Free Republic

Peter Weller on Star Trek, Getting His Ph.D., and Defending J.J. Abrams by Bilge Ebiri If you saw Star Trek Into Darkness this weekend and couldn't quite place Peter Weller, the actor playing Starfleet Admiral Marcus, allow us to refresh your memory: Weller starred in two of the biggest cult films of the eighties, Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and RoboCop, as well as in David Cronenberg’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs's The Naked Lunch. He's also had supporting parts on 24, Dexter, Fringe, and House. And if that weren’t enough, the man is currently finishing up a Ph.D. in art...

Obama Calls It 'a Cliche' to Say We're 'the Greatest Country on Earth' May 14, 2013 By Craig Bannister It's "a cliché" to say that America "is the greatest country on Earth," Pres. Obama told a DNC event in New York City on Monday. "And more than anything, what I will be striving for over the next three and a half years is to see if that spirit that I saw in Boston and West, Texas, if we can institutionalize that, if we can create a framework where everybody is working together and moving this country forward. "Now, the good...

Sometimes poetic justice is very poetic. Other times it’s ironic. And sometimes it’s a teachable moment about the folly of appeasement. Not that Dr. Christopher Stone will have learned anything from his experience. Leftist academics are not very educable. Not even when their Muslim teachers are stabbing them in the neck. (via Debbie Schlussel) A man stabbed in the neck near the US Embassy in Cairo on Thursday has been identified as Chris Stone, an American academic. Stone is associate professor of Arabic and head of the Arabic Programme at City University.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, the investigation into its perpetrators has been marred by a series of bizarre and even alarming actions by President Obama and his administration. Unfortunately, these increasingly suggest a pattern that is at odds with our national and homeland security. The question must be occurring to many Americans: Whose side is he on? Consider just a few of the recent examples suggesting the ominous answer is “not ours”: Team Obama decided precipitously to charge the surviving alleged bomber, Dzhokhar... --snip-- Still more bizarre is what happened next: The Saudi press reported that first...

A Kentucky middle school has changed its dress code after a student was sent to the office for wearing a “Support Our Troops” T-shirt, a spokeswoman told TheBlaze. That school would be Mahaffey Middle School, which is actually located on the Fort Campbell Army base. Student Cejai Taylor told Nashville Fox affiliate WZTV she wore the T-shirt right after her dad, Sgt. James Taylor, was sent on his sixth deployment overseas. Mahaffey requires all students to wear collared shirts, but has dress-down days once a month where they can wear jeans and school-approved shirts. The “Support Our Troops” shirt was...

As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing — the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity — the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation’s collective reaction to the attacks. That’s because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are — and are not — collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being. This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic...

A judge sentenced a man to 18 months probation this morning, and ordered him to pay $500 in fines for cutting down American flags from outside several businesses in Huntsville earlier this week. Mihn Van Pham, 44, pleaded guilty to charges of criminal mischief in the third degree and resisting arrest in Huntsville municipal court this morning. "I'm guilty, God bless America," Pham said.

People often ask me why Leftists are so eager to collaborate with Islamic supremacists, as they find it curious that they would enable those who would destroy them for their moral transgressions under Sharia. There are many answers, including a shared taste for authoritarianism, and that may be what is in play here, since Chris Stedman openly avows that he is trying to silence us, trying to intimidate the fundraising site Indiegogo into shutting down our fundraiser. Certainly both Leftists and Islamic supremacists are enemies of the freedom of speech. "Stop trying to split gays and Muslims," by Chris Stedman...

A sign posted outside a Collin County nail salon promoting it as "American Owned, American Staffed" is generating controversy. The merchant defends her sign by saying it's a "patriotic business decision." But others believe it's focused more on what her Fairview business isn’t: Asian owned and operated. Ed Thayer said he was offended when he saw the sign in the window of the St. Tropez Nail Spa. He's a regular customer at a Vietnamese restaurant next door. He and his wife adopted four girls who are Vietnamese-Americans. Thayer said he was so upset, he went into the salon to confront...

