Free Republic

Russia's parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said: "The British need to study some proverbs - 'Russians harness the horse slowly, but ride it fast'." He told politicians that "the unscrupulous British" had eaten Russian fish for 68 years - declaring: "Now let them lose weight, get smarter." On Wednesday, the UK imposed sanctions on six people in charge of the Arctic penal colony where Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin's fiercest critic, died last week. Mr Volodin said withdrawal from the fishing deal was in direct response to these sanctions - as British vessels caught 556,000 tonnes of cod and haddock in Russian...

Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign accused President Trump of spreading false information about the former New York City mayor wanting to stand on a box at the Democratic debate to make him appear taller. Bloomberg campaign spokeswoman Julie Wood mocked Trump’s appearance in a fiery statement Sunday while denying the claim. “The president is lying. He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan,” she told CNN.

I know that every candidate has passionate supporters, but it’s obvious that Ron Paul’s followers are especially passionate to the point of being downright touchy whenever he is strongly criticized. Or am I being unfair in my assessment? Last week, I received an email via Townhall from an apparent Ron Paul supporter. He wrote, “You want war with Iran send your own [expletive] kids, not mine. Stop sucking up to Isreal [sic]. What a piece of [expletive] this Townhall spews. One can clearly see your [sic] for the Tea Party of Hate. I know becuase [sic] of your hate for...

Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me. Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm over Obama's economic policies, taking enfilading fire from the "liberal" media (from serious columnist Frank Rich to entertainer Jon Stewart) while being defended by Rush Limbaugh, the standard-bearer for the Republicans. I'm uncomfortable being in the crosshairs of columnists and comedians I enjoy, and I find the embrace of Rush Limbaugh most certainly strange if not antithetical to many of my...

A Barack Obama supporter has given up her role as a pledged delegate after the campaign found “unacceptable” her description of her neighbor’s children as “monkeys,” which she says she called them because they were climbing in trees. Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, an a Hispanic trustee for the Village of Carpentersville, Ill., was accused of racism following the interaction with her African-American neighbors. “Given the incident, she is stepping down and will be replaced as delegate,” Ben Labolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign told FOXNews.com, calling Sliwinski’s remarks “unacceptable.” The campaign discussed the incident with Ramirez-Sliwinski, who decided to step aside...

Americans celebrate Christmas in many different ways but in Bakersfield, California, an apparent secular fanatic observed the holiday by dousing himself with flammable liquid and setting himself ablaze. According to press reports, he meant to show his passionate objection to Thursday night’s decision by the Kern High School Board of Trustees to change the name of the winter break to “Christmas vacation” and the spring break to “Easter Vacation.” The protester (the headline proclaimed, “Name Change Sparks Protest”) first set fire to a Christmas tree and several flags, then lit himself to express his displeasure at the Board’s decision. Fire...

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New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

Yesterday, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved the changes to the new penal code. These changes criminalize dissent, criticism and any activity against Government officials by individuals. In the case of criticism of President Chavez, it is a criminal offense to “offend” the President either publicly or in private. What it means, once it gets published in the next few days and becomes law, is that the Government may go after anyone that tries to express any form of criticism against the Government or Government officials. This is in effect, a limitation of freedom of speech which will be diminished significantly...

It had been a few years since Vern Ballard, 36, was entwined in courtship and obliged to display the affection romance demands. In the early weeks of getting to know this new woman, he said, the two of them passed hours upon hours in conversation but exchanged not an iota of physical contact until she took the initiative. One day, as their friendship inched toward what he hopes is a committed relationship, she covered his hand with her own and let it linger there for 10 minutes. "I need to know how to sustain that," said the City College computer...

Assemblyman Keith Richman studied public employee pensions for a year so that he could propose changes to a system he believed was broken. In the end, he decided against writing legislation. Lawmakers and local government officials simply have no appetite for facing a looming crisis, the Northridge Republican concluded. With the state searching for a way out of its chronic fiscal malaise, government pensions have begun to attract some attention. It's clear, however, that changes in the state's massive pension system won't come easily. Last week, an Assembly committee killed a bill that would have stopped about 3,000 state workers...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African man told a court how he hacked to death his interior designer because she criticized his decor, local newspapers reported on Tuesday. Jose da Silva, 37, pleaded guilty to murdering 47-year-old Beatrice Harrowyn in 2001 after inviting her to his new house in a classy suburb north of Johannesburg. "We went through the house and I told her what I wanted. She did not make any nice comments about my place so I went to my garage and fetched an axe," the Star newspaper reported him as saying. "I killed her because she reminded...