Free Republic

"I think this is going to take some time," our president warned last Saturday as he took off for a vacation on Martha's Vineyard, maybe because he felt he had to offer some explanation as Iraq collapsed along with his foreign policy in general. What was once Iraq is now divided, like ancient Gaul, into three parts -- Shi'a, Sunni and Kurdish -- all of which are themselves crumbling. So now Barack Obama tells us that it may take some time to put Iraq together again after it fell apart in record time once he withdrew American forces there in...

A new Obama administration privacy policy released Friday explains how the government will gather the user data of online visitors to WhiteHouse.gov, mobile apps and social media sites, and it clarifies that online comments, whether tirades or tributes, are in the open domain. "Information you choose to share with the White House (directly and via third party sites) may be treated as public information," the new policy says. The Obama administration also promises not to sell the data of online visitors. But it cannot make the same assurances for users who go to third-party White House sites on Facebook, Twitter...

LENO SIGNS OFF “I don’t like goodbyes – NBC does – but I don’t care for them,” an emotional Jay Leno said, kicking off a star-studded final broadcast show as host of The Tonight Show. “Tonight is our last show for real. I don’t need to be fired three times — I get the hint,” Leno joked to a friends-and-family studio audience as he ended his 22-year run Thursday night. It’s his second very-last-time-as-host — having been pushed aside in 2009 by NBC to make way for Conan O’Brien, who lasted seven months.“I’ve got to tell you, the outpouring...

When customers step up to make a purchase at a CVS store next fall, they won’t see rows of cigarette boxes and other tobacco products behind the counter. CVS Caremark announced Wednesday its decision to stop selling tobacco products by October 2014 in its more than 7,600 stores, making it the first large drugstore chain in the country to do so.

CVS Caremark is kicking the habit of selling tobacco products at its more than 7,600 drugstores nationwide as it focuses more on providing health care. The nation's second-largest drugstore chain said Wednesday that it will phase out cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco by Oct. 1, a move that will cost about $2 billion in annual revenue but won't affect its 2014 earnings forecast. CVS Caremark leaders say removing tobacco will help them grow the company's business of working with doctors, hospitals and other care providers to improve customers' health.

Delta is set to fly the last scheduled U.S. commercial McDonnell Douglas DC-9 flight on Monday, January 6. Appropriately tagged as Delta flight 2014, the final flight will depart Minneapolis/St. Paul for Atlanta just before sunset, marking the end to a 48 year career of flying scheduled commercial flights in the United States.

They are generally regarded as historic relics and part of a bygone era of broadcasting history. But even in today’s digital age, there are 11,550 households in the country still watching black and white television, official figures reveal. The number of black and white licenses have dropped dramatically in recent years and the total has decreased by a further 12 percent over the past year. […] The cost of a black and white TV license remains frozen at £49 ($80.37) until the BBC Charter Review in 2016. A color license costs £145.50 ($238.65). …

'The thriving cotton industry brought Jewish merchants to the southern states of the US in the 19th Century. Their synagogues once attracted hundreds of worshippers but now, many Deep South Jewish communities are preparing to shut up shop.'

A Washington institution closed up shop Saturday night for good. Famous Luigi's on 19th Street, Northwest served its last meal. The classic Italian restaurant was started by immigrant Luigi Calvi back in 1943.

Movies such as “Dirty Dancing” offered everlasting memories of the once-affluent getaway spot. Now, the last of the iconic Catskills resorts has been sold to a company that plans to turn the property into a healthy living resort.

Mike Huckabee’s radio show is done, the former Arkansas governor announced on Wednesday. “The Mike Huckabee Show on radio, which was heard 3 hours a day on over 200 radio stations across the country since April of 2012 will conclude its run at the end of the final show on Thursday, December 12,” Huckabee wrote on Facebook.

Barack Obama being clear that his team messed up Obamacare made it hard for liberal PBS NewsHour pundit Mark Shields to try Democrat Happy Talk. Instead, Shields joined the liberal gloomfest: “If this goes down, if the Obama -- if health care, the Affordable Care Act is deemed a failure, this is the end -- I really mean it -- of liberal government.” He even acknowledged Obama lied about Keeping Your Plan: MARK SHIELDS: That is -- wasn't a true statement. And you're driven to one of two conclusions. Either the president was almost -- almost negligently uncurious in not...

Starting next year, it's lights out for certain types of light bulbs in the United States. You'll no longer be able to buy an incandescent light bulb starting January 1, 2014. Under the Energy Efficiency and Security Act of 2007, signed into law by then- President George W. Bush, light bulbs must become more efficient in terms of energy used for generated light. That means incandescent lights are phased out. And you'll reduced to choose between a compact fluorescent (CFL) or light emitting diode (LED) bulb. For example, instead of burning 60 watts when you turn on the lights, you...

"Regulars say goodbye to Bloomington's second oldest restaurant....That Wednesday in September, the owner didn’t know what to do with himself. The smell of frying oil, the same greasy perfume that had greeted customers for 46 years, wafted into his nose as he wandered past the vinyl booths. He sat down, then stood up again. Bud — everyone called him Bud — checked on the dwindling supply of breakfast sausage, peered into the nearly empty freezers, tried to explain to his regulars why it had to be this way........"

Dutch King: Say goodbye to welfare state AMSTERDAM (AP) — King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government Tuesday in a nationally televised address: the welfare state of the 20th century is gone. In its place a "participation society" is emerging, in which people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the national government.

During my middle school and early high school years, my family owned a Volkswagen Type 2 Camper Van. We used to take it camping in the mountains or at Disney World, and it was as much fun as a conversation piece as it was as a vehicle. I wanted that vehicle for my own so badly, and my dad told me he’d give it to me when I turned 16. I imagined how great it would be to have a cool drink waiting for me in the icebox at the end of the day, and of course I knew it...

A photo of the sign at the Planned Parenthood abortion business Abby Johnson used to manage is making the round of the Internet. The abortion giant closed the Bryan-College Station, Texas abortion clinic and no one is more happy about the news than Abby herself — who tweeted and Facebooked the picture. Johnson said: “The Planned Parenthood sign at my former clinic has come down!! It is really closed. I don’t think it has become real for me yet. No more women will walk into that facility to be harmed again. No more children will die inside those walls.” The...

Since the last 40 Days for Life ended in March, four more abortion centers — which were sites of 40 Days for Life campaigns — have CLOSED their doors for good!Shortly after the campaign, volunteers learned that a late-term abortion facility in Sacramento, California — where multiple 40 Days for Life prayer vigils had been held outside — had gone out of business.Just a few weeks later, a Planned Parenthood abortion center in Kenmore, Washington — where two 40 Days for Life vigils have been held outside — announced its permanent closure.Then an abortion center in Toledo, Ohio … that...

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36) It’s a sad day for both Scouting and for freedom. Indeed, it’s a sad day for America. The century-old Boy Scouts of America (BSA) – created in 1910 to “prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes” – has betrayed its own constituency, mission, oath and law. Last Thursday, approximately 1,400 adult BSA delegates from around the country gathered in Texas and decided, in a disgracefully lopsided vote, to welcome into its ranks, “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual...

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36) It’s a sad day for both Scouting and for freedom. Indeed, it’s a sad day for America. The century-old Boy Scouts of America (BSA) – created in 1910 to “prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes” – has betrayed its own constituency, mission, oath and law. Last Thursday, approximately 1,400 adult BSA delegates from around the country gathered in Texas and decided, in a disgracefully lopsided vote, to welcome into its ranks, “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual...