Free Republic

Republicans were so dumbstruck by the mendacity of Democrats claiming President Bush had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attack, they have overlooked the most stunning legerdemain of this accusation. Suppose Bush had known 18 Muslim immigrants planned to hijack four planes on Sept. 11. What could he have done? Throw Arabs out of the country? Put them in preventive detention? Order airport security to take an extra little peek at swarthy men boarding planes? Liberals won't let us do that now! In a girly-girl, eye-poking attack, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., has demanded an investigation into "what...

In June 2001, as Mohammed Atta completed his final "to do" list before the 9/11 attacks -- " . . . *amend will to ban women from my funeral . . . *leave extra little Friskies out for Mr. Buttons . . . *set TiVo for Streisand on 'Inside the Actors' Studio' . . . " -- Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was conducting a major study on whether airport security was improperly screening passengers based on ethnicity. As Mineta explained: "We must protect the civil rights of airline passengers." Protecting airline passengers from sudden death has never made it...

Outspoken conservative commentator Ann Coulter let the one-liners and partisan zingers fly in her Napa speech Monday night, finding a receptive audience at the Silverado Country Club & Resort Ballroom. Coulter, whose most recent book, "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism" is a number one New York Times best seller, had the nearly 400 attendees laughing at her quick-witted statements throughout much of her 45-minute lecture. When she reached the podium to give her speech at a fundraiser for the Napa Valley Boys & Girls Club, Coulter announced, "I thought I'd talk about liberals...

RESPONSE TO INTERVIEW QUESTIONS OF EDWARD NAWOTKA FOR PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY QUESTION: FRANKEN CLAIMS THAT THERE ARE NUMEROUS FALSEHOODS IN YOUR BOOK, ESPECIALLY BURIED IN THE FOOTNOTES. . . . WHO IS ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ERRORS, YOU, THE PUBLISHER, OR BOTH? I see we're off to a good start! In your interview with Al Franken, after suggesting that some readers may want Franken to run for president, you ask him hardball questions like: -- "It's got to be a little grating to see your book on the same New York Times bestseller list as the Ann Coulter book." -- "You...

Sorry for the vanity folks, but I stumbled across this video last night. It's a couple years old, before Al Franken was shaming the state of Minnesota as a Senator. An excerpt from a public forum featuring he and Ann Coulter, I think this so perfectly encapsulates Franken's weaselly methods in his attempts to smear conservatives as "liars," that it deserved addressing. Please take a few minutes to watch. Then, take a minute to read the ACTUAL ARTICLE by Thomas Friedman in question, and come back for my commentary. Now, did you notice what Franken did there? He started in...

Here is video of Laura Ingraham last night talking with Ann Coulter about "racial profiling" and the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest controversy. Coulter believes most accusations of racial profiling are "a hoax," and she talks through many of those cases in the video. Ingraham also asked Ann about her faceoff with the Rev. Al Sharpton on Larry King Live this week. . . . . . . . .(Watch Video)

Ann Coulter and Rev. Al Sharpton debate racial profiling and the arrest of Professor Gates by Sgt. Crowley.

In an article about police shootings in last Sunday's New York Times (8/31), Michael Wines disputes the conventional wisdom about a disproportionate number of African-Americans being shot by police, saying there are no data one way or another. But Wines revives the canard about blacks being disproportionately targeted in traffic stops. There actually is a study for that. Throughout the 1990s, the nation was fixated on tales of jack-booted New Jersey state troopers who were stopping speeders on the turnpike just because they were black! In a 2000 primary debate, Vice President Al Gore sneered at then-New Jersey Sen. Bill...

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing U.S. Border Patrol agents who watch over Ohio near the Canadian border of routinely engaging in racial profiling to round up Hispanics. [...] U.S. District Court Judge Jack Zouhary said race didn't play a role in the eight encounters with agents cited in the lawsuit. Two groups that work with Hispanics and migrant workers in Ohio sued the Border Patrol over what they say was a pattern of profiling over six years. They also accused agents of using racially offensive and "dehumanizing" terms to describe Hispanics. An attorney with the U.S. Justice...

The cabbie accused of snubbing famed weatherman Al Roker has pleaded guilty to a service refusal violation and was fined $500, according to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. Rahman faced heavy penalties plus a possible 30-day suspension after Roker complained on Twitter in November that a taxi snubbed him and his 13-year-old son for being black — in favor of a white fare a block away. The driver also settled a refusal allegation in May for $200, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission. "This happens to folks of color every day," Roker said following the incident. "And while...

