Free Republic

Transparency and truth are the fuels that run sophisticated civilizations. Without them, the state grinds to a halt. Lack of trust -- not barbarians on the frontier, global warming or cooling, or even epidemics -- doomed civilizations of the past, from imperial Rome to the former Soviet Union. The United States can withstand the untruth of a particular presidential administration if the permanent government itself is honest. Dwight Eisenhower lied about the downed U-2 spy plane inside the Soviet Union. Almost nothing Richard Nixon said about Watergate was true. Intelligence reports of vast stockpiles of WMD in Iraq proved as...

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on Friday emphasized the need for the group to institute “population behavior change” in order to engineer healthier Americans.DGAC Chair Barbara Millen said the upcoming report would serve as the “foundation for public policy and food nutrition, physical activity, and health-related areas.” The group will release new recommendations for federal food policy in the 2015 report.Millen said the “potential is vast” for their recommendations, which deal with everything from “sustainability” in the food supply to “carbon footprints,” food deserts, alcohol consumption, and obesity “interventions.”“From our food programs, WIC [Women, Infants, and Children], SNAP, and so...

I just refreshed my Yahoo! homepage, and there is not one story visible on page one about Ukraine.Obviously the journo-list-ers have decided that the story was hurting King Barack I, so poof! no more Ukraine news!Isn't nice we live in a country under the firm hand of our Glorious Leader, the Hindmost, where we don't have to be disturbed by such upsetting stories?

The Obama Administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media. Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the Tea Party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC Commissioner. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reveals a brand new Obama Administration program that he fears could be used in “pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.” As Commissioner Pai explains in the Wall...

Every conservative by now should have noticed that February has become Ronald Reagan Month for Republicans. The man’s birthday was last week, February 6, the forerunner to Lincoln’s birthday (February 12), Washington’s birthday (February 22), and President’s Day (February 17). Throughout the nation, county and statewide Republican groups have been changing their longtime annual Lincoln Day dinners into Reagan Day dinners. I’m speaking on Reagan multiple times this month, including at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, where we’re releasing (pardon the plug) my new book that endeavors to answer the question “What is a Reagan conservative?” Thus, this...

Have you ever lied about reading a book? Maybe you didn’t want to seem stupid in front of someone you respected. Maybe you rationalized it by reasoning that you had a familiarity with the book, or knew who the author was, or what the story was about, or had glanced at its Wikipedia page. Or maybe you had tried to read the book, even bought it and set it by your bed for months unopened, hoping that it would impart what was in it merely via proximity (if that worked, please email me).

Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza was indicted Thursday on federal charges of violating campaign finance laws by using straw donors to funnel money to a U.S. Senate candidate. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the grand jury charges in a statement Thursday. D’Souza is expected to be arraigned Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. .... “Mr. D’Souza did not act with any corrupt or criminal intent whatsoever,” Brafman said in the statement. “He and the candidate have been friends since their college days, and “at worst, this was an act of misguided friendship by...

Verizon Wireless (VZ), in its first such disclosure, says U.S. officials requested data about subscribers some 322,000 times in 2013, along with another 1,000 to 1,999 requests in the form of "National Security Letters." "Our report reflects the fact that telecom providers receive more government demands than companies in perhaps any other industry," Verizon General Counsel and Executive Vice President Randal Milch wrote in a Wednesday blog post. The company says the 321,696 total requests it received from government and law enforcement officials were up from 2012, but it didn't say how many requests it received in 2012.

That's the title of a new book by Fred Jerome, a compilation of essays from these and other noteworthies: This anthology features essays by revolutionary thinkers, activists, and artists-including Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, civil rights activist Angela Davis, incarcerated journalist Mumia Abu Jamal, and economist Rick Wolff- addressing various aspects of a new society and, crucially, how to get from where we are now to where we want to be, living in a society that is truly fair and just. I suppose that's one way to describe their vision. I might ask the question, "fair and just for whom"?...

Kristen Stewart is hooking up with Jennifer Lawrence's boyfriend on the big screen. The 23-year-old actress has signed on to star opposite Nicholas Hoult in the upcoming futuristic love story Equals. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Stewart explains why she's nervous to take on the part. "I can't believe I agreed to do it," Stewart told The Associated Press on Monday, Jan. 14. "I'm terrified of it. Though it's a movie with a really basic concept, it's overtly ambitious." "It's a love story of epic, epic, epic proportion," she added. "I'm scared." Equals is an adaptation of...

A&E has placed Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson on indefinite hiatus following anti-gay remarks he made in a recent profile in GQ. "We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty," A&E said in a statement. "His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely."

A Silicon Valley startup is poised to replace the everyday security guard with high tech robots the company plans to introduce to the world on Thursday. The 300 pound R5 Autonomous Data Machine looks like a hybrid of R2-D2 and the robot from Lost in Space. More than just yelling ‘danger,’ manufacturer Knightscope hopes the machines will actually help predict crimes and even cut current rates in half. And its inventors say it was a recent school shooting that actually inspired them to create the R5....

In 1984 moment, N. Korea deletes near entirety of news archives In striking development, North Korean media deletes near-entirity of its article archives by Chad O’Carroll , December 16, 2013 North Korean state media outlet the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) has deleted over 35,000 articles from its on-line archives. The deletion, the biggest ever article removal in KCNA’s history, means that with the exception of a small number of articles about Kim Jong Un, the digital record of state-approved news currently only reaches back to October 2013 on KCNA’s North Korea (.kp) hosted website. “There were 35,000 articles dated...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm-vfxZyJwo

Subtitle: And Intellectuals Are Really Dumb----- The topic for today is one world government. The main group of people who claim to think this is a swell idea are intellectuals. That’s how you know intellectuals are not that intelligent. As George Orwell noted, “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” The theory, much hyped throughout the 20th century, is that the world would be better off if it had only one government managing everything. Instead of dispersing power to many parts of the world, there would be a central tribunal composed of superior humans, wiser and more...

President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times. The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.” (snip)

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt called reports of the U.S. government spying on the company's data centers "outrageous" and if proven true, potentially illegal. "It's really outrageous that the National Security Agency (NSA) was looking between the Google data centers, if that's true," Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal. "The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK." According to Schmidt, Google has registered complaints against President Obama, the NSA and members of Congress.

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and SANDY COHEN 2 hours ago LOS ANGELES (AP) — The health care overhaul might get a Hollywood rewrite. The California Endowment, a private foundation that is spending millions to promote President Barack Obama's signature law, recently provided a $500,000 grant to ensure TV writers and producers have information about the Affordable Care Act that can be stitched into plot lines watched by millions. he aim is to produce compelling prime-time narratives that encourage Americans to enroll, especially the young and healthy, Hispanics and other key demographic groups needed to make the overhaul a success. "We...

Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Air Marshal Service. Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland’s Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6. The documents, some which chronicled her sources and her work at the Times...

Glenn Beck on Thursday broached a topic that he said “horrified” him when it was brought to his attention roughly two weeks ago, describing it as an “effort to re-write our history and catalyze a new culture for America” with the help of “America’s latest propaganda machine.” Beck proceeded to tell his viewers about two groups, the first called “Imagining America” and the second called “The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture.” The latter isn’t actually a body of the United States government, but in the group’s own words, “the nation’s newest people-powered department, founded on the truth that art...