Free Republic

When buses and trains exploded on 7/7 in London, the objective of the suicide bombers was to sow fear and terror in the very soul of the British people. In that the jihadis were successful. One would have expected the British authorities to not just hunt down the terrorists, but also to fight the cancer of Islamism that lies at the ideological roots of jihadi terrorism. Instead, successive governments in London have tried to pussyfoot around the challenge, hoping the jihadi terrorists and their ideology would melt away with time as Downing Street funded so-called "moderate" Muslim groups and "former"...

If you Google "George W. Bush shredding the constitution," you will get many millions of hits. The New York Times railed, "Ever since 9/11, we have watched Republican lawmakers help Mr. Bush shred the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism. President Bush attempted to listen in on the international calls of suspected terrorists, he used waterboarding on exactly three terrorists, and he put detainees in Guantanamo. Mr. Obama -- greeted rapturously in 2008 as the "constitutional law professor" who would restore respect for our founding document -- has demonstrated a contempt for law unseen since Nixon. Nixon was devious,...

A sagacious Bible scholar told me how important it was for the Israelites to look back and remember what God had done for them in the past because it gave them the strength to persevere through difficult times. Sometimes we need to look back, too, and remember what we have to be grateful for in this country and what it is that is worth preserving. In the Old Testament book Lamentations, the Prophet Jeremiah was expressing his overwhelming sorrow at Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah's grief reached a climax in the very center of the book when he was completely...

I will frankly admit I find it increasingly difficult to share the same planet as leftists. That’s because I believe they are all insane. They say such things as “We all belong to the state” or “It takes a village to raise a child” with a straight face. One might say that a North Korean belongs to the state, but an American? To tell the truth, the only way I have found to cope with liberals is by ridiculing them every chance I get. Does anyone but an idiot believe that folks like Jefferson, Washington and Franklin, went to all...

Industrial Policy: What if government created an insurance "marketplace" and no one came? As the launch of the ObamaCare insurance exchanges draws near, that could happen — bringing the reform crashing to the ground. The premise of ObamaCare's exchanges was that they would provide individuals and small businesses a choice of many competing health plans. And because the plans all have to provide the same benefits, consumers would be able to shop around for the best deal. But evidence is piling up that the law won't live up to this promise, as insurance companies, small businesses and individuals seek to...

The US Supreme Court announced this week that it will take up the question of whether it’s OK for Greece, New York, to open meetings of the town board by letting citizens voluntarily offer a prayer. It’s a potential landmark case in the contest over religion in the public square. But it’s not the first time this question has arisen. The moment invites a telling of the story of the Reverend Jacob Duché. It was he who, in 1774, gave the most famous prayer ever delivered at a governmental meeting in America. His tale takes a surprise turn that could...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That's the full text of the First Amendment. But (with apologies to the old Far Side comic), this is what many in the press, academia and government would hear if you read it aloud: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, blah blah blah, or abridging the freedom of the press, blah...

“By Allah, by the almighty Allah, we swear we will never stop fighting you.” With those words Wednesday, the South London attacker with blood-soaked hands did us the favor of reminding us what we are up against. Having just killed British soldier Lee Rigby in cold blood on a street in Woolwich, with his murder weapon still in hand, the latest face of jihad issued warnings to all of us on that now famous bystander video: “Your people will never be safe,” he insists. So: do we believe him? This is an important question for every American, and every American...

Three years ago I was contacted by an editor of Rowohlt, one of the biggest book publishers in Germany. She said she loved my articles in the Zeit, the prestigious German newspaper I’ve been writing for, and would like me to come to Germany for a few months, interview people and write about them “in the same style you write for the Zeit.” … Hardly a day passed by without at least one interviewee talking to me about the “rich Jews,” the “shrewd Jews,” the Israelis who eat Palestinians for breakfast on a daily basis, the “manipulating Jew,” or anything...

RUSH: Let's start with polling data -- just to keep you up to speed on things because it's a little bit conflicting. This is the Pew Research Center, they surveyed more than a thousand people and they asked them if they are following the scandal stories very closely. And the Pew Center poll shows that most Americans are not paying attention to the scandals, according to this. Twenty-six percent said that they are very closely following the IRS story. Twenty-five percent say they are closely following the Benghazi investigation, and just 16% are very closely following the news about the...

