Free Republic

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) recently expressed his concern about Sarah Palin someday becoming president and having control over the information gathered by the U.S government about Americans citizens. In an interview with Shark-Tank.net, Rep. Grayson said he has introduced a bill, 'The Mind Your Own Business Act,' that would ban the U.S. Department of Defense from gathering Internet, phone and other personal information about U.S. citizens without probable cause or evidence of a criminal offense, which is what the Fourth Amendment is supposed to do. Rep. Grayson explained how 'The Mind Your Own Business Act' was modeled "very closely after...

Last week we ran a story analyzing an op-ed piece that one-time Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean wrote for the Wall Street Journal in which the former Governor of Vermont conceded that the Independent Payment Advisory Board was “essentially a health-care rationing body.” ObamaCare has been controversial from long before it passed by the narrowest of margins and probably no facet has drawn more critics that the IPAB. National Right to Life laid out the rationing problems that are part and parcel of the IPAB from the very beginning (www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/ObamaHCRationingBasicDOCUMENTATION.pdf). Thus it was helpful that Dean admitted there really was...

Mickey: Stay down, Stay down Rocky 1974 John Rambo: Live for nothing or Die for Something Rambo 2008 I was watching Morning Joe today and as usual the entire table was united in asserting that Ted Cruz and the Tea Party caucus was wrong to consider fighting to de-fund Obamacare highlighting a piece by Krauthammer This is about tactics. If I thought this would work, I would support it. But I don’t fancy suicide. It has a tendency to be fatal. They stressed the wisdom of Krauthammer’s assertion that the GOP should not fight. It seemed an odd assertion since...

Trayvon Martin's brother Jahvaris Fulton steps down after taking the stand during the George Zimmerman trial in Seminole circuit court, July 5, 2013 in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder for the February 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.The brother of Trayvon Martin, whose shooting death by George Zimmerman gained international attention over the past year, is currently serving as an intern for Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., her office confirmed to NBC News. A Florida jury found Zimmerman not guilty of a crime in Martin’s death on July 13. Martin’s brother Jahvaris Fulton attends Florida International University...

Des Moines, Iowa — The front line of the Republican civil war may be Grand Avenue, a hilly road that cuts through the heart of Iowa’s biggest city. On one side of the street is the gold-domed state capitol, home to Republican Terry Branstad, Iowa’s longest-serving governor. On the other side is a weathered brick building housing the Iowa GOP, which is chaired by A. J. Spiker and David Fischer. Both men are faithful allies of Ron Paul, the retired Texas congressman who twice ran for the Republican presidential nomination. These days, relations between the two camps are as messy...

Dear Sarah, I have never asked you for anything, but I am asking you to please lead the charge in helping us stop the Amnesty Bill from passing in the House. RUBIO is R.I.P. for me, so is McCain and the rest of the Gang of 8. Their careers mean nothing. Our country does. We’re stuck cleaning the damage they did by passing Amnesty in the Senate. As if that was not enough, they have the gall to continue working against us by targeting House Republicans to pass it there (see link below). They are disrespecting Americans and disregarding the...

A leading House Democrat questioned Friday whether the Justice Department (DOJ) has the evidence to mount a civil rights case against George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing an unarmed black teenager in Florida. Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a television interview that "it seems unlikely" Attorney General Eric Holder would file discrimination charges against Zimmerman. The killing of Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman's subsequent acquittal have sparked demonstrations around the country. Protests were scheduled nationwide on Saturday as disappointed court-watchers urged DOJ to pursue charges against Zimmerman. Waxman's comments put...

Former state Rep. Pam Byrnes, a Democrat from Washtenaw County's Lyndon Township, announced Thursday she's running for Congress to help fix a "broken system" in Washington. Byrnes is seeking the 7th District seat held by Tim Walberg, a Republican from Tipton who unseated Democrat Mark Schauer in 2010 to regain the seat. Walberg held the seat in 2007 and 2008 before losing to Schauer in November 2008. Byrnes will take her shot at unseating Walberg in 2014. "Washington is broken and Tim Walberg is part of the problem. He puts special interests and corporations ahead of middle-class Michigan families," Byrnes...

Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland's sole Republican representative in Congress, is receiving attention for comments he made on WMAL radio Tuesday about last week's verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman. "We're hung up on this one case where this one fellow was in fact found not guilty by a jury," Harris said during the interview. "That's the way the American law system works. Get over it." Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, fatally shot Trayvon Martin last year in a case that captured national attention. He was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges on Saturday, sparking protests around...

State Sen. Mimi Walters announced Tuesday that she plans to run for the 45th Congressional District seat retiring U.S. Rep. John Campbell (R-Irvine) will vacate next year. Walters, a Republican, currently represents the 37th District in the California Senate. The district includes Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine and portions of Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach. "John Campbell has served the people of Orange County, California and the United States with distinction and with a commitment to a firm set of principles," Walters said in a prepared statement. "He will leave behind some big shoes to fill. In Congress, I will...

Perhaps we should no longer be surprised when the former half-term Alaska governor jabs at GOP colleagues weighs in on public policy. And yet... It's easy and tiresome to trash Sarah Palin as an uneducated embarrassment to the Republican Party (a party of which I am a member). But when the great anti-intellectual takes ridiculously simple-minded shots at Marco Rubio for supporting immigration reform, something needs to be said. The Sunshine State News asked the former Alaska governor to comment on immigration reform. She took the opportunity to take a giant swing at Marco Rubio: Just like they did with...

Republican lawmakers say they anticipate a flood of questions in the coming months from constituents on the implementation of ObamaCare, which will pose a dilemma for the GOP. [WATCH VIDEO] People regularly call their representatives for help with Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Yet, Republicans believe healthcare reform spells doom for the federal budget, private businesses and the U.S. healthcare system. They're also enormously frustrated that the law has persevered through two elections and a Supreme Court challenge and believe a botched implementation could help build momentum for the repeal movement. Some Republicans indicated to The Hill they...

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) was being debated, proponents were accused of saddling Americans with inferior and expensive health care while keeping generous coverage for themselves at taxpayer expense. To rebut that allegation and build confidence in the bill, a provision was added mandating that members of Congress – and their staff members – get there coverage through the new exchange system the bill set up. Now that the time to sign up for exchange coverage is nearing, a Democratic member, Rep. John Larson (D., Conn.), is saying that “this is simply not fair” – as...

In a recent column we discussed the sad state of the Republican Party. Today’s Republicans lack original ideas and a positive agenda. The leading Tea Party politicians — such as Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint and Michele Bachmann — don’t seem to like to do the work of staying in office. Despite more than a decade of war, Republicans keep trying to get us into more wars. They like to restrict individual freedoms, except for any restraints on buying guns. And Republicans want businesses to be able to do just about whatever they want to do. Now let’s turn our attention...

Michele Bachmann’s decision last week to leave Congress at the end of this term silences the Republican’s best-known female voice on the national political stage. It’s not a secret that her undisciplined style made her unpopular with the party’s leadership. But with women making up just 8 percent of the Republican majority in the House, Bachmann’s Tea Party populism, her run for the White House and her wide-eyed, often inaccurate claims, still made her a GOP stand out. At the moment, the best-known Republican woman at the national level has never run for office – that’s former Secretary of State...

In the Missouri special election held Tuesday night Jason Smith won his race in a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote. Mr Smith will go to Washington! Sarah Palin who endorsed Smith tweeted her congratulations: Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA Mr. Smith goes to Washington! Congrats @RepJasonSmith -- stay strong and true to your roots! 9:01 PM - 4 Jun 2013 193 Retweets 93 favorites From Ed Harris the Chairman of the Missouri GOP: On Tuesday night, conservative Republican Jason Smith was elected to Congress in a landslide. He finished with 67 percent of the vote, 40 points ahead of...

