Free Republic

Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change. The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity. The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. The E.P.A. rule, announced by President Obama on June...

Part One: Can a Free Biafra Stop the African Islamic Caliphate? In the classic comedy, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," the daughter Toula complains to her mother about her stubborn father being the "head of the house," Maria replied, "Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants." Welcome to America, "We the People" are supposed to be informed and in control, but the media is the "neck," she can turn the focus of Americans to what it wants them to see...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the weekÂ’s top news, including the struggle on Capitol Hill to find a resolution to the political division on the border crisis before Congress leaves for August recess, as well as how these events will affect the November election, plus the outlook for ending the war between Israel and Hamas. (AUDIO-AT-LINK)TRANSCRIPT JUDY WOODRUFF: In Washington, House Republicans were racing to pass something on the border crisis after a day of confusion and chaos on Capitol Hill Thursday. For a taste of what went on...

Robert Kennedy, speaking of John Kennedy, using words they would both probably use to praise John Kerry, said that JFK’s favorite quote was this: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.” This quote from Dante, derived from his Inferno, describes the way Kerry performs his role as secretary of State. Kerry clearly envisioned and passionately warned that the people of Israel and Palestine must choose between two alternative futures. The first future is the negotiated creation of a two-state solution that would leave Israel and a new state of...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is calling on the Obama administration to impose a travel ban on three West African nations in response to a growing Ebola virus outbreak. The House Foreign Affairs Committee member wants the State Department to bar citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from entering the United States, including any foreign travelers who have visited those countries in the previous 90 days. He also requested that the ban be expanded to any nation that reports an originating case of the virus, and that restrictions only be lifted 90 days after the last reported case.

GAZA - The idea that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. Muslim Brotherhood Soldiers So why aren’t reporters in Gaza ferreting it out? The precise location of a large underground bunker equipped with sophisticated communications equipment and housing some part of the leadership of a major terrorist organization beneath a major hospital would seem to qualify as a world-class scoop—the kind that might merit a Pulitzer, or at least a Polk. So why isn’t the fact that Hamas uses Shifa Hospital as...

And why reporters won’t talk about it. The idea that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. So why aren’t reporters in Gaza ferreting it out? The precise location of a large underground bunker equipped with sophisticated communications equipment and housing some part of the leadership of a major terrorist organization beneath a major hospital would seem to qualify as a world-class scoop—the kind that might merit a Pulitzer, or at least a Polk. So why isn’t the fact that Hamas uses Shifa...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Fusion TV's Jorge Ramos that part of the reason Hamas hides rockets in schools and civilian areas is "Gaza is small." "I'm not a military planner but Hamas puts it's missiles, it's rockets in civilian areas, part of it is Gaza is pretty small and its densely populated," she said as neglecting the question of whether or not Hamas should have rockets in area to begin with.

Are you okay, Marc? I have a hankie you can use to wipe away that rolling teardrop that Alan Dershowitz possibly caused during your heated debate on Israel and Gaza during CNN Tonight on Monday. The weird thing is that Marc Lamont Hill was actually crying over Israel (GASP!) defending itself against both rocket attacks and secret tunnels built from Gaza into Israel for the purpose of killing and kidnapping. A video was posted by Soopermexican showing Hill's tear of absurdly misplaced compassion (or was it frustration from arguiing with Dershowitz?) rolling down his cheek.

The Palestinians long ago realized that they cannot defeat Israel militarily and opted instead to delegitimize and diplomatically isolate Israel. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has approached this goal by pushing for unilateral diplomatic recognition, a strategy facilitated by its claim to represent a peaceful approach to the conflict with Israel. That claim became far less credible once the PA (1) accepted Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has designated as a terrorist group, into a unity government, and (2) more recently embraced Hamas' violent attacks. Like the PA, Hamas also seeks to delegitimize and diplomatically isolate Israel, and uses its...

According to Twitter and Google, an NBC journalist reported that he or she had personally witnessed an Israeli drone attack and fire on a hospital in Gaza. The eye witness report was at first included in this NBC News article, and read, "a NBC News journalist witnessed the attack on the hospital and said it had been fired by an Israeli drone." Since that report was published, though, the accusation has been scrubbed entirely from the article. The only evidence of the NBC journalist's "eyewitness" accusation is the apparent insertion of this sentence:

Once again Israel is being forced to defend itself from the terrorists who run Gaza. Once again Israel has had to drop bombs and send tanks and ground troops into Gaza to blow up tunnels and destroy the missile sites Hamas has been using to rain hundreds of rockets down on Israel’s farms and cities. And once again the Jews of Hollywood are silent. Where are Spielberg, Streisand and David Geffen? Why haven’t these famous liberal consciences of Hollywood stood up to show their support for Israel against the terroristic attacks of Hamas? The producers, directors, actors and studio moguls...

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Pedro Almodovar, and other members of the Spanish film industry sent a public letter to the European Union on Tuesday denouncing Israel for “genocide.” Dozens of Spanish actors, writers, musicians, directors, and other entertainment representatives asked the EU to “condemn the bombing by land, sea, and air against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip.”

Tuesday morning the Associated Press fired of a tweet mocking Congress over its support of Israel. "As much of the world watched Gaza war in horror, members of Congress fall over each other to support Israel."

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper on Thursday slammed the Huffington Post and reporter Sophie Jones, its Middle East correspondent, for the sensationalist headline, “‘They Just Wanted to Kill as Many People as Possible.”’ Cooper said the headline, accusing Israel of targeting civilians in its current war against Hamas in Gaza, and Jones’s reporting, “takes the art of lying and self-delusion to new depths.” The Huffington Post article quoted Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the IDF’s official spokesman, describing Israel’s policy and procedure to warn civilians before striking Gaza targets, but then accused Israel of targeting...

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, calls out CNN’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza as irresponsible and one-sided.

As my colleague, senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak pointed out, Friday afternoon, CNN made a huge deal of Israel rejecting a "cease-fire deal" based on CNN's made-up premise that there was some sort of a deal. Pollak writes quite correctly that "there was no deal, but a mere proposal" and "there was no indication Hamas would agree to the terms." This deal CNN speaks of never existed. CNN is making it up because CNN knows that inaccurately reporting news of Israel walking away from a "deal" will make Israel look unreasonable and villainous. To make matters much, much worse for Israel,...

A holiday weekend video treat: How cable music channel VH1 turned booing of Senator Hillary Clinton into cheering. Senator Clinton was booed when she walked on stage last October at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden to benefit 9/11 victims. It was shown live by VH1 but, as ABC's John Stossel illustrated in a July 20/20 special on media distortions, when the Viacom-owned cable channel replayed it sound technicians replaced the booing with cheering and applause. And that version is the permanent record VH1 put onto its DVD of the event. During his July 12 20/20 look at media...

...Obama said Joe Biden would make a "superb" president, but questioned whether his vice president or potential rival Hillary Clinton would want to endure another campaign for the White House, a media report on Monday said. Obama, in an interview with the New Yorker, said Biden "has seen the job up close, he knows what the job entails. He understands how to separate what’s really important from what’s less important. I think he’s got great people skills. He enjoys politics, and he’s got important relationships up on the Hill (in Congress) that would serve him well."