Free Republic

**SNIP** It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America's elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let's be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism. **SNIP**...

Political endorsements don’t matter like they used to. In the age of twitter, cable news, and the blogs, people depend less and less on other so-called thought leaders to tell them what to think. Less and less does anyone really care what leading figures – even those with huge and recent impacts on GOP history like George W. Bush – think about who they should vote for.There’s a different kind of endorsement that matters quite a lot, however, and that is the kind of unintentional endorsement that Congressional leaders have given Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Republican voters are angry...

Kudos to the New York Times News Service for revealing to its readers that long time Cuba “source” and college lecturer Arturo Lopez Levy “used to work for the Cuban intelligence services.” Previously, the Times appears to have used biographic snippets provided by the long-time graduate student. Let us hope that in the near future, the esteemed newspaper will address Lopez-Levy’s close familial ties to Cuban President Raul Castro. After all, readers deserve to be told when a source has such vested interests.

This seems to be a Trump habit. Check out the video at 16:40 as he talks about Rubio sweating: Donald Trump Funny Moments --Talking About Rubio Sweating

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump is demanding an apology from The New York Times, after denying that he mocked the physical disability of one of its reporters. "Donald J. Trump today demanded an apology from the failing New York Times which accused him (during a major speech before 10,000 people in Myrtle Beach, SC) of mocking a reporter's physical disability when in fact, Mr. Trump does not know anything about the reporter or anything about what the reporter looks like," the Trump campaign said in a statement on Thursday. Trump had cited a 2001 article by Times reporter Serge Kovaleski...

Donald Trump, leading Republican candidate for president, took his spat with the New York Times to the next level, doubling down on his denial of mocking a handicapped reporter and then demanding the newspaper apologize for accusing him of doing so. In tweets sent out Thanksgiving Day, Trump said once again he didn't poke fun of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times journalist who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts the movements of his arms. His campaign first opened with this clarification: "Donald J. Trump today demanded an apology fro the failing New York Times which accused him...

Blood still stains the streets of Paris. France is in a deep state of shock; it is a nation of walking wounded. A British survivor of the concert at Bataclan tells how ISIS terrorists “tortured wounded victims by slitting their stomachs with knives.

Ted Cruz' father Rafael was not quite the anti-Batista rabble-rouser Ted claims in his book. So crows the New York Times this week in a major "expose'" titled: "Cuban Peers Dispute Ted Cruz's Father's Story of Fighting for Castro." Yes, just as he claims, at 18 the elder Rafael Cruz was arrested by Cuban (quasi) dictator Batista's police and roughed-up for being an anti-government activist. But it wasn't for gun-running, as he claims. And a (secret) Batista agent Rafael was trying to recruit to the Anti-Batista cause, didn't snitch him out, as he claims. Instead anti-Batista activist Rafael Cruz...

Since the CNBC debate, the media, their allies in left-wing blogs and Hillary Clinton campaign surrogates masquerading as non-profits like Media Matters have all launched an aggressive attack on the Republican candidates. One might think it was revenge for calling out obvious media bias. One might think that in seeking that revenge they are also proving the GOP right. I wouldn't argue with one if one thought one or both of those things, once or twice. The latest target on the media hit list is Senator Ted Cruz, who’s absolutely blistering assault on the CNBC moderators became practically legendary only...

Washington (AFP) - The Internet was supposed to facilitate better exchange between the public and news media. But vile and hateful comments changed all that. In the face of rising vitriol -- attacks, bigotry and general nastiness -- news organizations are increasingly throwing in the towel on online comments. Last month, Vice Media's Motherboard news site turned off reader comments, saying "the scorched earth nature of comments sections just stifles real conversation." It instead began taking "letters to the editor" to be screened by staff. Vox Media's online news site The Verge said in July it was "turning off comments...

