Free Republic

What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may eventually be discovered, but there is something else that has been missing for much longe,r and its “disappearance” has far greater implications for America. It is our foreign policy. Can anyone say what it is?With Russia's Vladimir Putin behaving like a modern Catherine the Great in his efforts to annex Crimea and possibly all of Ukraine, what is our policy toward Russia, which is behaving increasingly like its former, supposedly dead, communist self?In a New York Times op-ed column last week, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain wrote: "Crimea has exposed the disturbing...

<p>By the beginning of 1980, Jimmy Carter was in big trouble. Almost everything he had said or done in foreign policy over the prior three years had failed — and he was running for reelection.</p> <p>Carter had come into office in 1977 promising a new American stance abroad predicated on human rights. He bragged of an end to our supposedly inordinate fear of Soviet-inspired Communism. He entertained the hope of not losing a single American soldier in combat during his tenure. And he rejected the realpolitik of the Nixon-Kissinger years.</p>

State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin told the media on Monday the president would express his attitude to the requests from Crimea and Sevastopol for accession to Russia and to the just-held referendum. The speaker of the lower house earlier explained the rules of admitting the federation’s new members. “There are several steps. First, a foreign country addresses Russia with a request for joining the federation and on concluding a corresponding inter-state treaty. The president shall inform the Federation Council, the State Duma and the government of this motion and hold consultations, if necessary. After the signing of the inter-state treaty...

CIA Chief: Jihad a product of injustices, economics, and ignorance CIA director John Brennan is at it again—equivocating over the nature of jihad by evoking paradigms familiar to the West. Last Tuesday, “during an event at the Council of Foreign Relations, Brennan was asked about the ‘war of ideas’ surrounding Islam, which the questioner said many Americans tend to equate with violence.” The CIA chief responded by saying that al-Qaeda’s ideology is “a perverse and very corrupt interpretation of the Qur’an”; that “al-Qaeda has hijacked” Islam; that “they have really distorted the teachings of Muhammad.” Even so, “that ideology, that...

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee wants to help you buy your first home. So much so, in fact, that the city is now willing to lend certain first-time home buyers up to $200,000 toward the down payment on their first house or condominium in San Francisco. That’s real money, but in a city where the median sales price was $925,000 in February, is $200,000 enough to make a difference to low-income and middle-class residents being priced out of the city by the tech boom? […] The new limit, which goes into effect this month, will allow some home buyers to...

Bowing to pressure from within their party, Democrats in the Legislature on Monday abandoned an attempt to repeal California’s voter-approved ban on affirmative action in the state’s higher education system. Assembly Speaker John Perez said he does not have enough support to place the constitutional amendment before voters in November. Instead, he said lawmakers will form a task force to study the issue of access in higher education. California voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996, banning the use of race and ethnicity in public university admissions, state hiring and contracting. The amendment, SCA5, was initiated to address the drop-off in...

On March 5th, 2014, the Juridical Commission of Romania’s Chamber of Deputies rejected a bill proposing legal recognition for civil partnerships signed before a notary. The bill had already been rejected by Romania’s Senate (with 105 votes against and 2 in favor). After its unanimous rejection by the Juridical Commission, the last chance would be for it to be introduced directly to the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies. This is exactly what its sponsor, Remus Cernea, independent Member of Parliament and a promoter of secular humanism, intends to do, though with little chances of success. Romanian MP Diana...

Should Medical Reasons Exempt People From Prison? Former Tacoma teacher Keshia Shaw who pleaded guilty to child rape won’t serve prison time thanks to a Pierce County judge who sentenced her to sex offender treatment instead. Shaw will go free thanks to a medical condition known as polycystic ovarian syndrome, causing her to have facial hair, as well as multiple sclerosis. Follow TLR on Google+ “I’m worried that prolonged stay here will turn my conditions into a 200-pound 3-year-old,” Shaw said in court. RELATED (PODCAST): Is it OK for teachers to rape their students if she’s hot and they’re young...

Effective today, a new civil code in Hungary makes it illegal to take a photograph without obtaining permission from everybody in the photo, making street photographers’ and photojournalists’ jobs infinitely more complicated and opening the door for a landslide of litigation. Reported first in The Guardian, the new law expands current regulations that prohibited the publication of images without consent, something justice ministry officials say “merely codifies existing court practice.”

