Free Republic

U.S. tennis player Sloane Stephens says the racism she’s faced has “only gotten worse” over the years. Speaking Monday at the French Open, Stephens told reporters of being on the receiving end of racist attacks, saying, “It’s obviously been a problem my entire career. It’s never stopped. It’s only gotten worse.” “Obviously when there’s FBI investigations going on with [what] people are saying to you online, it’s very serious,” Stephens, 30, said during a news conference following her first round win against Karolina Pliskova.

The worst line I ever wrote as a pundit — yes, I know, it’s a crowded field — was the first line I ever wrote about the man who would become the 45th president: “If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling.” This opening salvo, from August 2015, was the first in what would become dozens of columns denouncing Trump as a unique threat to American life, democratic ideals and the world itself. I regret almost nothing of what I said about the man and his close minions. But the broad swipe at his voters caricatured them...

President Donald Trump is recovering from COVID-19, a.k.a. the China plague. Some of his opponents took the high road and wished him a swift recovery, while others took the low road, gloating over his illness, hoping for his suffering and death, and spinning conspiracy theories. A few managed to do both, with their supposed well-wishes revealing more than they meant to. For example, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote a preening article on why Trump’s opponents should wish the president well. Stephens is a conservative of the socially liberal sort that mostly conserves the profit margins of the Fortune...

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein reunited with a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer who worked with Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele to continue investigating the now-debunked Trump-Russia conspiracy theory after President Donald Trump took office. **SNIP** Fusion GPS had hired Steele a year earlier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Trump’s possible links to Russia. Democrats paid Fusion GPS more than $1 million for that project. Fusion, which is based in Washington, D.C., paid Steele $170,000. A Washington-based attorney with links to Steele told the Daily Caller News Foundation in 2018 that Jones told him...

“Twitter is a sewer. It brings out the worst in humanity,” Stephens posted. “I sincerely apologize for any part I’ve played in making it worse, and to anyone I’ve ever hurt. Thanks to all of my followers, but I’m deactivating this account.” Stephen’s announcement comes after he flew off the handle on Dave Karpf, a media and public affairs professor for George Washington University who called him a “bedbug.” This appeared to be an off-hand joke about the news that the Times recently had a bedbug outbreak in their newsrooms.

For decades, the left sought to dethrone the idea of truth. Truth was not an absolute. It was a matter of power. [snip] Which brings me to Elizabeth Warren’s commencement address last Friday at Morgan State University in Baltimore. It sounded just like . . . a Trump stump speech. To an audience of nearly 500 new graduates and their families at the historically black college, the Massachusetts senator laid out a bleak vision of America. “The rules are rigged because the rich and powerful have bought and paid for too many politicians,” she said. “The rich and powerful want...

Michael Kelly, the legendary journalist who died covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003, once wrote that the “animating impulse” of modern liberalism was to “marginalize itself and then enjoy its own company. And to make itself as unattractive to as many as possible.” “If it were a person,” he added, “it would pierce its tongue.” [snip] t pierced its tongue on CNN this week, when Hillary Clinton told Christiane Amanpour that “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” And when former Attorney General Eric Holder said...

Multiple scientists and climate change advocates are calling for a boycott of The New York Times after an op-ed that they felt pushed anti-climate change agendas. The Friday column, the first written by Bret Stephens for the publication, uses the argument that data doesn’t always convey reality to make the point that climate change isn’t definite, despite evidence that supports the claim. He refers partially to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, chronicled in the recent book “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.” Authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes wrote that the campaign relied too much on data, one of the...

Sharp-eyed employee Henry Sayers said he recognized the hungry fugitive as he sat in his Ford Fusion to pay for his 20 pieces and large fries, cleveland.com reported. Stephens “acted normal” at first, Sayers said. By the time he pulled up to the pickup window, employees were on the phone with state police.

Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances -- where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video. :snip: The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET," was sent to a dozen members of the administration's inner circle, including key members of the White House communications team such as Press Secretary Jay Carney. In the email, Rhodes specifically draws attention to the anti-Islam Internet video, without distinguishing whether...

