Free Republic

Senate Republicans huddled Tuesday to discuss the latest on the fiscal crisis engulfing the Capitol, but two key members of their conference were missing from the lunch: Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. Multiple senators confirmed the absence of the two senators, who have led the crusade in the Senate to shred the president’s health care law. “I don’t account for their schedules,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) quipped when asked about Cruz and Lee’s absence. Cruz and Lee could become an obstacle to moving quickly on a fiscal deal in the Senate, where consent from all 100...

On Oct. 19, self-professed Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill is planning to make public some very flammable allegations. At a day-long symposium called "Covert Messiah" in London, England, he's set to unveil purported evidence that Roman aristocrats manufactured Jesus Christ - a claim that, if substantiated, would devalue the core of the Christian faith. The only problem? Most Biblical experts disagree with the scholar's pronouncements. A press release announcing the purported new evidence claims that Atwill has discovered "ancient confessions" that purportedly prove that Romans invented Jesus Christ in the first century. He has long argued that the faith system was...

The presidency is a "bully pulpit," said Teddy Roosevelt. "For Roosevelt, 'bully' was an adjective meaning 'excellent' or 'first-rate' -- not the noun 'bully' ('a blustering browbeating person') that's so common today," the Merriam-Webster dictionary explains. For Barack Obama, "bully" has the more common meaning. The dirty little secret about the government "shutdown" is that not very much of it is shut down. Essential services go on. Checks for Social Security and Medicare go out as usual. Spending is cut about 17 percent during the "shutdown." If it were to last a full year, spending would be cut from $3.6...

We are over a week into the government shutdown; shouldn't we be looting Target for a flat screen TV by now? Why haven't you joined a marauding street gang? Two things have become apparent: how little we need most of government, and how spiteful public servants can be when they do not get their funding. A turning point in this game of government shutdown brinksmanship happened last week when "our" petulant government went to great lengths to shut down open air memorials in order to intimidate us from ever cutting its funding. ..... This is a vengeful regime. It has...

The Republican base must not require its representatives in Congress to run off a cliff and commit suicide as the price of avoiding a primary challenge in 2014. The Tea Party must not eat its young. Polling shows that there are nowhere near the pre-conditions in place that would be necessary for a government shutdown over defunding ObamaCare. Americans oppose defunding it by 44 percent to 38 percent, according to a recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey — and when it comes to shutting down the government to force its defunding, opposition swells to 19-59. To force Republican congressmen to side...

Americans will pay an average premium of $328 monthly for a mid-tier health insurance plan when the Obamacare health exchanges open for enrollment next week, and most will qualify for government subsidies to lower that price, the Obama administration said on Wednesday. The figure, based on data for approved insurance plans in 48 states, represents the broadest national estimate for how much Americans will pay for health coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law next year. The prices of the new plans are at the heart of a political debate over whether they will be affordable enough to attract...

This is priceless. Former Fla. GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, consummate politician and 2016 presidential aspirant, has now bitterly accused opponents of his federal education schemes of possessing "purely political" motives. Projection, anyone? Having previously suggested that critics of the so-called Common Core standards program are crazy, ignorant and lying, Bush piled on at a National Press Club appearance this week. Jeb the Insult Comic Dog did not hold back. Not only is the growing anti-Fed Ed movement of parents, teachers, school board members, academics, privacy advocates and state legislators of all stripes "purely political," Bush sniped, but the Common Core...

How terrible. Home Depot (HD) and Trader Joe’s have decided to stop offering health insurance for part-time employees, moving them over to Obamacare instead. More companies seem sure to follow. And more wailing about greedy, heartless corporations is sure to follow that. Some workers may start to drop dead from sheer anxiety before Obamacare even goes into effect on January 1. Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers...

Iran has about 18,000 centrifuges, including 10,000 active ones, the outgoing head of the country's atomic agency said Saturday, confirming figures from the UN watchdog overseeing its disputed nuclear drive. "At the beginning of the month of Mordad (from July 23) we had 17,000 first generation centrifuges, of which more than 10,000 are active and 7,000 ready to start work," said Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, quoted by ISNA news agency. "Some 1,000 second generation centrifuges have also been installed and are ready to start work," he said at the handover ceremony for his role to Ali Akbar Salehi. In May, the...

There's been another mass shooting by a crazy person, and liberals still refuse to consider institutionalizing the dangerous mentally ill. The man who shot up the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, Aaron Alexis, heard voices speaking to him through the walls. He thought people were following him. He believed microwave ovens were sending vibrations through his body. There are also reports that Alexis believed the Obamacare exchanges were ready to go. Anyone see any bright red flags of paranoid schizophrenia? (Either that, or Obama's NSA is way better than we thought!) But Alexis couldn't be institutionalized because the left has...

