Free Republic

New York City police authorities are investigating a series of unprovoked physical attacks in public places on people who are Jewish, in the form of what is called "the knockout game." The way the game is played, one of a number of young blacks decides to show that he can knock down some stranger on the streets, preferably with one punch, as they pass by. Often some other member of the group records the event, so that a video of that "achievement" is put on the Internet, to be celebrated. The New York authorities describe a recent series of such...

Poor Barack Obama. Ending his fifth year as the world’s most powerful man, he is running out of scapegoats and fairy tales. Blaming George W. Bush has lost its punch, and the ObamaCare debacle is shredding the myths he is competent and honest. Still, before he rides off into that sunset of self-pity and low poll ratings, he ought to invite his remaining friends over for a heart-to-heart. That way he can tell The New York Times that its fanatical support does him no favors. Instead, it feeds his arrogance and reinforces his belief that he can solve any problem...

If you were a resident in the state with the nation’s highest poverty rate, wouldn’t you think you’d be aware of that fact? That a higher percentage of your family, friends, neighbors and others in your community struggled to make ends meet than the same folks in any of the other 49 states? Of course. But here in California, where the incompetence of the media can scarcely be exaggerated, almost nobody is aware that the Golden State is no. 1 in economic misery. This malpractice is nothing new. ... on poverty, why isn’t the fact that California is worse off...

The 21st Century has made government propaganda techniques more obvious even as it becomes more insidious. Case in point: An Associated Press article running tonight highlighting nearly 500,000 applications for Obamacare at federal and state government exchange websites. The AP article by White House correspondent Julie Pace is based on figures provided to the AP by Obama administration officials to whom the AP granted anonymity. The AP obligingly used the White House’s figures for the headline: AP Sources: 476,000 Obamacare Applications Filed Obama’s press operation took to Twitter to promote the article soon after it was published. Jay Carney, Tara...

The father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that the "liberal media" in the U.S. has an "evil agenda" that reminds him of the “ministry of misinformation” in communist countries like Cuba. In an interview with radio host Glenn Beck, Cruz said that the media was interested in "destroying what this country is all about.” “In your previous segment you were talking about imagining America,” Cruz said, according to a video clip obtained by BuzzFeed. “I’ll tell you what, it almost seemed like I was listening to what was happening in Cuba during Castro. The very same thing, the ministry...

Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature legislation. However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period. Obama's advisers say the president has been frustrated by the flawed rollout. During one of his daily health care briefings...

Colorado - The Gilmore case attracted national attention because he supported demonstrations at an Occupy Wall Street encampment a block away from where the fire was started. Occupy activists were protesting against economic inequality and government policies favoring the wealthy. The early-morning fire caused an estimated $10 million damage to a four-story apartment complex under construction and the occupied Penny Flats condominium and retail building next door.

NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and MSNBC host Chuck Todd reported on Monday that tea party figures like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin helped scuttle a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling over the weekend when they led World War II veterans to march on the White House. Todd reported that the tea party Republicans are “doing everything they can” to keep the shutdown and debt ceiling standoff “alive.” “While the non-tea party Republicans are desperately trying to end this standoff, the tea party Republicans are doing everything they can to keep it...

WASHINGTON — Next year was supposed to be a prime opportunity for Republicans to retake the Senate. And for a while, everything seemed to be breaking their way: a wave of Democratic retirements, a fluke in the electoral map that put a large number of races in states that President Obama lost, a strong farm team of conservative Senate hopefuls from the House. Then the government shut down. Now, instead of sharpening their attacks on Democrats, Republicans on Capitol Hill are being forced to explain why they are not to blame and why Americans should trust them to govern both...

While watching Friday’s White House Daily Briefing on WhiteHouse.gov, my eye was drawn to the thumbnail for this weeks’s West Wing Week video, and I thought to myself, in faux-outraged wingnut voice, “Oh, so I guess West Wing Week is ‘essential,’ but death benefits aren’t, huh? Huh?!?” As if by psychokinesis, mere seconds later, ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl made the exact same joke to Press Secretary Jay Carney. He was joking, right? “With apologies to Josh, can you explain to me how it is that West Wing Week is still being produced?” Karl asked. ” I...