Government Failure: Two years ago the president announced his goal of putting 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015. Did he mention that to reach that target the unpopular cars might have to be given away? The market for electric cars is so weak that consumer costs are approaching almost nothing. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that in order to "spark buyers for electric cars," there is a need to "drop the price to nearly $0." "A new round of discount leases on mainstream-brand plug-in cars such as the Nissan Leaf or Fiat 500e, combined with federal,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We had breaking news at the end of yesterday's big broadcast that Darrell Issa, after having consulted with legal counsel, said that he was going to recall Lois Lerner before his committee. As you know, she showed up yesterday and said, (impression), "I didn't do it! I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do anything. You can't prove anything! I didn't do it, had nothing to do with it," and then refused to say anything more under questioning, invoking her Fifth Amendment. At which point, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said, "You can't do that. You can't...

Sure, we as a nation have always killed people. A lot of people. But no president has ever waged war by killing enemies one by one, targeting them individually for execution, wherever they are. The Obama administration has taken pains to tell us, over and over again, that they are careful, scrupulous of our laws, and determined to avoid the loss of collateral, innocent lives. They're careful because when it comes to waging war on individuals, the distinction between war and murder becomes a fine one. Especially when, on occasion, the individuals we target are Americans and when, in one...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: It's out there in the news, that Speaker of the House John Boehner was not all that hepped up to a Benghazi investigation by a congressional committee. Now, the way that has manifested itself is the speaker has decided that there will be five House committees that will look into it because there are five committees who have a little jurisdiction here, another committee has a little jurisdiction there, and another committee has some jurisdiction over here. It's five, maybe six committees. You have Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, Armed Services, and Oversight and Government Reform. That's Issa,...

IRS Scandal: The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies. On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in...

--snip-- The Republican Party landscape is littered with the carcasses of failed strategies and this approach will also not succeed... --snip-- In another time those in the management of the IRS would have instinctively known that it would be unethical and morally wrong, never mind illegal, to target and leak confidential information about the political adversaries of the person occupying the White House. Particularly as that agency wields vast power over the American people and as such those that work there have been granted a unique responsibility and place in society. Today, however, pleasing the political hierarchy, whose directives they...

Organized Labor: On the surface, the Los Angeles mayor's race looked like a choice between Coke and Pepsi. But Eric Garcetti's lopsided win over Wendy Greuel showed a major difference — in the public's view of unions. City Controller Greuel lost 54%-46% on Tuesday, bested by City Councilman Garcetti, who will become the mayor of America's second-largest city on July 1. It was an interesting result because the candidates are two peas in a pod. Both are left-wing Democrats with ideas so closely aligned they have been political allies; both grew up in the San Fernando Valley; and both hold...

In January, Rush Limbaugh warned that there was “an effort under way to normalize pedophilia,” and was ridiculed by liberals (including CNN’s Soledad O’Brien) for saying so. But now liberals have joined a crusade that, if successful, would effectively legalize sex with 14-year-olds in Florida. The case involves Kaitlyn Ashley Hunt, an 18-year-old in Sebastian, Florida, who was arrested in February after admitting that she had a lesbian affair with a 14-year high-school freshman. (Click here to read the affidavit in Hunt’s arrest.) It is a felony in Florida to have sex with 14-year-olds. Hunt was expelled from Sebastian High...

Every day brings new revelations about who knew what about the IRS targeting conservative groups during President Obama's re-election campaign, but the overall impression is of a vast federal bureaucracy run amok. While the White House continues to peddle the story of a driverless train wreck, taxpayers are being treated to a demonstration of the dangers of an unwieldy and unaccountable administrative state. Look, Ma, no hands! In his press events, Mr. Obama has said that while he learned about the Cincinnati rogues on the news, he plans to "hold accountable those who have taken these outrageous actions." But the...

Inquiring minds with extra time on their hands this morning are plodding through the Full Transcript of Bernanke's Testimony To Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress looking for the usual collection of half-truths, distortions, and outright lies it usually contains. Here are some point-by-point statements by Bernanke with my comments immediately following each set of statements. Bernanke: Conditions in the job market have shown some improvement recently. The unemployment rate, at 7.5 percent in April, has declined more than 1/2 percentage point since last summer. Moreover, gains in total nonfarm payroll employment have averaged more than 200,000 jobs per month over...

The streams emerging from beneath an Arctic glacier are several degrees warmer than the icy water Alaska’s Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has tossed on a Tea Party group’s effort to draft former Gov. Sarah Palin as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2014. Reviving one of Alaska’s great political feuds, Murkowski told The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C.: “I think there are a lot of outside interests that would like to see Sarah Palin in some form of elected office. Most in Alaska recognize our former governor is rally not involved in or engaged in the state anymore, that she’s moved...