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CORPUS CHRISTI -- Many parents check their children's school work to make sure they're getting good grades, but how often to you check the content of those lessons? One mother of a child in Flour Bluff ISD says when she did, she was shocked that lesson taught her son to blame the United States for the 9/11 attacks. Kara Sands posted the test on her facebook page and it began to spread like wildfire. The test covers content watched on a video in class. What bothered her most is question #3 on the test. It asks why the U.S. may...

CNN anchor Erin Burnett during an interview with former first lady Laura Bush that aired Monday posed a bit of a head-scratcher: Should we “accept” anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism “when we want to make change” in the Middle East? See for yourself [courtesy NewsBusters]: “An Egyptian woman, her name’s Samir Ibrahim, and she’s done a lot of things, courageous things. She’s also been criticized for sending tweets that are anti-Semitic, anti-American,” Burnnett said during a segment on the George W. Bush Institute’s Women’s Initiative Fellowship Program. “Does the U.S. need to accept that when we want to make change? You have...

The Obama administration is postponing an award for an Egyptian activist who was subjected to a "virginity test" after protesting in Cairo´s Tahrir Square. The State Department had said Samira Ibrahim would be among recipients of an International Women of Courage award presented by Secretary of State John Kerry and first lady Michelle Obama on Friday. Now the State Department says she won´t be honored Friday because of anti-American and anti-Semitic comments on her Twitter account. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday officials will first study the tweets, which include support for attacks against U.S. diplomatic

The State Department just issued a press release stating that Secretary of State John Kerry and First Lady Michelle Obama will be honoring Samira Ibrahim with an "International Women of Courage Award." Interestingly, Samira is a Hitler-quoting anti-Semite who says she wants to see America burn. Gotta respect the intelligence of our leaders. What's next for Samira? A Nobel Prize? On Friday March 8, Michelle Obama will join John Kerry at a special ceremony at the State Department to present ten women the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. The award, says the press release, is given to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Hugo Chavez is room temperature. I know that. The smell of sulfur is everywhere, and, yes, we have the sound bites. The media in this country is extremely sad. It's hilarious to listen to this. We have story here from USA Today, and the way they headline the story is this: "'Who Will Take Care Of Us?' Poor Say After Chávez Dies." There's an object lesson here about where this country is headed. We've joked often about the similarities between Hugo Chavez and Obama, but they're really somewhat serious here. A 27-year-old housewife is quoted in the...

Wow, re: Hugo Chavez @RobLowe comes off as a ranting Free Republci poster https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/309132305723703296 …

The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester’s effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that. In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections. He said he was discouraged by officials in Washington, who...

Jose Serrano is a Democratic congressman who represents the South Bronx of New York City (the 15th District). He is also an imbecile. Upon hearing the news of the death of Hugo Chavez, the tyrannical "President" of Venezuela, Serrano could not hold back his thoughts and emotions. He quickly went to twitter and posted this comment: Making certain that no one would misunderstand his sadness, Serrano released an official statement entitled “Chavez Changed the Conversation In Latin America” on his government website. Serrano explained, in part: “I met President Chavez in 2005 when he came to my district at my...

Dressed in an impeccable, custom-tailored suit and a Versace tie, instead of his usual military fatigues, General Raul Castro addressed the Cuban Parliament on February 24. He did not discuss political or economic reforms. Instead, he announced he would be stepping down from power at the end of the five-year term for which he had just been elected. If the Pope retires, "I can also retire," he explained. Yet the Cubans would have to wait for the "younger" brother to reach 87 years of age to see the end of the Castro dynasty. But not so fast. There are other...

Bradley Manning, the Army private arrested in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that could send him to prison for 20 years, saying he was trying to expose the American military’s “bloodlust” and disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military prosecutors said they plan to move forward with a court-martial on 12 remaining charges against him, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. … It was the first time Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him...

Will you Fire on American Citizens if the Commander in Chief gives the order? This is the question being asked of America’s top generals by the Obama administration. “I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new litmus test in determining who will stay and who must go [among] his military leaders,” begins the post of Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Jim Garrow, originator of the Pink Pagoda project that rescues baby girls from “gendercide” shortly after their birth in China. (1) Garrow goes on to say, “The new litmus test of leadership...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) confronted former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel with a clip from his 2009 interview with Al Jazeera during today's Defense Secretary confirmation hearing. The Secretary of Defense nominee can be heard agreeing with a caller's assertion that the United States is the "world's bully."

