Free Republic

Naomi started letting her daughter walk to school alone when Elizabeth was in the second grade. It was a two-block amble from their East Vancouver home, and eight-year-old Elizabeth knew the way—they’d been going to the school playground ever since she could stand. They went over things like street safety, what to do if a stranger said “hi” and what Elizabeth should do if she ever felt unsafe. Still, for the first few trips, Naomi surreptitiously followed a half-block behind to make sure everything went smoothly until her daughter was walking alone to school and back through their quiet residential...

Will House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement increase the odds of President Trump’s impeachment? Maybe, but Democratic leaders don’t want to talk about it. President Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder and former top Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, among others, want their liberal allies to shut up about impeaching President Trump. They fear that threats to drive the president from office will boost voter turnout – not among Democrats, as some on the left hope, but rather among Republicans. Axelrod tweeted recently: “Dems should NOT commit to impeachment unless & until there’s a demonstrable case for one…. If we “normalize”...

...John Sopko, the head of SIGAR, indicated in Friday’s audit that Taliban terrorists and other jihadists who are killing and maiming U.S. troops are stealing millions of dollars worth of American taxpayer-funded fuel, some of which may originate from Iran...

U.S. troops could continue fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda and would be given explicit new permission to battle the Islamic State — but would not be authorized to attack the capabilities of any nation state, such as Syria — under updated rules of war proposed by a bipartisan group of senators Monday. Led by Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the new Authorization for the Use of Military Force would replace 2001 and 2002 AUMFs that started the war on terror and paved the way for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The commander in chief —...

Harry Anderson, best known for his leading role in the “Night Court” sitcom in the ‘80s, died Monday morning at his home in Asheville, police officials said. Police were called to Anderson’s home before 8 a.m., according to Christina Hallingse, Asheville police public information officer.

(CNN)Scientists in Australia have voiced concern about an apparent outbreak of Buruli ulcer, a flesh-eating disease that usually occurs in West and central Africa. The infectious disease has seen a spike in cases in recent years in several parts of Australia but particularly in the state of Victoria. In a study published Monday in the Medical Journal of Australia, the authors caution that the outbreak of the ulcers, described as an "epidemic" in the study, requires an "urgent scientific response." They report that Victoria is facing a worsening epidemic "defined by cases rapidly increasing in number, becoming more severe in...

Actor James Woods created quite the stir last week when he made what has proved to be a spot on observation about first lady Melania Trump. Responding to weeping late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel insulting the first lady by mocking her Slovenian accent, the outspoken conservative actor tweeted: “If the Trumps were Democrats, Melania would be on every cover of every chic women’s magazine in the world every month.” James Woods ✔ @RealJamesWoods If the Trumps were Democrats, Melania would be on every cover of every chic women’s magazine in the world every month. 6:42 PM - Apr 7, 2018...

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said Monday that Fox News should fire Sean Hannity following the revelation that he is a client of President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Hannity has frequently covered stories about Cohen — including the FBI raids on the New York lawyer's home, hotel room and office last week — without revealing his own connection. “I think he is so into this like a pig in the mud he can’t get out of it. And I think he deserves to be fired. His word can never again be trusted,” Connolly said on CNN. Connolly said Hannity’s involvement...

There's an odd dichotomy playing out in our politics in which the conventional wisdom -- prodded by wild current events, history, developments like this and a pattern of off-year and special election results -- is sliding in one direction (a blue wave), whereas public polling has been moving in the opposite direction. Last week, we brought you Quinnipiac's latest national survey, which confirmed a downward trend for Democrats. Their 'generic ballot' lead over the GOP had tightened from ten points to six...to just three. That outcome wasn't too much of an outlier, we argued, and now a few brand new...

"Erdoğan has cynically referred to these students as 'terrorists,' vowed to expel them from Boğaziçi University, and to deny them the right to study at any other university. We have heard this kind of verbal attack from Erdoğan before and it was followed by the detention of thousands of academics, journalists, artists, and human rights advocates." Ankara does nothing to prevent ISIS from selling Yazidi women and children in Turkey; allows unspecified numbers of people to use Turkish territory as a point of entrance into Syria and Iraq to join ISIS or other jihadist groups; hosts and aids Hamas,...

