Free Republic

A YOUNG student from Seattle has been revealed as a senior female ISIS agent responsible for recruiting women to join the terror group. On Twitter, she is known as @_UmmWaqqas, and is pictured shrouded head-to-toe in black; an inscrutable and high-ranking officer of ISIS who boasts more than 8000 followers online, and is in close contact with the British, Americans and the jihadi brides in Syria. Channel 4 News has since revealed her identity as a woman in her 20s who went to school in the US, and by her friends’ accounts grew up as a regular teenager in a...

The GOP 2016 field may still be picking its way through suitable campaign messaging on immigration, but activists already are defining their party's approach to reform: "Mass Deportation." On the same day that House Republicans were holding a hearing on whether people born in the U.S. should get automatic citizenship, immigration and civil rights activists affixed that brand to Republicans in Congress and by extension, the party's 2016 hopefuls. "The GOP-controlled Congress has all but cemented its anti-immigrant legacy and may meet its destiny in 2016," the activists said in a report they released Wednesday with the words "Mass Deportation"...

CNN ranked #2 in cable news in April, easily topping MSNBC in Total Day among both total viewers and adults 25-54, and M-Su and M-F primetime in the demo 25-54. The network has now beaten MSNBC for 10 straight months in Total Day among both total viewers and the demo. CNN Program Highlights: The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer (5-7pm) ranked #2 in cable news in the demo (157k) ahead of MSNBC by +134% (67k) and up +9% vs. year ago, while MSNBC was down by -54%. Erin Burnett Outfront (7pm) easily beat MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews in the...

SOMETHING happened while the immigration system in the United States got broken, something that should change the way we talk about fixing it. Years went by, and nature took its course. More than 11 million unauthorized immigrants settled into our communities; many formed families and had children. Now at least one of every 15 children living in the United States has an unauthorized parent, and nearly all of those children are native-born United States citizens. Think of that statistic, one in 15, the next time you drive by a school or a playground. Think of those children living with the...

Good news for Obamacare supporters: It's quite a bit less unpopular than it was a few months ago. The uptick leads to the question: Will the Affordable Care Act ever actually be popular? Looking at the long run, Republicans may have done the law a favor by naming it Obamacare. Former presidents usually bask in a nostalgic glow after they leave office. While events could still make a difference, Obama is well-positioned to take advantage of that effect: To date, at least, he has no major wars to regret, and the nation hasn't plunged into a new recession. If long-term...

‘Liars like Us’ J School: Heads up to the unsuspecting people of India: The liars of the U.S. State Department have taken it upon themselves to teach “ethics” to your nation’s upcoming journalists. Don’t get caught up in the controversy that it “has even proposed appropriating the name of Robin Thicke’s 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” as a title for the course. It’s not the name of the course, that could just as easily be called “Liars like us”, but what the course is teaching that’s the clear and present danger:

There was something bracingly honest about an op-ed article in The Washington Post last week by Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican. Under the headline “America Needs to Curb Immigration Flows,” Mr. Sessions, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s immigration subcommittee, argued the case for letting in fewer foreigners. Mr. Sessions, ditching the usual Republican talking points on immigration, choosing instead to echo an uglier time in our history, when nativists wielded the spurious argument that the more immigrants taken in by America, the worse off America is. He’s advocating for “slowing the pace” of legal immigration, supposedly to increase...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s freshly minted presidential campaign is still looking for traction following the mainstream media's manufactured headlines concerning his ill treatment of female reporters. While there are certainly many Republican primary voters who will appreciate and applaud his aggressive interview style, the media’s reshaping of events as new evidence of the GOP’s phony war on women are likely to resonate with a slice of the more moderate electorate he needs to win in November, 2016 should he become the party’s nominee. But Paul can turn this to his advantage by recognizing the core truth of this media exercise;...

Around Christmas, Hillary Rodham Clinton set off on her annual holiday vacation at Oscar de la Renta's beachfront estate in the Dominican Republic. De la Renta, whose relationship with the former first lady had blossomed from dress designer to close friend, had recently died and Clinton wanted to be there to support his widow. She was also wrestling with a final decision on whether to run for president. By the time Clinton arrived in the Dominican Republic, she had largely settled on running a second campaign, but wanted to make the final determination with her husband, Bill. Friends fret over...

Marco Rubio, who announced his bid for the presidency on Monday in a call to donors, has been called the “best communicator” in the Republican Party. Over and over and over again. But he has little to show for it. He enters the fray with surprisingly low support. Despite four years of national prominence, he has averaged 6 percent of the vote in primary polls over the last few months. That’s the same or worse than five candidates who are thought to have a much smaller chance of winning the nomination: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and...

