Free Republic

Although the amount of oil Iran is producing and selling on the world market has shrunk substantially in recent months, due to U.S. and EU sanctions, Iran has still been selling oil to countries in the Far East like China – and that supply, experts say has been one factor in why the price of oil has not risen even more. And on Tuesday, Iran struck back at Western sanctions against it, saying that if the sanctions continued it would stop producing oil altogether. The sanctions have been the cause of significant economic instability in Iran, according to Western economists....

A new poll whose results were released on Monday has found that most youth in Israel tend to identify with the right side of the political map. According to the results reported on Channel 10 News, 17% of high school students believe that Israel’s next Prime Minister should be outspoken rightist Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu). Lieberman is followed by well-known leftist journalist and television personality, Yair Lapid (who has not officially announced he is running for politics but who has openly expressed his desire to rebuild his late father’s, Tommy Lapid’s militantly secular and anti-hareidi Shinui party), who got 13%....

This is my first vanity ever. I'm sitting here watching Chris Matthews jump down the throat of some poor Republican about Michele Bachmann saying that the Founders abolished slavery. Several thoughts occur to me: (1) From the Revolution to the death of Jefferson and Adams, slavery was abolished in almost every Northern state, and was in fact "abolished" by the Founders in the Midwestern states by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Lincoln repeatedly cited the Northwest Ordinance as proof that the Founders invested in Congress the authority to abolish slavery in the territories. (2) Chris Matthews claimed that slavery was...