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A federal judge rejected a request from President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a temporary restraining order that would have kept federal prosecutors from reading files seized in raids last week. Judge Kimba Wood said a government taint team can weed out privileged documents, but she left open the possibility an independent third party could play a role at a later time, in the interest of "the perception of fairness." "I have faith in the Southern District prosecutors, that their integrity is unimpeachable," Wood said. Her ruling came at the end of...

Vogue magazine, the arbiter of fashion, couldn't get enough of Michelle Obama. The same has not been true of Melania Trump. The New York Post observes: Magazines are showing no love for Melania Trump. The internet was in a tizzy last week when actor James Woods pointed out via Twitter that the first lady hasn’t been a muse for the magazine industry since her husband, President Trump, took office. Woods tweeted: “If the Trumps were Democrats, Melania would be on every cover of every chic women’s magazine in the world every month.” The tweet, which was accompanied by an old...

Jonah Goldberg has a new book coming out next week and today National Review published a lengthy piece adapted from the book. There’s a tremendous amount to unpack in this piece so I won’t even try to do it justice in a single blog post, but there is an idea here that really struck me as insightful and worthwhile: Conservatism is a form of gratitude. There’s a foundation to this idea. According to Goldberg, we’re living through a historical “miracle” brought about by the triumph of liberal-Democratic capitalism. On any longer time scale, Goldberg points out, our current lives are...

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2016 election but lost out to Hillary Clinton, on Monday criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his policies. "As someone who believes absolutely and unequivocally in Israel's right to exist... we must say loudly and clearly, that to oppose the reactionary policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu does not make us anti-Israel," Sanders told the annual conference of the J Street organization. He took issue with Israel’s response to the recent riots along the border with Gaza, claiming Israel "massively overreacted" to the protests. "The presence of Hamas members...

The Turkish government is using Pastor Brunson's detention as a bargaining chip. In exchange for his freedom, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had demanded the return to Turkey from the United States of self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen, a political opponent, whom Erdogan claims was behind the failed coup against him in the summer of 2016. "They are treating the U.S. government with contempt and paying no price for it." — Pastor Andrew Brunson, March 17, 2018. Turkey -- a NATO member holding an American political prisoner hostage -- has so far faced no consequences. An American Pastor, Andrew Brunson,...

Sponsors who left Fox News star Laura Ingraham’s show at the behest of teen gun control activist David Hogg are missing out on a 20 percent increase in eyeballs. The conservative author of “Shut up and Sing” lost nearly 30 advertisers since a boycott against her show launched March 29, but those who held firm are benefiting from a ratings windfall. Data compiled by the media watchdog News Busters shows a jump from 2.23 million viewers prior to Mr. Hogg’s campaign to 2.7 million since her return from a vacation.

"Conservatism has all-too-often found itself unable to articulate a coherent positive doctrine. By this I mean specifically that the laudable conservative tendency to preserve the best of past has too-often manifested itself in a series of "thou shalt not" statements, instead of laying out a manifesto of fundamental values that might serve to unite people around a set of common ambitions. I am attempting to rectify this problem with this statement of principles, some of which I believe might have the additional virtue of being attractive to young people, looking for mature and forthright purpose and responsibility. I am not...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s former speechwriter has claimed he used to declare, “domination!” and “companies over countries” during company meetings. Kate Losse, who worked as Zuckerberg’s speechwriter and blog writer between 2009 and 2011, claimed in an article for Vox that the Facebook CEO would “raise his fist with a slight smile and say, ‘Domination!’ as a way of closing out our weekly Friday all-hands meeting.” “The idea of ‘domination’ seemed as much a half-serious, half-joking fantasy as a hard-set mission,” declared Losse, who added that eventually, “the idea of domination started to become plausible.” “My worry began to deepen...

SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A Michigan gym patron looking for a WiFi connection found one named “remote detonator,” prompting an evacuation and precautionary search of the facility by a bomb-sniffing dog. The Saginaw News reports nothing was found in the search Sunday at Planet Fitness in Saginaw Township, about 85 miles (140 kilometres) northwest of Detroit.

The prosecutor is overreaching. The American people elected our president based on his politics, not his personal life.” Sound familiar? I’ve heard all of this before. Every charge above came directly from the liberal playbook defending President Bill Clinton two decades ago from the Ken Starr investigation. I was there. I’m a witness. Every liberal friend and colleague I knew back in 1998 used these words and phrases. But it wasn’t just average everyday liberals. It was liberal celebrities and high-profile Democrat politicians, too. I know. I was a regular guest on Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” back in the late...