David Axelrod is pushing — again — the meme that the GOP is all about to “overreach” on the collective Obama scandals. There are clearly serious things that ought to be looked at, and the Congress has the right to look at them. And the question is just, will they overplay their hand? You know, if, Darrell Issa has torqued this thing up so high that he threatens to take the party over the cliff. And if I were Republicans, I would say to Issa, in the parlance of his old business, ‘please step away from that car.’ I think...

The House Ways and Means Committee Hearing today shocked America. But it destroyed Democrats. No matter what the Democrats tried to do to deflect attention away from the scandal targeting conservatives, nothing worked. They don’t have an answer. The Democrats on the panel looked sad and despondent by the end of the hearing today.

After Michele Bachmann announced her retirement this week, many people — Republicans included — thought the move would make it easier for the GOP to hold MN-06 with a fresh face. Looks like Bachmann’s already-announced opponent, Jim Graves, agrees: Minnesota Democratic congressional candidate Jim Graves plans to halt his campaign to replace Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann in Congress just days after she ruled out a re-election run, according to his top aide. Campaign manager Aaron Wells told The Associated Press that Graves will issue a statement later Friday explaining the decision. Graves was quoted as saying the goal of unseating...

Former Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Sarah PAC contributed $5,000 on 5/14 to Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who is running in the Missouri 8th District Special General Election on 6/4. The seat was vacated by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) in January. Emerson is now the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Smith, who is the Speaker Pro Tem of the Missouri House of Representatives, reported raising $200,313 from 4/1 to 5/15, and has $228,147 cash on hand as of 5/15. Smith raised $114,083 from individuals, including $5,200 from Anthony Kelly (owner, Precision Tent Rental, MO); $5,200 from Charlotte...

With the scent of scandal encircling the White House, some Republicans are already licking their chops over the 2014 midterm elections, while some Democrats are pre-emptively licking their wounds. Not so fast, folks. Retract those tongues. While it is impossible to predict what might drive voter attitudes in an election 18 months away, there are quite a few signs that 2014 will be nothing like 2010, which produced tremendous success for Republicans. First, the electorate is less conservative. In May 2009, the Tea Party had just begun to flex its muscle and feel its power on a national level. Now,...

For the far right, dreams die hard and delusions never end. As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who represents a congressional GOP with unpopularity of 75 percent, prepares to summon former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with popularity above 60 percent, to testify, the overreach of House Republicans now threatens Republican control of the House. The triumph of the Tea Party within Republican politics is a gift to Democrats in 2014, as the disastrous vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin in 2008 helped propelled Barack Obama to a two-term presidency. In the latest poll I've seen about 2014, a generic poll...

Less than a month remains before the June 4th special election for Congressman in Missouri's 8th Congressional District. Both major candidates continue to get endorsements from within their own party. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has endorsed the Republican contender Jason Smith while the Democratic contender has received an endorsement from Governor Jay Nixon. Others running for the open seat, that was vacated when Jo Ann Emerson resigned, include Constitution Party candidate Doug Enyart, Libertarian Bill Slantz and two write-in candidates Thomas Brown and Doctor Robert George.

Forget background checks and gun control, divisions within the GOP on immigration, and Republican intransigence on negotiating a budget deal with the president. The current triple play of Benghazi, the IRS and now the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ phone records has the potential to be a political game changer for 2014. It’s hard to overstate the potential significance of the past week. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a dramatic reversal of the nation’s political narrative — from how bad the Republican brand is and how President Barack Obama is going to mobilize public opinion against the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know, folks, on this IRS business, I think the 2010 midterms really shocked the Democrats. I think they might have expected to maybe lose some seats, although, actually, my memory -- no, no, no, no, no, my memory is that they thought with the overwhelming popularity of Obama it might be the first time that a sitting president's party increased seats. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. I think Bush did it. But they were clearly hoping for at least a draw. In the 2010 midterms they got shellacked. It's one of the reasons I...

