Free Republic

On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life There were plants and birds and rocks and things There was sand and hills and rings The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz And the sky with no clouds The heat was hot and the ground was dry But the air was full of sound.-America The year 1985 saw the beginning of a new dawn in technology, which would see the exploitation and evolution of a defense department project, develop into the worldwide web - the Internet. Building out the pipes and...

WASHINGTON -- Last week a national treasure spoke. That would be Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist, television commentator and all around public sage. He also is a chess player. Krauthammer noted that two months ago a petition bearing the signatures of some 110,000 tyrants was sent to the Washington Post -- from where did it come, I would like to know -- demanding that the Post discontinue publishing articles that deny global warming or -- who knows -- take even a skeptical view of global warming. Yet Krauthammer assures us that precisely a day later his column containing the exact heresy...

Darkness fell across the land and the man they thought would be their savior cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Soon after, he breathed his last. The people standing at the foot of the cross beat their breasts and stumbled away. From a distance, his mother and friends watched in silent despair. His disciples were broken in spirit—no doubt confused, hurting and angry. They had followed this man for years, left their work and their families for him. They thought he would change everything. But in the course of one day,...

Remember when colleges prided themselves on the diligence and depth of their research? Frederick Lawrence, president of Brandeis University, apparently does not. He offered an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Then, at the last minute, he rescinded the offer because, he claims, he became aware of “past statements” by her “inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” Hey Scholar-in-Chief, ever hear of Google? Ms. Hirsi Ali, of course, is an intrepid women’s rights advocate who has focused on Muslim women, raising questions, as she has phrased it, on “the role of Islam in legitimizing” female genital mutilation, “honor killings,” forced...

Attorney General Eric Holder said hate crimes are an affront to what the United States stands for in comments at a memorial service Thursday for three people killed in a shooting at a Jewish community center in Kansas. “Every alleged hate crime, no matter the intended target, is an affront to who we are – and who we have always been – both as a country and as a people,”

Yesterday President Obama gave a speech in Oakdale, Pennsylvania with Vice President Joe Biden about skill training. Last week, just thirty miles away in Murrysville, a student went on a mass stabbing rampage at Franklin Regional High School. Twenty people were severely injured in the incident, making it one of the worst mass stabbing events in U.S. history. But despite being close to the scene of the tragic and horrifying event, Obama failed to mention the incident during his nearly 30 minute long remarks. I have a feeling if there had been a recent tragedy that involved a gun at...

Hawks in the wild tend to be solitary creatures. But those in Washington, D.C., often appear in noisy flocks. As Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his predatory activities in Ukraine, conservatives here are unanimous on how the Obama administration should respond: by emulating the Bush administration. A favorite demand is reviving the European missile defense that George W. Bush began during his final months in office. "We could go back and reinstate the ballistic missile defense program that was taken out," Dick Cheney said. "Obama took it out to appease Putin." Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., agreed that "we should definitely...

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is planning to release, through its liberal sister imprint Convergent Books, a manuscript paradoxically titled God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Is the Christian world about to suffer through another World Vision moment? The book’s author, Matthew Vines, is a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexualist agenda. Despite his frequent use of a Christian-like lexicon, Vines surprisingly admits to running an apostate enterprise that he calls The Reformation Project. An unabashed denier of Biblical teaching on sexual morality, Vines has...

There is a growing trend on American college campuses, a trend that augurs badly for free speech and robust debate. I refer to the way various groups of people use expressions of hurt feelings to trump speakers they disagree with. The most recent manifestation of this was at Brandeis University. Brandeis had invited the Somalia-born Ayann Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary doctorate and speak at the university’s commencement exercises. Her remarkable story is certainly worth honoring. She fled her native Africa to avoid one of those “arranged marriages,” finding asylum in The Netherlands. While living there, she was elected...

It was disappointing the other day to see President Barack Obama embracing the vulgar race hustler Al Sharpton. President Obama once eloquently confronted race in a memorable speech in Philadelphia in 2008. That speech was remarkable and honest and, to borrow a favorite word of the political left that still fawns over him, it was nuanced. But there was nothing particularly remarkable about Obama standing next to the preening Sharpton, speaking in New York to his National Action Network. Except that Obama expertly used a message of victimization to begin energizing black voters, who provide the electoral foundation for the...

The former New York City mayor is dedicating himself to a new group that will organize voters who support gun control; called Everytown for Gun Safety, it will subsume his existing groups (Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense), and it will focus specifically on expanding background checks. His previous approach was to fund ad campaigns in races where gun control was an issue. Here's how he matches up with his arch-rival. Money Bloomberg says he'll be putting at least $50 million into the project this year -- and according to the New York Times, he...

