Free Republic

Elizabeth Warren for what? Granted, the American electorate has been significantly dumbed down over the past few decades — think Barack Obama and Deval Patrick. But is the country really so far gone that it would turn to a plagiarizing fake Indian who thinks western Mass. has a seacoast and that Jeanne Shaheen is from Vermont? Er, yes. So by now you know about this boomlet for the former one-32nd Native American who now claims to be Okie down to her toes. Hundreds of Obama aides (enough said) are swooning over her. Some of the moonbat groups have posted Internet...

As the United States staggers toward the seventh year of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, a growing disquiet permeates the ranks of the American left. After six years of the most liberal President since Jimmy Carter, the nation doesn’t seem to be asking for a second helping. Even though the multiyear rollout of Obamacare was carefully crafted to put all the popular features up front, delaying less popular changes into the far future, the program remains unpopular. Trust in the fairness and competence of government is pushing toward new lows in the polls, even though the government is...

For the proud liberal, a quick thought experiment—or, rather, litmus test. Is the following group diverse? Four college students: one white, one black, one Asian, and one Hispanic. “Yes, of course,” you reply. But what if I were to also note that these young adults hail from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Stamford, Connecticut; Brentwood, California; and Highland Park, Texas—towns located within what political scientist Charles Murray termed “SuperZips,” ZIP codes that rank highest based on a combination of income and education? Specifically, all four of our hypothetical subjects grew up in spacious suburban homes. They took tennis and golf lessons at...

They really, really hate us. George Orwell wrote a morning “Two Minutes Hate” session into the daily life of his dystopia in 1984. One blogger notes that 2,000 of Rachel Maddow’s facebook fans wished that Ted Cruz would fall into an open elevator shaft. What would he have made of the hyperventilating hatred that liberals display against conservatives? Over at National Review, Katherine Timpf reports on a hate manifesto published by the chair of University of Michigan’s Department of Communications. Republicans “crafted a political identity that rests on a complete repudiation of the idea that the opposing party and its...

The passionate stand by Americans across the country in protesting the failure of grand juries to indict policemen for killing two unarmed people – both poor, black men – is revving up the demand for a political response from Democrats in Washington. Young people of all colors, but mostly blacks, Hispanics and immigrants, are the primary source of that pressure. Their political agenda extends beyond outrage over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York. They also want Democrats in Congress to get busy defending ObamaCare. But their rising political engagement is best seen...

I'm warning you right now, if you read the full text of the article I'm about to give you the scoop on, you WILL BE DUMBER for it. I know I am, and I feel like all of you clever and competent readers deserve to save yourselves. So if you continue to read this post or worse yet - the article that it's about - don't say I didn't warn you. I'm serious. Now's your chance to bail. Still with me? Ok. Then just sit back, and behold the twisted, psychotic, completely mental freakshow that is the radical feminist mind....

The passage of Proposition 47 by California voters in November is at least partially to blame for an uptick in Fresno crime figures, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said this week. Aggravated assault is up 9.9% in a 28-day period ending Wednesday, although it remains down 3.9% for the year in figures released by police after the department’s monthly Crime View session, in which Dyer and his command staff go over key statistics. Burglary is up by 30.7%, in the period, while it remains down by 12.8% for the year. Auto theft spiked by 12.6% but is still down by...

Ready for Warren? Run Liz Run? Run Warren Run? Draft Warren? Progressive activists haven’t agreed on what to call the movement urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president, but they largely concur on this: with every recent anti-establishment move the Massachusetts senator grows more attractive as a 2016 candidate, both in her own right and as a progressive foil for Hillary Clinton. Such sentiments were on vivid display this week at RootsCamp, a gathering of some 2,000 progressive activists held in Washington, D.C. The event was held as Warren and others on the left have been denouncing the “cromnibus” spending...

The Democratic Party’s losses at the state level are almost unprecedented, and could cripple it for a long time to come. "........With that said, there are more costs to Democratic weakness in the states than just House elections. States are where parties build talent and try new ideas. Here, the GOP is instructive. Its brightest stars are either governors (Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Chris Christie) or former state officeholders (Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Joni Ernst). And Republican-controlled statehouses have been incubators for conservative ideas, from experiments in tax cutting (Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana and Sam Brownback’s Kansas) to full-fledged...

