Free Republic

In spite the Islamic State’s ritualistic beheadings of American citizens, President Barack Obama remains committed to addressing the threat posed by ISIS by internationalizing the response. “If we are joined by the international community,” Obama said on Wednesday, “we can continue to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem.”“The question is going to be making sure we’ve got the right strategy but also making sure we’ve got the international will to do it,” he added. “And what we’ve got to do is make sure that...

Call it the Ebola of Journalism. And its spreading -- to Time and CNN. The cover of the September 1, 2014 issue of Time could not be more explicit. Showing a dramatic image of a black man on his knees, hands raised with the cover bearing the title "The Tragedy of Ferguson," it was written by David Von Drehle and Alex Altman in the tones of the standard liberal “I-told-you-so” thinking on race . It included the line: “We’ve been here before—and failed to learn the lessons.” When it came to the mess that is ObamaCare? There was this Time...

Sometimes voter-fraud deniers are forced to discuss the truth of voter fraud. This happened today at the Washington Post (“Fairfax officials say some people may have crossed Va.-Md. line to vote twice in 2012“). While the Post deserves credit from emerging from its cocoon of voter-fraud denial, it deserves scorn for bungling the emergence. Reporter Susan Svrluga notes that “tens of thousands of voters” were registered to cast ballots in both Virginia and Maryland. That’s true, and it is a big problem nationwide. Hundreds of thousands of people are registered to vote in multiple states, and many of them have...

President Obama on Friday said social media and the nightly news are partly to blame for the sense that “the world is falling apart.” "I can see why a lot of folks are troubled," Obama told a group of donors gathered at a Democratic National Committee barbecue in Purchase, N.Y.

The nation’s top television news broadcasts - in both English and Spanish - have been entirely mum on the latest revelations related to alleged obstruction of justice and politically-directed abuse of power at the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service. Whether at ABC, CBS and NBC, or Univision, Telemundo and Mundo Fox, these networks to date have essentially censored the admission by a U.S. Justice Department official –revealed by government watchdog group Judicial Watch – that allegedly lost e-mails of Obama IRS official Lois Lerner are in fact accessible, through the federal government’s computer back-up system. As Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton...

The prospect of another economically and politically crippling government shutdown looms over President Obama’s talk of taking executive action on immigration next month and Republican threats to thwart him by blocking certain funding measures. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told the Des Moines Register “all bets are off” for passing a continuing resolution if President Obama decides to take executive action on immigration. “If the president wields his pen and commits that unconstitutional act to legalize millions, I think that becomes something that is nearly political nuclear,” King said. “I think the public would be mobilized and galvanized and that changes...

Southern California cornerback Josh Shaw has admitted to lying to school officials about how he sprained his ankles last weekend, retracting his story about jumping off a balcony to save his drowning nephew. Shaw has been suspended indefinitely from all of the Trojans' team activities, the school announced in a statement Wednesday.

CNN has been transformed from a sober and respected news network into a shrill and biased mouthpiece for liberals, according to actor, author and economist Ben Stein. Stein, a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said the dramatic change is particularly noticeable in CNN's coverage of the racial strife in Ferguson, Mo., following the fatal shooting of a black teen by a white police officer. "They've flipped out. I don't know what happened to CNN because CNN used to really be great and I can remember when it was great," Stein said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show"...

My high school physics teacher used to tell us that in order to understand physics you first had to be curious.   His First Directive was “wonder about things.”  I bring this up only because it is a source of constant amazement to me how uncurious everyone around Big White is - and by “everyone”  I do mean EVERYWON. They receive a lot of information in their newsfeed that they tweet, text and Instagram on to others, along with an original witticism when the spirit moves them. If the “news” comes from a trusted source, i.e. somebody in their Twittersphere, they...

In some prominent corners of the liberal media, the grousing has begun about President Obama's habit of hitting the golf course during crises without any concern for looking cavalier. Everyone knows he joyfully hit the links at Martha's Vineyard five minutes after a nationally televised address expressing his disgust at the horrific execution of American journalist James Foley by ISIS extremists in Syria. He played nine rounds during this most recent vacation in a year filled with vacations. On the front page of The New York Times, they reported "a firestorm of criticism erupted over what many saw as a...

