Free Republic

May 11, 2016 Michael Covel An insidious new fantasy is blooming in Washington, D.C, academia and the media… Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dreams about it in between bong hits. It’s lovingly endorsed by “off the wall” left-wing economist Paul Krugman. And the ultra-progressive Huffington Post calls it “the idea that could revolutionize the 21st century.” The hype surrounding this “revolutionary” idea will soon be an everyday talking point. And if you’re a hard-working citizen who takes care of your own responsibilities, you should pay extra close attention… Because you’re about to get fleeced and forced to enjoy it… Utopian...

The author of a book about Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster, the aide whose death in 1993 was ruled a suicide, says Clinton triggered Foster’s death by bullying him unmercifully, calling him out from among his colleagues as a failure. The claim comes from Ronald Kessler, formerly an investigative reporter with the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and the author of “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents and The Secrets of the FBI.” Kessler wrote about his claim in the London Daily Mail on Thursday. The controversies surrounding Foster’s death...

Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS while he opened fire on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last weekend, proving his attack was borne out of radical Islam. Yet, if you ask some bystanders in Brooklyn, they’ll tell you the gunman’s rampage had nothing to do with religion. That’s what filmmaker Ami Horowitz found when he asked New Yorkers who was to blame for Sunday’s stark death toll. “I don’t think it had much to do with Islam, to be honest,” said one Brooklynite. “I don’t think it was a terrorist,” said another. Republicans and guns played a much larger role in...

For six weeks, the editors of New York Magazine and Grub Street are publishing a series of definitive lists that declare the absolute best versions of 101 things to eat, drink, and do. Pizza: It’s what New Yorkers are made of. Now, we’re not talking Neapolitan or neo-Neapolitan, deep dish or Detroit-style — not even whole pies. It’s all about the slice, the economical, accessible, on-the-go meal in its many styles: the classic round slice; square in the Sicilian or grandma style; vodka-sauced; with or without toppings, from the minimal (sausage) to the maximal “gourmet” (Buffalo chicken); and so on....

Donald Trump’s Use of ‘Pocahontas’ Has Native Americans Worried Alan Rappeport Donald J. Trump is heading west this weekend for rallies in Las Vegas and Phoenix and a fund-raiser at Barry M. Goldwater’s old estate, known as Be-nun-i-kin, Navajo for “house on top of the hill.” But it is the prospect of Mr. Trump’s gathering with members of the Navajo Nation that is creating the most intrigue around the trip of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. His repeated use of the name “Pocahontas” to deride Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has stirred a debate among Native Americans about how they...

After Orlando and San Bernardino and Paris, there is new urgency to understand the signs that can precede acts of terrorism. And with the Islamic State’s prolific use of social media, terrorism experts and government agencies continually search for clues in posts and Twitter messages that appear to promote the militants’ cause. A physicist may not seem like an obvious person to study such activity. But for months, Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami, led a team that created a mathematical model to sift order from the chaotic pro-terrorism online universe. In a study published Thursday in...

As families began planning funerals for the victims of Sunday’s rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., gay Americans mourned a loss that extended beyond the lives cut short. Omar Mateen shattered the tenuous, hard-fought sense of personal safety that many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have begun to feel as the movement for equality has made significant gains in recent years. His bullets and the blood he left behind that early morning were a reminder that in many corners of the country, gay and transgender people are still regarded as sinners and second-class citizens who should be...

If it is true that the best defense is a good offense, President Obama should be celebrating in the end zone now. Obviously furious over criticism that his anti-terror policies are weak and that the Orlando slaughter proves it, he went on a televised tirade to let America know he’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. He laid waste to a field of straw men, cable-TV pundits and the always-evil “partisan rhetoric,” by which he means anyone who disagrees with him.

A New York Times editorial advocates for a new law allowing a secret court to take away citizens' right to own a gun at the discretion of the federal government.Citing the Orlando terror attack that left 50 dead including the shooter and 53 wounded at a gay nightclub, the piece advocates for a "no-buy" list similar to "no-fly" lists. Under the law, suspected terrorists would not be able to buy a gun. In an attempt to ensure the integrity of the lists and preserve due process, the author proposes people only be added to this no-buy list after a secret...