A top GOP critic pushed back Sunday on charges that Republican efforts to investigate last year's Benghazi attack are designed to inflict political damage on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Hillary Clinton's not a target," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on NBC's Meet the Press. "President Obama is not a target." Issa, who heads a panel probing the assault on the diplomatic outpost that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, said he will seek depositions from Benghazi review board heads Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the...

Rep Steve Stockman (R-TX) giving away a Bushmaster AR-15 on July 4. People who visit his re-election website--www.stockman2014.com--can find a link marked "Enter To Win An AR-15." Under this are the words, "Click here to enter to win the gun Obama doesn't want you to have." Once you click where instructed, you are asked to enter your name, zip, and email and that's that--you're entered into the drawing and are added to his online mailing list. Democrat National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse reacted to news of the give away by pointing out this was the same gun Adam Lanza...

Disgusted and fed up like the rest of us, Sarah Palin rips members of the Republican Party a new one over their support for the so-called “Marketplace Fairness Act” a sales tax on internet purchases. More new taxes? How can we be divided on new taxes? In this horribly weak economy with an over-reaching, over-spending, anti-small-business government continually making the wrong decisions, Republicans can’t even stay committed to “No New Taxes”? Please step away from your Washington, DC bubble and get back in touch with the hard working people who sent you there. Read the planks in our party’s platform...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides met recently with staffers of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to warn them: Targeting vulnerable Democrats like Arkansas’s Mark Pryor on gun control could backfire on the party, several sources told POLITICO. It didn’t work. Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote. The group is also moving as many as 60 field organizers into about a dozen states where senators — Democrats and Republicans —...

When former President Bill Clinton spoke at Georgetown University on April 30, he told Democrats to keep pushing gun control because it's a winner. This is strange advice coming from a man who watched his party endure a loss of historic proportions in 1994; a loss attributed in large part to the fact that he and his fellow Democrats pushed an "assault weapons" ban onto the American people. Clinton spoke of this loss while at Georgetown, telling the audience, "The fact that we had majority support didn't amount to anything, it's always the intensity of support that you have to...

Former Rep. Ron Paul said the law enforcement that swarmed around Boston in the days following the marathon bombings was scarier than the actual terrorist attack. “The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” he said on the Lew Rockwell website, Politico reported. “This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.” The terror attacks on April 15 in Boston killed three and injured 264. Mr. Paul, a former libertarian political candidate who served in Congress as...

Republicans in the Senate and House are expected to introduce a joint bill Friday that would limit the amount of ammunition that federal agencies are allowed to buy and stockpile over the next six months, the Washington Free Beacon reports. The bill, titled the Ammunition Management for More Accountability or “AMMO” Act, is being proposed after several lawmakers have voiced concerns about some federal agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, seemingly stockpiling large quantities of ammo. “DHS, for instance, has placed two-years worth of ammunition, or nearly 247 million rounds, in its inventory,” the Free Beacon notes. In a...

The biggest question mark over Ron Paul has always been his affinity for unsavory wack jobs on the fringes of American politics, but these days he’s turning that question mark into an exclamation point. The Daily Beast reports that the ex-Texas Congressman is creating the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, a think tank concerned with what Paul considers important foreign policy and civil liberty issues. It appears that the institute’s board contains some truly bizarre characters: Putin shills, Serb genocide apologists, 9/11 truthers, and pro-Confederate loons. Here’s a summary of one of the members, John Laughland: A prominent...

Did the senators who voted against a proposal last week to expand background checks on gun buyers take an electoral risk? At first glance, it would seem that they did. Background checks are broadly popular with the public. Overwhelming majorities of 80 to 90 percent of the public say they favor background checks when guns are purchased at gun shows, at gun shops or online. Support for background checks drops when guns are bought through informal channels, or gifts from family members — but the amendment that the Senate voted upon last week, sponsored by the Joe Manchin III, Democrat...