The lasting importance of this summer’s war, I believe, doesn’t lie in the war itself. It lies instead in the way the war has been described and responded to abroad, and the way this has laid bare the resurgence of an old, twisted pattern of thought and its migration from the margins to the mainstream of Western discourse—namely, a hostile obsession with Jews. The key to understanding this resurgence is not to be found among jihadi webmasters, basement conspiracy theorists, or radical activists. It is instead to be found first among the educated and respectable people who populate the international...

A shooting suspect led police on a high speed chase through the streets of Miami and North Miami. The shooting happened at NW 7th Avenue and 95th Street. Chopper 4 over the scene spotted the body of a man slumped over in a wheelchair when a gust of wind blew a yellow tarp off of it.....

We saw this coming, didn’t we? Fox News’ Shannon Bream broke the news this afternoon: BREAKING: #TomFitton of @JudicialWatch just told us on @FoxNews DOJ atty told JW atty that IRS/Lerner emails DO EXIST in backup somewhere— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) August 25, 2014 MORE: #TomFitton @JudicialWatch says DOJ atty told JW atty - fed govt backs up ALL computer records "in case of a catastrophe" #IRS #Lerner— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) August 25, 2014 And National Review Online caught the relevant portion of the exchange: “A Department of Justice attorney told a Judicial Watch attorney on Friday that it turns out...

ISIS terrorists are getting away with murder--and doing so right over the Internet It is the trappings of Western society like the social media known as “Twitter” allowing fanatical terrorists to move with ease and freedom among the innocent and left-vulnerable-by-their-own-government masses. In June when the Sunday Times revealed a threat made by London hip-hop artist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary—now key suspect in the hunt for the killer of American journalist James Foley—what was done about it? “The lions are coming for you soon you filthy kuffs (infidels),” he wrote. “Beheadings in your own backyard soon.” (Yahoo News, Aug. 25, 2014...

Editor's note: this column is an excerpt from "Nixon's Secrets"No American President had a more tortured relationship with television than Richard Nixon. As a Vice Presidential candidate Nixon salvaged his career with the televised “Checkers” speech to defend himself from charges of corruption. His poor appearance in the first 1960 debate with John Kennedy is credited with losing him that close election.Key to his political comeback in 1968, Nixon found more innovative ways to utilize the medium of television and soften his image. It was twenty-eight-year-old Roger Ailes who transformed this image through the remarkable use of television. Ailes knew television....

.....In the past few months, Clinton has concluded a big book tour with dozens of news interviews; distanced herself (either in small or substantial ways) from her party’s currently unpopular president; and is now heading next month to Iowa, which traditionally holds the first presidential nominating contest. What’s significant about all of this activity, Democrats say, is that the more she walks and talks like a presidential candidate – effectively freezing out any other Democrats even contemplating a run – the more difficult it becomes to turn around and say no. “The longer it goes, the harder it becomes for...

August 28, 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the mall in Washington, DC. One year later, a half century ago, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. A half-century is a long time. Yet, as events in Ferguson, Missouri attest to, race remains a problem in America. Why? Change has swept our nation over these years. Technologies abound that no one would have dreamed of. And millions of black Americans have moved into the ranks of the upper middle class, the rich, and the super rich. Yet, despite this, racial ghettos...

In an obvious attempt to help the Democrats preserve their Senate majority, the “reporters” of the legacy news media have been hard at work promoting a new Obamacare meme. The Los Angeles Times assisted in the launch of this propaganda campaign early this month with a piece titled, “Obamacare loses some of its campaign punch for Republicans.” The evidence provided by the article’s authors in support of this claim consists primarily of a July study involving GOP advertising: “The percentage of broadcast television ads focused on Obamacare dipped in the spring, according to a study conducted by Kantar Media/CMAG.” This...

How many nine-year-old Antonio's need to die in Chicago before the national media will park its satellite trucks in front of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Hall and demand answers and action. How many black people, including black children, need to die in Chicago before the national media stops counting civilian casualties in Gaza as a political weapon against Israel and starts counting them in one of our own cities. Overnight in Chicago 10 people were shot. One night. One. How many more until the national media cares enough to look into the root causes of the violence, poverty, despair, terrible...

Full title: "Cornel West: 'He posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency'”No, the thing is he posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency, a national security presidency. The torturers go free. The Wall Street executives go free. The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza, the war criminals go free. And yet, you know, he acted as if he was both a progressive and as if he was concerned...