Free Republic

Sunday in Garland, Texas, a police officer was wounded in a battle that is part of a longstanding war: the war against the freedom of speech. Some people are blaming me for the Garland shooting — so I want to address that here? The shooting happened at my American Freedom Defense Initiative Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, when two Islamic jihadists armed with rifles and explosives drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland and attempted to gain entry to our event, which was just ending. We were aware of the risk and spent thousands of dollars on...

In an effort to contrast her position on immigration reform with that of Jeb Bush and other Republican presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton will stress that she supports the so-called “path to citizenship” for 11 million illegal immigrants during a campaign trip to Nevada, The Wall Street Journal reports: “She will say that the standard for a true solution is nothing less than a full and equal path to citizenship,” said a Clinton aide, previewing her remarks. “She will say that we cannot settle for proposals that provide hardworking people with merely a ’second-class’ status.” By contrast, Jeb Bush, whom some...

Bill heads to House when they return from recess next Tuesday.

As part of the reforms prompted by Pope Francis, Germany's Roman Catholic Church has decided that lay Catholic employees who divorce and remarry or form gay civil unions should no longer automatically lose their jobs. According to Christian Today, Catholic Bishops have voted to adjust Church labour law "to the multiple changes in legal practice, legislation and society" so employee lifestyles should not affect their status in the country's many Catholic schools, hospitals and social services. It was gathered that the change came as the worldwide Catholic Church debates loosening its traditional rejection of remarriage after a divorce and of...

<p>For all those convinced that the serial allegations of ethical impropriety swirling around Hillary Rodham Clinton will puncture her prospects of winning the presidency next year, there's a relevant precedent to consider: on the day Bill Clinton was reelected by more than eight million votes in 1996, a solid 54 percent majority of voters said in exit polling that they did not consider him honest and trustworthy.</p>

A Russian spacecraft that broke down on its way to the International Space Station last week will burn up in a bright fireball as it falls back to Earth overnight, according to the country’s space agency. The uncrewed Progress 59P cargo vessel has been tumbling around the planet at about 17,000mph since it reached orbit last Tuesday. With the Russian Space Agency unable to regain control, the malfunctioning spacecraft began to spiral down to its inevitable destruction.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement on the ‘Jade Helm 15’ exercises scheduled to take place in Texas and various other states: “Over the past few weeks, my office has been inundated with calls referring to the Jade Helm 15 military exercise scheduled to take place between July 15 and September 15, 2015. This military practice has some concerned that the U.S. Army is preparing for modern-day martial law. Certainly, I can understand these concerns. When leaders within the current administration believe that major threats to the country include those who support the Constitution, are military veterans, or...

How would you feel if you drove into a town here in the United States and found that many of the street signs were in Arabic only with no English wording? Then you look around and discover that many of the signs on businesses were also in Arabic. Not possible you say? Think again! Welcome to Dearborn, Michigan. Steve Tarani, author and speaker recounts what he saw when he rode with a member of the Detroit Metro SWAT Police as they drove around Detroit and into Dearborn: "The street signs suddenly went from English to Arabic. There wasn't a single...

If you’ve been holding your breath, waiting to see if Governor Rick Snyder (RINO-MI) was going to enter the RINO sweepstakes for President, the suspense may be over: Gov. Rick Snyder said he would wait until after this week's special road funding election to decide whether he'll run for president. The overwhelming defeat of the measure should send a straightforward message to the governor: Don't run, Rick. – Detroit News Not only does Snyder rank dead last in name recognition among Republicans in Iowa, butt the ballot initiative he championed to raise taxes in Michigan was not just defeated in...

Mike Huckabee is the Pepperidge Farm Remembers candidate for 2016. Don't underestimate his chances for success.Nearly nine years removed from holding public office, Mike Huckabee is a different candidate now in a number of ways, operating at a much greater remove from the homegrown populism of his insurgent 2008 campaign – but he’s going to try to bottle that old magic to make his brand of social moralizing and economic moderation populist again. The problem for Huckabee is that there are better populists out there now. Both Huckabee and Chris Christie passed on running in 2012 for their various reasons,...

