Free Republic

Let's face facts. Democrats gained in the House of Representatives, the Senate and the chief Democrat in charge was re-elected after one of the worst four year periods in American history, economically and constitutionally. How does that happen? Republicans/Conservatives (which are not necessarily interchangeable terms — but, we’ll lump them together for the sake of this column) gave voters credit for being smart while Democrats assumed they’re not. Let's break down what Obama, Pelosi, Reid, the Obama SuperPACs, et all were saying for a year and a half:

This seems like a pretty good reason to push the David Petraeus-Paula Broadwell affair from a boys-club peccadillo into a resignation-worthy event. According to a transcript of a speech by Broadwell at the University of Denver the week before the election, Broadwell told an audience that the reason for the September 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate was neither a YouTube video nor a celebration of the anniversary of 9/11, but a prison escape for jihadis secretly held by the CIA in its nearby annex. Late last night, the CIA denied this report of a secret prison in its now-abandoned...

Israel Army Scores 'Direct Hits' On Syrian Source Of Mortars Fired Into Golan Heights Agence France PresseNovember 11, 2012 Israeli troops fired tank shells into Syria on Monday in retaliation for a mortar round that struck near an army post in the Golan Heights, scoring "direct hits" on the source of the fire, the army said. "A short while ago, a mortar shell hit an open area in the vicinity of an IDF (army) post in the central Golan Heights, as part of the internal conflict inside Syria, causing no damage or injuries," it said. "In response, IDF soldiers fired...

They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority. The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example). The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back. For...

Barack Obama ushered in America’s first large-scale experiment in personality-cult politics. The experiment continues apace. Obama got reelected because he enjoys a degree of personal popularity disconnected from his record. No modern president has ever been returned to office with employment figures and right-rack-wrong-track numbers as poor as those Obama has achieved. Obama couldn’t run on his record, which proved to be no problem—Americans didn’t vote on his record. According to exit polls, 77 percent of voters said the economy is bad and only 25 percent said they’re better off than they were four years ago. But since six in...

Israel’s government has passed a historic decision, one that paves the way for the return of a Lost Tribe of Israel to Zion. Resolution 5180, which on October 24 received unanimous ministerial approval, will allow 275 members of the Bnei Menashe community of northeastern India to make aliya. Coming at a time of increasing uncertainty for the Jewish state, this development should infuse us all with some much-needed optimism regarding the future. [The discovery of traces of the tribe was first reported in America by The New York Sun, whose columnist, Hillel Halkin, told their story in the book “Across...

Australia Orders Federal Child Sex Abuse Inquiry By KRISTEN GELINEAU Associated Press SYDNEY November 12, 2012 (AP) Australia's prime minister ordered a federal inquiry Monday into allegations of child sex abuse in state and religious institutions and community groups following a string of sexual abuse accusations against priests and claims of a Catholic Church cover-up. (snip) Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who spent years investigating abuse allegations in the Hunter region, said the church destroyed evidence, silenced victims and shuffled around accused priests in a bid to cover up abuse. There have been hundreds of allegations of abuse by priests...

The man who voices beloved children’s character “Elmo” took a leave of absence, after he was accused of having an affair with an underaged boy, Sesame Street officials said today. The allegations against Kevin Clash, 52, go back seven years and the puppeteer said he needed a break from work to fight the allegations.

The father of David Petraeus' mistress Paula Broadwell has defended his daughter today as an 'exceptional person', saying he supports her 100 per cent after details of her sordid affair with the decorated general were made public. General Petraeus's relationship with Broadwell, his biographer, was revealed on Friday after an FBI investigation which suspected corruption between the pair. Broadwell's father Paul Kranz, a retired high school basketball coach, suggested that the explosive revelations that led to Petraeus resigning as CIA director, have been used to cover up a bigger scandal.

It's been nearly a week since Barack Obama was re-elected president and today the 2012 lame duck session officially begins as the fiscal cliff looms. —The expiration of Bush-era tax cuts on income, investments, married couples and families with children and inheritances. —A $55 billion, 9 percent cut to the Pentagon next year and another $55 billion in cuts to domestic programs, including a 2 percent cut to Medicare providers. —The expiration of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a sharp cut in reimbursements for doctors participating in Medicare. —The expiration of Obama's temporary 2 percentage point cut in...

