Free Republic

In retrospect, wrote former GOP strategist Tim Miller for The Bulwark, it was inevitable that Republicans would go down this path. "For about a decade and a half now the governing wing of the party has attempted every strategy imaginable to delay handing congressional leadership power to the group of lawmakers who better represent the desires of today’s GOP voters — the erstwhile renegades the late John McCain dubbed 'wacko birds,'" wrote Miller. "That group has grown from only a handful of troublemakers to a significant bloc of Congress that’s bolstered by an additional group of 'closet normals' who dress...

In a first-look profile of Amazon’s eagerly anticipated The Lord of the Rings TV series, The Rings of Power, the project’s creative team had some words about online trolls who have been outraged that the show will feature a far more diverse cast than Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films. “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of [author J.R.R.] Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” executive producer Lindsey Weber told Vanity Fair, which also published several new photos from the series. “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their...

Pygmy population near cave where Homo floresiensis fossils were found appears to have evolved short stature independently from the mysterious ancient hominins A fossil skeleton found in a cave on Flores Island, Indonesia, in 2004 turned out to be a previously unknown, very small species of human. Nicknamed the "hobbit" (officially Homo floresiensis), it remains a mysterious species with an unknown relationship to modern humans. Intriguingly, the current inhabitants of Flores include a pygmy population living in a village near the Liang Bua cave where the fossils were found. An international team of scientists has now sequenced and analyzed the...

Erectus AhoyPrehistoric seafaring floats into view Bruce Bower As the sun edged above the horizon on Jan. 31, 2000, a dozen men boarded a bamboo raft off the east coast of the Indonesian island of Bali. Each gripped a wooden paddle and, in unison, deftly stroked the nearly 40-foot-long craft into the open sea. Their destination: the Stone Age, by way of a roughly 18-mile crossing to the neighboring island of Lombok. Project director Robert G. Bednarik, one of the assembled paddlers, knew that a challenging trip lay ahead, even discounting any time travel. Local fishing crews had told him...

A routine construction dig has turned up a fossil skull that is giving scientists a better glimpse inside the head of our ancient predecessor, Homo erectus. According to a report published today in the journal Science, the find suggests that the H. erectus population that occupied the island of Java was isolated from other Asian populations and probably made only minimal genetic contributions to the ancestry of modern humans. So far, more than 20 hominid skull fossils have been found at sites in Java. The latest, dubbed Sm 4 (see image), was recovered from the bed of the Solo River...

For the past decade, a fossil human relative about the size of a toddler has loomed large in the story of our evolutionary history. This mysterious creature—found on the Indonesian island of Flores—has sparked a heated debate about its origins, including questions over its classification as a unique species. But now, a scattering of teeth and bone may at last unlock the mystery of the “hobbits,” also known as Homo floresiensis. The 700,000-year-old human remains are the first found outside Liang Bua cave, the site on Flores that yielded the original hobbit fossils. The much older samples show intriguing similarities...

An ancient species of pint-sized humans discovered in the tropics of Indonesia may have met their demise earlier than once believed, according to an international team of scientists who reinvestigated the original finding. Published in the journal Nature this week, the group challenges reports that these inhabitants of remote Flores island co-existed with modern humans for tens of thousands of years. They found that the youngest age for Homo floresiensis, dubbed the 'Hobbit', is around 50,000 years ago not between 13,000 and 11,000 years as initially claimed. Led by Indonesian scientists and involving researchers from Griffith University's Research Centre of...

Diminutive humans that died out on an Indonesian island some 15,000 years ago were not Homo sapiens but a different species, according to a study published Monday that dives into a fierce anthropological debate. Fossils of Homo floresiensis--dubbed "the hobbits" due to their tiny stature--were discovered on the island of Flores in 2003. Controversy has raged ever since as to whether they are an unknown branch of early humans or specimens of modern man deformed by disease. The new study, based on an analysis of the skull bones, shows once and for all that the pint-sized people were not Homo...

The "hobbit" had neighbors. Back in 2004, researchers announced the discovery of this tiny, ancient human, which apparently hunted dwarf elephants with stone tools on the Indonesian island of Flores 18,000 years ago. Its discoverers called the 1-meter-tall creature Homo floresiensis, but skeptics wondered whether it was just a stunted modern human. In the years since, researchers have debunked many of the "sick hobbit" hypotheses. Yet scientists have continued to wonder where the species came from. Now, an international team originally led by the hobbit discoverer reports stone tools, dated to 118,000 to 194,000 years ago, from another Indonesian island,...

