Free Republic

It was only five years ago when Barack Obama fought mightily to keep his BlackBerry — becoming the first president to be connected by email. Now, he may be looking for an upgrade. The White House is in the early stages of testing smartphones, the Wall Street Journal reported on yesterday, with devices from Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics being examined by the White House Communications Agency. If the president leaves his BlackBerry behind for a new smartphone, it’s another sign of the times from when George W. Bush famously sent a farewell message from his AOL address when he...

...As a practicing Catholic, I began my career in local TV newsrooms where I quickly learned...religious beliefs are something you keep to yourself. ...I never thought that wearing a cross necklace would be considered “flashy.” The first time I wore one to work, I was told to take it off because it would be distracting to the audience. I wanted to keep my TV job so much; I did it. It didn’t seem to matter to management that I wasn’t covering religion. While putting the cross -- given to me by my parents -- in my purse, I told myself...

Michelle Obama's tour of China begins today, during which she will share the limelight with the country's First Lady, Peng Liyuan. Cathy Newman isn't sure who will say less...She’s one of the world’s most glamorous First Ladies, a star in her own right, and a supportive, caring wife to a super-powerful president. Move over Michelle Obama: China’s First Lady Peng Liyuan is now so famous in her own right, the American president’s wife will find herself having to share the spotlight when the two get together today. During Obama’s visit to China, she’ll no doubt find president Xi Jinping’s wife...

Peeling back the curtain hiding the incestuous relationship between the mainstream media and the White House, Arizona reporter Catherine Anaya revealed that “President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing.” She found it very interesting that Mr. Carney “knows what he's going to be answering and sometimes those correspondents and reporters also have those answers printed in front of them, because of course it helps when they're producing their reports for later on.”

People have started to complain about the overwhelming amount of news discussion devoted to the disappearance of flight MH370. The cable news networks and other forums are on it, seemingly non-stop. This aviation mystery–which may or may not wind up having to do with international terrorism–pushes everything else to the margins largely in part because of the understandably acute residual vigilance and collective mortal consciousness related to the attacks of 9/11/01, and to the other foiled murderous acts involving large passenger aircraft since 9/11. Besides, it’s just an extremely compelling and stupefying international mystery, which, for better or worse, can...

It's just a show. A CBS reporter from Arizona reveals that President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing. In fact, she says, the reporters often receive the answers in advance of the briefing, too. According to the reporter, Jay Carney told her this yesterday at the White House: "It was a very busy day. We started here shortly after 8 o'clock with a coffee with press secretary Jay Carney inside his office in the West Wing," says the reporter. "And this was the off-the-record so we were able to...

The White House says President Barack Obama will make a statement on Ukraine before he departs Thursday for a day of events in Florida. The statement is scheduled for 11 a.m. Eastern time on the South Lawn. The U.S. imposed sanctions earlier this week against several Russian officials for their role in the crisis in Ukraine.

Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that the conflict between Russia and Western allies over Crimea is a “clash of values” and that it’s up to Russian President Vladimir Putin whether there’s “another Cold War.” “I hope there is not another Cold War,” Clinton said during the question and answer portion of an appearance in Montreal. “Obviously, nobody wants to see that. I think that is primarily up to Putin.”

With Eastern Europe in turmoil over Putin's land grab in the Crimea and Iraq voting to legalize rape within marriage, one news story has been trumpeted nonstop. Ever since the plane disappeared, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has dominated the news coverage and has sent the media into a frenzy. Speculation has run rampant over the fate of the plane and the 239 people on board, and conspiracy theories have abounded. Whether you believe one scenario or the other, it is most likely that the passengers are deceased. With all the chaos going on in the world, why the media frenzy...

Governor Rick Scott announced today that Florida’s unemployment rate for January 2014 was down to 6.1 percent, the lowest unemployment rate in the state since June 2008. Florida’s statewide unemployment rate has been below the national unemployment rate since August 2013, which was 6.6 percent in January 2014. Since December 2010, Florida has created 503,500 private sector jobs. Governor Rick Scott said, “With the steady increase in job creation and a five percentage point drop since December 2010 bringing the unemployment rate down to 6.1 percent, it is clear we’re making a positive impact on businesses and families in Florida....

More often than ever, the administration censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press. Most agencies also took longer to answer records requests. The government's own figures from 99 federal agencies covering six years show that halfway through its second term, the administration has made few meaningful improvements in the way it...

Billionaire Warren Buffet’s iconic company Berkshire Hathaway will trade 1.6 million shares of Graham Holdings stock in exchange for WPLG, according to a report from Deadline It’s been known for a while that Buffett wants to exit Graham Holdings, formerly known as the Washington Post Co., who are left with only their TV stations and a business in the education sector. Buffett will allegedly get WPLG plus an unspecified amount of cash. The Washington Post company bought WPLG in 1969 and changed its call letters to WPLG in memory of Phillip L. Graham, the husband of Washington Post publisher Katherine...

Fox News contributor and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be launching her own digital video channel, tentatively called “Rogue TV,” a source familiar with the project told Capital. The channel will be available through Tapp, the digital video service founded by former CNN chief Jon Klein and former NBC Universal entertainment executive Jeff Gaspin. Subscriptions will cost $10 per month. Rogue is expected to launch in April or May, and it would be one of the first of the digital channels offered by Tapp.

Five-Thirty-Eight's Nate Silver mocked New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as a "hedgehog" who "only knows one thing." When asked to describe what a hedgehog is, Silver pointed to Friedman specifically and the op-ed columnists at the Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal: ... They don’t permit a lot of complexity in their thinking. They pull threads together from very weak evidence and draw grand conclusions based on them. They’re ironically very predictable from week to week. If you know the subject that Thomas Friedman or whatever is writing about, you don’t have to read the column. You can...

It is a case that has some Florida International University students concerned after an audio device was found inside one of the rooms where Muslim students use for prayer.

Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins made his debut in Miami Wednesday since coming out as the NBA's first openly gay player. The Nets took the game against the Heat 96-95. Though Collins did not play, fans in the stands were still dissecting his skills and not his sexuality. "I don't think it's a big deal," said Heat fan Jonathan Pringle. "I think everybody has the freedom to be their sexual preference. So, to me, it's not a big deal."

Pat Condell: We're getting what we deserve. https://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell/videos

Pope Francis appears for the first time on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican March 13, 2013. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) Last week, La Stampa’s Vatican Insider reported that Pope Francis has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. According to the news brief, other nominees include Vladimir Putin, Edward Snowden, and Malala Yousafzai. While the Norwegian Nobel Committee holds the details of nominations in secret for five decades after their submission, the committee did announce that 2014 saw the greatest number of candidates to date. In fact, the names of 278 candidates were forwarded...

--BIG SNIP-- Putin has said that "two or three degrees" of climate change could be good for Russia, in that it would reduce heating costs and increase crop yields. Of course Russia will face harsh consequences from global warming as well. Wildfires and drought have hit the country hard in recent years -- trends that will likely only worsen as the planet continues to heat up. So for all you out there blasé about climate change, you may want to take a long hard look at your position -- because it doesn’t take that much effort to see a post-global...

Is the American Dream becoming her nightmare?[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDMSbm8s81g] Video linkLife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness property were once major components of a widely held American dream. We were to be in control of our own lives, with liberty to pursue by lawful means whatever we desired -- not to have it provided by a benign, all-knowing and increasingly powerful Government and not to be told how, where or when we were to be allowed to pursue it. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CDFxeB7Y-s?feature=player_detailpage] Video linkWith increasing power, Government and media can mold our individual dreams to the extent that those counter to the prevailing...