Professor: Take our country back, from the Constitution The U.S. Constitution - a document perhaps too revered, says Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman. (Library of Congress) (CBS News) Is the U.S. Constitution truly worthy of the reverence in which most Americans hold it? A view on that from Louis Michael Seidman, Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University: I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it's really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie. For example, most of our greatest Presidents -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both...

The mainstream media covered the inauguration of Barack Obama with breathless anticipation on Monday, but should we really be celebrating another four years of Obama? The truth is that the first four years of Obama were an absolute train wreck for the U.S. economy. Over the past four years, the percentage of working age Americans with a job has fallen, median household income has declined by more than $4000, poverty in the U.S. has absolutely exploded and our national debt has ballooned to ridiculous proportions. Of course all of the blame for the nightmarish performance of the economy should...

Martial arts movie legend Jackie Chan deserves a rhetorical roundhouse kick to the mouth. So does his pal PSY, the Korean rapper whose "Gangnam Style" music video has racked up more than a billion views worldwide. Both men have raked in big bucks from Western fans while trashing the very freedoms and cultures that made them superstars. Last week, The Washington Post spotlighted a recent interview Chan did with Chinese TV in which he accused America of being "the most corrupt country in the world." The Hong Kong-born Chan also admitted proudly that he is a propagandist for the Communist...

Chuck Hagel hates Jews. Or should I say, he hates Jews who think that Jews have rights and that their rights should be defended, in Israel by the government and the IDF, in America by Israel's supporters. As I mentioned before, it is not at all surprising that Obama appointed Hagel, and I see little chance that the Senate will reject his appointment. Israel and its American friends however can take heart that Israel will not be Hagel's chief concern. Hagel -- and Obama -- have bigger fish to fry than Israel. They are looking to take on the US...

Piers Morgan was having his butt handed to him on a platter by Ben Shapiro, who had at the beginning of the segment handed Piers a copy of the Constitution. When Ben motioned towards the copy about the 2nd Amendment, Piers tossed is and said "I know what's in YOUR LITTLE BOOK" with a clear look of disdain. Go back and face your court charges, Piers.

A high school teacher in South Carolina is under investigation and has been placed on long-term administrative leave after he allegedly threw an American flag on the floor and stomped on it in front of his students. Scott Compton, an English teacher at Chapin High School in Chapin, S.C., reprised the unpatriotic deed in three classes over the course of one day, reports local NBC affiliate WIS. One parent, Michael Copeland, said he heard his teenage daughter discussing the incident and asked her to tell him the whole story. “He drew a couple of symbols, like one of them was...

Remember how the DUs trashed Mark Levin's books at Amazon? Well, here is our chance. Some English prof named Michael Austin wrote a scatterbrained hit piece that is full of cheap shots directed at the Tea Party, Mark Levin, Hannity, etc. To do this, he took teaspoons from various works of our Framers, mixed them up with some Howard Zinn, and baked them with social justice gravy at high heat. Wanna see how the left corrupts our college kids? Here it is.

Michael Moore: Killing Is ‘Who We Are’ As Americans By Patrick Burke December 17, 2012 (CNSNews.com) – Liberal activist-filmmaker Michael Moore says school shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. will continue – because “it’s who we are” as Americans. “I hate to say it, but killing is our way. We began America w/ genocide, then built it w/ slaves. The shootings will continue- it's who we are,” Moore tweeted on Sunday. Moore sent out several tweets regarding the school shooting between Friday and Sunday, at one point claiming the shooter “seemed to single out...

When TNT was preparing its annual special "Christmas in Washington" with the president of the United States, you'd think the last star musician they would consider to join the official caroling would be Psy, the South Korean rapper. What on Earth is Christmasy about this man's invisible-horse-riding dance to his dorky disco-rap hit "Gangnam Style"? It's not exactly the natural flip-side to "O Holy Night." But TNT couldn't resist this year's YouTube sensation. This inane publicity stunt backfired when the website Mediaite reported on Dec. 7 that Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) had participated in a 2002 protest in which...