John McCain was in a reflective, wisecracking mood Wednesday morning in Washington, but even in his most upbeat moments, he couldn’t find much kind to say about Senate colleague Ted Cruz. The GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee told reporters at a press breakfast that he wanted to “accentuate the positive” in the 2016 race. He tiptoed around real estate tycoon Donald Trump’s steely grip on the Republican presidential primary. When asked about the possibility of Trump becoming the party’s nominee, he emphasized that he’s a loyal Republican. McCain did point out that he had disagreements with Trump. But then, unbidden, he...

Did you know that the Republican Party is only at half strength? “Half strength.” What does that mean? It means that in your voting precinct, where you live, the Republican Party only has, probably, one-half of the local, precinct-level, voting member slots of the Party filled with a warm body. These slots are called “precinct committeeman” in most states. And the reason conservatives have been pretty much impotent when it comes to having a voice “inside” the BEST political tool for defeating the Democrats – the Republican Party – is because not enough conservatives are “in” the Republican Party where...

Did you know that the Republican Party is only at half strength? “Half strength.” What does that mean? It means that in your voting precinct, where you live, the Republican Party only has, probably, one-half of the local, precinct-level, voting member slots of the Party filled with a warm body. These slots are called “precinct committeeman” in most states. And the reason conservatives have been pretty much impotent when it comes to having a voice “inside” the BEST political tool for defeating the Democrats – the Republican Party – is because not enough conservatives are “in” the Republican Party where...

Let's forgive Senator McCain for confounding Middle Earth with The Shire. The Senator's sudden insertion of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings into the debate over the U.S. national debt immediately evoked in me the reaction "Senator McCain is, evidently, casting himself as Saruman." Saruman and his minions are the only characters in the entire trilogy to sneer at hobbits, and Senator McCain's brand of bipartisanship so often seems to echo the fallen wizard: "But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see." "And listen, Gandalf, my old...

The Real 'Hobbit' Had Larger Brain Than Thought Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor Date: 16 April 2013 Time: 07:01 PM ETThe hobbit, Homo floresiensis, lived on the island of Flores some 18,000 years ago, and now researchers have more evidence (its relatively large brain) the diminutive creature was a unique human species. The brain of the extinct "hobbit" was bigger than often thought, researchers say. These findings add to evidence that the hobbit was a unique species of humans after all, not a deformed modern human, scientists added. The 18,000-year-old fossils of the extinct type of human officially known as Homo...

The new film “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (opening Dec. 14) has got action and adventure galore, just like “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy that preceded it. But the director and actors who worked on the movie are well aware of the deeper themes that lie at the heart of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), who authored all the original books, published between 1937 and 1955. At a recent press conference about the film in New York City, Richard Armitage, who portrays the Dwarf warrior Thorin Oakenshield, said, “One of the things I find when I look...

Sen. John McCain is talking with Democrats about a joint effort to require outside groups that have spent millions of dollars on this year’s elections to disclose their donors. McCain (R-Ariz.), once Congress’s leading champion of campaign finance reform, has kept a low profile on the issue in recent years. He raised the ire of many Republicans a decade ago for pushing comprehensive reform, and many Republicans still held it against him during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Friday defended GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney from critics who mocked him for calling himself an "unofficial Southerner" at a campaign stop the previous day. "Now they’re attacking Romney for joking about learning to say “y’all”? According to the left, no one can have a sense of humor - lighten up!" In Mississippi, Romney told the crowd that his bodyguard, a Mississippi native, was turning him into an "unofficial Southerner." "I'm learning to say 'y'all' and I like grits, and strange things are happening to me!" the former Massachusetts governor added. Critics were quick to...

Sen. John McCain said Sunday that the potentially powerful Hispanic vote in the upcoming presidential election remains "up for grabs" because neither President Barack Obama nor Republicans have convinced these voters that they are on their side. The one-time GOP presidential hopeful, whose own 2008 candidacy was shaped in part by immigration, said that large Hispanic populations in his home state of Arizona and elsewhere are listening carefully to what Republican candidates have to say on immigration and could become a "major factor" in 2012. "I think that the Republican Party has to discuss this issue in as humane way...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator John McCain predicted on Tuesday a third political party will emerge in response to Americans' economic frustrations and said it might as well be called "the Fed-Up Party." The Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008 raised the possibility of a third party about a year ago, but his comments on Tuesday suggest he has hardened his views as polls show Americans increasingly disillusioned with Washington politics. The 75-year-old McCain may now be the most prominent politician forecasting Americans will look to another party to compete with Democrats and Republicans. "Unless both parties change, then I think...

Step 1: The first rule of the establishment is: Do not admit you are part of the establishment! Step 2: Disarm them with praise Step 3: Moderate whoever they pick as the 2012 nominee. Step 4: Teach them about compromise. Step 5: Never forget reality