Free Republic

It’s made for Hollywood: the story of an average American family man, captain of a cargo ship in dangerous waters, his vessel overtaken by armed Somali pirates demanding ransom, saving his crew by allowing himself to be removed from the boat and taken hostage. All of this is the basis for “Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks as the titular, real-life hero. The only problem, say some members of the real Capt. Phillips’ crew, is none of it is true. Capt. Richard Phillips, they say, is no hero, and the film is one big lie. “Phillips wasn’t the big leader like...

A sharp reader caught a statistical problem with that much-cited NBC/WSJ poll that shows Republicans are getting whooped in the shutdown: Tampa @S1CT @texasbryanp In today's NBC/WSJ poll, 1 in 5 respondents work for govt.  Only 8% of pop works for govt.  See last page. 8:12 - 10 Oct 2013 It’s true. Here is the complete poll with the sample, the questions, etc. On the very last page we get the breakdown of where the 800 respondents work. The wording of the question is broad enough to sweep in spouses of government workers and other situations in which the respondent...

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama sold his signature universal health care plan with the promise that it would "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." Now that the Affordable Care Act exchanges are open for business, voters are finding that the biggest problem with Obamacare isn't that some Web sites crashed last week but that the Obama promise of big savings for the average family was too good to be true. Now that the exchanges are open for business, people who already have individual coverage have something new to not like:...

Now comes the latest gun-grabbing set of liars. Check-out their ridiculous website, which claims that ARPA is a "common sense set of hunters and target-shooters" who want to be "a third voice" in the gun debate. The web page asks you to sign-up. There is no article or link that actually tells you who they are or why they want your name and email. The site offers absolutely nothing. Noted in this month's "First Freedom."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist says that raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is ‘one big lie'. He says the US media is too 'afraid' to pick on Obama. Hersh, 76, says the solution is to shut down news networks like NBC and ABC. He also suggested the firing of 90 per cent of mainstream editors.

The mayoral candidate who often calls New York a “tale of two cities” has a personal tale of three names. Most New Yorkers have come to know Bill de Blasio as the Democratic candidate with the affable family, including a teenage son who has been featured in campaign ads. Left unsaid in the candidate’s official biography is that Bill de Blasio is his third legal name. The man who could become the city’s 109th mayor was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. on May 8, 1961, in Manhattan, his birth certificate shows. In 1983, fresh out of New York University, he petitioned...

An incredibly high percentage of President Obama’s Twitter followers are fake, while the opposite is true for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.According to the Twitter analytics application, Status People, 55 percent of President Obama’s 36,802,378 Twitter followers — or approximately 20,240,107 followers — are fake.A ‘fake follower,’ according to Status People, is a spam account following the user. During the presidential election season, candidates’ Twitter accounts came under public scrutiny for possibly purchasing followers to try to bolster their social media credibility. Twenty-four percent of Obama’s Twitter followers are inactive, and only 21 percent — or approximately 7,728,499 followers — are real.Obama’s...

Yes, we must ban those “AR15 shotguns.” I heard about this from a few folks on Twitter tonight. h/t Sharky *Edited to add: We all know that the same network forgot Ft. Hood, whose contributor Charles Blow once used “assault handgun” in a debate with yours truly on 2A, and whose 9 pm eastern host thinks AR stands for “assault rifle” wasn’t talking about the MKA 1919. Just because the sheer style is similar, the platform is not. **I’m told by a handful of folks that there exists audio of this being said. ***Twitter reminds me how their 9pm...

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources. The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad. It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.

As Newsbusters reported, the Los Angeles Times is claiming that Democrats led the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Talk show host Larry Elder sets the record straight: `snip~ According to the article linked by Elder above, Only 64 percent of Democrats in Congress voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act (153 for, 91 against in the House; and 46 for, 21 against in the Senate). But 80 percent of Republicans (136 for, 35 against in the House; and 27 for, 6 against in the Senate) voted for the 1964 Act. Wikipedia, which has been known on occasion...

Testimony from victims now strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin Nerve Gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior UN diplomat said Monday. Carla del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent. But she said her panel had not yet seen any evidence of Syrian government forces using chemical weapons (CW), according to the BBC, she added...

Last night at 6:00 pm the phone rang and it was my Senator, Lindsey Graham hosting a "townhall" telephone meeting sponsored by Townhall (I think this was Townhall.com, but I am not sure). The purpose of this meeting was for Lindsey to answer questions from his constituents in a live format.

After an extensive investigation lasting well over a year, NPR's ombudsman has concluded the network's series on South Dakota's efforts to put Native American in foster care was fundamentally flawed. The network and the ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, who is paid to critique NPR's news coverage, have split sharply over his findings. The series, which appeared in October 2011 on All Things Considered, alleged that the state of South Dakota took Native American children and separated them from their families and tribes at an alarming rate. The series won national awards and helped inspire federal and state reviews of such policies....

Philip Rucker leads the Post today with a story about a study that claims there is a “vast” gun market thriving online that allows gun buyers to evade the background check system. Rucker’s story is full of misleading statements. The marketplace for firearms on the Internet, where buyers are not required to undergo background checks, is so vast that advocates for stricter regulations now consider online sales a greater threat than the gun show loophole. Misleading statement #1: Buyers are only not required to undergo background checks if they’re not buying from a licensed firearms dealer. If you buy...

Oh boy. There's nothing wrong with what Pope Francis said here but the words are vague enough that those who want to misconstrue them will have plenty of opportunities to do so. Yahoo News has the part in question: The National Catholic Reporter says Francis participated in a wide-ranging interview with reporters on the plane for close to 90 minutes. While he spoke openly about many church topics, Francis' most newsworthy soundbite came when he said he would not judge gay priests and seemingly opened the door for gay acceptance within the church. "When I meet a gay person, I...

LEFTIST PLANT INFILTRATES HOUSTON PRO-ZIMMERMAN RALLY– Liberal Media runs with it A photo from the Houston pro-Zimmerman counter-rally of the NBPP anti-Zimmerman rally picked up by the AP shows a woman holding a sign that read, “Racist & Proud.” That looked incongruent with the other reports from the pro-Zimmerman side. The Houston Chronicle identified her as Renee Vaughan: One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said, “We’re racist & proud.” Austin resident Renee Vaughan echoed the sign’s ugly sentiments by yelling, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better because we’re white,” at the Martin group as they passed,...

There are a couple of false-flag "conservative immigration reform" ads every commercial break on Rush today. Who's paying for them? George Soros?

Do not suppose that your enemies will be placated by your surrender. You will be pressured to accept openly homosexual scoutmasters, then “transgender” girls who say they are boys or the Prince of Wales or male aliens from Alpha Centauri 3, then girls generally for all your programs, as they’ve done in Canada, only to see their membership go the way of the Church of Canada, since no one will stand up for someone who stands for nothing. 
 You have betrayed your friends to assuage your enemies. May they treat you more handsomely than you have treated us.

For Dennis Ebersole, the fallout from the Boy Scouts of America's decision to change a century of policy and allow openly gay Scouts to participate wasn't long in coming. "Within 12 hours of the announcement that the membership standards resolution had passed, I was contacted by five other members in my pack leadership committee, questioning whether they were going to continue Scouting," said Mr. Ebersole, a den leader with Cub Scout Pack 282 in South Riding, Va. The reaction was equally quick for Gary Hiden, an assistant scoutmaster of Troop 268 in New Market, Md., who has been involved with...