zika - linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil - started to spread through the Americas the homemaker, now seven months pregnant, set out to protect herself. But repellent is also running short in crisis-hit Venezuela. And as water cuts are frequent in the slums, people keep reserve jars in store at home, a potential breeding ground for mosquitoes. "I keep the doors closed. I...

Tennessee`s Republican primary is down to a race between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, with Trump holding an advantage but many party voters still undecided, the latest MTSU Poll shows. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders, but her statewide disapproval ratings are the highest of any top candidate on either ticket.

Clint Van Zandt served in the FBI for 25 years, including about six as the agency's chief hostage negotiator. He was involved in many major negotiations, including with David Koresh, the leader of the so-called Branch Davidians, whose compound near Waco, Texas, was the focus of a 1993 siege by federal agents, which ended in the deaths of more than 80 people. Since retiring from the FBI, Van Zandt has run a corporate security firm. He spoke to High Country News by telephone from Virginia on Wednesday and Thursday. As of early Thursday, the FBI had arrested 11 people and...

A story published by Crain’s Detroit Business joins the legion of media reports giving a sympathetic ear to local government and school officials condemning a new law restricting their ability to use taxpayer resources to electioneer in favor of tax hike proposals during the 60 days before an election. For example, Crain’s reports: “Michigan law already made it illegal for cities, school districts and other public bodies to advocate a position on a ballot issue. The bill Snyder signed also rules out the sending of factual information. And that’s what has municipal leaders so concerned.” The story then quotes one...

Mysterious illness causes fainting and panic, forcing American Airlines flight to turn around By Peter Holley January 28 at 3:44 PM An American Airlines plane was forced to turn around Wednesday when multiple people on board the London-to-Los Angeles flight were struck by a mysterious illness. Passengers on the plane became fearful after one flight attendant collapsed and rumors of airborne contamination spread throughout the cabin, according to accounts from several people on board. The plane was in the air for more than two hours and was flying close to Keflavik in southwest Iceland and when it turned around and...

India will take up with Pakistan the issue of air intrusion by a huge balloon which was shot down by a Sukhoi-30MKI after it was detected coming from across the border into the Barmer region of Rajasthan by IAF radars on Tuesday morning. Though the "commercial" balloon manufactured by a US company did not contain any suspicious payload like sensors and cameras or any explosive material, sources said it could have been used to probe Indian air defence capabilities. It's a standard military practice to fly aircraft, helicopters, drones and the like near a border to test an adversary's sensors...

“They’ve been contacting me now,” Mr. Bohlmann, 47, a real estate investor in Denver, Iowa, said Thursday. “I would say a couple times a week I get calls.”

In the wake of the New Year’s Eve Groping Jihad in Cologne, a group of women decided to do their part to help solve the crisis… by fighting against German “xenophobia”. They went around handing out roses to culture-enrichers, while getting it all on video to make sure no one missed their virtue-signaling.

<p>To woo a new supermarket to South Los Angeles, city leaders offered up roughly two acres of city land for a single dollar - and proposed to sweeten the deal with $750,000 in federal funds to spruce up the site.</p>

The Republican presidential primaries have been chaotic thus far. And the chaos could continue. Nearly a third (31 percent) of likely GOP caucus goers say they could change their vote before Monday, according to a fresh survey from Public Policy Polling. The new data suggest that “there are still a lot of votes on the table," PPP wrote in a release accompanying the results. What the numbers imply, though, is a mixed bag. On the one hand, Trump may be insulated from such fickle caucus goers, as 80 percent of his supporters say they're "firmly committed to him". Compare that...

To many outside observers, the wave of seasoned Republican officials and strategists sounding increasingly comfortable with Donald Trump as the GOP’s presidential nominee is a sign of surrender. Whether it’s Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad rooting for Ted Cruz to lose the Iowa caucuses or Orrin Hatch “coming around a little bit” on Trump’s candidacy or the paucity of money spent attacking Trump on the airwaves, it feels like official Washington has sided with Trump over Cruz. In reality, many are trying to salvage the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (or any other more-mainstream alternative), and are betting that it’s easier...

The recent raids by immigration agents could be keeping undocumented immigrants in Flint, Michigan from opening their doors to government workers who have been going from home to home to give out bottled water and distribute crucial information. A series of immigration raids on Jan. 2 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, targeted Central Americans who had outstanding deportation orders. Though only 121 mothers and children were targeted in the raids, it caused widespread panic in Latino communities for weeks afterward. Immigration advocacy groups advised people without legal documents not to open their doors to prevent agents from entering...

The U.S. now believes North Korea might have attempted to test components of a hydrogen bomb on January 6, after further review and analysis of the latest intelligence information. A U.S. official directly familiar with the latest U.S. assessment said there may have been a partial, failed test of some type of components associated with a hydrogen bomb. The assessment comes after careful examination of the latest intelligence analysis of the test data. But the official emphasized there is no final conclusion. ... That analysis shows the test was conducted more than two times deeper underground than originally assessed --...

If elected, she would slog her way through the usual political muck, hoping to realize a progressive vision through a series of hard-fought, incremental victories. But lurking behind this argument about the future is a dispute that's really about the past. It's a debate over what Obama accomplished in office -- in particular, how significant those accomplishments really are. And it's been simmering on the left for most of the last seven years. On one side of this divide are activists and intellectuals who are ambivalent, disappointed or flat-out frustrated with what Obama has gotten done. They acknowledge what they...

President Obama signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday creating a White House task force on cancer, the first step in what Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has called a "moonshot" to cure the disease, administration officials said. The president appointed Mr. Biden to lead the panel, which will include representatives from at least 13 government agencies. The group's first meeting will be on Monday, officials said. The emotional power behind the push will come from Mr. Biden, whose son Beau died last year after a battle with brain cancer. This month in his final State of the Union address, Mr....