Free Republic

At the request of the U. S. Presidential Inauguration Committee, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has accepted an invitation to sing at the swearing-in ceremony during the presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol next month in Washington, D.C. On January 20, 2017, the Choir will perform during the inauguration ceremony for President-elect Donald J. Trump and Vice President-elect Michael R. Pence. This performance will mark the sixth time the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has sung at an inauguration. These inaugural events include the official swearing-in ceremonies for George H. W. Bush (1989), Richard M. Nixon (1969), and Lyndon B. Johnson (1965). They...

The former presidential candidate was one of 30 people named to GQ’s “Least Influential People Of 2016” list this week — right next to Anthony Weiner, Tim Kaine and Harambe, the gorilla that was shot after a kid fell into his enclosure at the Cincinnati zoo. The magazine touted the list as a “comprehensive, anger-fueled list of everyone who ruined our year.”

ISIS supporters posted a list of Christian Churches to target for attacks this Christmas season. The list appeared in a recent online post. Vocativ reported: A user going by the name of “Abu Marya al-Iraqi” posted an Arabic-language message calling “for bloody celebrations in the Christian New Year” and announced the group’s plans to utilize its network of lone wolf attackers to “turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie.”

Call it a case of mixed-up metaphors -- but President-elect Donald Trump is renewing his vow to "drain the swamp" after key allies indicated the anti-corruption catch phrase was being ditched. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich initially had told NPR that Trump “disclaims” the phrase and “now says it was cute, but he doesn't want to use it anymore.” But Gingrich tweeted a video message on Thursday admitting he made a "big boo boo" and saying Trump has reminded him he still "intends to drain the swamp." Gingrich wrote, "I goofed. Draining the swamp is in."

Following a one-on-one meeting with Boeing’s CEO, Dennis Mullenburg, on Wednesday over Trump’s concerns that the new Air Force One aircraft were costing too much, Mullenburg said: “We’re going to get it done for less than [the $4 billion price tag], and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens.”The deal, hammered out at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, revealed much about the paradigm shift taking place even before Trump is inaugurated. First, Trump means business. Not inhibited by ties to the military-industrial complex, Trump is recognizing who his employer really is: the American people....

France devotes more than one third of its GDP to providing its citizens with welfare protection, according to new figures. No other country in Europe is as generous. The new figures from Eurostat will give ammunition to right wing presidential candidate François Fillon, who has vowed to dramatically shred pubic spending if elected next May. In the year 2014 France spent 34.3 percent of its GDP on welfare, well above the European average of 28.7 percent. Behind France came Denmark, which dedicated 33.5 percent of GDP on social spending; then Finland (31.9 percent), the Netherlands (30.9 percent). The UK was...

There are so many ways Clinton Anderson could be described, but ***hole doesn’t quite fit the bill. Although he self-labels himself an ***hole, “if your definition of an asshole is someone who tells the truth, speaks their mind, and is direct”, I think it misses the mark. Besides calling himself an ***hole, Clinton Anderson also sits down with his media crew to voice his support for abusing horses, abusing children, ass rape, the death of female riders who annoy him and calling anyone not pursuing competition delusional. I probably missed a few points but he covered a lot of bases.

Actress Lena Dunham says she has never had an abortion, but wishes she had because it’s a sign of “bravery” and “self-knowledge.”

Pope Francis on Thursday told Vatican officials to start appointing women and lay people to top jobs in the Curia, the Holy See bureaucracy that he is seeking to shake up. In his latest broadside against resistance to change in the Catholic Church’s corridors of power, the 80-year-old pontiff warned that the reform process he launched in 2013 had to lead to more than a cosmetic “facelift” or plastic surgery to remove wrinkles. “Dear brothers, it’s not the wrinkles in the church that you should fear, but the stains!” Francis said in his Christmas speech to senior Curia officials. The...

A former Eastern bloc country - that recognizes a totalitarian system - has passed a law which will effectively ban Islam from gaining official status as a religion. Those that have lived under the draconian fist of tyrannical regimes know that fist even if it's cloaked (or burqa-ed) in religion. And they are correct to do so and protect their country form the mayhem occurring in the rest of the EU.I have written ad nauseam, and many better than myself (Pamela Geller, Andrew Bostom, Robert Spencer, Raymond Ibrahim, to name a few) of the true barbaric nature of this ideology.As...