Of all the predictable political responses to the mass murder in Orlando, the immediate impulse of non-Trumpian Republicans to dive for the handiest authoritarian solution is the most predictable of all. Here, among the Fox News electric teevee machine mannequins, is He, Trump's future Attorney General, explaining why the Bill of Rights now has to stop at only two amendments, and the first one doesn't count. Via Mediate: "There's no minister, there's no rabbi in this city — nor are there some imams — that object to having police officers in their congregation," he argued. "In fact, they want them...

“These kids knew they could beat on me all they wanted, and the administration would tacitly encourage it by not doing anything about it,” Perez said. “In no other workplace would I be expected to take this as part of my day.” MS 72 struggles with discipline problems and low student achievement. In school surveys, kids have complained of bullying. Perez says several kids taunted and threatened her as they spewed X-rated profanity. They called her “white bitch,” pelted her with pencils, and tossed rocks as she walked to her car, warning that she would “get shot” and “get my...

Former Attorney General Eric Holder has come out against proposals in Chicago and New Jersey to require fingerprint background checks of drivers for ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Lyft. Why would President Obama's onetime top lawman come out against regulation that is supposed to protect the riding public? Credit the intersection of two forces. First, Holder's tony corporate law firm, Covington & Burling, represents Uber. Also, as Holder sees it, requiring drivers to submit fingerprints may "have a discriminatory impact on communities of color." I was surprised to read about Holder's opposition, as I have trouble seeing Holder as...

The media said no one cheered 911.

On a busy night last week at the Target on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Ari Nagel, 40, emerged from the men’s bathroom looking a little flushed and quite pleased with himself. “It’s better when it’s fresh,” he told them. “It” is Nagel’s semen, and it’s in demand. The 6-foot-2 CUNY Kingsborough math professor has served as a sperm donor for dozens of locals, siring 22 kids over the past 12 years with 18 women of various backgrounds.

Omar Mateen called the cops to pledge his fealty to ISIS as he was carrying out his mass murderer in Orlando early Sunday morning. Twelve hours later, the president of the United States declared that “we have no definitive assessment on the motivation” of Omar Mateen but that “we know he was a person filled with hate.”

What happens when a National Public Radio host interviews a New York Times reporter on the subject of Venezuela’s economic collapse? You get a perfect storm of cluelessness. The host is Terry Gross, the guest is New York Times reporter Nicholas Casey, and the program is Fresh Air. Gross asks Casey about the utter disaster that Venezuela has become. Casey understands the depth to which Venezuela has fallen–he lives in Caracas!–but he can’t bring himself to offer an honest diagnosis.

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/did-bernie-sanders-just-hand-trump-the-election

There is no politician in recent memory who seems more a product of her handlers than Hillary Clinton. But her handlers in 2008 did hardly anything for her, and now you wonder if the reinforcements she’s brought in this time are doing any better, or giving her better advice. Because all she continues to do is serve this whole thing up for Donald Trump. The other day she said that she was going to ask Bill Clinton to help her with the economy. She did this in a political season when Trump has sold himself two ways, apart from walls...

The death certificate for the father of the controversial Mexican judge confirms that Curiel’s parents were not U.S. citizens when he was born. Death records from Indiana records confirm that Salvador Curiel died a Mexican citizen in 1964… not as the New York Times’s Alan Rappeport reported in an anti-Donald Trump article. But Rappeport claimed that the elder Curiel had died a U.S. citizen. He didn’t. Here’s what Rappeport wrote: Judge Curiel, 62, was born in East Chicago, Ind., to parents who had emigrated from Mexico. Raul Curiel said their father, Salvador, arrived in Arizona as a laborer in the...

A group of anti-cop dissenters burned an American flag outside a Staten Island police station house in protest of the NYPD’s investigation into the death of a black teenage boy who police said suffered a fatal asthma attack after a gang-related street fight last month, video shows. In a video posted to YouTube, demonstrators can be seen gathered outside of the 121st Precinct station house for the staged flag burning on Saturday. “We light fire for the ancestors who have gone before us who were lynched,” a woman can be hearing saying in the video as another person attempts to...