Readers have to get halfway into the Associated Press report on its new AP-GFK poll to find this out, but Barack Obama’s job approval numbers have cratered in the shutdown. His overall job approval is now 37/53, and a majority want Obama to start cooperating more with Republicans, as 63% want Republicans to meet Obama part-way, too:Americans are holding Republicans primarily responsible for the partial government shutdown as public esteem sinks for all players in the impasse, President Barack Obama among them, according to a new poll. It’s a struggle with no heroes. … Most Americans disapprove of the way...

CNN anchor Erin Burnett invited Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on her program Wednesday to discuss the state of “negotiations” between Democrats, including the White House, and Republicans in Congress. Burnett argued that Obamacare has become a GOP “obsession” and asked the senator why the Democrats’ offer of a $988 billion spending cap wasn’t “enough” to end the partial government shutdown.

Quick: how much were Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps cut by the sequester? Zero, you say? Those programs were exempted from sequester cuts, and Medicare was reduced by only 2%? Correctomundo! So what was Andrea Mitchell thinking when she claimed on her MSNBC show that the sequester "gutted" social programs? You tell me. View the video here.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, the government shutdown continues, and the media is continuing to have a field day with it all, and, as discussed yesterday, the media is really the problem here, folks. I mean, the Democrats are who they are, and we know that. Obama's who he is, and we know that. Harry Reid is who he is, and we know that. Pelosi's who she is, and we know that. And we've known this for years. There's really not a whole lot to be told anymore about them; everybody knows. Well, maybe, I mean the low-information crowd. The low-information...

It appears that the Obama administration is violating the First Rule of Holes. Yesterday the administration looked awful when it “closed” and barricaded the World War II memorial on the Mall. The memorial is, by its nature, open. There is nothing to close. --SNIP-- ...these protesters were marching towards the press gaggle and I was asking them to show their federal IDs to prove they were in fact federal workers. No one wore their federal ID and none would provide it to prove their claim. Then, remarkably, a guy carrying a sign passed by wearing a McDonald’s employee shirt, which...

The list of things on which Barack Obama has been wrong goes on to the crack of doom.  But there's one thing on which the President is surely right. In devising his strategy for dealing with the shutdown, the prez can count on the MSM to blame Republicans. Mark Halperin bared the president's calculus on today's Morning Joe, saying the Obama admin has little incentive to negotiate because it believes a "sympathetic" press will blame Republicans like they did in the 1990s, accusing them of being "obstructionist."  View the video after the jump. Halperin offered what amounted to an indictment...

It seems even America’s homeless population have found a way to watch cult TV drama Breaking Bad as it reaches its dramatic conclusion. Despite not having immediate access to a TV set, one apparent down-and-out became an internet star this week after a clip of him doing impressions of Walter White and the gang went viral. ‘How is a homeless guy caught up on recent Breaking Bad episodes?’ asked one bemused YouTube user as others set about finding the bearded man’s true identity. It turns out the star of the clip is in fact an actor and voice-over performer named...

How did the MSM get the D.C. Navy Yard shooting wrong? Let us count the ways. In watching the coverage of the Washington Navy Yard shooting as it unfolded last Monday, I had to remind myself that most of the reports I was hearing would surely turn out to be incorrect, in some cases wildly so. And indeed this turned out to be the case. We were told, for example, that there was more than one gunman, and that one of them was armed with an AR-15 rifle. Even worse, both CBS and NBC identified the wrong man as the...

NBC announced today that it would be launching a week of programming to help Obamacare get off its feet, according to a press release sent out by the network. The law has been widely opposed by all Republicans and supported by most Democrats, including President Obama. The headline of the press release reads: NBC News Launches “Ready or Not, the New Healthcare Law,” a Multi-Screen Experience to Help Americans Get the Most Out of the Affordable Care Act Dr. Nancy Snyderman Answers Most Pressing Questions Across Social and Via New Video Series #AskDrNancy Interactive Tools and Resources Help Audience Navigate...

Journalism isn’t what is used to be, and it wasn’t great to begin with. Last week a man who heard voices in his head followed the advice from the voices in Joe Biden’s head about armament, bought a shotgun, hacked off the barrel and killed a bunch of people in the Washing Navy Yard. As with all such incidents, two completely predictable occurrences came to pass. First, after waiting for facts to emerge, the sanity of the suspect was shown to be non-existent. Second, the gun control industry did not wait for facts to emerge. Neither did the media. One...