Free Republic

As spotted by Steve Goddard, and linked to by Climate Depot: In 1974, Time Magazine blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling. ‘Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world.’Another Ice Age? – TIME Forty years later, Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming ‘But not only does the cold spell not disprove climate change, it may well be that global...

t seems apropos to mention something controversial about Santa Claus, given the recent furor over his skin pigmentation. (Because, ya know, early Catholic Bishops and German folklore characters are traditionally such a multicultural crowd.) But, my controversial comment about old Saint Nick has little to do with his racial identification. You see, I have given it many hours of thought (no… I have no life), and I am convinced that Kris Kringle is (undoubtedly) a member of the Republican Party. Wait! Hear me out! He may not be a Gadsden-flag-waving member of the tea party, but he definitely belongs to...

Hashim Nzinga, the man who issued a $10,000 bounty for George Zimmerman before he was acquitted in the death of Trayvon Martin, now has assumed leadership of the New Black Panther Party. It was in March 2012 when Nzinga issued the bounty even before Zimmerman was charged for the death of Martin. Nzinga never has called off the bounty. Journalist and author Jack Cashill, who covers the Zimmerman controversy in his upcoming book “If I Had a Son: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman,” said the fact that Nzinga has risen to lead the radical black nationalist organization...

It'll Take More Than Words

Demanding a change to the way business is done in Washington, President Barack Obama on Thursday urged lawmakers to ignore lobbyists, bloggers, "talking heads on radio" and "the professional activists who profit from conflict."

Thought experiment: Imagine you are a national security reporter, covering the release of a massive, 2,000-page report on domestic intelligence gathering activities and future threat assessment from the National Security Agency. But instead of issuing the full report, the NSA issues a 30-page “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) written by political appointees at the Justice Department, promising that the full 2,000-page report will be released a few days later. Would you print a front-page story based only on the 30-page summary, or would you demand to see the full report? If you’d go with the politically massaged summary, then congratulations​—​you too...

Polling shows more Americans blame the GOP than Barack Obama. I think this means the GOP is winning. You’ll need to let me explain. Republican leaders have lived in abject fear for the last two months that there would be an overwhelming backlash against them. In 1995, public opinion ran against the GOP 2 to 1. Bill Clinton consistently got the better of the GOP. With that history in mind, the GOP leadership in Washington, when no fundraising off Ted Cruz’s hard line, has been soiling itself afraid the GOP might actually go along with him. And the party did....

Over the past few weeks, Democrats have indicated that they have no intention of negotiating over Obamacare, opting instead to shut down the government. They are justifying their obstinacy by asserting that Obamacare is the law of the land. Well, if that is the game they want to play, we should return the favor with the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling, pursuant to the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, is the law of the land. And it has been so for far longer than Obamacare. Throughout this debate over funding Obamacare in the budget bill, House GOP leaders have...

"It is now quite clear that President Obama is managing the shutdown of 17% of the government to inflict pain, while sparing himself and his family any discomfort. Although his media lickspittles will not publicize the worst abuses, social media offers us the chance to spread the word of his peculiar priorities. Today, we learn that the Amber Alert website, which helps rescue kidnapped children, has been taken down "due to the lapse in federal funding."

The leftist media’s attempts to portray themselves as credible journalists in pursuit of the truth are laughably transparent. But the presence of Al Sharpton on the national news scene represents demonstrable proof not just of the unseriousness of the mainstream media, but of their vile race-baiting for ratings. So why are major advertisers like Ritz Crackers helping pay Sharpton's salary? In any rational world, Sharpton would certainly not have a primetime slot on MSNBC. From his Tawana Brawley hoax to his defense of Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum, from his fanning of racial flames during the Trayvon Martin incident to...

No one is quite sure yet what happened last night at the Jacksonville airport last night, but two arrests have been made, and at least one “destructive device” has been found. Security shut down the airport for several hours and evacuated it while dealing with two suspicious packages, one of which may have been the real thing:

The vote was 13-5 for a compromise defining a "covered journalist" as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years. It would apply to student journalists or someone with a considerable amount of freelance work in the last five years. A federal judge also would have the discretion to declare an individual a "covered journalist," who would be granted the privileges of the law.

Earlier today, I wrote a review of President Obama’s speech, which was hardly complimentary. Other reviews make it look positively warm in comparison. Take for instance this long and pointed criticism from John Harris at Politico, which frames the speech as coming from two different Obamas and then concludes with by calling the entire effort “disingenuous”:

The same idiot politicians who thought creating “Gun Free Zones” would make our schools safe assumed they could stop a few million patriotic bikers from driving non-stop through Washington, D.C. by denying them a permit. As usual, the idea BACKFIRED. The bikers, from some far-away states are already on the road and they all still intend to be there but now, obeying every law, every stop light, every pedestrian, their two hour ride will last all day long. The real patriots in America are the one’s willing to put down their personal business to join in a mutual effort to...

Radical group Femen is mainly known for staging topless media stunts to protest oppression. And while they’ve been presented as a feminist female empowerment group, a new documentary revealed that the group is actually run by a man who happens to love hot topless women.Victor Svyatski is listed as a consultant for the group, however filmmaker Kitty Green — who just completed the documentary “Ukraine is Not a Brothel” about the group — says that Svyatski is more of the mastermind behind the stunts.Green told The Independent, “It’s his movement and he hand-picked the girls. He hand-picked the prettiest girls because...

Excerpted from Mediaite: Today’s the day. Al Jazeera America launched in approximately 40 million households at 3pm Eastern with an hour-long promo of sorts telling people what the expect from the network. Within the first five minutes of air time, Al Jazeera America played very brief clips of Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Al Sharpton engaged in some of their most contentious onscreen moments followed by a voice saying, “news audiences know what is missing and they know what they want.” Also visible on screen are clips of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, along with Piers Morgan’s epically explosive segment...

 

"In a thinly veiled threat, Saad Al-Shater said a U.S. delegation was sent to Cairo by Obama to press for the release of the imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including his father to prevent the release of explosive information."

Legislators are still trying to put together a national "shield" law for journalists (this is the third such effort at a national level) and, as usual, are bogged down in a semantic debate about who should qualify for these protections. Despite "freedom of the press" being hardwired into the system and the fact that a government effort to protect journalists from its own actions (seeking to identify whistleblowers and sources in order to punish them or shut them up) lies somewhere between "ironic" and "disingenuous," the pursuit of a credible "shield" law continues. The bill's definition of "journalist" seems straightforward...

Joe Scarborough has yet again scaled his soap box to mock those of us in the conservative blogosphere. He described us today as a bunch of "very stupid people" living in their mama's basement who write "really stupid things" about him. The thin-skinned Scarborough has often derided his blogging critics as Cheetos-chewing cellar-dwellers. He was at it again this morning, depicting them as people who if not in mama's basement would otherwise be wandering the streets in their pajamas. View the video here.