President Barack Obama has been pictured shaking hands with a South Korean rapper who sang about wanting to kill American soldiers. PSY, born Park Jae-sang, performed at a White House charity event on Sunday, despite a deeply controversial performance in 2004 that has shocked and outraged American fans. The rapper showed off his signature dance moves while performing 'Gangnam Style,' which has the most watched YouTube video in history. Scroll down for video

<p>HBO host Bill Maher’s political views– and his crass way of expressing them– are well known to most. Every once in a while, though, he takes things a step further than normal.</p> <p>The mega Obama donor claimed back in March, for instance, that he should be held to a different standard after calling Sarah Palin a “cu**” than when Rush Limbaugh called 30-year-old Georgetown student Sandra Fluke a “slut.” On Sunday, Maher made another noteworthy claim.</p>

<p>He did indeed perform for the troops on Leno’s Thanksgiving show; skip to 3:25 of the first clip below and watch him do the horse dance with full military backing. That looks twice as surreal today as it did then and it looked darned surreal at the time, but his PR team will use it to full effect to buy him some forgiveness with the public. He’ll get leeway too from the fact that he is, after all, the goofy horse-dance guy. A musician known for more introspective work would be held to full account for his political opinions but this is a bit like finding out that LMFAO thinks 9/11 is an inside job. (They don’t. I’m speaking hypothetically.) Between that and the fact that he apologized, sort of, for how the song “could be interpreted,� Obama’s spokesman felt safe enough to say this afternoon that O still plans on attending the upcoming TNT benefit concert at which Psy is scheduled to perform. Fearless prediction: That’ll change if people are still talking about this on Monday, not so much in terms of POTUS’s attendance as Psy’s.</p>

PSY is backtracking on that invisible horse of his. The hugely successful “Gangnam Style” rapper shocked many earlier today when anti-American statements he made at a protest concert in 2004 came to light. Among the incendiary lyrics: “Kill those f—king Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives/Kill those f—king Yankees who ordered them to torture/Kill their daughters, mothers, daughter-in-law and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully.” …

On 12/07/12, We the People, WhiteHouse.gov wethepeople@whitehouse.gov wrote: Your petition “rescind invite to Gangnam Style rapper PSY to perform for Pres. Obama at Christmas party over troop killing song lyrics” has been removed from the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov because it was in violation of the We the People Terms of Participation. This petition was removed for the following reason: o The petition was outside the scope of We the People. Learn more about the We the People Terms of Participation: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/terms-participation Learn more about the We the People Moderation Policy: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/moderation-policy If you would like to request...

An “anti-Thanksgiving potluck” planned for Monday night is stirring controversy on the University of Virginia (UVA) campus. The event, hosted by the American Indian Student Union (AISU), aims to “discuss Thanksgiving from a Native American perspective” over a potluck dinner. Students at the University of Virginia are holding an ‘anti-Thanksgiving’ potluck on Monday night. The anti-Thanksgiving celebration will provide a “contrast…with the typical American view of Thanksgiving,” AISU president Katelyn Krause promised an NBC affiliate. Krause declined an interview with Campus Reform. Nicole Bailey, Executive-in-Chief of the conservative newspaper, The Virginia Advocate, however, told Campus Reform that she understands the...

The conservative talk show host, who had been an upbeat, if initially doubtful, Romney supporter throughout the campaign, was on a post-election downer: In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins? And say what you want, but Romney did offer a vision of traditional America. In his way, he put forth a great vision of traditional America, and it was rejected. It was rejected in favor of a guy who thinks that those who are working aren’t doing enough to help those who aren’t. And that resonated. Limbaugh echoed a Republican theme that...

(TheBlaze/AP) — About three dozen American anti-war activists are headed toward Pakistan’s militant-riddled tribal belt to protest U.S. drone strikes, but a faction of the Taliban has warned that suicide bombers will prevent their demonstration. The anti-war activists– many of whom are from the far left women’s organization Code Pink– are reportedly joined by thousands of Pakistanis in their march, and their motorcade is being led by ex-cricket star turned politician Imran Khan. Militants have dismissed Khan as a mere tool of the West despite his condemnation of the drone strikes, which have killed many Islamist insurgent leaders. Odds are,...