Sometime in the near future, a transgender teenager in Texas will attempt suicide - and maybe succeed - because vilifying people for their gender identity remains politically acceptable in America. The hateful rhetoric of leaders like Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is the latest, ugliest example. Mr. Patrick was ebullient on Tuesday night after it became clear that Houston voters had decidedly rejected a broad equal rights ordinance that opponents maliciously and misleadingly characterized as a boon for cross-dressing sex offenders.

On Tuesday, Houston voters will be asked if they want to keep or repeal the city's strong and enlightened equal rights ordinance, which was approved by the City Council last year and put on hold pending this week's vote. Opponents of the law have perversely turned a broad, sensible measure that protects people from discrimination in employment, city services, housing and public accommodations, among other things, into a debate about sexual predators in women's restrooms.

When I arrived in New York City 28 years ago to begin my national radio program, my objective was to have the most-listened-to show in the country. At that time, the national broadcast media included three television networks and CNN. That was it. There were 125 radio stations doing talk radio, and I started on 56 of them. No one had ever succeeded in syndicating a national daytime radio show, and I was predicted to fail, too. But I didn’t. What was different about my show was that I was the only conservative voice in national broadcast media. I was...

The New York Times referred to Jill Biden as a ‘doctor’ three times more than Ben Carson, according to the Weekly Standard. Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, has a doctorate in education. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson was the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins. The Weekly Standard writes: Through last night, Nexis results show Ben Carson’s name has appeared in The New York Times 373 times: 356 times as Ben Carson and 17 times as Benjamin Carson. On first reference (that is, the first time he is named in the story) he has been referred to...

Donald Trump is not letting Americans forget that the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened under former President George W. Bush. Trump’s relentless attacks on the issue come as he battles former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.), George W. Bush’s brother, for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2016. “Interesting reading re: September 11th,” he tweeted Monday afternoon, referencing a New York Times story titled “The Bush White House was Deaf to 9/11 Warnings.” “Jeb is fighting to defend a catastrophic event,” Trump said of Jeb Bush in a separate post. “I am fighting to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he added. "Jeb...

The New York Times reports on the role of conservative media representing the grassroots–and how these “far-right” sites and talk radio hosts have prevented a simple coronation for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI),the establishment choice for Speaker of the House.

Carly Fiorina received a BA from Stanford in medieval history and philosophy almost 40 years ago, but she’s always ready to revisit her undergraduate glory days. Last Sunday, the Republican presidential candidate tried to burnish her national security credentials by claiming that her bachelor’s degree prepared her to fight Isis. She said: “Finally my degree in medieval history and philosophy has come in handy, because what Isis wants to do is drive us back to the Middle Ages, literally”. I’d like to state unequivocally that my years of training to become a professor of medieval history in no way make...

Kiriakou, 47, was a source for stories by The New York Times and other news organizations in 2008 and 2009 about some of the agency’s most sensitive operations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ......... that the information Kiriakou supplied to journalists ... enabling defense attorneys there to obtain photographs of CIA operatives suspected of being involved in harsh interrogations. Some of the pictures were subsequently discovered in the cells of high-value detainees.

Carly Fiorina may come from the executive suite, but that hasn’t stopped other executives from slamming her record. The latest critique comes from Steven Rattner, a former Wall Street banker and private equity executive. Rattner, in an opinion piece in the New York Times on Saturday, called Fiorina’s time as the CEO of HP “short and disastrous.” Rattner said HP’s acquisition of Compaq, pushed through by Fiorina, caused an amount of divisiveness at the company that Rattner says he never saw in his 33-year career on Wall Street. He said that while Fiorina did serve during a tough period for...

HER silver tongue honed by decades in corporate marketing, Carly Fiorina has used two debates, and a steely determination on the campaign trail, to climb near the top of the polls for the Republican nomination. But Americans should pause on her biggest professional credential for our highest office: a short, disastrous stint atop one of America’s iconic technology companies, Hewlett-Packard. The clearest measure of her performance — and the report card preferred by Wall Street — is H.P.’s stock price, which dropped by 52 percent during her tenure of almost six years. Yes, Mrs. Fiorina served during the worst fall...