With all of the attention focused on Barack Obama’s plans to use military strikes to hasten regime change in a country with al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist networks operating on a large scale, let’s not forget the last time this strategy was put in place. A year ago tomorrow, terrorists sacked our consulate in Benghazi and killed four Americans, including our Ambassador to Libya. Despite claims that the Obama administration would seek out the culprits, the New York Times reports that the successor government in Libya has refused to cooperate with the US on making arrests: A year after the attacks in Benghazi...

Late yesterday afternoon, in an obvious attempt to rescue President Obama from what could and should be a brutal round of Sunday shows examining the cover up the White House is currently engaged in with respect to the sacking of our consulate in Libya, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released a statement revising its assessment of the attack. It is now the official position of the American intelligence community that what happened in Benghazi was a pre-planned terrorist attack. [SNIP] And this, my friends, is how a cover up works. And so, the only response to...

When a federal appeals court issued a ruling describing a prosecutor’s misconduct that forced a halt to a drug-trafficking trial in Tucson, the U.S. attorney’s response was to ask the court to erase the prosecutor’s name from the published decision. Bad move. After republishing the name of the errant prosecutor, Jerry Albert, the court pointed a finger at the U.S. attorney’s office and said it was time to start taking responsibility for the misdeeds of its employees. “When a prosecutor steps over the boundaries of proper conduct and into unethical territory, the government has a duty to own up to...

On Aug. 9, 2010, former senior U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska died when his red 1957 de Havilland float plane tore a 300 foot gash into the side of a mountain in a remote spot far from his constituents and even further from the limelight of Washington, D.C. Stevens was approaching his 87th birthday. In addition to Stevens, four others were killed in the horrific mountainside crash. Stevens' death mirrored his precipitous fall from grace in the U.S. Senate, where he had served the citizens of Alaska for 40 years, longer than any other Republican in history. He had...

Breaking on CNBC: USSC delays Chyrsler asset sale! Mourdock: USe of Tarp Funds in automotive industry was illegal Obama admin had urged USSC NOT to keep chrysler deal on hold

ETObama Abroad A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News Channel. Paul Gigot: Up next on "The Journal Editorial Report," Barack Obama abroad. The president makes his first big international trip amid rising tensions with North Korea. Plus, a Spanish court takes steps to indict Bush officials for torture. How will the current administration respond? And Obama's auto ultimatum. Is the threat of bankruptcy real? "The Journal Editorial Report" begins right now.* * *Gigot: *snip*Ambassador Bolton, good to have you here with us on the panel.Let's start with the trip--the meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. What is...

In the latest effort to deconstruct and destroy the United States, the Supreme Court has decided that a foreign terrorist captured on foreign territory trying to kill Americans has just as many constitutional rights as a Wal-Mart shoplifter. The liberals think this is a good thing. That's because they're America-hating idiots. Sorry, Obama, but if the shoe fits, cram it up your backside. In the liberal world view, where the war against terror is no larger than Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the United States military is a collection of war criminals and puppy killers. Guantanamo Bay – where jihadist murderers...

Club for Growth President Pat Toomey was recently quoted, "Earmark reform will shine a glaring light on the profligate pork barrel projects and the politicians who sponsor them," It didn't occur to him that earmark reform also exposes the recipients of multi-million dollar pork projects--including the largest contributors to The Club for Growth. Arkansas millionaire Jackson "Steve" Stephens, Jr., ... has been hounding Mike Huckabee for expanding government for the likes of providing health insurance for children of the working poor, building highways and keeping the sales tax on groceries to improved inadequate schools. Small government, that’s the mantra of...

The key to understanding Lincoln's philosophy of statesmanship is that he always sought the meeting point between what was right in theory and what could be achieved in practice. By Dinesh D'Souza Most Americans -- including most historians -- regard Abraham Lincoln as the nation's greatest president. But in recent years powerful movements have gathered, both on the political right and the left, to condemn Lincoln as a flawed and even wicked man. For both camps, the debunking of Lincoln usually begins with an exposé of the "Lincoln myth," which is well described in William Lee Miller's 2002 book Lincoln's...

After the Army, Clark signs up as businessman Doors open for retired general Retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s business resume reads as if it belongs to an upwardly mobile executive who’s had his nose to the grindstone for three decades. In the three years since he left the Army, Clark has signed on as an adviser or director with more than half a dozen companies, written two books, worked as a CNN pundit and launched a campaign to become president of the United States. The common denominator: He was working with a government he knows inside out. The information that...