Free Republic

Earlier last week, Fox contributor John Huddy reported that the Palestinian Authority will withdraw from the peace process if President Trump closes its diplomatic mission in Washington. The failure of Palestinian Arabs to pursue peace can be traced back 100 years with defiance to any form of Jewish sovereignty. The Palestinians could have had peace and their own state had their leaders recognized Israel's overtures by bargaining in good faith, renouncing violence and recognizing Israel's right to exist but did not. They had no less than seven opportunities to do so but did not. Instead, they acted with reckless abandon...

Seattle’s City Council made national headlines earlier this year when it enacted a city income tax aimed at “high earners.” Immediately, politicians crowed that they had planted a flag of “resistance” to the forces of “Trumpism.” In a court hearing last week, the city defended its war on wealth against several legal and constitutional challenges. The briefing from both sides exposes an inconvenient reality for the levy’s defenders: its real, ultimate victims aren’t necessarily the plutocrats they claim to be targeting. In fact, just the opposite. Some background: there are few precedents from other parts of the country for a...

They play the race card. If that doesn't stick, they toss out the gender card, as they have with Judge Moore. If the opponent survives these attacks, then it's the class card, as it was with Mitt Romney. If none of this works, it's the LGBT card. Then there's the "E" card – just "too extreme," as with Barry Goldwater and Judge Bork. When all of these fail, as they did against candidate Donald Trump – and all of them were played – the left freaks out and starts throwing things. All of these attacks are versions of the same...

Turn on the news to hear about the latest powerful man, almost to a man Democrats, accused of sexual misconduct. Hollywood moguls and actors, media political commentators, and now elected officials. The sole accused Republican, however, seems to be garnering the most attention: Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. After the smart-set cable news panels play compare and contrast between Roy Moore and Al Franken, they pivot to the Republican tax cut plans, currently limping through Congress. Democrats trot out their hackneyed “tax cuts for the rich” mantra despite marginal tax rates staying put under both House and Senate plans. What...

The Constitution and the laws passed by Congress define one person who determines and executes U.S. immigration policy and U.S. District Judge William Orrick is not it. Yet Judge Orrick is once again opposing the expressed will of the American people through their elected representatives by issuing a permanent ban on President Trump’s executive order defunding sanctuary cities: A federal judge in California has blocked President Trump’s executive order to cut funding from sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with U.S. immigration officials. U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick issued the ruling Monday in lawsuits brought by San Francisco and Santa...

The U.S. Constitution lists six goals. The intent to form a more perfect union is undermined by our current political divisiveness. The other five are crippled by our failure to address global warming: 1. Establish justice: Ethnic minorities and the poor suffer most from pollution caused by mining, refining and burning carbon fuels, and are most hurt by global warming they increasingly cause. 2. Ensure domestic tranquility: Multiple studies show that heat increases violence by both individuals and quarreling groups. 3. Provide for the common defense: As early as 2003, the military recognized the dangers climate change poses to world...

The Trump administration is making it harder to find government information about climate change on the web. If you searched Google for the words “climate change” a little over six months ago, one of the first hits would have been the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. But that was before April 28, when the agency began systematically dismantling its climate change website, which had survived Democratic and Republican administrations and was a leading source of information on a global problem that the president, as a candidate, labeled “a hoax.” If you search those words today, a link to the E.P.A. site...

I must admit I have never in my life purchased a ticket to a sports event. I am not a sports enthusiast. But I am an American black citizen, and I have had it up to the gills with black people who embrace victimhood. I also highly resent my being expected to do the same in order to affirm my “blackness.” Black victims these days, for the most part, are the product of decades of Black Americans being used primarily by white progressive leftists to advance an anti-American agenda. The current brouhaha surrounding the despicable behavior of NFL athletes toward...

Not that many years ago, the South American nation of Colombia was on the cusp of becoming a failed “narco-state.” With climatic conditions ideal for the growing of coca plants, and with dense jungles providing natural cover for illegal operations, Colombia became an international hub for the manufacturing and export of cocaine. As demand for these drugs grew in the United States from the 1970s on, so too did the violence and corruption of powerful drug cartels as they expanded territory, and battled rivals and the government. By the 1990s, Colombia was regarded as one of the most dangerous places...

A group of 44 conservative leaders have sent a letter to all members of Congress that might be called a conservative wake-up call. The group represents, through their various organizations, a broad array of conservative concerns. But they boil it all down to three areas that all agree need immediate legislative action. Tax reform, which currently is in the pipeline, bolstering our defense budget, and getting the federal budget in order through fiscal restraint. The point these conservatives wish to drive home to Congress is that Donald Trump's election in 2016 was not just an anti-establishment vote. It was a...

