Free Republic

I watched The Five discuss the preview of Megyn Kelly’s upcoming Bill Ayers interview. Bob Beckel is still claiming that Obama didn’t know Ayers – “met him once” – and the other four supposedly conservative journalists had nothing to contradict him with! Every reader of AT knows that Ayers and Obama worked together - that Ayers hired Obama for the biggest job of his life before becoming President – handing out $100 million dollars of the Annenberg Challenge grants to radical causes, instead of using it to help Chicago’s schoolchildren.

President Obama’s recently announced energy and environment policies have been tried in many countries, always with the same result: abject failure. Yet when critics point this out, explaining that “the U.S. economy will lose millions of jobs and billions of dollars in growth,” Obama simply waves their objections away: “Let’s face it,” the president answers. “That’s what [critics] always say. … Every time… the warnings of the cynics have been wrong.” Other leaders, especially those in Europe who are further down the green path than is America, know better.The deputy leader of the German Green Party in the Bundestag, Oliver...

On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian-Serb student named Gavrilo Princip killed Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the duchess. (…) That deadly summer unfolded 100 years ago, and the world truly was never the same. Civilization was soon engaged in a horrific conflict marred by mechanized warfare previously unimaginable: tanks, subs, battleships, air power, machine guns with names like “the Devil’s paint brush,” and legions of poison gas—the largest-scale use of chemical weapons in history.

Amy Adams has enchanted audiences with roles in everything from Disney musicals to the Oscar-nominated “American Hustle,” but it’s likely the ever-popular starlet just gained more fans—through a subtle act of kindness. According to ESPN host Jemele Hill, Adams gave up her first-class seat on a flight so an American soldier could sit in the classy cabin. Jemele Hill Just saw actress Amy Adams do something incredibly classy. She gave her 1st class seat to an American soldier. Later, Hill told FoxNews.com, "I was on a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles...While I was in the boarding area, I noticed...

Why is it that democracies so often generate public policies that are wasteful and unjust? Why do such policies persist over long periods of time, even when they are known to be harmful? Assuming that you’ve pondered those questions, you’d probably also like to understand why, on rare occasions, bad policies do get repealed. If you have entertained those questions, or now see that they are worth entertaining, here is a book you’ll want to read. In Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers, economics professors Wayne Leighton (of Universidad Francisco Marroquin) and Edward Lopez (of Western Carolina University) take readers on...

We are our brothers’ keepers, and we need to be wise as we plan international policy and personal treatment. Nevertheless, it is idealistic and unreasonable to expect that the insane consequences of our human condition will be eradicated this side of eternity.

No Koch Bros wanted at B.C. Brooklyn College, part of the disastrous and dysfunctional City University of New York sinkhole, has a $60 million endowment. A drop in the bucket compared to CUNY’s horrifying $3 billion budget.46% of its wildly inflated budget comes from New York State. New York City taxpayers kick in another 10%.With so much taxpayer money, involuntarily extracted, they just aren’t in need of any dirty Koch Brothers cash. Brooklyn College’s liberal politics are keeping grants and progress from faculty and students, one frustrated CUNY professor told the Observer.The CUNY college has turned down a $10 million...

Earlier this month, the story of a little girl’s experience at a local Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) went viral. According to reports, three-year Victoria Welcher, who had been disfigured in a pit-bull attack, was kicked out of a Mississippi KFC restaurant because her face was making the other diners uncomfortable. Victoria’s family posted a photo of the child on Facebook with the caption, “Does this face look scary to you? Last week at KFC in Jackson MS this precious face was asked to leave because her face scared the other diners. I personally will never step foot in another...

Blue Angels report calls out fighter pilot culture Jun. 25, 2014 - 04:04PM | The unique structure of the Blue Angels, who fly without an executive officer and vote to select new members, may have contributed to the lewd behavior outlined in a Navy report, experts said. Here, then-Cmdr. Greg McWherter, center, leads the team after its return to Pensacola, Fla., from training in California in 2009. (Katie King/Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal) By Meghann Myers Staff writer When news broke that Capt. Gregory McWherter’s high-flying career had essentially ended, support came flooding in from thousands of sailors and civilians who...