Dmitry Rogozin @DRogozin Follow Comrade @BarackObama, what should do those who have neither accounts nor property abroad? Or U didn't think about it?)http://bit.ly/1ebMXDM 10:26 AM - 17 Mar 2014 As Krauthammer puts it, “if he thinks that sanctioning seven Russians, out of a population of, what, 150 million, is a sanction, he’s living in a different world.” I don’t know about Dr. K’s suggestion that we could get the Europeans to join in on real, robust economic sanctions, given their degree of energy dependence on Russia, but today’s announcement definitely amounts to little more than weaksauce symbolic gesture: He’s being...

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni will meet on Tuesday with representatives of the Almagor terror victims’ organization. The meeting comes ahead of the next scheduled release of terrorists as a “gesture” the Palestinian Authority (PA). Lt. Col. (ret.) Oren Tamam, brother of Moshe Tamam who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists, said on Monday that the meeting was finally scheduled after months of repeated requests. “We're going with a broken heart and hopefully she will listen to us willingly,” said Tamam, adding, "The past few months have created among us a distrust in the justice system for which she is responsible,...

The administration is claiming a limited victory by saying the number of those enrolled in ObamaCare has now hit 5 million with two weeks to go until the March 31 deadline. If accurate, the number does represent a steep increase over the 4.2 million that were said to have signed up at the beginning of the month. At this rate, administration cheerleaders reason, the goal of 7 million enrolled in the Affordable Care Act may yet be reached at some point in the near future, if not quite on time. This burst of enrollments is seen as a vindication of...

(KCEN) -- Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz introduce the Honoring the Fort Hood Heroes Act. The bill will to reclassify the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage as an act of terror and provide more benefits for victims and their family. Victims and relatives have complained that the U.S. Government wrongly categorized the attacks as workplace violence. The bill would provide life insurance, tax breaks for death in a combat zone and other combat-related pay. Last month, Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death for the attack on Fort Hood that left 13 people dead and dozens of others hurt.

A messianic Jewish leader says a recent "Hijab Day" in Minneapolis is another example of people bending over backwards to accommodate Muslim demands. Breitbart.com reported that female Muslim employees at Minneapolis City Hall declared February 28 to be "Hijab Day," then convinced most female employee at work to don the traditional headwear to pose for pictures that were posted on Facebook. "Christians cannot and would not make demands of people of other faiths. Jews would never make such demands of people of other faiths," says Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries. Markell's ministry is based in Minnesota....

Two teenage nurses laughed and filmed themselves as they beat a 98-year-old nursing home resident in St. Charles, Illinois. According to the Chicago Tribune, Chemyra Barnett and Jacqueline Santos – both 18-years old – struck an elderly woman with dementia, took video of the attack, and shared the video with friends.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Next up for "Let's Move?" How about "Let's Cook." Michelle Obama said Friday that a new focus of her anti-childhood obesity effort will be to help people cook more of their meals at home because they're healthier. Addressing a health summit in Washington, the first lady said home-cooked meals have less fat, sodium, cholesterol and calories than meals prepared in restaurants — and save money, too.

SAGINAW, MI — The mother of Milton Hall, a homeless Saginaw man shot and killed by Saginaw police officers in 2012, has settled her federal wrongful death lawsuit against the city and nine police officers, her attorneys say. Jewel Hall on Friday, March 14, settled her case in U.S. District Court in Bay City, according to a press release sent from Hall's Detroit attorneys. Hall settled the case for $725,000, according to her Saginaw attorney, Debra Freid. Hall's "primary motivation was to make sure that this never happens to another family," Freid told The Saginaw News. The dollar amount is...

There are probably only a small handful of you who actually remember the debate about the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, which ceded control of the Panama Canal back to Panama. I opposed it at the time; I still oppose it. In fact, my father and I continue to despise the Senators, such as the late Robert C. Byrd (D.-WV), who deliberately ignored the cries of their constituents and chose to ratify it anyway.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has been near the top of the list of the most vulnerable senators facing reelection since day one of the 2014 election cycle. But notable developments in recent weeks suggest her seat is increasingly at risk of falling into Republican hands. Republican groups have blitzed Landrieu over the airwaves while she has gotten limited cover from Democratic allies; polls show she is locked in a close race against Rep. Bill Cassidy (R); and now, Landrieu is reserving $2.6 million in airtime between April and June, an apparent recognition that the cascade of opposition ads has forced...