Free Republic

Congress: With polls showing most GOP voters in opposition to the Speaker's budget deal and saying they would "probably" or "definitely" prefer a new leader, a Tea Party favorite fires a shot heard around the political world. In 2010, House Speaker John Boehner loved the Tea Party. The grass-roots movement, which arose in opposition to manifestations of big government such as ObamaCare and unlimited taxation and regulation, put the GOP back in control of the House of Representatives and made Boehner Speaker. But by December 2013, Boehner loved the Tea Party and other conservative groups not so much. They had...

Republicans: Political purges may work in totalitarian states, but in a democracy they can be self-defeating. The senator who called the Tea Party "wacko birds" should realize the GOP's real enemies are called Democrats. It's been said that all politics is local, and normally a state party's internal squabbles would not be national news. But when they involve a former presidential candidate on an issue that will affect the selection of the GOP's 2016 presidential nominee and chances, we sit up and take notice. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost the 2008 election to Barack Obama and who is running...

Leadership: An Army couple is told to move their wedding from the 16th tee of a golf course so President Obama can play through. Is it any wonder that his approval rating among the military is at a record low? Just 15% of active-duty service members gave their commander in chief a thumbs-up in the most recent Military Times survey, with 55% saying they disapproved of the job that President Obama is doing. It certainly didn't help his image when two Army captains were told hours before their wedding that they had to move it so Obama could play through...

Regulation: Cures for cancer and Ebola having been found, the federal ubernannies have decreed that sprinkles should no longer adorn kids' ice cream because they contain the trans fat that liberal groups once pushed for. Come the New Year, the Food and Drug Administration, ignoring the principle that in most cases it's the dose that defines the poison, will issue new regulations designed to remove even trace amounts of hydrogenate oils, commonly known as trans fats, from our diets. Trans fats have been in our foods since the 1950s to increase shelf life and improve taste. A small amount appears...

Cover-Up: Reporter Sharyl Attkisson alleges the White House and, specifically, press secretary Josh Earnest are hiding official photos of what President Obama was doing the night four Americans died in the Benghazi attack. Other than possibly resting up for a fundraising trip to Las Vegas the night of Sept. 11, 2012, when an American ambassador and three others were killed in a terrorist strike on our Benghazi mission, we do not have a clear idea or a definitive timeline of what President Obama was doing during those fateful hours. As we asked in May 2013, where was the president during...

Crime: Talking about a war on cops motivated by race-baiting is mere "conjecture," according to the NAACP, which says that the assassination of two New York cops is an "example of the need for strict gun-control measures." After the tragic death of Eric Garner while resisting arrest, Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers how he had warned his biracial son to be wary of cops who, in any confrontation, might misinterpret his actions in a way they would not with a white suspect. Cops are the enemy, not the criminals they try to protect you from. Well, on Friday...

Defense: China has just tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can deliver up to 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, using technology given to them on President Clinton's watch to launch communications satellites. The Dec. 13 test of the DF-41 was the third for the new weapon. But it marked the first test of a multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle, or MIRV, technology and raises by an order of magnitude the nuclear threat to the U.S. as China continues its massive arms buildup. And disturbingly, the threat is in large part of our own making. "The DF-4, which could be...

Election 2016: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush embraces one-size-fits-all national education standards that would turn schools into re-education camps for the left. His decision could cause trouble with GOP primary voters. As is the tradition these days, Jeb Bush, brother of one former president and son of another, has announced via social media that he is preparing to run for president, setting the stage for another Bush-Clinton contest in 2016 should former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton get the Democratic nomination. To be the Republican nominee, Bush must run a gauntlet of primaries where he'll need to persuade Tea Party...

Black Crime: If President Obama had a son, he might look like 15-year-old Demario Bailey, one of three killed and 30 wounded in a typical Chicago weekend by thugs who wanted his Bulls jacket. As Bailey was being murdered while walking with his twin brother to a school basketball game, protestors of police brutality marched down Chicago's ritzy Michigan Avenue. They told high-end shoppers there that "black lives matter," held up their hands and said "don't shoot," and wore shirts that proclaimed "I can't breathe." The protest was part of a series of demonstrations also being held in Washington, New...

Rights: No longer fearing electoral revenge from the National Rifle Association, an outgoing Democratic Senate pushed to confirm an anti-Second Amendment radical, who thinks guns are a health issue, as the nation's top doc. A Democratic Senate that earlier balked at the nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to be surgeon general of the U.S. no longer feared the possible electoral consequences of approving him in the wake of November's Republican tsunami. That, along with the GOP's obsession to not be blamed for a government shutdown, gave us a bad budget deal and the Democrats a chance to confirm Murthy. A...