Liberals and civil libertarians shouldn’t yet be saying that there’s utterly no way that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be declared an “enemy combatant.” The post-9/11 law, whatever one’s opinion of it, does say that an American citizen affiliated with al Qaeda, the Taliban, “or associated forces” engaged in hostility with the United States can be declared an enemy combatant. It doesn’t seem like he’s that, but who knows, he may shock everyone when he comes to by saying that he and his brother were precisely that. But it isn’t liberals who are jumping the gun here. As usual, conservatives are rushing...

Watching President Obama’s fury after Congress failed to pass any gun-control legislation was a sign of his political helplessness. Despite aggressively pushing for expanded background checks, despite enlisting the victims of recent gun violence to lobby their representatives, despite getting one of the more conservative senators to support a watered-down background-check measure, he fell five votes short of getting anything passed in the Senate, including losing four members from his own party. If this doesn’t demonstrate the limitations of the president’s political muscle and the influence of his newly minted Organizing for Action lobbying group, I don’t know what does....

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said today that the Senate immigration bill is even worse than feared, since it legalizes illegals' relatives and even those previously deported: "It's hard to believe, but the Senate immigration bill is worse than we thought. Despite assurances, the border is not secured before almost everyone in the country illegally is given amnesty. The bill guarantees there will be a rush across the border to take advantage of massive amnesty." Rep. Smith says the Senate immigration bill shreds current immigration laws: "And the Senate proposal offers amnesty to far more illegal immigrants than we thought. In...

The Senate’s effective rejection of President Barack Obama’s post-Newtown gun control bill robs the Democratic Party of an important tool for trying to regain a majority in the House in November 2014. “Are they serious?” a visibly angry Obama demanded of opponents of the Toomey/Manchin Senate bill. In a late-afternoon announcement outside the White House, the president added that if Congress continues not to pass a gun control bill, “the answer will have to come from the voters.” But without a Senate bill, there’s little chance that vulnerable GOP House members in suburban swing-districts will face the unpleasant choice of...

Representative Steve King of Iowa, a prominent House conservative, says Congress should be cautious about rushing immigration reform, especially after Monday’s bombing in Boston, where three people were killed. “Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa,” King says. “If that’s the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture.” On immigration, King says national security should be the focus now, and any talk about a path to legalization should be put on hold. “We...

Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest member of the Texas congressional delegation, and Rep. Pete Gallego, its newest member, spoke for their Texas colleagues in the aftermath of the explosions at the Boston Marathon. "My thoughts and prayers are with those in Boston." - Rep. Hall #prayforboston 9:17 PM - 15 Apr 13 Pete Gallego ✔ @RepPeteGallego Listening 2 details re Boston Marathon bombs. Evil like that still boggles my mind. God always sees the truth. Justice comes. 8:55 PM - 15 Apr 13 Rep. Steve Stockman, a Republican from Friendswood, shared those sentiments. Rep. Steve Stockman @SteveWorks4You Please pray for...

Growing momentum in the Senate for new gun control legislation has failed to flow down to the House, where just a handful of House Republicans have embraced a deal to expand background checks for firearm purchases. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and multiple Republican members of the Pennsylvania delegation are backing a compromise brokered by the Keystone State’s Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that advanced in the Senate on Thursday. Yet in interviews, those lawmakers said they have had no discussions with the House GOP leadership and don’t know what the prospects for the legislation would be in a chamber dominated by...

There is a powerful and profound convergence of interest between Team Obama, Team Clinton and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. The prime directive for the leadership strata of Democrats in Washington and the Democratic base nationally is clear and well understood by most national political players, if not yet the political media. This three-stage convergence of interest is as follows: First, the goal is to elect a Democratic House and preserve the Democratic Senate in 2014. This would effectively power-start a third term for President Obama that would begin after the election of a Democratic House and Senate...