There are times when the master politician has to be a master illusionist. And there are too many times when he doesn't fool anybody, perhaps not even himself, and some little Toto reveals the Great and Powerful Oz as just another little man behind the curtain. And the illusion can no longer fool even the long illusioned. Despite a beautiful stage setting like the Rose Garden at the White House, the perfect if artificial lighting, and the usual supporting cast of intellectual munchkins in the merry old land of Washington, singing, dancing, prancing and applauding all around. For no matter...

Increasingly, Americans fear their government. They fear its power, its might and its ability to ruin their lives. The recent showdown in Nevada between federal agents and a cattle rancher and a group of his supporters is a symbol of the kind of abuse of power and executive sleight-of-hand that are becoming the hallmark of the Obama administration. (The federal agents in Nevada even wore brown shirts.) And this is just one of many unnerving examples of increasingly bold government intrusion. We all know the IRS targeted conservative groups. When we learn of IRS offices covered with pro-Obama campaign...

Pete Stark's name didn't come up Tuesday night at the Castro Valley Library candidates forum for the congressional district Stark represented from 1972 to 2012. The fact that nobody seemed to miss the California Democrat should serve as a warning to politicians who think they own their seats. So thought Stark, until fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell knocked him off his perch in 2012, thanks in part to California's top-two primary election. This go-round, Swalwell is the incumbent. Termed-out state Sen. Ellen Corbett is his Democratic challenger. Against the odds, Alameda County GOP Central Committee Vice Chairman Hugh Bussell joined the...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says that “if we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel.” However, a thorough examination of Israel’s international standing reveals an increasingly splendid integration of the Jewish state — economically, technologically and scientifically — irrespective of the Palestinian issue. Contrary to the Kerry school of thought, and based on areality check, the Palestinian issue has never been a core cause shaping the Middle East, a crown jewel of Arab policymakers and the crux of...

OPINION: MORNING EXAMINER New emails show IRS coordinated Tea Party targeting with Justice Department, FEC and liberal political activists BY MARK TAPSCOTT | APRIL 17, 2014 AT 9:10 AM Congressional and media attention in the IRS scandal thus far has focused mainly on the federal tax agency and its former exempt organizations director, Lois Lerner. But Judicial Watch, the non-profit government watchdog, has obtained email correspondence between Lerner and key U.S. Department of Justice officials about criminal prosecution of conservative and Tea Party nonprofits illegally targeted for harassment. That would be the same Justice Department run by Attorney General Eric...

The cult centered on "global warming" alarmism is getting hot under the collar. People seem to have stopped paying attention and polls show "climate change" barely registers on a list of voters' concerns. This can only mean, as losing politicians like to say, that their message isn't getting through. What to do? Why shout louder, of course. A recent story in The New York Times sought to help alarmists raise the decibel level: "The countries of the world have dragged their feet so long on global warming that the situation is now critical, experts appointed by the United Nations reported...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - No Mere Hate CrimePosted By Matthew Vadum On April 17, 2014 @ 12:49 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Former KKK leader Frazier Glenn Cross’s Sunday shooting spree that left three dead outside a Jewish retirement home and a Jewish community center in the Kansas City, Mo., suburbs was a heinous atrocity, and the reflexive “hate crime” label being applied to it diminishes the true scope of the evil at its core. Calling Miller’s acts hate crimes trivializes anti-Semitism, the evil that was Nazism and the monstrosity that was the Holocaust. The “hate crime”...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - The IRS Scandal Blows Wide OpenPosted By Arnold Ahlert On April 17, 2014 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments A bombshell revelation has brought the IRS scandal to a new level. Judicial Watch has released internal IRS communications revealing that former Tax Exempt Organizations director Lois Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding whether it was possible to criminally prosecute tax-exempt groups she believed had “lied” about their political activity. Judicial Watch obtained the documents by successfully filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the IRS in October 2013,...

Be careful, Pennsylvania people. You can't afford to blow it this fall. Your great state is, I'm sorry to say, already not so great when it comes to fiscal solvency. Don't make it worse by dumping your Republican governor, Tom Corbett. Despite the Marcellus Shale boom that's turned Pennsylvania into the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, the Keystone State's current fiscal condition is almost as dire as New Jersey's. According to a recent Mercatus Center study of every state's ability to balance its budgets and still pay for health care and pension costs, Pennsylvania is ranked No. 42. Jersey (50),...