National Security: It won't generate the buzz that torture allegations do, but a provision in the defense spending bill requires the White House to explain why Russia developed a cruise missile in breach of a 1987 treaty. President Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "trust but verify" regarding dealing with the Russians for good reason. American security was to be guaranteed through the strength of our will and the genius of our technology, not through pieces of parchment, handshakes, clinking glasses at conferences, or reset buttons. Enter President Obama and the age of flexibility, back-stabbing our allies on things like missile...

Law: If there really is a "war on women," it's being waged against a group of nuns who seek to honor their call to serve the dying poor without being compelled to provide contraception coverage to those who help them. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver heard oral arguments Monday in the lawsuit by the Little Sisters of the Poor challenging the ObamaCare abortion-inducing drug mandate that threatens religious liberty. The case of the feisty nuns challenges a bizarre "accommodation" offered by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under its proposal, the Little Sisters can fill...

Nuclear Waste: While Keystone XL remains a focus, the long-stalled repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nev., deemed safe in a recent report, is also good for the environment and for our energy future. The ghosts of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima continue to haunt and hinder the nuclear energy industry. Yet a report released Oct. 16 may revive both the spent fuel repository and the nuclear energy industry with it. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, mostly finished in 2010 but delayed by Yucca Mountain foes such as the Obama administration and soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader...

Defense Threat: China conducts its third test in a year of a hypersonic glide vehicle designed to evade our missile and other defense systems, including the Aegis defense system guarding our carrier battle groups. As we downsize our military, scale back weapons procurement and development, China proceeds at top speed towards weapons designed to counter our once-huge technical advantage and qualitative superiority. Case in point is the third flight test of a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), dubbed the WU-14 by the Pentagon, following earlier tests on Jan. 9 and Aug. 7 of this year. The U.S. Navy is particularly concerned,...

Oversight: A House Armed Services Committee member asks for a probe into reports that money was paid in a failed attempt to ransom alleged deserter Bowe Bergdahl. And where's that Bergdahl investigation report, anyway? Back on Oct. 16 we noted that the Pentagon had completed its investigation into Sgt. Bergdahl's abandonment of his Afghan post. But the report by Brig. Gen. Kenneth Dahl would not be released, according to an Army spokesman, until the end of a review process that was likely to be conveniently lengthy, lasting at least until after the midterm elections. It has now been over six...

Media Malfeasance: Short of handing local rioters a locator map, the newspaper of record provides enough information to find the home of the police officer some still accuse of murdering Michael Brown for no good reason. We're not sure what the New York Times was thinking when it published an item last Monday by Julie Bosman on the recent marriage of Officer Darren Wilson along with the town they lived in and street they lived on. The street in the small St. Louis suburb they live in is only two blocks long, and the piece had almost all the information...

Corruption: Smoking-gun emails show how the administration sought to derail a CBS reporter's investigation of its "gun-waking" operation — a reporter whose computers were mysteriously and mercilessly hacked. Fast and Furious, along with Benghazi, is one of the two "phony" administration scandals that produced body bags, and former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson is responsible for much of the truth-telling about both. That fact is enough to put her high atop the administration's enemies list. Attkisson, a casualty of liberal media bias, resigned from CBS in March after a series of clashes between her and her bosses over her exposes of...

Amnesty: Pundits warn that a funding fight over the president's move to grant de facto amnesty to illegal aliens threatens a politically risky government shutdown. But there's something much more important at stake here. The Founders had good reason to give Congress the power of the purse: Short of impeachment, it's the most effective way to stop a lawless president from disobeying the will of Congress and usurping powers not granted by the Constitution. The question is: Will Congress use this power to thwart President Obama's shredding of the Constitution with his executive amnesty plan? Incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman...

Defense: Members of Congress warn that the State Department is working on arms accords to demilitarize space and ban anti-satellite weapons, leaving Russia and China with a huge lead in military space capabilities. On Jan. 17, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement announcing the Obama administration's intention to work with the European Union on an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. It was supposed to be sort of a "rules of the road" for space-faring nations to deal with issues such as the accumulating space junk jeopardizing satellites and manned space activities such as the...

Energy Transport: New data show fast-rising rail shipments from North Dakota's Bakken shale formation and the need for a safer alternative to rail — like the Keystone XL pipeline. In his post-election press conference, the president noted in justifying his continual kicking of the Keystone XL oil drum down the road that "while this debate about Canadian oil has been raging ... we've seen some of the biggest increases in American oil production and natural gas production in our history." That increase is due in large part to oil recovered from the Bakken shale formation centered on North Dakota. So...