Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tells me in an interview for Sunday's "Axios on HBO" that cryptocurrency could eventually replace the dollar as "the reserve currency of the world." Why it matters: The senator says he's begun to ask that question as more and more people lose confidence in governments, which used to have a monopoly on money. Context: When Paul ran for president in 2016, he accepted donations in Bitcoin — part of what gave his campaign its youthful appeal.

This ain’t your daddy’s libertarian. More to the point, this ain’t his daddy’s libertarian.First he went after Ted Cruz for trying to characterize him as a dove, now this. By the end of the year, he and McCain will be holding joint filibusters on the Senate floor demanding that America build the biggest nuclear bomb evah. Rand Paul, hawk? In the current budget, the Obama Administration called for the elimination of the Tomahawk missile. This missile protects our troops and allows us to avoid much direct person-to-person combat. Our navy has depended heavily on them…Nobody wants to cut spending, including...

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich told a South Carolina town hall on Monday that as president he would block federal funds to any city that "declared itself a sanctuary" for illegal immigrants. Gingrich, fresh from a key endorsement from an influential New Hampshire newspaper, is on a three-day swing through South Carolina, an early primary state that his campaign has dubbed his "southern firewall." "No American president has the right to side with foreigners," Gingrich told a crowd of hundreds at the College of Charleston, after reciting a list of 16 countries that he said...

MILLER: What about my endorsements? Listen, you know why I'm off the Cain train, Billy. O'REILLY: Why? MILLER: He can't win. Listen, he's still a great guy, and this is a fluid situation for me. If he gives us the best chance to win tomorrow, I'm back on. But today, he can't win. O'REILLY: I know, I know. I mean, his numbers are down. The Fox News poll just out today got him at 15 percent. And the people who have defected from Herman Cain have gone to Newt Gingrich. And I suspect, Miller, that you are one of those....

So former mayor Ed Koch has changed his mind after hearing President Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly last week and will back him for reelection after all. Mr. Koch, a DFB, or Democrat From Birth, created quite a stir several weeks ago when he endorsed Republican Bob Turner in the special election in New York's heavily Democratic 9th Congressional District against Democrat David Weprin. Mr. Koch urged voters in the predominantly Jewish district to vote for Mr. Turner as a way of sending a message to President Obama that they opposed his policies regarding Israel - his "open...

VIDEO HERE.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says the committee is endorsing the conservative in New York’s 23rd Congressional District race after Republican Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava suspended her campaign and released her supporters. Calling Scozzafava’s move a “selfless act,” Steele says the RNC’s change of course is effective immediately and will include financial backing and get out the vote efforts for Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.

<p>IF JOHN MCCAIN becomes president, he will be confronted by a Congress with significantly larger Democratic majorities than today's — majorities furious about high hopes dashed by an eighth Republican victory in 11 presidential elections. And if the normal pattern of off-year elections obtains in 2010, those majorities will expand. So McCain would have to deal with a hostile legislature for four years, as Arnold Schwarzenegger has done for almost five years. For that reason, and because these two self-styled post-partisan, reach-across-the-aisle mavericks admire one another — McCain has given Schwarzenegger a starring role Monday at the Republican convention — it is pertinent to survey Schwarzenegger's governorship of one-eighth of America's population.</p>

Quebec legislature bans word 'weathervane' Speaker says its hurtful and a slur after Charest called Dumont a weathervane one too many times October 16, 2007 THE CANADIAN PRESS QUEBEC – Politicians in Quebec's legislature will have to come up with a new way to slag their opponents now that the word "weathervane" has been added to the list of unparliamentary language. Speaker Michel Bissonnet judged the word to be "hurtful" as the legislature resumed Tuesday after the summer break. Premier Jean Charest has called Opposition Leader Mario Dumont a weathervane on numerous occasions recently, elevating him on Tuesday to "national...

Like every great sales pitch, Mitt Romney's case for Mitt Romney is low on the hard sell. At the Sheraton Hotel here one recent morning, the boasting is handled by a former governor of South Carolina, who opens this "Ask Mitt Anything" session with a precis of the candidate's career. This includes academic achievements (Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School "in four years!") and election as governor of Massachusetts in 2002, which is described in a tone befitting a miracle. "He ran for governor in the bluest state of all blue states," says James Edwards, "the bluest state you...

Clearly, Tom Davis is intensely concerned with making a connection with his constituents. The openness we have come to know and expect from him has allowed for more valuable input from the citizenry. It will be exciting to see what influences Davis brings to Congress this fall, based on open discussions such as the meeting being held today. In fact, Davis is the only member of Congress who has agreed to meet with the group Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. This effort as well as other initiatives put forth by Davis, elucidate his commitment to both existing issues, as well...

<p>I was checking our website statistics for Thursday, October 21st when I noticed a sudden spike in people visiting our website. Out of curiosity, I followed the source of the hits to this website where I saw that someone had posted a picture of our Polled Hereford Bull weathervane design.</p>

WEATHERVANE EDWARDS [07/09 09:15 AM] Remember Iraq? Not too long ago, that was Issue One in the presidential race. It may return to the biggest and most important, once John Kerry and John Edwards have used up the younger candidate's "Two Americas" shtick. And it will be worthwhile to recall just how much of a flip-flopping opportunist the number-two man on the Democratic ticket can be. When taking on Saddam Hussein was popular with the public, Edwards was all for it and leading the arguments favoring the use of force. When it became unpopular with Democratic-primary voters, he suddenly shifted...

At 14, I worked in my friend's dad's thrift shop. I made less than minimum wage for cleaning bathrooms and taking inventory. The work wasn't glamorous, but I learned to save. My dream was to build a weather station. I devoured meteorology books, and weather equipment catalogs. My grandma gave me a barometer that measured pressure in millibars, and a hygrometer for humidity readings. I saved for an indoor-outdoor thermometer and an anemometer, a device to measure wind speed. I finally saved enough for a hand-held anemometer, a plastic tube with a Styrofoam ball inside. The faster the wind, the...