Free Republic

Monday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claimed former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to testify for the soon-to-be-defunct January 6 Committee because he was going to run for president and did not want to “alienate” the so-called Trump base. “Why do you think he’s wrong when he says Congress has no right to his testimony?” MSNBC host Chris Hayes said. “Because it’s — you know, at its base, the most basic, it’s not about what Congress has a right to — indeed, we do have a right to his testimony,” Schiff replied. “It’s what is his responsibility...

"'The Boss Baby' sequel money is going to go a long way because of Trump," the Baldwin brother says. Stephen Baldwin is a rare Donald Trump supporter in Hollywood, so he knows how polarizing a figure the president can be. Hence, the actor was an obvious choice for a new TV show where he travels across the U.S. talking to Americans about the state of the union nearly a year into the presidency of a former reality TV star. The show, Great American Pilgrimage … The GAP, is one of the more popular ones on RT, a Kremlin-backed network...

Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives, a top scientist believes. Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, believes the growth of internet 'friendships' could effectively 'rewire' the brain. This can result in reduced concentration, a need for instant gratification and poor non-verbal skills, such as the ability to make eye contact during conversations. Baroness Greenfield, former director of research body the Royal Institution, said: 'What concerns me is the banality of so much that goes out on Twitter. 'Why should...

I’ve written a fair amount on parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome (PAS) or parental alienation disorder (PAD). I’ve said before that I’m in no way qualified to give an opinion about whether the behavioral changes displayed by an alienated child fit the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of a discrete syndrome or disorder. But what I do know is that certain parents attempt to alienate children from the other parent and that that effort can result in personality changes in the child. Now here’s an excellent overview of the matter that lay people like me can understand (The Colorado Lawyer,...

We are at a remarkable moment. We have an open, 2,000-mile border to our south, and the entity with the power to enforce the law and impose safety and order will not do it. Wall Street collapsed, taking Main Street's money with it, and the government can't really figure out what to do about it because the government itself was deeply implicated in the crash, and both political parties are full of people whose political careers have been made possible by Wall Street contributions. Meanwhile we pass huge laws, bills so comprehensive, omnibus and transformative that no one knows what's...

Aides report that Obama is toying with the idea of naming defeated rival Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) to the newly created post of “Ambassador to America.” The idea is said to have arisen from the Senator Obama’s “feelings of alienation from a large segment of the population.” “If my administration is to be successful, I’ve got to be able to communicate with the bitter minority that opposed me,” Obama is reported to have said. “Who could be better suited to such a task than Senator McCain? He was able to persuade nearly 60 million of them to vote for him....

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt...

What do Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Noam Chomsky and George Soros have in common? They were/are all radicals, born to Jewish parents, had no Jewish identity and hurt Jews (not to mention non-Jews). The term "non-Jewish Jew" is generally attributed to the Jewish historian Isaac Deutscher, who wrote an essay by that name in 1954. The term describes the individual who, though born a Jew (Judaism consists of a national/peoplehood identity, not only a religious one), identifies solely as a citizen of the world and not as a Jew, either nationally or religiously. Once the walls of Jewish ghettos broke...

As mobile communications and media devices proliferate, the nagging worry frequently goes unchallenged: Gadgets like iPods, cell phones and laptops produce an increasingly disconnected public sphere. This is a familiar critique -- last year, a fellow student expressed in the campus newspaper a similar dissatisfaction with the popularity of MP3 players. He argued that, lost in our private worlds of music, we fail to reach out and connect with one another. Certainly, I wonder about the social impact of new technology -- particularly, the contra...

PENTICTON, B.C.—Hours before a 22-year-old personal banker won a free set of breast implants, elderly churchgoers did their bit to change the minds of 36 contestants ....[Skipping the whole beginning, which was kinda irrelevant] "[I]t's my body and I'm going to do whatever I want," said Tiffany Friesen between celebratory screams and gulps of champagne inside the club. Names of all the contestants, most of whom were 19 or in their early 20s, were taped to a prize wheel for a chance at the $3,000 prize. One by one they filed up on stage in mini skirts and tight dresses...

Forget marital breakdown, high rates of divorce, and the number of children born outside of marriage. Endless discussions about the 'crisis' facing the family distract attention from trends that are likely to have a far greater impact on how we live. The truth is that adults are not only finding it difficult to sustain marriage, but just about all forms of intimate relationships. According to a study conducted by the UK Future Foundation for Abbey National in January 2002, for the first time more people are living alone or in one-parent households than in a traditional family unit - or...