In March, the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service announced that a growing number of jihadists are being recruited in Switzerland. The number of robberies and assaults on Swiss trains has skyrocketed to such an extent that the Swiss government recently opted to equip transport police with firearms, and at least 1,400 women in Switzerland have been victims of forced marriages. A controversial new report by the Swiss government claims that Muslim immigrants are so well integrated into Swiss society that no further federal policies or programs are needed to promote Muslim integration or to counter Islamic extremism. ... since the beginning...

By The Editors At a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, federal lawmakers hauled in America’s most successful corporation to investigate why it had so precisely followed the laws those solons have passed.

Yesterday I read an interesting article in Newsweek about the connection between tornadoes and climate change. Newsweek’s story explained how top climate scientists were concerned about several ominous and fundamental changes occurring in Earth’s weather patterns. Evidence that Earth’s climate was changing in the wrong direction, the article said, included a shorter growing season in England, higher average temperatures at the equator and an increase in tornadoes like the monster than killed at least 24 people in Tornado Alley this week. “Last April,” wrote Newsweek, “in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300...

If Richard Nixon were alive today, he would likely be fielding midnight phone calls from Barack Obama. Not since Richard Nixon was driven from office by the Watergate scandal four decades ago, has the American public been privy to such an unfolding spectacle of scandal and corruption in a presidential administration. From “Operation Fast and Furious,” to the Benghazi debacle and cover-up, to the IRS harassment of conservative organizations, to the Department of Justice campaign against the Associated Press, and now reports the Department has used its power to intimidate FOX News reporters -- the hits just keep on coming....

How does President Barack Obama, a man of such keen intelligence, with such promise to "change" America, find himself in so much serious trouble? From the IRS targeting conservatives to the continued confusion over what happened at Benghazi to provoking a battle with The Associated Press by subpoenaing phone records that could involve as many as 100 reporters, what went wrong? The answer is simple: arrogance, aided and abetted by a compliant, adoring "news" media. CNN's Roland Martin urged the president to "go gangsta" on conservatives who wouldn't confirm his political appointments. Supporters like MSNBC's the Rev. Al Sharpton publicly...

Our worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves, but our most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves about terror. From Benghazi and Boston to Kabul and Karachi, to Fort Hood, Detroit and New York, Barack Obama and his aides have been lying about terror. The Obama Administration’s acts surpass even the maneuvers by President Richard Nixon, who used spies against political opponents while covering up for Arab terror. Nixon and Co. hid the fact that Yasser Arafat ordered the murder of three diplomats at the US embassy in Khartoum Sudan in January, 1974. The US concealed this...

The burqa and the niqab. The State Department issued a report denouncing what it called “a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia.” It said that “Muslims also faced new restrictions in 2012 in countries ranging from Belgium, which banned face-covering religious attire in classrooms, to India[,] where schools in Mangalore restricted headscarves.” The State Department report confuses religious persecution, which is to be condemned, with politicization of religions, which is a matter of debate and includes strategies of which the U.S. government should not be a part. If countries ban the right to pray, broadcast, and write about...

Would you like to have a "skinny" health insurance policy? Probably not. But if you're employed by a large company, you may get one, thanks to Obamacare. That's the conclusion of Wall Street Journal reporters Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews. They report that insurance brokers are pitching and selling "low-benefit" policies across the country. You might be wondering what a "skinny" or "low-benefit" insurance plan is. The terms may vary, but the basic idea is that policies would cover preventive care, a limited number of doctor visits and perhaps generic drugs. They wouldn't cover things such as surgery, hospital...

As the Obama scandals surround the White House, some conservatives are suggesting that -- finally -- the media are "getting tough" on Obama. Don't count on it. All our modern experience suggests tough reporting on a Democratic president is more of a temporary sensation than an ongoing trend. The news media honestly believe they were tough on Team Clinton. It is simply not true. There was a seemingly endless supply of Clinton administration (and Clinton pre-administration) scandals, yet can you name one that was resolved? The floating FBI files. The illegal fundraising. Whitewater. On and on they went, and the...

