Free Republic

For the child in all of us - "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" for Ice Age. And if you aren't cold enough yet, Dean Martin's "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for Star Wars.

Hours after he and another inmate escaped jail after beating up a security guard, a South Carolina inmate was fatally shot after he broke into a woman’s house, officials said. Bruce McLaughlin Jr., 30, was shot in the head by the woman after he kicked in her back door on Tuesday, according to Pickens County authorities. After he entered the home, McLaughlin grabbed a knife sharpening tool from the kitchen and headed toward the woman’s bedroom around 3 a.m. Sheriff Rick Clark said the woman was home alone and had undergone concealed weapons training at some point prior to the...

As reported at the URL, Mueller was supposed to release his sentencing report on Flynn today. It's after hours east coast time. Where is the report?

Priest-Sociologist Examines Data on Clergy Sex Abuse Much effort has been made to disassociate homosexuality from paedophilia to the point where this has become received opinion: There is no connection between being a homosexual and being a paedophile. You are conflating two different things. — LondonInternetChurch (@LInternetChurch) December 3, 2018This predominantly secular paradigm has been adopted by the Bishops of England & Wales, who in 2010, publicly broke with the Vatican directive banning men with a deep-seated same-sex practice to be allowed into Seminary. In 2010, Marcus Stock, now the tenth bishop of Leeds, then appointed General Secretary for...

President Donald Trump's longtime political ally Roger Stone invoked his Fifth Amendment protection as he declined to share documents and testimony with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a letter posted Tuesday by the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "Mr. Stone's invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege must be understood by all to be the assertion of a Constitutional right by an innocent citizen who denounces secrecy," Stone's attorney, Grant Smith, said in the letter, dated Dec. 3.

Do conservatives have more fun? Should liberals start describing themselves as humor-challenged?.. why didn’t the liberals in the Boston experiment like the nonsense humor of “Deep Thoughts” as much as the conservatives did? ... Rod Martin, the author of “The Psychology of Humor,” said the results of the Boston study might reflect another trait that has been shown to correlate with a taste for jokes: cheerfulness.... “Conservatives tend to be happier than liberals in general,” said Dr. Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario. “A conservative outlook rationalizes social inequality, accepting the world as it is, and making...

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump met privately Tuesday evening with former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush on the eve of funeral services for former President George H.W. Bush. The president and first lady traveled via motorcade across the street from the White House to the Blair House, which is used to accommodate guests of honor. They appeared to warmly exchange pleasantries with George W. and Laura Bush before the four entered the building without taking questions. Melania Trump earlier in the day hosted a tour of the White House Christmas decorations for Laura...

The FDA has become aware of reports of vitamin D toxicity in dogs that ate dry dog food common contract manufacturer and marketed under several different brand names. This is a developing situation, and the FDA will update this page with additional information as it becomes available.

At least two dozen Central American migrants -- who claim they're disillusioned frustrated with the asylum-seeking process -- breached the U.S.-Mexico border just before dusk by scaling a 10-foot metal fence,... using blankets and ropes to help climb over the structure ... , Other migrants [squeezed] through a section of fence... Some migrants tried to escape capture by the U.S. BP but most were caught.... It remains unclear Tuesday how many of the migrants -- if any at all -- managed to escape detention. ... a 29-year-old Honduran mother with three children... told Reuters she was only observing ... “waiting...

The Duke of Cambridge has spoken of his shock at being called out to his first suicide as an air ambulance pilot in a joint interview with his brother, Prince Harry, on tackling masculinity and mental health issues. Prince William said the “tipping point” for him in understanding how men struggle to deal with mental health problems came with his work with the East Anglian air ambulance. “My first callout was to a male suicide and I was told there were five suicides or attempted suicides every day in East Anglia alone. When I looked into it I was shocked...

"The very definition of deep state is when the intelligence community withholds information from Congress." --US Senator Rand Paul, Dec 4, 2018

A Hudson County judge has ordered a recount of the mail-in and provisional ballots cast in last month’s Bayonne Board of Education election. The Dec. 3 order signed by Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso mandates a recount is completed at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Hudson County Board of Elections in Jersey City. Bariso’s order was issued after Leo Smith, the district’s former business administrator who came in fourth place in the school board race, filed a petition seeking a recount on Nov. 21. By the end of election night, Smith held a 19-vote lead on incumbent Ava Finnerty for...

For more than 40 years, the "Apollo to the Moon" gallery at the National Air and Space Museum has provided millions of visitors a close-up look at some of the key artifacts from humanity's first visit to another world. On Monday (Dec. 3), the gallery will close forever. "This was one of the original galleries built for the museum in 1976," explained curator Michael Neufeld, during a tour of "Apollo to the Moon" streamed live on Facebook from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. on Friday (Nov. 30). "It has many key artifacts that are great...

Answers: The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is upset that the FBI raided a whistleblower last month who had already given Congress sensitive information regarding possible malfeasance related to the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal and is demanding that the bureau’s director, Christopher Wray, explain why it happened. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Wray (pictured above) a series of questions pertaining to the Nov. 19 raid of former FBI contractor Dennis Cain’s home in Maryland, in which agents took electronically-stored information that had been provided under Intelligence Community whistleblower protection laws to the Justice Department’s inspector general,...

SEE article at link as not sure of copyright laws

The Nationals have agreed to a deal with veteran lefty Patrick Corbin, according to Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post (via Twitter). Corbin, a client of ISE Baseball, has landed a $140MM guarantee over a six-year term, Jon Heyman of Fancred tweets. Patrick Corbin | Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports Deferrals will reduce the true, present-day value of the deal, but it’s still a huge sum. Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets that the deferrals will be relatively minor, though details aren’t yet known. There will not be an opt-out opportunity in the deal, Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com tweets....

SpaceX's next resupply mission to the International Space Station has been pushed back to tomorrow (Dec. 5) due to a rodent problem. While technicians were getting a mouse experiment ready for loading onto SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule yesterday (Dec. 3), they found mold on some of the rodents' food bars, NASA officials said in a pre-launch news conference yesterday. The Dragon had been scheduled to lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this afternoon (Dec. 4) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But the food could not be replaced in time to meet that target, NASA officials announced last night....

Public-sector unions are definitely off the bandwagon for single-payer health insurance in New York, because it’s a bad deal for them. Of course, that’s true for most New Yorkers. The Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella group representing city unions, met last week with Assemblyman Richard Gottfried and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, the sponsors of the single-payer bill, Politico reports. Their demand: a carve-out so they can keep their current health-insurance arrangements ---SNIP--- The drive for one-state single-payer is unlikely to succeed here: Hyperliberal California and Vermont both looked hard at adopting such systems in recent years, but gave up after...

New York (CNN Business)The fate of The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine that has staked out a position as a publication on the right still critical of President Donald Trump, is uncertain, Editor-in-Chief Stephen Hayes told staff in a series of phone calls Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter. The magazine's precarious position comes after its leadership spent months searching for a buyer, the people told CNN. The people explained that The Weekly Standard's leadership had butted heads with MediaDC, the current parent company of the magazine, and that the two parties had agreed to allow Hayes...

No one likes dealing with bureaucracy, but some kinds of bureaucracy are easier to tolerate than others. It's no picnic for a kid to get their learner's permit, take driving lessons, complete a written driving exam and then take a driving test in order to get their license. The good news is that the driver's license system works. When your kid completes the steps, they'll get their driver's license. If only job-hunting were such a simple process! When you complete an online job application, you're guaranteed exactly nothing. You may get an interview and you may not. You may hear...