The wife and son of GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush will hit Chicago Thursday for a fundraising event. Columba Bush and Jeb Bush, Jr. are scheduled to make appearances at a luncheon at the Union League Club, located at 65 West Jackson Blvd., according to Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times. Seats at the luncheon cost between $2,500 and $250,000 and will fund the Bush super pac "Right to Rise," Sweet reported. Columba isn't known to be a political heavy hitter for her husband, but she has lately taken the reins on several fundraising events, particularly in Florida, to support...

More than 1.5 billion people now live in countries that allow people to identify as neither male nor female on passports, but the U.S. immigration system doesn’t have a way to process these documents.

Peter Schweizer’s “Clinton Cash” links Bill and Hillary Clinton through their work at the Clinton Foundation and State Department to all manner of unsavory characters, including authoritarian leaders, African warlords and businessmen with dubious backgrounds, in addition to more respectable Clinton political operatives and supporters who in Schweizer’s writing paid the Clintons and enriched themselves by way of projects supported by the Clintons. One Clinton-linked transaction however implicates another figure: presumed 2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush. In a chapter titled “Disaster Capitalism,” Schweizer explores the dealings of the Clinton Foundation — in league with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...

"You've said some unkind things . . ." VIDEO: Carly Fiorina doesn't back down as Katie Couric tries to shame her for criticizing Hillary I’m liking Carly Fiorina more and more. Of course, one of the quickest ways to win my respect is to stand up to dopey media presumptions and shove them back in the faces of blowhard interviewers. And that’s what Fiorina did yesterday when Katie Couric tried to shame her for having the shocking gall to say “unkind things” about the sainted Hillary Clinton.

The U.S. military has started training Syrian fighters to combat Islamic State militants, officials said on Thursday, adding the program had begun in Jordan and would soon launch in Turkey. The U.S. plan to train and arm a force that is expected to eventually total more than 15,000 troops is a major test of President Barack Obama's strategy in Syria, which critics say is too limited to influence events.

Gov. Scott Walker told a heavily — if not exclusively — Christian crowd gathered at the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee Thursday to go out and share their faith with the world, and to pray for their leaders in government and business regardless of party or position. "Always pray for our leaders so that God's will will be followed rather than their own," he said. Walker spoke at the annual Governor's Prayer Breakfast, organized by the West Allis-based Christian publishing nonprofit ProBuColls Association. An evangelical Christian, Walker has been increasingly open about his faith on the campaign trail, as he...

If these statements apply to you, please seek professional help. Or just listen to the Herman Cain Show so you can learn something. Contrary to what some of you liberals think, I don’t wish you ill. Quite the contrary, I want to help you, and the first step to getting help is recognizing you have a problem. So as a public service, I want to share nine signs that you might be a boot-lick’n liberal. If you recognize yourself in these statements, the best news is that the therapy you need is absolutely free! All you have to do is...

Write, draw, publish, or display something these people don't like, and "of course" you should be killed - just like Pamela Geller Since the Garland, Texas attack on an art exhibit featuring cartoons of “The Prophet Muhammad,” progressives have been falling all over each other to demand sensitivity based “limits” on the First Amendment. The argument goes that, since Islamists just can’t control themselves, we should be forced to watch what we say lest we offend them and wind up victims of Jihad. In other words, liberals - joined by the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Greta Van Susteren -...

The women credited – or blamed – by many in America for halting the Equal Rights Amendment in its tracks is now warning that this is another “do-or-die” moment for the nation, and the fact that two top 2016 presidential candidates appear to be in virtual lockstep doesn’t make it look good. Commentator and author Phyllis Schlafly is described by US History as a “career woman” who came out of nowhere to organize – and finally defeat – the ERA proposed during the 1970s and 1980s. “She heckled feminists by opening her speaking engagements with quips like, ‘I’d like to...

A black sociology professor at Vanderbilt University is arguing that “white privilege” is to blame for last week’s riots and looting in Baltimore, Md. The professor, Tony N. Brown, took to the op-ed pages of The Tennessean late last week to make the claim. White people act “routinely to harm, demean, and damage black and brown people,” Brown wrote in Nashville’s main newspaper. These actions “explain the lofty levels of frustration and despair among black and brown youth.” The professor, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, cites other unrelated incidents as evidence of the riots after the...