Free Republic

Milestone: Monday marked the fifth anniversary of ObamaCare, and, naturally, backers used the occasion to extol its many alleged successes. But in doing so, they engaged in some daring feats of legerdemain.

“Think just how different the world would be,” said Senator Ted Cruz on Monday, in a speech so packed with vision-spinning and the word “imagine” that it seemed as if John Lennon had returned, as a Hispanic Texan running a hard-right, anti-establishment, Christian-themed campaign for the White House. Weird. But weird is the essence of Mr. Cruz, who is now the first major Republican in the 2016 race. The “imagines” that Mr. Cruz doled out were well chosen for his audience, students at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Robust cheers greeted one of the first: “Imagine young people coming out...

WHY? WHY? WHY?That is what your humble correspondent wants to shout at the computer screen while watching this BBC Mundo report presented by Daniel Pardo in Venezuela. Pardo actually has a good idea, namely to see how long it takes to buy eight basic home products (yes, including toilet paper) while waiting on the notoriously long lines in that country. Unfortunately he does not inform us "why" the situation is so dire even though the S-word providing the answer is proclaimed on wall posters all over that oil-rich but impovershed nation. Therefore Pardo is this week's winner of the John Chancellor Avoidance of...

"Like the judge, the states thought nothing was happening. Like an idiot, I believed that." That was the angry blast by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen against the Department of Justice whom he accused of misleading him on President Obama's executive order on immigration. In contrast to normal federal court proceedings, it was quite an emotional confrontation. That plus the fact that the executive order has been big news for months you would figure it would have been covered in the MSM. Well, for the most part you would be wrong. With the notable exceptions of the Los Angeles Times,...

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is leading the 2016 field with an expected announcement Monday that he will run for president in 2016— and his critics are already piling on. California Gov. Jerry Brown called Cruz “absolutely unfit to be running for office” due to his position on climate change, during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The man betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of the existing scientific data,” Brown said. “It’s shocking and I think that this man has rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office.” During an appearance on “Late Night...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

Two weeks after Senate Republicans issued a letter to the Iranian leadership warning that any nuclear agreement Iran signs with the administration may be temporary, President Obama has issued a missive of his own: A video directed at Iran’s young people, urging them to pressure their leaders to accept the deal on the table. The ostensible reason for the video was a greeting for Nowruz, the Persian New Year celebration that Mr. Obama has used before to deliver messages to the Iranian populace. But after mentioning a celebration held at the White House, he wasted no time making his case...

Yesterday Ferguson police shooter Jeffrey Williams’ attorney, Jerryl Christmas, made the claim that his client was beaten by Saint Louis Police during his arrest. Attorney Christmas, and Ferguson protest leader, Bishop Derrick Robinson, have now both made that claim. As noted in the Saint Louis media: […] “Jerryl Christmas, also claimed that Williams was beaten during the arrest, a claim that police deny”. […] “Christmas said Williams had bruises on his back, neck and face as well as a knot on the back of his head, allegedly from the butt of an officer’s gun”. (link) However, we have uncovered media...

A new study of more than 130,000 news articles on the 2012 presidential election between Republican nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama proves without a doubt that the press strongly leans Democratic. ((snip)) While the study’s findings are not exactly surprising, it’s important nonetheless to show that liberal media bias isn’t exactly a fictional conservative grievance.

All day long CNN has been relentlessly beating the drum and practically celebrating the forgone conclusion that sitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about to lose today’s elections. Every move Netanyahu made over the past few weeks that outraged Obama and his media allies was framed by CNN today as a blunder — from the speech he made before Congress to sounding the alarm today about Israeli Leftists busing Arabs to the polls. CNN was quite obviously setting up a Narrative to explain and gloat over what polls said was almost certain to be a Netanyahu defeat. A funny...

RUSH: All right. The Israelis have rejected the ceasefire proposal made by the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. The Israelis reject ceasefire deal. The only thing a ceasefire does is allow Hamas to regroup. I think Hamas is on the ropes and that's why everybody wants a ceasefire. I'm telling you, everything over there is ass backwards. Everything in this conflict is 180 degrees out of phase. They want the ceasefire to give Hamas time to regroup. "Well, we have to make it fair, Mr. Limbaugh, because the Israelis have such an unfair advantage. They're richer and they're...