(CNSNews.com) - The Los Angeles City Council is urging all residents to observe "meatless Mondays" from now on. A resolution adopted on Oct. 24 reads: "Be it resolved, that the Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby declares all Mondays as 'Meatless Mondays' in support of comprehensive sustainability efforts as well as to further encourage residents to eat a more varied plant-based diet to protect their health and protect animals." Councilwoman Jan Perry, who introduced the resolution, also wants to ban new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles. "While this is a symbolic gesture, it is asking people to...

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day".nugatory \NOO-guh-tor-ee; NYOO-\ , adjective1. Trifling; insignificant; inconsequential.2. Having no force; inoperative; ineffectual. Example sentences:Tygiel's forte as a historian is his eye for what may appear nugatory or marginal but, when focused upon, illuminates the temper of a given moment.-- Roberto Gonzlez Echevarria, "From Ruth to Rotisserie", New York Times, July 2, 2000 Jacoby's offense was no offense -- or an error so nugatory as to demand no more than a one-sentence explanation.-- Lance...

If no one seems to care that the Titanic is filling with water, why not drill another hole in it? That seems to be the M.O. of the Bernanke Federal Reserve. After the announcement of QE3 (also dubbed "QE Infinity") created yet another round of media chatter about a recovery, the Fed's Open Market Committee has decided to push infinity a little bit further. The latest move involves the rolling over of long-term Treasuries purchased as part of Operation Twist, thereby more than doubling QE3 to a monthly influx of $85 billion in phony money starting in December. I call...

I am ‘going Galt’ until this passes...

With just four minutes and a series of well-tied knots, Michael McDonnell saved himself and his Belle Harbor neighbors the night Hurricane Sandy hit. The experienced fisherman and surfer from the Rockaways fashioned a lifeline from electrical wire and twine to ferry a half-dozen people to safety from raging waters and fire. “You are only as good as the knots you make,” he said. Now McDonnell is hoping to take his experience to youngsters and others to help them figure out what to do if they have only minutes to evacuate their home — as he and others in the...

El Pais (via Google translate) reports Government will give a two-year moratorium to end evictions. Social pressure, political and, above all, the shock of facts so overwhelming as two suicides in recent weeks, the second on Friday, has led the government and the PSOE to move faster. Both contacts for accelerated progress towards an agreement to halt evictions more extreme than in any case, will not materialize until next week. That agreement, however, will not be retroactive and would apply to mortgages signed, but not those that are in foreclosure. It would not serve to cases like Egaña Amaya, the...

At least 140 people have been murdered in São Paulo over the past two weeks in an outbreak of violent crime that has prompted early school closures, a change of municipal bus routes and street demonstrations. In September 144 people were killed. The causes are manifold, but a major factor appears to be an undeclared war between the largest criminal militia and the police, which has led to drive-by shootings, ambushes and other killings. After initially denying the link, officials from the public safety department told local newspapers at the weekend that many of the killings of police had been...

Would you sit silently if you discovered you had just lost a poker hand to a cheating friend? Would you be silent if your favorite sports team was cheated out of a championship by an obviously corrupt official? How about if you learned that the home you have lived in for most of your life was being seized by the local government for some trumped up charge? Of course the answer is a resounding NO. So why are our Republican leaders talking about regrouping and concentrating on taking back the Presidency in 2016? 2016? Are they kidding? By 2016 there...

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~ Abraham Lincoln America has forsaken her first love. She has finally, and fully, given herself over to a licentious Lothario with whom she has increasingly flirted since her youth. He is sin – and, notwithstanding full knowledge of who he is and what he intends, with him she has lain. America has tasted the poisonous fruits of lust, pride, passion, and envy – sloth, frivolity, iniquity and entitlement. She has tasted of their sweet deception and...

The sudden departure of a compromised CIA director hasn’t been an episode of Showtime’s espionage drama Homeland, but it could be. The story of David Petraeus’s resignation is evolving, and we may know more soon enough. But for now, he is said to have resigned because he committed marital infidelity in a way that could have exposed the U.S. to harm. Greta van Susteren of Fox News says his jobs as a general and CIA director made him “very vulnerable to blackmail from those with very bad intentions against the United States.” Fair enough, but many commentators took an entirely...