The assault on the second amendment of the Constitution continues. Yesterday, the US Senate voted 61-38 to have the latest gun control bill move forward for debate on the final package. Democrats easily managed to get over the 60 vote threshold to stave off a conservative filibuster by having 16 Republicans cross the aisle and violate their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Remember these names: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) Richard Burr (N.C.) Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) Tom Coburn (Okla.) Susan Collins (Maine) Bob Corker (Tenn.) Jeff Flake (Ariz.) Lindsey Graham (S.C.) Dean Heller (Nev.) John Hoeven (N.D.)...

BREAKING: Sources Report Senate Republicans Caving on Guns | RedState Sources inside the Senate tell me that the Republican Conference is scared to death of the tactics of Senators Lee, Cruz and Paul – that it is supposedly putting them in a tough spot. Several of the Republicans are using the Manchin-Toomey compromise plan as an excuse to cave on the gun filibuster. They claim that Senators Lee, Cruz, and Paul are running ahead of the conference in their insistence on a filibuster. What they fail to see is that the cloture vote is the vote to stop the gun...

The expectation is taking hold that this week, and the handful of weeks that follow, are the crucible of the Obama presidency, with showdowns on gun safety, immigration reform, and deficit reduction that will define the Obama legacy. But if not, there’s always 2014. Unless the White House and its allies are able to break the logjam in Congress, the president will have no choice but to turn his full attention to the midterm election, where Democrats have an outside chance of taking back the House and providing Obama friendlier terrain to finish out his term and secure his agenda....

CNBC host Joe Kernen took House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) to task Friday over the Republican Party's opposition to same-sex marriage. In a rare discussion of social issues on the financial news program "Squawkbox," Kernen argued that the GOP has squandered its appeal with fiscally conservative voters by virtue of its opposition to gay nuptials. Cantor said some people, himself included, have legitimate religious objections to same-sex marriage. “There are those of us who have personal religious convictions about the issue," Cantor said. "And I think that we as a country need to respect people about their opinion, not...

Obama’s “you’re on your own”-attitude toward the DCCC and the DSCC during the 2012 campaign cycle was not particularly appreciated by his very vexed fellow Democrats, but he’s already starting to make good on his Lone-Ranger-no-more promise to help them with the 2014 midterms — he is going to need a fully Democratic Congress to have any hope of securing his legacy, after all. During the first of the at least fourteen promised Democratic campaign swings this year, the president paid the usual lip service to sincerely wanting to work with Republicans (“Look, my intention here is to try to...

During a forum on gun control in Colorado hosted by The Denver Post, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) mocked the concerns of a senior citizen who said that his impairments would put him at a significant disadvantage in a firefight under the state’s new gun laws. She drew laughs from the crowd when she reminded the questioner that he can take advantage of the Denver Police Department’s services. She added that, in the hypothetical situation the questioner described, “you’d probably be dead anyway.” At the Tuesday night forum, the elderly questioner described his unique circumstances and asked DeGette about how he...

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday that the United States had the right to take preemptive military action against North Korea if there was "solid evidence" that Kim Jon Un planned to attack the U.S. or South Korea. "If we have good reason to believe there's going to be an attack, I believe we have the right to take preemptive action," King said on CNN's "Erin Burnett Outfront.""I don't think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way," he continued. "I'm not saying we should be rushing into war, don't get me wrong,...

Sometimes, the best way to get a handle on the unpredictable is to label it with a completely random numerical value. Oddsmaking is a combination of magical thinking, intuition and sheer chance. With that in mind, here are the odds that Vegas bookmakers might want to give to the following world events: 1. North Korea starts a war with South Korea: 10% My biggest fear is that the West believes that North Korea does not actually feel threatened and is simply posturing. But that assumption has almost never, ever held water for any conflicts. It's been a huge blind spot;...