<p>Government is now so huge, powerful and callous that citizens risk becoming proverbial serfs without the freedoms guaranteed by the Founders.</p> <p>Is that perennial fear an exaggeration? Survey the current news.</p> <p>We have just learned that the Internal Revenue Service before the 2012 election predicated its tax-exempt policies on politics. It inordinately denied tax exemption to groups considered either conservative or possibly antagonistic to the president's agenda.</p>

If you were to suddenly appear this weekend at the numerous barbecues or pool parties, without any knowledge of our nation's history, it might be hard to understand the real meaning of Memorial Day. Is it a day to sell cars, clothes and mattresses? Is it a day off of work, a time to join with family and friends, and grill out? For our family, Memorial Day weekend marks the start of summer. School is out, and we transition from the school year to summer activities. But, oh, it is so much more. Memorial Day can be traced back to...

Carol Platt Liebau and Eliana Johnson aren't exactly Woodward and Bernstein --yet. But if both reporters keep up their relentless focus on the details of the IRS scandal --"Targetcon," "Targetgate," "Senseless in Cincinnati" --their names will be far and widely known as the first two serious reporters to take the burgeoning scandal seriously. Liebau labors at Townhall.com, and most her work appears first there in its "Tipsheet" column and eventually ends up easy to find and comprehensively categorized at CarolLiebau.com. Johnson's work appears most frequently in "The Corner" at National Review Online, though her work on the IRS is getting...

As multiple scandals have simultaneously engulfed the Obama administration, a number of political observers have cautioned Republicans against overreaching. Liberal blogger Greg Sargent writes over at the Washington Post that, “the current scandal-mania gripping the GOP risks bringing about a rerun of 1998, when the frenzy amid the Monica Lewinsky revelations led the GOP to overreach, resulting in backlash.” Charlie Cook reaches a similar conclusion: Red-faced Republicans, circling and preparing to pounce on a second-term Democratic president they loathe, do not respect, and certainly do not fear. Sound familiar? Perhaps reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s second term, after the Monica Lewinsky...

A British soldier was decapitated a few hundred yards from a UK Army base by two men with large knives and saying ‘ we swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you’. The men were shot when police responded 20 minutes later. The photo above shows a scene. This is the dramatic moment a woman appears to remonstrate with a man carrying a knife following a brutal attack in Woolwich. The two alleged attackers are thought to have waited around for 20 minutes until Metropolitan Police officers arrived and then tried to attack them – but were swiftly...

Revelations concerning Benghazi, the IRS, and government probing of the Associated Press make it increasingly clear that Barack Obama was led astray by his friends in the media. They intended no harm to the president, needless to say. But by withholding the criticism that prods public officials into doing a better job, by choosing not to print negative stories and commentaries about the Obama administration, the press corps tempted the president and his staff with visions of invincibility. The pro-Obama news crew—with a boost from the Nobel Peace Prize committee—confirmed the president’s exalted view of himself. They are in part...

On May 15, 2013, the Turkish Prime Minister, Erdogan, an anti-Semite, attended a ceremony a stone’s throw from our nation’s capital celebrating what he claims “will likely become the largest and most striking example of Islamic architecture in the Western Hemisphere.” Next year, when completed, the Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center, in Lanham, Maryland “US of A,” a project of the Islamist Turkish government, will be the grandest Islamic site in the Western Hemisphere. Allah Akbar! The 15-acre neo-Ottoman empire inspired complex will have five buildings and a mosque capable of serving over 750 faithful Muslim worshipers. I have...

At first I thought the IRS scandal was leaked to distract from the Benghazi scandal. But that didn’t make sense because the IRS scandal is a more obvious abuse of power than the White House lying about the murder of four Americans in Libya. Before I had resolved which scandal was distracting from which, we found out the Department of Justice was spying on The Associated Press —not to protect national security, but to prevent the AP from scooping the White House. Then, this week, it broke that the Department of Justice was also spying on Fox News for reasons...

You know you are a serious societal pestilence when even politicians can kick you around. Which is why the Senate Finance Committee called Steven Miller, former acting IRS commissioner, to testify about the agency’s scheme targeting conservatives for tax punishment. Right away, Mr. Miller got down to the business of reminding everyone why we all hate the IRS so much. “Unfortunately, given time considerations,” he began, “the IRS was unable to prepare written testimony.” Given time considerations? Unable to prepare? Are you kidding us? Have you ever heard of April 15? Can you imagine if we called up the IRS...

Who knew that I would be a victim of the oppressive attacks of the IRS on people of conservative values and Christian faith. But I have, and it is a personal stinging reminder of how terribly close we are to losing all of our freedoms. Like many readers of my column, I have been watching accelerated attacks against Constitutional government, free speech, free markets, freedom of religion - you name it, we have lost much over the last few years. Even so, I wasn't expecting that I would be caught up in the latest scandal to rock the Obama Administration....