This is where we came in. For we've seen this movie before, or rather this all too real, all too familiar tragedy. And travesty. In the Korean War and Stalemate, for painful example, the military objective became not victory but an unending, inconclusive draw -- day after bloody day. And year. After a dramatic end run -- the master stroke that was the Inchon Landing, Allied troops led by American forces headed for the Yalu and the liberation of all the Korean peninsula. But on the verge of victory, the military calculus was turned upside down by the massive intervention...

"We will smite Syria swiftly but prudently," Good Roger said. "Ferociously but cautiously. With abandon but with restraint. And if our red line is crossed again, we have crimson, magenta and puce lines to back them up." "Have you been sniffing the printer toner again?" Bad Roger asked. "You are beginning to sound like a foreign policy wonk." "We must stop the needless, senseless, indefensible murder of children," Good Roger said. "The United States must act to stop the slaughter of the innocent." "You're talking about that 1-year-old boy shot to death in his stroller in Brooklyn on Sunday night,...

This week begins my 34th year serving on George Mason University's distinguished economics faculty. You might imagine my surprise when I received a letter from its Office of Equity and Diversity Services notifying me that I was required to "complete the in-person Equal Opportunity and Prevention of Sexual Harassment Policies and Procedures training." This is a leftist agenda for indoctrination, thought control and free speech suppression to which I shall refuse to submit. Let's look at it. Ideas such as equity and equal opportunity, while having high emotional value, are vacuous analytical concepts. For example, I've asked students whether they...

The Obama administration is covering up the theft of 400 surface to air missiles by "some very ugly people," the lawyer for a Benghazi whistleblower told WMAL Radio in Washington D.C. last week. Joe DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney, represents Mark Thompson, who was Deputy Coordinator for Operations in the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism. He was referring to MANPADS (man portable air defense systems) such as the American Stinger or the Russian SA-24. They're now in the hands of al Qaida, Mr. DiGenova said. The theft was the reason why the administration shut down 22 diplomatic missions, he said....

FRIDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- The vast majority of youngsters with autism will grow up to be adults with autism. An estimated one of every 88 children in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means that 45,000 to 50,000 kids with autism turn 18 each year, says autism researcher Paul Shattuck, from Washington University in St. Louis. "This is an impending health care or community care crisis," said Dr. Joseph Cubells, director of medical and adult services at the Emory Autism Center at Emory University in...

To hear Karl Rove call rival center-right political organizations ineffective is to witness an enraged purse dog yapping at a Rottweiler. The bigger hound's expression -- the canine equivalent of "are you kidding me?" -- is precisely the response Rove deserves. After last November's massively disappointing election, "Bush's Brain" blamed the debacle on grassroots conservative groups. The problem, Rove argued, is that these supposedly far-right organizations fielded candidates, especially for Senate, who were too rightwing to win. Thus, Rove launched his so-called Conservative Victory Project to promote reputedly mainstream Republicans who could prevail. "Our object is to avoid having stupid...

MERIDIAN — Heritage Middle School went into lockdown Thursday morning after a report of an armed suspect inside the school. A few hours later, police confirmed that the suspect did not have a weapon, but rather a military-style folding shovel. The report of an armed individual came in to the Ada County Sheriff’s Office around 9 a.m. The weapon was initially believed to be a type of ax. The lockdown at Heritage, in Joint School District No. 2, and surrounding schools, lasted almost two hours. There were no injuries. The shovel was brought into the school from a car in...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The parents of a U.S. soldier in captivity for three years after being taken prisoner in Afghanistan are hopeful aggressive negotiations or a prisoner swap could bring home their son. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, was captured in June 2009 and is believed held by a group affiliated with the Taliban, likely somewhere in Pakistan. Since then, his parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, have largely kept out of the public eye. But they spoke to their local weekly newspaper the Idaho Mountain Express (http://bit.ly/KaFGpF) this week in hopes that renewed public attention to their son's...

Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) -- Thick fog and steep, mountainous terrain forced rescuers to halt their efforts to reach the wreckage of a Russian jetliner that crashed on a demonstration flight in Indonesia, the country's state news agency reported Thursday. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 came to rest on the side of Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, Vice Marshal Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told the Indonesian news agency Antara. Efforts to reach the wreck are expected to resume Friday morning, said Daryatmo, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "We have identified the crash...

WASHINGTON – In response to a court deadline, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized standards to reduce harmful air pollution associated with oil and natural gas production. The updated standards, required by the Clean Air Act, were informed by the important feedback from a range of stakeholders including the public, public health groups, states and industry. As a result, the final standards reduce implementation costs while also ensuring they are achievable and can be met by relying on proven, cost-effective technologies as well as processes already in use at approximately half of the fractured natural gas wells in...