Free Republic

Here’s a puzzler for you: we all know the next week will feature a competition among the 35 or 52 or however many Republicans are considering a 2016 presidential run as to who can say the most irresponsible things about the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran that just got a big step closer to reality yesterday. But how are they going to outdo Scott Walker’s pledge, initially made last week and then repeated like a terroristic threat, that he’d blow up any such deal on his first day as president? I mean, I guess someone could say they’d shout insults...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.

The Huffington Post headline screams: Indiana’s Memories Pizza Reportedly Becomes First Business To Reject Catering Gay Weddings Memories Pizza is a nine-year-old shop in downtown Walkerton, Indiana, just a few blocks from John Glenn High School. It’s owned by an openly-Christian couple, the O’Connors, who decorate their shop with mementos of their faith in Christ. So how does a small business in a small town wind up making headlines around the world as the new avatar of Christian bigotry?

Unless you are sleeping in one of Iran's hidden uranium enrichment bunkers where the isotope separation is proceeding apace, you are not protected from the incessant and toxic media coverage of the "Obama / Iran  almost-deal."  There is no deal.  There never will be a deal.  Nevertheless, the left's media machines are building the foundation for a "legacy." Iran supposedly has stockpiles of low-level enriched uranium. Will the Ayatollah agree to get rid of them and ship them off to Putin?  No chance.  As for the centrifuges, high level, low level, basic or more advanced, Iran will enrich. What's Obama negotiating here, . .  how...

n the opening segment of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation,” host and notorious tax-evader Al Sharpton compared the newly-enacted Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act to Jim Crow and slavery. “This is a key moment for the country,” he said. “Too often in our history, we’ve seen religion used to justify attacks on other people’s rights, from slavery, to Jim Crow, to women’s right to vote.”

Astrophysicist and cosmologist Neil DeGrasse Tyson is defending Scientology in light of HBO's highly critical documentary on the church. HBO's documentary "Going Clear" did not show the church in an entirely positive light — Scientology has a built a reputation for tormenting members who leave it either by surveillance or harassment. The film highlights the celebrities who made the religion intriguing to the world as well as the horrific stories of abuse from former members. But Tyson, in an interview with The Daily Beast, declined to bash the controversial church, saying people are free to believe whatever they want. "So,...

A three-year-old named Lee defends the abortion of his sister in a new children’s book – by an author with her own “ghost sister.” “Sister Apple, Sister Pig” by Mary Walling Blackburn focuses on an adult topic: abortion. The story follows Lee as he (or “she,” as the author stressed) searches for his sister – who might be an apple, a pig, or somewhere in a tree. Lee later decides “Sister is a happy ghost!” and explicitly says he’s glad Sister isn’t around to inconvenience his parents.

George Stephanopoulos was one of the leading members of Clinton's 1992 U.S. presidential campaign and worked in the Clinton administration before turning "journalist." In 2012, he injected the birth-control-pill issue into the 2012 presidential election debate to create the illusion of a GOP "War on Women." The objective may have been to help create camaraderie among women to benefit Hillary. Now, it seems that he is doing it again. Out of the clear blue, he pounded Mike Pence on signing a bill that many states have. The issue this time is LGBT. Is it possible that Hillary is going to...

President Barack Obama finds Indiana’s religious freedom law and others like it “unthinkable,” the White House said Wednesday. “I do think in the mind of the president, the thought that we would have state legislatures in the 21st century in the United States of America passing laws that would use religion to try to justify discriminating against people for who they love is unthinkable,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. Critics say Indiana’s law now allows for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

The Heritage Foundation's Ryan Anderson (with whom I happen to disagree on same-sex marriage) appeared on Ed Schultz's MSNBC program (cough) last night to discuss Indiana's religious freedom law, and the resulting conversation culminated with the host instructing producers to silence Anderson's microphone. End of Discussion: Schultz advances one false or misleading narrative after another, then loses his composure when Anderson (or "Mr. Ryan," as Schultz calls him at one point) replies with rapid-fire factual corrections. Schultz interrupts Anderson's first answer almost immediately to contest the statement that Indiana's law is effectively the same as other RFRAs, including the federal...

Bill Maher recently offered his opinion on the celebrity-proclaimed boycott of designers Dolce & Gabbana after the pair made comments that they do not approve of gay adoption or “synthetic children.”In an interview with an Italian magazine, The Huffington Post reports that Domenico Dolce said: “’I am gay, I cannot have a child. I guess you cannot have everything in life,’ Dolce added. ‘Life has a natural course, some things cannot be changed. One is the family.’” The ensuing reaction led Maher, who is known for attacking both sides of the political aisle, to unload on liberals’ “crazy political...

