Free Republic

....half of Cuban-Americans surveyed in Miami support an end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba. Even more support resuming diplomatic relations with the communist island's government. That's according to a Florida International University poll released Tuesday.

On Friday morning, Politico published on the previously unknown and "closely held" details of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton's contract with NBC News. According to the story, Clinton was given an annual salary of $600,000 when she joined NBC News as a "special correspondent" in November 2011. Based on these figures, Clinton has earned about $26,724 for each minute she subsequently appeared on air.

In a tweet Tuesday, President Obama’s official account attempted to draw attention to the plight of women workers, saying that it wasn’t 1963 anymore — when, as implied by an image and text, man first walked on the moon.

Three women were shot to death and at least seven other people were wounded in shootings across Chicago on Monday.

The deal is off. The suit is on. Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is withdrawing his support for the sale of his team and is asking his lawyer to go ahead with a $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA. "From the onset, I did not want to sell the Los Angeles Clippers. I have worked for 33 years to build the Team," Sterling said in a statement, forwarded to CNN by his lawyer Max Blecher.

Two police officers were “simply having lunch” at a strip mall pizza buffet in Las Vegas when a man and a woman fatally shot them in point-blank ambush.... Authorities say the suspects, Jerad and Amanda Miller, draped “Don’t Tread On Me” flags on the bodies of the officers. The Gadsden flag has been an adopted symbol for the Tea Party.

Yesterday, a man and a woman shot two police officers in a Las Vegas restaurant after saying, “this is a revolution.” Then they draped their bodies in a Gadsden flag. According to reports now coming in, the couple (who later killed themselves) appear to have been white supremacists and told neighbors they had gone to join the protests in support of anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy. It was one more incident of right-wing terrorism that, while not exactly an epidemic, has become enough of a trend to raise some troubling questions. What I’m about to say will raise some hackles, but...

Building on a long week of anti-coal attacks by the media and the Environmental Protection Agency, ABC’s June 5 “World News” revived another attack on the coal industry. ABC hyped a 2013 investigation that it conducted in partnership with the Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity (CPI). It alleged that the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions had essentially been bought off by coal companies to ignore cases of black lung disease in miners. ABC’s David Muir declared a “victory a long time in the making,” Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Paul Wheeler for allegedly “working for the coal company.” (video after break) On October 30, 2013, ABCNews.com...

.....Since last weekend’s prisoner exchange in which Afghan insurgents turned over Sergeant Bergdahl after five years of captivity, a number of the men who served with him have called him a deserter. Some have gone further, blaming him for the deaths of six to eight soldiers. That second claim is hardening into a news media narrative. CNN has reported in scrolling headlines that six soldiers died looking for Sergeant Bergdahl after senior American military officials say he wandered off his base.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to a firming labor market. While jobless claims have been choppy in recent weeks because of problems seasonally adjusting the data around moving holidays such as Easter and Passover, they have continued to suggest the jobs market was strengthening.

U.S. companies hired far fewer workers than expected in May, but an acceleration in services sector growth supported views the economy was regaining strength after sagging early this year. While other data on Wednesday suggested a widening trade gap could weigh on growth in the second quarter, a jump in imports pointed to a welcome pick-up in domestic demand.

The Wall Street Journal had a noteworthy piece on the VA scandal yesterday, one that helps turn the story into a life-and-death issue. Until now, the spotlight has been on veterans who grew sicker or died because of long waiting times that were, in some instances, covered up by government officials. But what about the care they receive in overtaxed hospitals? The Journal reported: “The Phoenix facility at the heart of the crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs is among a number of VA hospitals that show significantly higher rates of mortality and dangerous infections than the agency's top-tier...

Sharyl Attkisson, an award-winning investigative reporter who resigned from CBS News earlier this year, says the news media are heading down a dangerous path with attempts to “censor or block stories” that don’t align with their preferred agenda.

ctor Jonah Hill told radio host Howard Stern on Tuesday that he lost his cool with a paparazzo and is heartbroken that he used a "disgusting" homophobic slur..... Celebrity gossip site TMZ early Tuesday morning released a video of the incident in which Hill tells a man following him to "Suck my d---, you f-----." The actor, who was nominated for Academy Awards for his roles in the 2011 film "Moneyball" and last year's "The Wolf of Wall Street," told Stern he never meant to insult gay people

For all of the talk about "hope" and "change" — and both were powerful slogans for Obama in 2008 — the core of Obama's appeal to many independents and even some Republicans was the idea that he would restore competence back to the White House after President George W. Bush's eight years, years defined by mistaken intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and a mishandling of the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. Obama openly embraced the idea that he was the anti-Bush on nothing much more than his commitment to putting the best people in...

Just noticed a little blurb on one of the local Miami tv stations....since there is such an uproar over the release of terrorists, the media is saying some disagree with "the government's decision" regarding Bergdahl.

If attacking Obamacare is its number one campaign strategy, the GOP might want to regroup before November. Related Stories Enough already! Voters want Obamacare gag order CNBC Republicans Target Burwell in Obamacare War The Fiscal Times Poll: Health care law still fails to impress Associated Press 10 reasons people didn’t sign up for Obamacare The Fiscal Times After enduring four years of intense political warfare over the president’s health care law, the majority of voters say they want candidates to stop talking about it and move on, a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found. Although the law remains...

Which MSM network will pickup Carny as an anchor, billing him as a "journalist"? My guess is CNN since ABC already has George Steponolofus and BBC/MSNBC is IMHO already an adjunct part of this administration and the DNC.

... What is needed from Washington is not a heroic exertion of American military power but rather a sustained effort to engage with allies, isolate enemies, support free markets and democratic values and push these positive trends forward. The Obama administration is, in fact, deeply internationalist — building on alliances in Europe and Asia, working with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, isolating adversaries and strengthening the global order that has proved so beneficial to the United States and the world since 1945. ... A Democratic Advisory Council committee headed by Acheson called Eisenhower’s foreign...

Republican candidates have begun to retreat in recent weeks from their all-out assault on the Affordable Care Act in favor of a more piecemeal approach, suggesting they would preserve some aspects of the law while jettisoning others.