Free Republic

With Rep. Henry Waxman's retirement announcement, many of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's top lieutenants are abandoning ship. Waxman joins his California colleague, Rep. George Miller, and Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia as close Pelosi allies to retire after this Congress. And after last year's 2012 elections, Pelosi's leading in-house strategist Jen Crider left her office, later announcing she was working for Microsoft. Their decisions are as strong a signal as any that veteran House Democrats hold little hope of taking the House in 2014, and they probably are pessimistic about their long-term prospects for a congressional majority. Miller and...

The novelty of flying cars never materialized. But flying novels are right around the corner. If you aren’t nervous enough reading about 3-D printers spitting out handguns or Google robots with Android phones, imagine the skies thick with crisscrossing tiny drones.

"There's a mental health problem in Congress," says actor and liberal activist Sean Penn. The president could solve the problem "by committing them by executive order," Penn told CNN's Piers Morgan Monday night.Asked if Penn would have "people like Ted Cruz" committed, Penn said, "He is my American brother. I won't -- I think we should take care of him, he is in, he's the trouble.""Well, actually have him committed," Morgan followed up."Yeah, I think it's a good idea," Penn said.

She’s learned from her mistakes. Three years before November 8, 2016, she’s working hard to be relaxed, calm, easy. But, all the while, the old Clinton gears are whirring.

To prove that the U.S news media “distort the truth and mislead the public opinion to curry favor with power,” a North Korean newspaper used Helen Thomas’s 2010 retirement as an example. Only problem is that Thomas (pictured right) was once a female columnist for Hearst Newspapers, not a man.

Madonna offered a profanity-laced endorsement of President Obama at her concert Monday night, which involved the singer stripping down to her underwear to reveal the president's name written on her body. “You all better vote for f---ing Obama okay,” she told the crowd at Washington's Verizon center.

A group of about 25 journalists and friends got together in the National Press Club to celebrate the life and birthday of ground breaking journalist Helen Thomas. We met in the McLendon Room, which was appropriate. When I came into the White House press corps, in l968, Helen and Sarah McClendon were the senior correspondents. Helen's mind and voice are as sharp as ever, but her body is more delicate (that happens to many of us). Our one rule of the get together was -- no politics! We have enough of that the rest of the time. In addition, none...

CHARLOTTE - Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) will lacerate Mitt Romney on foreign policy in a major speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention. "In this campaign, we have a fundamental choice," Kerry will say, according to speech excerpts provided to The Cable. "Will we protect our country and our allies, advance our interests and ideals, do battle where we must, and make peace where we can? Or will we entrust our place in the world to someone who just hasn't learned the lessons of the last decade?"

Sen. John Kerry has the perfect audition piece for the secretary of state job he appears to covet — the long-stalled Law of the Sea treaty. He’s come armed with a throng of industry backers and pleas from the country’s top officials. But a cadre of conservatives remains determined to sink it.

Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features former CBS News anchor Katie Couric, giving the commencement at the University of Virginia, claiming to have been cheated by sexists. She said, “One of the problems with being a trailblazer is, sometimes you get burned. In those first few months at CBS, TV critics wrote about my clothes, my hair, my makeup, even the way I held my hands. Some said I lacked ‘gravitas,' which I've since decided is Latin for ‘testicles.'...My story may have played out in the public eye, but it's by no means unique....

Hillary Clinton can’t be bothered by chatter about her physical appearance, the secretary of state told CNN’s Jill Dougherty in an interview on Tuesday. Asked about a photo of her wearing very little make-up that was tauntingly posted on yesterday’s Drudge Report, Clinton replied, “I feel so relieved to be at the stage I'm at in my life right now, Jill, because if I want to wear my glasses, I'm wearing my glasses.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she wanted to see a female US president during her lifetime -- but insisted she was ready to "get off the high wire" of top-level politics. "I hope so. I really want to see that in my lifetime," Clinton said during a town hall meeting at a girls school in India's Kolkata, when asked about the prospects of a woman taking America's top job for the first time. Clinton praised India's "great display of women empowerment" due to the prominent role played by female politicians over the years but said that in the...

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James Carville chose these colorful words to describe Rick Santorum after Mitt Romney swept three Republican primaries Tuesday: “He was like a chicken with his head chopped off. The chicken is dead. The only person that don’t know it is the chicken.” The Democratic strategist, not known to mince his words, said in a late-night interview with CNN that Santorum “can flop around all he wants to [but] they’re not going to nominate him.”

Former White House Reporter Awarded for Being Friend to Palestinians Helen Thomas, who covered the White House for 50 years before being forced to resign over anti-Semitic comments, can add another distinction to her resume, reports Haartez. The Lebanese-American reporter was honored by the Palestinian Authority on Sunday for her, “long career in the field of journalism, during which she defended the Palestinian position every step of the way.” Perhaps the most famous member of the White House press corps, Thomas was forced to resign in 2010 after she said to a reporter on camera regarding the Jews in Israel,...

Journalist Helen Thomas put in a request in February that she have her own table at this year‘s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Unfortunately for her, she was denied by the White House Correspondents’ Association, which Thomas once presided over. “I would appreciate — particularly this year as we celebrate the 50 year anniversary of women being admitted to the WHCA dinner — to share this celebration with my family and close friends one last time,” she wrote in a letter to the WHCA board.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney finally released his tax returns last week, revealing that less than 14 percent in federal taxes was paid, of his more than $20 million income earned last year. Once again, the question Warren Buffett first asked this past summer is being raised: Why do the super wealthy in this country pay less in taxes than the working class? How do people making millions of dollars a year pay roughly 15 percent in taxes, while someone with a salary of $100,000 per year will pay as much as 28 percent in taxes? This is because of...

President Barack Obama painted the state of the union as strong and safe in his third address to the nation, but glossed over solutions to some of the nation's biggest problems. The President, running for reelection, touched base on all major issues including the economy, energy, regulation, immigration and education. He exuded confidence and laid out many points he is expected to hit on the campaign trail. Although Obama has failed in the past at every attempt to work with the Republicans in the Congress, he still attempted to reach out to the opposition. Most Republicans and Democrats could agree...

The leading Republican candidates made their last-minute blitz for supporters in Iowa. They each personalized their credentials. The election struggle was a classic, with the candidates trying to out-rival each other over their dedication to conservatism. A call for smaller government, lower taxes, and balancing the budget topped the agendas of nearly all the ultra-conservative candidates. One wonders why they seek to be at the helm of a powerless federal government. Candidate Ron Paul hopes to eliminate the Social Security system, which has been in effect since 1935 when former President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Social Security Act in...

Pioneering White House correspondent Helen Thomas told a National Press Club audience Dec. 7 that the country is endangered by what she called government leaders' greed, fear, and subservience to war-mongers. “I came here in 1943,” she told a dinner audience of 30, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen our country so bereft of ideals and ideas. I don’t see anything on the horizon that can pull us out. I hope I’m wrong.” Shown at left in a 2009 photo courtesy of Wikipeda, she described current leaders as weak and selfish. The self-described liberal doled out criticism to all...