While it’s certainly a serious topic which merits the debate going on around the country, there has been one exceptionally funny aspect to the entire RFRA discussion this week. It took some prodding from conservative outlets, but the media has at long last begun to grudgingly admit that virtually identical laws are on the books in nearly two dozen other states and on the federal level, many bearing the signatures of Democrats. This has left liberal opponents sputtering and side stepping in their attempts to say, well yeah, but this is way worse because… Republicans! Given a bit of time,...

When it comes to LGBT rights, the 2016 GOP roster may be more ridiculous than the clown car of 2012. Thanks to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, we’re getting an early look at a field of GOP presidential hopefuls that is supposed to include some moderates who plan on expanding the party’s appeal beyond its right-wing base. And it’s pathetic. Before Pence’s odd press conference, where he promised to “fix” the bill but insisted there was nothing wrong with it, the top GOP contenders hustled to outdo one another in backing Pence and his divisive legislation. Let’s remember that in...

Critics who think the media has an anti-firearm agenda won't like the lineup behind a high-powered, upcoming seminar aimed at training reporters to cover the issue of gun violence. Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, the vaunted New York institution that hands out the annual Pulitzer prizes, is sponsoring the session through its Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Also helping to bankroll the event, in Phoenix May 29-30, is Everytown for Gun Safety, the nonprofit, pro-gun control group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A series of speakers has been lined up and, critics say, it...

RUSH: This is last night on NBC Nightly News, grab sound bite number five. This is just more of the same here, more this left wing hate for conservatives. Like this Bureau of Labor Statistics babe, Ashack, is out there saying that Christians vote for Christians and end up being Nazis and so forth on her Twitter account. She claims she was hacked. Last night on the NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt filling in for the paragon of truth, Brian Williams, had Ann Curry in there to talk about the Iran nuclear talks. He said, "What's the latest on the...

Speaking in New Hampshire last Friday night, Ted Cruz recalled a snarky aside written by New York Times columnist David Brooks, identifying Cruz and Karl Marx as the two people who "believe that power can be wielded directly by the masses." Being lumped in with Marx is a bit unusual for him, Cruz noted, but he's thrilled to be dismissed as a wacky populist by an Establishment shill like Brooks. Cruz, the junior Senator from Texas and first official Republican presidential candidate for 2016, was keynoting the New England Freedom Conference, put on by Young America's Foundation, a far-right group...

The blood is in the water. The game is afoot. And the Republicans are brawling. While Democrats are usually viewed as the undisciplined, fractious party, it is Republicans who sharpen their knives and slice each other up when the White House is at stake. The struggle is between two groups within the GOP. The establishment finally recognizes that the party must broaden its base. If the party appeals to only white, Christian conservatives, it will wind up as a regional party, capable of winning Senate and House seats but incapable of winning a national election. We must nominate a presidential...

They say anti-Semitism is a lot like alcoholism. Every recovering alcoholic knows their disease has no cure—that the seeds for its active return are always there, just below the surface of normalcy, requiring a constant lifelong vigilance to prevent. So, too, with anti-Semitism, sometimes called the world’s oldest hatred. No matter how long it may appear dormant, it never goes away. It is always there.

They say anti-Semitism is a lot like alcoholism. Every recovering alcoholic knows their disease has no cure—that the seeds for its active return are always there, just below the surface of normalcy, requiring a constant lifelong vigilance to prevent. So, too, with anti-Semitism, sometimes called the world’s oldest hatred. No matter how long it may appear dormant, it never goes away.-snip- The newest twist on this oldest of games is to apply the term "anti-Semitism" to supporters of Israel. In this bizarro world, the only "true" friends of Israel are the ones who make their support for continued existence of the Jewish...

I suppose you could give Campbell Brown and John Heilemann credit for candor. They've made it clear that when it comes to qualifications for replacing Jon Stewart as Daily Show host, there is one fatal flaw: being a conservative. On today's With All Due Respect, Brown and John Heilemann were kicking around the results of a poll as to whom Americans prefer to replace Stewart. Tina Fey came in first, with Dennis Miller a close second. Said Brown: "I can't imagine Dennis Miller. Hasn't he gone right wing?" Heilemann agreed: "that's not going to work." View the video here.