Why is anyone surprised that Rolling Stone would flub a rape story? Since when did a magazine that borders on—and, by my standards, crosses over into—pornography, become a trusted source for matters involving women and sexual assault? For over four decades, Rolling Stone has spilled thousands of gallons of ink glorifying the hedonistic, misogynistic culture of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Its covers have been adorned with nude men and women—sometimes together. Pornography is a regular topic, and it’s almost always put in a positive light. (This piece can also be found on American Thinker today.)

The early 20th century sociologist Emile Durkheim’s theory about the divide between the greater society and some individuals still holds up. Durkheim called this condition “anomie” and described it as “a condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals.” He saw anomie as a, “breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community…..rejection of self-regulatory values.” As Durkheim saw those who had fallen into anomie, they were “deranged and had an insatiable will.” Were he alive today Durkheim would recognize the mismatch between societal standards and the non-existent standards of the “Ferguson/Occupy/Garner” protestors who are running through...

Peru has vowed to prosecute Greenpeace activists after they allegedly damaged the world-famous Nazca lines during an environmental publicity stunt. Activists from the group unfurled cloth letters spelling out a green energy slogan at the millennia-old site on Monday, adjacent to where the figure of a hummingbird is etched into the ground. Peru has said the activists damaged the ground by leaving footprints, which could last for thousands of years. “It’s a true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred,” Luis Jaime Castillo, the deputy culture minister, said. In a statement, the Peruvian culture ministry said: "After the...

Letting actual FACTS determine what the true story actually is would be a "huge mistake." That, in a nutshell, is the mindset of the modern Leftist. The Left and the Right are vastly and irremediably irreconcilable. This much ought to be obvious to just about anyone with two functioning neurons in their head. The worldview that drives the Left, “progressives” and the rest, is so starkly different from the way normal people think that it’s no wonder we’re seeing the sort of strife we are today. This is hardly made plainer than in the attitude and treatment of each side—the...

I have many friends who are brainwashed by the spin. Can someone give me some help in refuting each of these charts which my friends suggest as proof that 0bama hasn't been all bad?

After members of the Fellowship of Ferguson Fabricators, also known as the Congressional Black Caucus, gathered on the floor of the U.S. House on Monday to showcase the St. Louis Rams’ new touchdown signal, otherwise known as the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture, Thomas Sowell likened the display to Nazi propaganda. I don’t usually like allusions to Nazism tossed around in our political debates—it’s too often used simply as hyperbole—but liberals today certainly are following the messaging strategy famously articulated by Joseph Goebbels: repeat a lie often enough and loud enough and people will believe it.

If you sign up for Denver college professor Charles Angeletti's American Civilization class, be forewarned that you're going to have to recite his invective-filled 'New Pledge' -- and according to some of his students, also be ready to swallow a big helping of his politics. Angeletti, who teaches at Metropolitan State University of Denver, has students learn an anti-American spoof of the Pledge of Allegiance that denounces the U.S. as a Republican-controlled bastion of injustice, all while spewing his own far-left brand of politics, according to current and former students.

Liberals always think they are the smartest people in every room. They and their puppet media believe cops are dumb Neanderthals just “itching to kill a ni**er.” Think again you smug fools; Cops are smarter than you think they are. The material that follows comes from the police officers who had to deal with Eric Garner and knew what he was. It was supplied by police sources to the site Gotnews.com which is the only site interested in the truth. What this material proves is that those who are beating their breast about the death of Eric Garner and insisting...

In comparison to the Michael Brown shooting, the death of Eric Garner—and the similar decision not to indict the cop who killed him—has drawn outrage from across the political spectrum. Many conservatives, including Breitbart's John Nolte, The Federalist's Sean Davis, and The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis, agreed with anti-police-brutality libertarians and liberals that Garner's killer should have faced charges. The consensus is that the video evidence definitively established wrongdoing on the part of the officer (unlike the Brown case, which relied on conflicting eyewitness testimony). But because that's no fun, right and left had to find some way to tear...

Not long after he purchased The New Republic, Chris Hughes had lunch with me, as he was doing with quite a few journalists around Washington. At one point, he asked me who the best editor had been during my 16 years. I had worked for a half dozen editors, several of them great, but it was an easy question. I replied “Frank Foer” so quickly that Hughes appeared startled. I don’t think my answer convinced Hughes to hire Foer as TNR’s editor, because I’m sure anybody else who worked with him said the same, and anyway, Frank Foer was born...

The most liberal states in the country are the worst run and have the widest gaps between rich and poor. Could it be that spread-the-wealth policies make things worse?