<p>UPDATED: Tuesday, March 17, 2015---9:05 a.m. KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) -- Police say the Kenosha officer who shot and killed an armed man had just returned to duty after shooting another man about two weeks ago.</p> <p>Authorities have identified the 26-year-old fatally shot on Saturday as Aaron Siler, of Kenosha. Police say he had armed himself with a weapon before he was shot by Officer Pablo Torres. Siler was wanted on a felony warrant and led police on a vehicle chase and a foot pursuit before he was shot.</p>

"D’oh – The Uplands Park “City Manager” Isn’t Actually a “City Manager”, and The Real Uplands Park Officials Are A little Upset…." A fellow named John Muhammad identified himself as city manager of the tiny north county village of Uplands Park during a live interview Thursday night on FOX News channel. Mr. Muhammad then went on a bizarre diatribe to say he, and his community, believed the KKK or the police themselves were the shooters. Beyond the jaw dropping protestations about the police shooting another slight problem is Mr. Muhammad is not a “city manager”. Actually, not even close. First,...

A Google News search at 3 p.m. Eastern Time today for stories published in March about "Eva Carmichael" (in quotes; sorted by date) returned only 11 items. Who is Eva Carmichael? She is a 94 year-old woman who was murdered in Meridian, Mississippi on March 1. Based on the complete lack of press coverage outside of the immediate area, it's reasonable to believe that the nation's journalists don't think, in the popular parlance, that "her life mattered" all that much. And why is that? A March 6 Meridian Star story (HT to NewsBusters commenter "noncom") reported that "Four teenagers have...

Jon Voight supports Netanyahu in new ad, says Obama abandoning Israel so he can buddy up to her ENEMIES VIDEO Posted by The Right Scoop on Mar 15, 2015 in Foreign Policy By The Right Scoop Legendary actor Jon Voight has created a new ad with an urgent message to Israel, explaining that Obama wants Bibi Netanyahu to lose and is NO friend of Israel. He points out that Obama wants to control Israel because his agenda is to be friends with Israel’s enemies.

Michael Bloomberg is spending tens of millions of dollars trying to convince state legislatures to support restrictive gun control laws. From television and newspaper ads, to blanketing communities with flyers, to bringing in people from out of state to testify, no effort seems too great. Then again, he is worth of over $36 billion. But Bloombeg’s newest campaign has become so extreme that even gun control advocates may wonder that he is becoming a liability to their cause. And he has already earned a reputation for fabricating numbers, with even liberal-leaning PolitiFact slamming Bloomberg for exaggerating the number of school...

Russia's quick and dirty annexation of Crimea, carried out under the watchful gaze of barely disguised Russian special forces, remains a bitter bone of contention a year on. By the West it is regarded as an act of unilateral Russian aggression that triggered a wider Ukrainian crisis. The Russian narrative remains that it was a justified reaction to the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's president by pro-Western mobs in Kiev, and the perceived threat that a new Ukrainian government could nationalize its historic naval base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

Is gun ownership falling? The answer is yes, at least if you believe a new General Social Survey (GSS) by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). Supposedly, since the late 1970s, the percentage of homes with a gun has fallen from approximately 50 percent to 32 percent. “The number of Americans who live in a household with at least one gun is lower than it’s ever been,” reported Emily Swanson of the Associated Press. Time magazine also points to a PEW Research survey that has done a couple much more limited surveys that suggest a similar drop in gun ownership...

If Republicans want to win the presidential elections next year, they’d better nominate a candidate who’s willing to take the fight to the criminal organization called the Democratic Party and their allies in the media. Luckily, there are two candidates who are real warriors: Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Scott Walker. The latter’s problem? He isn’t nearly charismatic enough to take on the Clintons in a national election – and yes, for now I’m going to assume Hillary will be the eventual Democratic nominee. That’s why I support Ted Cruz for president. He’s as charismatic a warrior as they come....

On his MSNBC show tonight, trying to explain away a poll showing Fox News to—once again—be the most trusted national news network, Hayes argued that it was unfair since Fox was the only conservative outlet, pitted against MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS. Hayes analogized the poll to one in which Mike Huckabee was placed against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, John Kerry and Al Gore. Huckabee would win, said Hayes, but only because people were split among the others. Hello? The others are all DEMOCRATS. Just like all the non-Fox outlets you mentioned lean left. Thanks, Chris, for...