(CNS photo) The Elmbrook School District operates two public high schools in suburban Wisconsin. Finding that its own gymnasiums were cramped, hot, and uncomfortable, and at the request of students, it decided to move joint graduation ceremonies to a local Protestant church which offered air conditioning, more space, and greater comfort for attendees. Not surprisingly, the rented sanctuary contained a prominently displayed cross, religious banners, hymnals, and Bibles. Neither the church’s staff nor members of the church’s congregation participated in the graduation. However, some students and parents complained that exposure to the religious symbols and materials was itself offensive...

On Monday, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell returned to the network after spending several weeks recovering from a motor vehicle accident in which he broke his hip in multiple places and sustained a variety of other injuries. While O’Donnell appeared totally healed from his ordeal, he came back a changed man on at least one issue: the Koch brothers. In an emotional monologue, O’Donnell opened up about the taxi accident that sent him and his brother to a hospital – a hospital which he praised profusely. That facility was the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, where David Koch...

Vice President Joe Biden said during a speech on Tuesday that protecting gay rights trumps national cultures and social traditions, as President Barack Obama's administration continues promoting LGBT rights around the world. "I don't care what your culture is," Biden told about 100 guests at the Naval Observatory's vice presidential mansion, The Associated Press reported. "Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice." He added that the cause is a "defining mark of a civilized nation" and met with a number of religious, human rights and HIV health care advocates in a forum dedicated to promoting gay rights...

The other night I saw a trailer on TV for the new Robo Cop movie. “Meet the Future,” said the accompanying caption. And, if the trailer is to be believed, the future will be a high-tech world where police don futuristic armor and ride futuristic motorcycles.The idea that the future will be like nothing we’ve ever experienced before is a staple of science fiction. But here in the non-fiction world, it’s beginning to look like “meet the past” is the more likely scenario for our future.In large swaths of the world, the past has already arrived. Take the recent...

Robert David Steele, former Marine, CIA case officer, and US co-founder of the US Marine Corps intelligence activity, is a man on a mission. But it's a mission that frightens the US intelligence establishment to its core.... ...Drawing on principles set out in his latest book, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust, he told the audience that all the major preconditions for revolution – set out in his 1976 graduate thesis – were now present in the United States and Britain.... "...We are at the end of a five-thousand-year-plus historical process during which human society grew in scale...

Shin Bet reveals Hamas operative and son arrested for killing of Baruch Mizrahi; Bennett: This proves prisoner releases should be eradicated. An Israeli military court on Monday indicted a Hamas terrorist – released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal – for killing an Israeli man and wounding two children in the Passover eve terrorist attack near the Tarkumia checkpoint in the West Bank. Hamas member Ziad Awawde, 42, was arrested in May by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) and police commandos, on suspicion that he had stood by the side of the Route 35 shooting at passing vehicles, including...

Gallup on June 19 published a poll that dealt with American confidence in institutions, alleging that public faith in Congress reached the lowest point since the question had been polled. Was that the real story? An analysis of the polling results of American confidence in different institutions, and a review of those results over time suggests something much more significant: Americans overwhelmingly express confidence in those institutions historically connected with conservatism and overwhelmingly express little faith in those institutions historically connected with leftism. The June 19 poll story itself provides a clear picture of how conservative Americans feel when identifying...

I wonder how Leroy Jones, the black chairman of the Essex County Democratic Committee, looks at himself in the mirror. I wonder how he looks at his family and the members of his community. I wonder how he feels as he sits in the pews of the black church he attends, and how he feels while sitting in the black barbershop. More specifically, I wonder how the people of Essex County, New Jersey, as a whole feel about Jones. In his capacity as chairman of the Essex County Democratic Committee, Jones has provided aid and comfort to one of the...

One of the current liberal cliches tells us “whites” are privileged. The color of their skin evidently bestows benefits others do not receive. They are therefore supposed to be grateful and defer to those who are less fortunate. But in what does this “privilege” consist? Yes, whites have not been discriminated against the way African-Americans have. They have not been denied jobs or forced to drink from separate fountains because of the pigmentation of their epidermis. This is surely an advantage — but how big an advantage? Charges of white privilege make it sound as if every Caucasian is automatically...

Aldous Huxley got a lot of things right in his envisioning of a Brave New World, especially in the rise of the state coupled with the dismissal of natural social structures. What Huxley did not foresee was just how powerfully equipped that the individual would become thanks to technological advancements that emerged so rapidly that the control of the state could not keep pace. In the short span of the past twenty years, the Internet has grown from about a half-million users to well over 2.7 billion. This represents 39% of the world’s population, including over 80% of every resident...