.... I am a proponent of carbon taxes. One criticism of this policy that you hear, for instance here from Noah Smith, is that they are pointless because you need international cooperation to make a real dent. But among non-tradeable goods this is not really the case. We don’t have to worry about transportation shifting abroad, since you can’t really outsource driving your car or shipping a package. And this matters, as transportation accounts for 70% of U.S. fuel consumption, and 30% of U.S. greenhouse gases. But even if carbon taxes are problematic, surely higher gas taxes are a good...

Are we really surprised by the Middle East uprising against America? This isn’t about the American produced video against the prophet Muhammad. This is about President Obama being a weak defender of America abroad, almost by design. Barely six months in office, Obama decided his first foreign trip, as president, would be to Egypt to apologize to the Muslim world for America behaving badly after 9/11. Since when did America apologize for defending itself against madmen who kill in the name of God and give us advance notice of their impending carnage? In his Cairo speech delivered in June 2009,...

Discussing the violent anti-American demonstrations erupting across the Middle East outside U.S. embassies in Arab capitals, MSNBC contributor Michael Eric Dyson put a share of the blame on, well, "horrible" Americans. It was the "demonization of a predictable minority," in this case Muslims, that was the spark that light the conflagration, Dyson argued on the September 14 edition of the noon Eastern program Now with Alex Wagner. "It's not as if, oh in America, we've resolved this with equanimity and grace," he added, seeking to conflate isolated incidents of hate speech against Muslims inside the United States with the violent...

Folk rock legend Bob Dylan has some strong words about America that many of his compatriots may not want to hear: He says the stigma of slavery ruined America and he doubts whether the country can get rid of the shame because it was “founded on the backs of slaves.” Dylan spoke to Rolling Stone for a cover story that coincides with the release of his 35th studio album, “Tempest.” Dylan has long been an outspoken critic of American culture and its inherent inequalities, particularly during the 1960s when his songs “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are...

Team Obama slammed the summer's surprise hit film "2016: Obama's America" earlier today. Now, it's Dinesh D'Souza's turn. D'Souza, the soft-spoken conservative who co-stars and co-directed the film, calls Obama's attempts to destroy the film's credibility "a characteristic mix of name calling and false allegations."

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. "Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem."This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: @Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant. And then: "Yet most reporters around me stand for...

The theater was packed. "2016: Obama's America" was playing at the local Midway theater in Lewes, Delaware. The movie run began the Friday before Labor Day and I rejoiced. No one goes to the movies "downey ocean" on Labor Day weekend. I decided to go on Labor Day proper. Let the tourists stay at the beach, I was going to the movies. The place was packed. Oh there were a few empty seats but believe me, I go to those movies all the time, granddaughter in tow, and usually about the same time, a middle of the day hour, a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — ‘‘2016: Obama’s America,’’ a new conservative film exploring the roots of President Barack Obama’s political views, took in $6.2 million to make it one of the highest-grossing movies of last weekend. The film, written and narrated by conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza, argues that Obama was heavily influenced by what D'Souza calls the ‘‘anti-colonial’’ beliefs of his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan academic who was largely absent from the president’s life.

Obama is a proponent of failed economic policies that have left much of the Third World mired in poverty. Rather than acknowledging that centralized economic planning is a failure, Obama faults America’s industrial might as the cause of economic malaise that has crippled much of Africa. The answer, therefore, is not to abandon the discredited economic policies, but to disable America so as to level the playing field. Once America is bankrupt, Kenyan economic programs are bound to succeed! As someone who follows politics and current events closely, I thought that I was better informed about Barack Obama’s radicalism than...

British MP George Galloway has created controversy in the UK for comments made about rape during a British radio broadcast. Galloway was discussing the sexual allegations against WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange in an episode of his "Good Night" podcast published on August 18th. The New Statesman has transcribed the controversial comments: Let's take woman A. Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat [apartment], gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know....

Now that President Obama and his apologists have spent a few days insisting – with increasing panic and desperation – that he didn’t say what he clearly said in Roanoke, Virginia, the spin itself has become a negative reflection on the President. He’s basically demanding that his supporters abandon their own senses, and the most elementary understanding of the English language, to un-hear his words, forget his contempt for individual achievement, and swallow him as a champion of the entrepreneurial spirit. “You didn’t build that” has become a sort of litmus test for pure, blind, unwavering faith in Barack Obama....