ULAN-UDE, Russia -- Journalists at a Siberian newspaper say they spent three days using scissors to cut an article about a Russian soldier who was wounded fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine out of 50,000 copies of the publication. Tank crewman Dorzhi Batonmukuyev's accounts of fighting in eastern Ukraine have added to what Kyiv and NATO say are incontrovertible evidence of direct Russian military support for the rebels in a conflict with government forces that has killed more than 6,000 people since April 2014. Russia denies it has sent troops or weapons into Ukraine.

You know, the Ten Commandments, it says you can’t commit adultery; it says you need to honor your father and mother. If someone didn’t honor their parents or commit adultery, would you serve them?” This question was posed by CNN reporter Gary Tuchman to Georgia florist Melissa Jeffcoat, who had previously said she’d refuse to service a homosexual commitment ceremony. When she answered affirmatively and was pressed on why (supposedly) she’d serve adulterers and those dishonoring their parents but not homosexuals, she replied, “It’s just a different kind of sin to me. I just don’t believe in it.” Tuchman surely...

Laurence H. Tribe, the highly regarded liberal scholar of constitutional law, still speaks of President Obama as a proud teacher would of a star student. “He was one of the most amazing research assistants I’ve ever had,” Mr. Tribe said in a recent interview. Mr. Obama worked for him at Harvard Law School, where Mr. Tribe has taught for four decades. Many in the Obama administration and at Harvard are bewildered and angry that Mr. Tribe, who argued on behalf of Al Gore in the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, has emerged as the leading legal opponent of...

WASHINGTON -- His hair almost fully gray now, his tone somber but earnestly hopeful, President Barack Obama stood in the White House Rose Garden Thursday and made a case for the centerpiece of his second term, for his vision of how to handle dangerous enemies, and for his own role in history. This was Obama at his own personal summit, carrying out what he views as his destiny: a coolly practical peacemaker. Invoking three Cold War presidents -- John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan -- the 53-year-old Obama, still young by global statesman standards, claimed to have reached,...

Several prominent, openly gay athletes will be among those protesting the new Indiana religious freedom law this week, despite Gov. Mike Pence’s promise to "fix" the law before the Final Four begins on Saturday, according to local activists. Olympic diving legend Greg Louganis and former NBA player Jason Collins are among those coming to the state this week for press conferences or other public events. The effort to keep attention on the law around the college basketball showcase in Indianapolis. Rick Sutton, a veteran LGBT organizer and activist based in Indiana, said those who are upset by the new law...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- The Arkansas House of Representatives passed a "religious freedom" bill similar to the controversial measure in Indiana. The bill now heads to Gov. Asa Hutchinson's desk for signing into law. Hutchinson said that he would approve the measure if it made it to his office, CBS News affiliate KTVH in Little Rock reported. The Arkansas version of the bill -- HB 1228 -- would prevent state and local governments from infringement on someone's religious beliefs unless there were a "compelling" reason. Like the Indiana law, opponents say it would foster discrimination against the gay and lesbian...

In 1997, in the City of Boerne v. Flores decision, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) did not apply to the states. Since 1993, 20 states have enacted state RFRAs. These laws are intended to echo the federal RFRA, but are not necessarily identical to the federal law. Indiana is the most recent state to enact a RFRA, doing so this year. Sixteen states have introduced legislation this year regarding the creation of, or alteration to, a state religious freedom law. Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas currently have a RFRA, but have introduced...

To listen to talk radio and cable television, which are dominated by conservatives, the national and state debates over immigration give the impression that most legal residents of the state of California oppose immigrant workers here illegally and might even be favorably disposed to Mitt Romney's suggestion that they "self-deport." As it turns out, however, the voices of anti-immigration forces are disproportionately louder than their actual numbers. A new poll of likely California voters shows that a whopping 73% support granting citizenship to immigrants here illegally if they agreed to pay back taxes, pass a background check and learn the...

Four journalists arrested during last summer's Ferguson protests over the shooting death of Michael Brown filed a federal lawsuit Monday against St. Louis County police and 20 of its officers, accusing them of violating the reporters' civil rights and unjustifiably detaining them. The lawsuit, filed Monday in St. Louis, alleges the arrests for the journalists' failure to disperse as demanded by police on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19 were "undertaken with the intention of obstructing, chilling, deterring, and retaliating against (the) plaintiffs for engaging in constitutionally protected speech, newsgathering and recording of police activities." The plaintiffs include Ryan Devereaux of...

The headline to this story is an adage taught by journalism schools throughout the country. News is supposed to be based on facts and reported without bias. But alas, reporters are human and have biases, acknowledged or not. If they are blatant and obvious, then we can dismiss them out of hand, (example: Chris Matthews saying, "I felt this thrill going up my leg," when listening to a speech given by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama). But watch out when supposed news items align with a cultural bias. Reporters should apply skepticism to everything they report on. Otherwise, emotionally charged stories...