Free Republic

The media's unbridled giddiness over the #NeverTrump camp's worsening Trump Derangement Syndrome is palpable. Without delving into the debate on the merits of the #NeverTrump movement, it is painfully clear that at this point, the #NeverTrump movement is aiding and abetting the left. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/06/nevertrump_the_media_is_using_you_as_pawns_dont_let_them.html#ixzz4C6e4K24k Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

Shortly after the Orlando attack, which left 49 dead and 53 others wounded, I predicted on my Facebook page that “despite the fact that the shooter pledged his allegiance to ISIS before launching fire, the FBI will spend weeks searching in vain for a motive. Experts will hypothesize that the shooter was disaffected, bored, insane or unemployed. It will be anything except Islamic terrorism. The whole thing will be a big mystery.” I further added, In no time at all, the President, the government agencies and the media will be lumping in 'homophobia' with “Islamophobia”, and “hate”, “extremism”, “terrorism” and...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has been quietly having conversations with state party leaders to discuss the latest push by convention delegates to nominate anyone other than Donald Trump. Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations. While Priebus has made clear in these conversations that he is not spearheading the latest push for a coup, his involvement sends a signal that the RNC is taking this effort...

Top National Rifle Association officials split Sunday with Donald Trump's position that armed club-goers are a good idea. "I don't think you should have firearms where people are drinking," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive officer said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "But I will tell you this. Everybody, every American starts to have -- needs to start having a security plan. We need to be able to protect ourselves, because they're coming. And they're going for vulnerable spots, and this country needs to realize it." NRA lobbyist Chris Cox told ABC's "This Week": "No one thinks that people...

Just about every professional politician would have advised Trump to tone it down. PLUS - POST IS HOIST BY ITS OWN URL: I've always respected the Washington Post's reporting - if not its extreme left-wing editorial pages. But lately the two departments seem to have merged. If you doubt that, check this supposedly objective news article that caused Trump to ban Post reporters from covering his campaign. It concerns Trump's response to the Orlando Shooting and the original headline was "Donald Trump Suggests Obama Was Involved with Orlando Shooting." Trump did not say anything even remotely like that. The Post...

An essay by an incoming UW-Madison doctoral student suggesting that violence might be the proper response to Donald Trump is drawing concern within the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Because apparently these days we’re a nation that is ready to nominate a buffoonish reality TV star for president and deem a “journalist” who excuses violence against that nominee as one of the “best-qualified applicants” at a world-renowned university. It all began with an essay self-described “smarmy liberal writer” Jesse Benn published on the Huffington Post earlier this month titled “Sorry liberals, a violent response to Trump is as...

On his Real Time show on Friday, HBO comedian Bill Maher referred to the U.S. military as a "mass murder machine" as he recalled that the reason he likes Bernie Sanders so much is because the Vermont socialist is the only presidential candidate who would argue against building a bigger military. A bit earlier, as he discussed with the New Yorker's Lawrence Wright the possibility of Saudi government officials being linked to the 9/11 attacks, Maher also made a crass reference to Tea Party conservatives -- whom he has mocked in the past as "teabaggers" -- by referring to Muslim...

In a shocking development in the push for gun-control, Senator Chris Murphy, who filibustered for 15 hours regarding the issue, admitted Sunday on ABC’s This Week that his proposal would not have stopped any recent mass shooting. “Your proposal would have done nothing in the case of Orlando, it would have done nothing to stop the killing in San Bernardino,” stated ABC’s Jon Karl calling out Murphy, “And in fact, it was unrelated to the killing in Newtown.” The proposal Murphy has been pushing is one that is meant to close the mythical “gun show loophole.” “Would that have done anything...

It must be pretty sweet to be a white swing voter. Political campaigns blow millions of dollars catering to your every whim. Politicians ask what you think before they step out on a major policy program, despite the fact that your views aren’t representative of the majority of Americans. The changing demographics of this country mean it’s well past time to stop obsessing over a shrinking population that’s out of sync with the right direction for this country. Continuing to cater to those voters can have dire consequences, in politics and more importantly in policies that deeply impact people’s lives....

Omar Mateen claimed at various times to be aligned with terrorist groups including ISIS, Hezbollah, and the al-Nusra Front. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson does not consider any of those bloodthirsty outfits “the greatest threat to our homeland security today.” That description, Dickinson argues, best fits the National Rifle Association. “The NRA's unhinged gun advocacy,” he wrote in a Wednesday article, “has created a soft underbelly to our homeland security that radicals are exploiting to inflict mass murder.” Dickinson declared, “Make no mistake: The NRA paved the way for the Orlando attack,” given that -- “ The NRA's lobbyists and political...