You may be appalled about IRS inquisitions for Tea Party groups and dragnet subpoenas for investigative reporters, but what's really outrageous, according to some commentators, is that a couple of Republicans recently dared to use the "I-word"—"impeachment." I'm not convinced that any of President Obama's recent scandal eruptions constitute an "impeachable moment." But surely something's gone wrong with our constitutional culture when opinion leaders treat the very invocation of the "I-word" as akin to screaming obscenities in a church."The notion of impeachment is industrial-strength insane," Michael Tomasky fumes in the Daily Beast. Over at the Atlantic, "communitarian" guru Amitai Etzioni...

More and more studies show that being overweight does not always shorten life — but some public-health researchers would rather not talk about them. Late in the morning on 20 February, more than 200 people packed an auditorium at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. The purpose of the event, according to its organizers, was to explain why a new study about weight and death was absolutely wrong. The report, a meta-analysis of 97 studies including 2.88 million people, had been released on 2 January in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)1. A team led...

There are moments in politics when an argument is advanced that is so surpassingly stupid or dishonest that it momentarily freezes your brain. Welcome to former DNC Communications Director Karen Finney's IRS twilight zoneMSNBC Host Finney: "Everybody Knew About This [IRS] Investigation Long Before The Election"According to Finney, the fact that Mitt Romney didn't make a huge deal out of the IRS targeting scandal last year is somehow proof that the whole thing is essentially a non-story and wasn't buried until after the election.  Where to begin?  As a fellow panelist incredulously points out, the revelation of IRS abuse wasn't...

Scandal: The rest of us must answer IRS questions under threat of perjury, but the agency's execs can take the Fifth. A Tea Party targeted by the IRS — and the FBI and OSHA and the ATF — thinks that's unfair. We do too. Lois Lerner, chief of the IRS' exempt organizations division when the Tea Party and other conservative groups were targeted for their opposition to President Obama, has invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to be questioned on her earlier testimony, her opening statement or any knowledge she may have of who ordered the targeting, who created the...

As we get word that the IRS has harassed a number of pro-life groups, including at least one alleged demand that a pro-life group not picket Planned Parenthood, check out this statistic: In 2012, the IRS requested additional information from 90 percent of returns claiming the adoption tax credit and went on to actually audit 69 percent. More details from the Taxpayer Advocate Service: During the 2012 filing season, 90 percent of returns claiming the refundable adoption credit were subject to additional review to determine if an examination was necessary. The most common reasons were income and a lack of...

WASHINGTON - "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." This ancient admonition, commonly attributed to William Shakespeare but actually the work of Sir Walter Scott, now applies to how Barack Obama's White House has been in a full coverup mode over the widening IRS scandal. One week after the bombshell story broke that the tax agency has been targeting conservative groups with extra, delay-lengthening scrutiny over their applications for tax-exempt status during the 2011-2012 election cycle, we find out that the details were known at the highest levels of the White House. Moreover, we're...

Senior White House staff knew of the ongoing investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups ahead of the release of a report from a Treasury Department inspector general, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday, but held off on informing the president to wait for a final report. With the knowledge of an investigation, the White House held to a “cardinal rule” that it should not get involved in an external investigation, Carney said during his daily briefing. “No one in this building intervened in an ongoing independent investigation or did anything that could be seen as intervening,”...

President Obama is getting a bad rap. His critics are blaming him for everything that is going wrong. Cut the man some slack. He’s the president. How’s he supposed to know what’s going on in his government. Let’s start with Benghazi. The president says neither he nor his political pals in the White House had anything to do with re-writing those talking points to make it look like some dopey anti-Muslim video started the whole thing. I believe him – and so should you, unless you hate your country. Why in the world would the president lie to the American...

Make no mistake: by criminalizing James Rosen of Fox News for asking government employees to give him information, the Obama administration is suppressing the ability of the press to do its job. It is so egregious that even the New York Times, normally sycophants for Obama, is alarmed. The editorial board today writes: With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible "co-conspirator" in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news. And the Times, a member/owner of Associated...

Things got awkward during the House Oversight Committee’s second IRS hearing on Wednesday when Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI), while seemingly making a larger point, couldn’t get former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman to acknowledge certain amendments to the Constitution. After confirming that the IRS requires ethics training, Bentivolio was trying to figure out if the IRS required training on the Constitution. He may have got his answer despite Shulman’s response saying he couldn’t give one. “Did you study the Constitution?” Bentivolio asked. “I went to law school,” Shulman responded. “You went to law school. Did you study the Constitution?” “I believe...