Free Republic

In an old issue of American Heritage, there was a passage stating that, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Hitler decided to declare war on the USA. In response, his generals recommended ceasing the offensive war against Russia, retreating to defensible lines, and taking the very reasonable military approach -- consolidating their very extensive gains in continental Europe, adding Greece and Spain to the mix, securing northern Africa, and turning the Mediterranean Sea into a "German Lake." Hitler initially agreed to this very reasonable strategy. But within days the Soviets mounted their first winter offensive, on the...

... Abramson recently learned her pay package was not commensurate with that of her predecessor, Bill Keller, and sought parity... “‘She confronted the top brass,’ one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was ‘pushy,’ a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.” [Publisher Arthur] Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some of its generous pay and pension benefits ...

The devastating damage inflicted by one of history’s worst pedophiles began to emerge Thursday as parents in London were informed that a serial sex offender from the U.S. had targeted boys in their school. William Vahey, an American teacher, is believed to have drugged and abused at least 90 students in his care during an unprecedented wave of attacks at schools from Nicaragua to Indonesia. Child-protection experts told The Daily Beast that he had been taking advantage of lax international standards that left thousands of American children vulnerable to attack.

Dear Baby Clinton-Mezvinsky: Welcome to advanced gestation! Since you’re new around here, I thought you’d like to know a little bit about what makes you so special. The reason is, you’re going to live your whole life in make-believe! Do you know the fairy stories about a princess in a castle? Well, you get to be that real-life prince or princess, in a real-life castle where Mommy Chelsea is also a princess, Grandma is about to be crowned Queen, and Grandpa Bill is a retired ex-King with lots of helpful advice on ruling the kingdom ... When you’re a teenager,...

Madonna has detailed how she was raped not long after she moved to New York City at the age of 19, in a revealing account of her life to date. In an article for Harper's Bazaar magazine, the singer said she was forced on to the roof of a building at knifepoint and attacked. The first-person account, which accompanied a fashion shoot, spans Madonna's life from growing up in the US midwest and moving away from home, to her marriages and children. "New York wasn't everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms. The...

A UCLA student burst into tears and launched into a mostly incomprehensible anti-Israel rant on Wednesday after her fellow students voted to defeat a student council resolution aimed at divesting from the Jewish state. UCLA’s student council defeated the boycott resolution by a vote of 7 to 5 following an all-night session, according to the blog Legal Insurrection. Following the vote, one of the divestment measure’s supporters experienced a several-minute emotional breakdown that was caught on tape and uploaded to YouTube. “I’ve never been more f---ing disappointed than today,” the girl wails through tears, as she shivers and rolls back...

Truth in American politics today is often stranger than fiction. A vivid example: a rally organized by the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP last weekend in Raleigh to protest a voter-identification requirement passed by the Republican-majority legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor. The protesters contended that being compelled to produce a photo ID would disenfranchise poor, elderly, and minority voters, rolling back the clock to the Jim Crow days of the racist South. Yet here were the “Important Dos and Don’ts for Marchers.” After noting “This march and rally will be conducted in a peaceful and...

America Is Beautiful, and Coca-Cola is for Everyone

Media analyst Mark Dice has once again documented how many young Americans are completely disconnected from reality, capturing California college students signing a fake petition to imprison all legal gun owners in concentration camps and even to have them executed. “We just want to make sure we disarm the citizens. We can trust the government to be the only ones with guns.” Dice said to students on campus in San Diego, while they unquestioningly signed the petition to “repeal the Second Amendment.”

America is preparing to land a robot on the moon for the first time in four decades. Nasa is looking for private partners to participate in the project that will see a new generation of rovers wandering across the moonÂ’s surface. The American space agency has set up a programme called Catalyst to exploit commercial opportunities offered by the moon. It believes that eventually there will be a market for commercial cargo trips to the lunar surface. "As Nasa pursues an ambitious plan for humans to explore an asteroid and Mars, US industry will create opportunities for Nasa to advance...

TEL AVIV — It is pretty clear now that Secretary of State John Kerry will either be Israel’s diplomatic salvation or the most dangerous diplomatic fanatic Israel has ever encountered. But there isn’t much room anymore for anything in between. This is one of those rare pay-per-view foreign policy moments. Pull up a chair. You don’t see this every day. In essence what Kerry is daring to test is a question everyone has wanted to avoid: Is the situation between Israelis and Palestinians at five minutes to midnight or five minutes after midnight, or even 1 a.m. (beyond diplomacy)?

Your first thought only ... long discourses not requested.

RENTON, Wash. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Richard Sherman wondered if he came to the NFL 20 years too late. The Seattle Seahawks’ All-Pro cornerback wondered if his swagger might have fit better a few decades earlier when that confidence and an unfiltered tongue was perhaps more accepted. “I studied the old school game more than I studied the new school game, and I play it that way. It rubs a lot of people the wrong way,” Sherman said Wednesday. “Giving a true speech after a game, a true passionate speech is old school football. Playing press corner and sitting up there every...

A spokesman for California's health insurance exchange says enrollment action is heavy during the deadline day to sign up for coverage that will start Jan. 1. Covered California set Monday as the sign-up deadline and had no current plans to extend that by another day. The Obama administration announced it was extending the sign-up deadline through Tuesday for the 36 states using the federal health insurance exchange. California runs its own exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act. Agency spokesman Larry Hicks says the enrollment website has been running smoothly with no technical problems and that Covered California was expecting...

On Morning Joe this AM, Willie presented the following chart in an attempt to parlay the Administration line that Obamacare only affects a tiny number of policyholders.

Professor Kevin Blackistone at U Maryland is an ESPN panelist who thinks the Star-Spangled Banner is a "war anthem" and other insults. Video of this jerk follows: Blackistone vid

If you ask journalism Professor Kevin Blackistone what he thinks about the special and controversial Northwestern University football jerseys adorned with an American flag, he’ll tell you the country should nix the playing of a “war anthem” before sporting events and that the NFL has bought into the “mythology” of a fallen soldier that once played for the Arizona Cardinals ...

Amazing. Michael Moore and other panelists spend 10 minutes bashing Christianity but in an attempt to make a point about morality and hypocrisy, Moore actually quotes Jesus but doesn't realize it! Says "some guy once said to remove the plank from your eye ..." See 4:30 for the comment but watch the entire clip for context.

When Viggo Hansen, a county counselor from the Left Party in Sormland, Sweden, tried passing a law that required that men sit down to pee when using the public bathrooms, his motion caused a flood of reactions. Hansen argued when men sit down to pee it is better for public health because it reduces the splatter around the toilets and stops the spread of disease. Hansen is one of many—including the head of the environmental protection agency in Taiwan, Stephen Shen, who also tried mandating such an order—that believe errant urine is bad for public health. They argue that droplets...

Valerie Plame warns the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts that the NSA surveillance program should not just worry terrorists, but all of us.