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH damn that Catherine Zeta Jones

Trump is America’s answer to Hugo Chávez. If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling. If you have reached physical maturity and still chuckle at Mr. Trump’s pubescent jokes about Rosie O’Donnell or Heidi Klum, you will never reach mental maturity. If you watched Mr. Trump mock fellow candidate Lindsey Graham’s low poll numbers and didn’t cringe at the lack of class, you are incapable of class. If you think we need to build new airports in Queens the way they build them in Qatar, you should be sent to join the millions of forced laborers who...

Hillary Clinton: the patriotic choice for president? That seems the implication of Chuck Todd’s challenge to Paul Ryan in an interview aired on today’s Meet The Press. When Ryan told Todd that as Speaker of the House, he was supporting Trump, Todd retorted: “you just made a case though for party over country.” How absurd! As Ryan rightly went on to explain to Todd, “No I didn’t! I know Hillary Clinton won’t agree with anything we want to do. She’ll put a bad judge on the Supreme Court. She won’t agree with any of the conservative reforms we’re trying to...

But Frank Stelmach of Double Tap Shooting Range and Gun Shop invited me, videographer Michael Sheridan and reporter Adam Shrier to come down. Stelmach is not like many gun lovers. He admires his weaponry, yes, and has difficulty explaining why law-abiding citizens need a gun that can empty a 40-round magazine in a few seconds. But he also hates the idea that “bad people” get a hold of a gun like this and use it to kill without difficulty. “There should be expanded background checks — extending into your family, friends and associates,” he said. “And there should be a...

It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon. One day after 49 people were killed in the Orlando shooting, I traveled to Philadelphia to better understand the firepower of military-style assault weapons and, hopefully, explain their appeal to gun lovers. But mostly, I was just terrified. Many gun shops turned down our request to fire and discuss the AR-15, a style of semi-automatic rifle popular with mass killers such as San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook and similar to the Sig Sauer MCX rifle used by Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen. Killers in mass shootings used AR-15, thanks to...

"It feels like a bazooka - and sounds like a cannon." How do we know AR-15s are the single most lethal weapon on the planet? Because they're SO LOUD. LOUD, YOU HEAR ME?! LOUD!!!! This is one of those things that must be read to be believed, and no, this was not found in The Onion, amazingly. New York Daily News reporter Gersh Kuntzman set out to test shoot an AR-15. “It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon,” he writes. A cannon. And Bazooka? The same bazooka also known as a "recoilless rifle"? I would like...

Wonder how many times the original was sited on MSNBC. Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed Researchers have fixed a number of papers after mistakenly reporting that people who hold conservative political beliefs are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness. As one of the notices specifies, now it appears that liberal political beliefs are linked with psychoticism. That paper also swapped ideologies when reporting on people higher in neuroticism and social desirability (falsely claiming that you have socially desirable qualities); the original paper said those traits are linked...

May 11, 2016 Michael Covel An insidious new fantasy is blooming in Washington, D.C, academia and the media… Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dreams about it in between bong hits. It’s lovingly endorsed by “off the wall” left-wing economist Paul Krugman. And the ultra-progressive Huffington Post calls it “the idea that could revolutionize the 21st century.” The hype surrounding this “revolutionary” idea will soon be an everyday talking point. And if you’re a hard-working citizen who takes care of your own responsibilities, you should pay extra close attention… Because you’re about to get fleeced and forced to enjoy it… Utopian...

Civility Two years ago, Stephen Henderson won a Pulitzer Prize. I’ll let you decide what you think that says about the state of journalism, especially as you consider what he wrote late last week. Henderson, the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press (and a Facebook friend of mine, at least as I type this), has become increasingly hysterical in the past year - seeing racism behind almost every perceived societal ill and ascribing to conservative policymakers not just mistaken thinking but, invariably, an intent to hurt people. But his column of this past Saturday took the cake. A...

In 2012, voters in California approved a measure to raise taxes on millionaires, bringing their top state income tax rate to 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. Conservative economists predicted calamity, or at least a big slowdown in growth. Also that year, the governor of Kansas signed a series of changes to the state's tax code, including reducing income and sales tax rates. Conservative economists predicted a boom. Neither of those predictions came true. Not right away -- California grew just fine in the year the tax hikes took effect -- and especially not in the medium term, as...