Lots of people are talking about Avery Jackson, a nine-year-old girl from Kansas City who is the first transgender person to appear on the cover of National Geographic. Since we shared photos of the cover of our special issue on gender on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, tens of thousands of people have weighed in with opinions, from expressions of pride and gratitude to utter fury. More than a few have vowed to cancel their subscriptions.

An article published by the China Military Online website on 7 December has provided further insights into the requirements for China's new strategic bomber. Remarks made in the media report by Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo, director of the People's Liberation Army Navy's Expert Consultation Committee, followed on from the confirmation given on 1 September by General Ma Xiaotian, Commander of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), that China is developing a new long-range strategic bomber referred to in the article as the H-20.

Less than a month out from President Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, there is exactly one musician confirmed to be performing, and that’s teenaged national anthem singer, Jackie Evancho, who lost “America’s Got Talent” six years ago. That’s it. Everyone from KISS to Garth Brooks to Elton John, to Andrea Bocelli has turned down offers to perform, and now the situation is dire enough that The Wrap reports the Trump team has making staff changes to make it work. In what was referred to as a “Hail Mary” move, Suzanne Bender, a talent booker for shows like “American Idol,” was hired...

Today we are witnessing the coming of the worldwide caliphate. This expression means that the Muslim view of history is currently prevailing in international institutions. We see it with the Jerusalem Declaration of UNESCO, this palace of revisionism.... The Venice Declaration of 1980, issued by the European Community, which tried to force Israel to survive in an indefensible territory, already prescribed its disappearance and replacement with a people that had never even manifested itself before 1969 -- and all with the assistance of the Soviet Union and especially France. The Islamization of Jerusalem and the delegitimization of the State of...

Last week, I received this email from Rennae: "Dear Larry, "Larry Wayne Lindsey is from Colorado. He has been a staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, who had a big rally on the state capital steps in Colorado, where Larry did security. "Larry is a Marine veteran who served with honor. He has also been battling cancer for about three years. Three days ago, they only gave him the night to live. I fear he won't get to see the inauguration. I am trying to get through a maze of people to see if we can get a call...

Despite keeping their distance in public, the Hillary Clinton campaign reportedly kept in constant contact with the effort from some Democrats to convince members of the electoral college to ignore their state’s vote and decline to vote for Donald Trump. Politico reports that senior members of the Clinton team— including Jake Sullivan and Jennifer Palmieri— kept in touch with the organizers for weeks. They adopted something of a wait-and-see approach, “never fully endorsing the effort, but intentionally declining to stamp it out.” Sullivan was on a November 29 conference call with Colorado elector Micheal Baca, who aimed to flip Republican...

Several days ago, Merkel may have walked on her own into one a potentially career-ending, political traps as she prepares to runs for her fourth term as Chancellor in 2017, when she said has said "it would be particularly repulsive if a refugee, seeking protection in Germany, was the perpetrator" of the Monday Christmas market terrorist attack. Alas, despite having already been slammed by her political opponents, such as AfD's Frauke Petry, who have long claimed that any and all terrorist attacks on German soil are the direct result of Merkel's open door policies (the AfD and other anti-immigrant groups...

So, now, it's 'Port Actress Gets Probation for Sex with Underage Girls'. This is the signal about the excuse for adults declaring sexual open season on any and all children. It was portended in Vladimir Nabokov's 1959 novel 'Lolita', it was the kid's fault, as an at risk child in recovery from neglect and abuse, she was subject to increased risk of sexual acting out, so, she 'seduced' Humbert, so it was her fault.So decades after children had their innocence systematically robbed, the implication of Genesis 19:5, 'Bring them out, that we may know them', that every single man, woman...

Posted today via email. "On Monday, the Social Security Administration released a final ruling on Obama’s Social Security Gun Ban, and it couldn’t be worse . . . They ruled that the entirety of Obama’s anti-gun scheme will go into effect on January 18th, 2016. Just two days before Obama’s last day in office. Just as a recap, the Social Security Gun Ban is an expansion of the Veterans Gun Ban that has already stripped the Second Amendment rights of hundreds of thousands of veterans. This anti-gun power grab will tie the Social Security System into the anti-gun Brady-NICS database..."