As the media elites roll their eyes and sigh at people who deny the apparently inevitable approach of traumatic climate change, there's one category of denial they always endorse: a liberal bias in the "news." Chest-pounding journalistic activism defines the Trump era, and yet shameless journalists still claim media bias is a myth. James Warren, a former managing editor and chief of the Chicago Tribune Washington, D.C., bureau, now works at The Poynter Institute for media studies (or media denial?). He posted a commentary on Nov. 20 headlined "How Mega-Media Deals Further Erode the Myth of a 'Liberal' Media." Liberals...

Ready for Thanksgiving? Before you eat that turkey, I hope you think about why America has turkeys for you to eat. Most people don't know. Everyone's heard about that first Thanksgiving feast -- Pilgrims and Indians sharing the harvest. We like the drawings of it we saw in schoolbooks -- shared bounty. Fewer people know that before that first feast, the Pilgrims nearly starved. They almost starved because they acted the way some Bernie Sanders fans want people to act. They farmed collectively. But communal farming creates what economists call "the tragedy of the commons." Think about what happens if...

A common feature of our time is the extent to which many in our nation have become preoccupied with diversity. But true diversity obsession, almost a mania, is found at our institutions of higher learning. Rather than have a knee-jerk response for or against diversity, I think we should ask just what is diversity and whether it's a good thing. How do we tell whether a college, a department or another unit within a college is diverse or not? What exemptions from diversity are permitted?Seeing as college presidents and provosts are the main diversity pushers, we might start with their...

RUSH: What are the odds that the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee is gonna be a woman? Pretty solid, right? You know, it makes my theory that what Donna Brazile’s doing is setting up a run by Michelle Obama. I mean, it’s looking more and more likely. Hillary Clinton can kiss it big, fat good-bye, if she’s got designs on the 2020 nomination, there ain’t no way, Jose. And they gotta be a woman, right? In fact, I just saw a story, the GOP, the Republican National Committee, is raising money out the wazoo, compared to the Democrats. The Republicans in...

Never miss a chance to smear conservatives, even if that means somehow connecting the right to the murderous cult leader Charles Manson. That’s apparently the view of the New York Times and Newsweek. Both liberal outlets on Monday used Manson’s death to attack political enemies. A tweet for the NYT opinion piece by Baynard Woods slimed, “Charles Manson wasn't the inevitable outgrowth of the Sixties. If anything, he was a harbinger of today's far right.”  Woods insisted that the killer “had more in common ideologically with far-right groups like the John Birch Society than he did with the anarchic leftism...

RUSH: The left is on this big thing — have you seen the story, Mr. Snerdley? H. R. McMaster supposedly at a dinner party this past summer — it’s BuzzFeed and some other places. Four or five different sources that McMaster was openly telling people what an idiot Trump is, that he has a kindergarten type IQ, that he’s childlike and doesn’t have the intellectual depth to keep up or to understand things. And there are a lot of sources, there are a lot of people here. This is not one or two people anonymously saying this. There are a...

RUSH: You know, folks, I realize I’m America’s Real Anchorman and America’s Truth Detector, but I gotta tell you, I’m starting to feel like I work for Peephole magazine. Not People, Peephole, Peephole, Tattle, or whatever. What a bunch of absolute perverts! By their own definition, these guys are, and the vast majority of them happen to be liberal Democrats. You know, folks, by the way greetings and welcome. It’s great to have you here, Thanksgiving week and the EIB Network. 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program. Let’s take a look at this, Charlie Rose, eight women....

RUSH: Last Friday, I meant to send out some happy birthday wishes to my Uncle Steve Limbaugh, retired federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri. He turned 90 last Friday. He is my dad’s brother, my dad’s younger brother. He turned 90. And, folks, he’s still working every day. He’s a prominent attorney now at a major St. Louis law firm, having retired the federal bench. Honestly, he does not look a day over 60. It’s literally incredible. He’s 90 years old and does not seem to have aged, to me. Now, his father — Rush Limbaugh Sr., my...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by FRC intern Natalie Pugh.It may have been unintentional, but a recent lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union could nonetheless result in many children being displaced from adoption agencies who would otherwise have been happy to care for them and find families to adopt them.The ACLU is currently suing the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Michigan Children’s Services Agency for allowing religious adoption agencies to adhere to their faith tenets as they conduct their work—which for them means placing children in a home with a mom and a...

The repeal of the itemized deduction for medical expenses is one of the proposed changes to the current income tax laws. It is among the smallest of the deductions scheduled for repeal, but the consequences will be significant for those affected. In lives fraught with uncertainty because of personal health challenges and escalating medical costs, removing this simple and cost-effective form of economic relief will cause massive immediate and undue additional stress and pain for individuals and families who rely on this deduction to help them care for themselves or their loved ones. This does not concern the notorious 1%...