Free Republic

"As a society," he said, "we have to soon decide between the rule of law and due process or a group of inspired lynch mobs." Though not by name, he defended the two patrol officers who shot and killed Brandon Tate-Brown, a 26-year-old African American parolee who police say struggled with the officers and reached for a gun during a Mayfair traffic stop early Monday. "When our officers are confronted by a convicted, violent felon who should not be out of prison - who is in possession of a stolen, loaded firearm - what else do you want us to...

A favorite argument of the anti-marijuana crowd is that legalization would send the wrong signal to the youth and make them think drugs are good for them. Except that, with increasing legalization across the country, that hasn’t happened yet. In fact, teen drug use decreased in 2014, according to a study by the University of Michigan and the National Institutes on Drug Abuse. The same year Colorado and Washington’s legalization was in full swing, while two states and the District of Columbia all passed some form of legalization. -snip- Also notable: according to the study, marijuana has gotten slightly more...

Former President Kennedy would approve of President Obama's decision to roll back trade and travel restrictions on Cuba, the White House argued Wednesday. "I do think that even President Kennedy would acknowledge that after more than 50 years of a policy of isolation [which] didn't bring about the desired result … change was needed," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. President Obama announced earlier in the day that the administration would ease travel restrictions to the country, as well as restrictions on exports to Cuba. The government is also allowing U.S. financial and telecommunications firms to establish more of...

On Monday, Australian police stormed the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Sydney, where an Islamist terrorist named Man Haron Monis had taken dozens of hostages and held them for 17 hours. Three people were killed, including Monis, and several others were wounded. Monis, an Iranian immigrant, had a long criminal record, including 40 charges for indecent and sexual assault, as well as an outstanding charge for accessory to murder in the killing of his ex-wife. Before his death, Monis requested an ISIS flag, and forced hostages to hold up the so-called Shahada flag, which proclaims in Arabic, "There Is No God...

A group of male fourth-year Dalhousie University dentistry students who posted misogynistic comments about their female colleagues on a Facebook page, including crude jokes about sedating them for rough sex, are at risk of expulsion. University president Richard Florizone has launched an investigation into the incident, and immediately postponed exams for the 47 fourth-year students – 26 men and 21 women – until January, not wanting any targets of the offensive posts to be sitting next to a perpetrator until he knows more. .... The social media group was called the Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen. According to the CBC,...

The pro-amnesty and open borders Wall Street Journal wants former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to not back down on Common Core and amnesty, the two issues that may represent the greatest divide between the bipartisan political class and Main Street. The Journal, which Bush has hailed as his "paper of record," argued that Bush was right when he recently said during a Journal event that a Republican must be willing to "lose the primary to win the general" election."Mr. Bush’s two main political liabilities in the primaries are said to be his support for immigration and for Common Core education standards," the Journal opined. "Neither is...

Sony has pulled the plug on the XMAS release of "The Interview," after a number of theater chains bailed. Sony execs felt their out was if distributors yanked the film because of safety concerns. That would give Sony an out without directly bending to the hackers. Sony just released a statement, saying, "In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release." The statement goes on, saying, "We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the...

She’s a mom on a mission. A single mother-of-two from the Los Angeles neighborhood of South Central recently went on strike against her employer McDonald’s. Maribel makes $9.35 per hour working as a server but that’s not enough to support her family (she shares a home with 10 other people including her children, grandmother, and niece). “I need fifteen to buy my babies diapers, their wipies, their clothes,” she explains. “Its hard with nine dollars per hour — you can’t do that. It’s really hard to pay rent.” On December 4, Maribel, along with a large group seeking $15 per...

Australia is a "nation of victims" with citizens unable to properly protect themselves with weapons, pro-gun crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm has said. The Liberal Democrat said he wanted a calm, measured discussion about the right to "practical self-defence" in the wake of the deadly Sydney siege. "What happened in that cafe would have been most unlikely to have occurred in Florida, Texas, or Vermont, or Alaska in America, or perhaps even Switzerland as well," Senator Leyonhjelm told the ABC's AM program. "Statistically speaking" in those jurisdictions, "one or two of the victims" would have had a concealed gun, he said....

There are lots of hypocrisies surrounding the recently released executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. But they pale in comparison to the current Democratic silence about President Barack Obama's policy of targeted drone assassinations. Since 2004, drones have killed an estimated 2,400 to 3,888 individuals in Pakistan alone, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. An estimated 345 to 553 individuals in Yemen have been killed in drone strikes over the same period. The BIJ reports that the Obama administration has "markedly stepped up the use of drones. Since...

California's health insurance exchange said 144,178 people have newly enrolled in Obamacare coverage during the first month of sign ups. Officials also reported that 216,423 people have joined Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for low-income people, since Nov. 15. That's in addition to the 2.2 million who had already enrolled in 2014 as part of the health-law expansion.

"On Wednesday, Obama administration officials confirmed to The Post that Cuba has freed American citizen Alan Gross. Gross, who was detained in December 2009 while working as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, had been accused of espionage and sentenced to 15 years in prison by Cuba. His imprisonment was a major problem in relations between Washington and Havana. Gross was not freed by accident. According to ABC News, his release is the culmination of more than a year of "secret back-channel talks at the highest levels of both governments." And, importantly, his release comes at the...

After days of brow-furrowed, self-righteousness analysis from much of the national media over Senate Democrats' tendentious and dishonest "torture report," poll after poll has shown that the American people aren't eager to join the anti-CIA mob. The latest, from NBC/WSJ: Fewer than three in ten Americans are willing to second-guess the intelligence community's use of harsh techniques in questioning captured terrorists in the wake of 9/11's deadly attacks.  Most people's memories of the fear and chaos of that time are fresh enough to give the CIA the benefit of the doubt.  Plus, Dianne Feinstein's squad did themselves no favors by refusing to interview a single person...

The New York Times ran an interesting article a few days ago discussing the skyrocketing electricity prices residents of New England are being forced to pay even before the winter season begins. The article identifies a resident of New Hampshire named John York who paid $376 to power his small printing business this past October. With no change in the amount of his work or his thermostat, his electricity bill climbed to $788 in November – an increase of 110 percent in just one month. What the article reveals (perhaps unintentionally) are the likely consequences of heavy handed government policies...

Just hours after he announced his plan "actively explore" a 2016 presidential run on Monday, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said he would have "no problems" pushing for comprehensive immigration reform in a GOP primary.

Liberals continuously need another crisis to fundamentally transform a country into a socialist “Brave New World.” And the more shocking and/or disturbing the better. People will not abandon their way of life unless convinced that the status quo is unacceptable. Lately, the left wing is frothing about a new crisis – a “rape culture.” There are many TV series showing how police will stop at nothing to put sex offenders behind bars. Mega-hit Law and Order created a spin-off television series S.V.U. devoted exclusively to prosecution of sex crimes. Yet activists insist that society is encouraging rape. Yet the Rolling...

The White House on Wednesday said President Obama would have no reservations about visiting Cuba following the resumption of diplomatic talks between his administration and the Castro regime. “It is not unprecedented for us to go places and interact with countries with whom we have a very fundamental difference of opinion about that country’s treatment of their citizens,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, highlighting Obama’s recent trip to the communist nation of China. “We engage those countries and we engage the leadership of those countries and we do so for a variety of reasons, and often it serves...

Black Crime: If President Obama had a son, he might look like 15-year-old Demario Bailey, one of three killed and 30 wounded in a typical Chicago weekend by thugs who wanted his Bulls jacket. As Bailey was being murdered while walking with his twin brother to a school basketball game, protestors of police brutality marched down Chicago's ritzy Michigan Avenue. They told high-end shoppers there that "black lives matter," held up their hands and said "don't shoot," and wore shirts that proclaimed "I can't breathe." The protest was part of a series of demonstrations also being held in Washington, New...

The National Children’s Study has been cancelled despite almost 10 years of work and $1.3 billion of funding after a National Institutes of Health working group concluded that the project was flawed and too expensive to continue. The ambitious study, commissioned through the passage of the Children’s Health Act in 2000, set out to follow 100,000 children from birth to age 21 and track the effects of a broad range of environmental and biological factors on their health. However, concerns about the study’s design, research methodology and management that led to increased cost projections and triggered questions about whether the...