Federal Judge Susan Dlott wrote the book on racial profiling in 2002. Last week, she ripped it into one million tiny pieces when three black people broke into her $8 million Cincinnati home and started beating her and her 79-year old husband. "There's three black men with guns at our house," Dlott told a 911 operator after she escaped the home invasion and ran to her neighbor's house one mile away. And just in case the operator did not hear her the first time, Dlott said it again: "My husband and the dogs are still there. There are three black...

A man who was linked Wednesday to the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings was described by someone who identified himself as his father as a Muslim who was "very religious." NBC News has reported that one of the suspects killed by police after the shootings at the Inland Regional Center is Syed Farook. Farook and a woman were killed in a gunfight with police in nearby Redlands after the rampage at the center that killed 14 people and wounded 17 others. San Bernardino County records showed that someone with that name was an employee at the county's Environmental Health Department. The...

Hillary Clinton told a mixed audience, "I mean, if we're honest, for a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear". Before we get into the nuts and bolts of that observation, I'd like to ask a question. Would well-meaning, open-minded white people have a similar fear at the sight of an elderly black man using a walker and wearing a hoodie? Whether we like it or not, easily observed physical characteristics -- such as race, sex, height and age -- convey information. That's because there...

A state appeals court voiced deep concerns Monday about “racial profiling” during criminal trials in New Jersey and directed judges in lower courts to instantly remove any jurors who display conscious or subconscious racist beliefs. The directive stems from a case that resulted in the convictions of two black men imprisoned in 2012 for carjacking a luxury sedan. At their trial, one juror had revealed a “subliminal” and “deeply-rooted, latent racial bias” against African-Americans, said the appeals panel, which overturned the verdict and ordered new court proceedings for both men.“Racial bias is repugnant to any notion of fairness or...

The NBA consists of 76 percent black players. But blacks are just 13 percent of the country. Clearly, the league engages in racial discrimination against whites. Silly, right? Well, this is exactly what the sleight-of-hand Department of Justice pulled off to find that the Ferguson Police Department engages in "implicit and explicit racial bias"! The report insults anybody who's ever studied the statistics - or logic. The 105-page report concludes: "Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson's police...

Obama Says Other Police Departments Are Racist In First Remarks On Ferguson President Obama said the type of racial discrimination found in Ferguson, Missouri, is not unique to that police department, and he cast law enforcement reform as a chief struggle for today's civil rights movement. Obama said improving civil rights and civil liberties with police is one of the areas that 'requires collective action and mobilization' 50 years after pivotal civil rights marches brought change to the country. The president made his first remarks about this week's Justice Department report of racial bias in Ferguson, which found officers routinely...

Last week, the Obama administration announced new curbs on racial profiling by federal law enforcement. Before deciding whether this is good or bad policy, we might try to develop a description/definition of racial profiling or any other kind of profiling. A good definition of profiling in general is the use of an easily observed physical characteristic as a guess for some other, difficult-to-observe characteristic. The reason people profile is that information is costly and they seek methods to economize on information costs. One way to do that is through profiling. Imagine a chief of police in a city where there...

Attorney General Eric Holder will announce the Justice Department's release of its long-awaited revised racial profiling guidance for federal law enforcement on Monday. In 2003, the Justice Department issued its first racial profiling guidance under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. That guidance banned profiling based on race and ethnicity, but granted exceptions for national security and border protection. Civil rights groups considered the exceptions a kind of permission to discriminate especially against Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The newly revised guidance will expand the characteristics it protects -- beyond race and ethnicity -- to include bans...

Sleazy race-agitators like Eric Holder and Barack Obama want you to think that America has a malignant, systemic problem of mostly white police departments unfairly targeting blacks, while somehow also keeping many blacks from becoming cops themselves. From that same timeworn narrative they’d have us all believe that any and all troubles faced by any black person today are, and always will be, attributable to some feature of the existence of white people on this planet throughout history. This carefully orchestrated mass-hallucination has many names, among them the modern sophists’ favorites: ‘disparate impact doctrine’ and ‘critical race theory.’ Despite even...

About 25 members of the pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary -- also known as BAMN - broke out with chants of "Minority enrollment's been going down, open it up or we'll shut it down" and "We don't need another committee, open it up to Detroit city," during the University of Michigan's Board of Regents meeting Thursday afternoon. The chants quickly turned physical as the protester pressed forward toward the regents. Security responded and the group continued to press forward as multiple protesters were forced to the ground after refusing to back down and move their protest out of...