Free Republic

If you’re not part of Twitter, and media Twitter at that, you will be blessedly ignorant of a HUGE controversy today. The political news and commentary website Politico asked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to guest-edit today’s edition of its morning Playbook feature. Shapiro is completely within the conservative mainstream, but that did not stop the Politico staff from freaking out. Erik Wemple is the Washington Post media columnist:

I find it amazing, but not surprising, that so soon after winning the White House and a majority of the legislative seats, the Democrats cannot be satisfied with their victory, however tainted. Rather, they are after blood, and they want it now. I am one of the few guys over 70 in the U.S. who actually played soccer when he was a kid; part of my junior high and all of my high school years, I lived in the Yakima Valley, where my Hispanic friends all played soccer and where an eclectic, for the time, physical education teacher let us...

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden must place environmental justice at the heart of his plans to tackle climate change by tailoring policies to address the global inequalities at the root of the crisis, guests in a Reuters Next panel said on Thursday. The United States now had an opportunity to heed calls from climate justice movements around the world to push for a fundamental transformation of the global economy, said Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and executive director of the California-based Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network International. “The climate crisis really emerged from interlocking systems of capitalism, resource extraction, racism, patriarchy...

Imagine the uproar had the Republicans given a platform to a violence-inciting, terror-endorsing, right-wing bigot at their 2020 convention. Joe Biden never stops casting President Trump and his supporters as Nazi sympathizers. After years of falsely accusing Trump of praising Nazis who showed up in Charlottesville, he re-emphasized the point by running a campaign ad featuring Nazi imagery. Now he's at it again, falsely blaming Trump for inciting extremist violence, and accusing Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley of behaving like Nazis. Biden condemned the Capitol invaders as “a bunch of thugs, insurrectionists, antisemites” (plenty of evidence supports this claim),...

If I recall correctly, we should be getting reports of the incumbent President moving out by this time

So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

Yesterday, we announced that we are closing comments at American Thinker. We immediately received a couple of hundred very unhappy, angry, and sometimes insulting emails about that decision. Without divulging why we made that decision, here are a few points to ponder.

TEGUCIGALPA - Hundreds of Central Americans camped overnight outside the bus terminal in the city of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, anxiously awaiting the departure early Friday morning of a migrant caravan hoping to reach the United States. Local television footage showed an increasing number of families, many carrying young children, gathering throughout the evening on Thursday, despite Central American authorities deploying soldiers to regional borders to deter migrants from crossing. This week’s caravan will be the first of the year and comes less than a week before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Biden has promised a more humane approach...

"The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled this mob and lit the flame of this attack." So alleged Liz Cheney, third-ranking Republican in the House, as she led nine GOP colleagues to vote for a second impeachment of Donald Trump. The House Republican caucus voted 19-1 against impeachment. House Democrats voted lockstep, 222-0, to impeach in an exercise the solidarity of which calls to mind the Supreme Soviet of Stalin's time. But is what Cheney said true? Undeniably, the huge crowd that assembled on the mall Wednesday did so at Trump's behest. But that peaceful crowd was...

Ayear after a U.S. military operation rid this world of the Iranian terrorist-general Qasem Soleimani, the same tired voices are repeating the same tired message, even on the eve of their return to power: “The Trump administration is on the brink of war with Iran!” “Trump is a very wounded and very cornered animal in an end-game scenario. He’s got a few weeks left, and we know that he is capable of extremely erratic behavior,” says Professor Danny Postel of Northwestern University. After the events of last Wednesday, it’s hard to argue with Postel’s assessment of the president’s psyche. But...

It’s just the flu, bro. https://www.the-sun.com/news/2133933/brits-covid-mask-jonathan-van-tam/ British expert says we will be wearing masks forever since Coronavirus will be endemic. - https://www.the-sun.com/news/2141132/brazilian-nurse-covid/ There is a new highly infectious Brazilian strain now that reinfected people who have already been infected. - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/lebanon-enacts-all-day-curfew-after-new-surge-in-coronavirus-cases/ar-BB1cL2b8 Lebanon to enact 24 hour per day curfew for 10 days. No exceptions for groceries. - The three trash articles above are examples of fear-driven tyranny. This is what we must fight. Live free or die.

Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and Foo Fighters will perform during the prime-time special that will cap the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., and the actors Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington will also have roles to play in the program, the Presidential Inaugural Committee said on Friday. The announcement added yet more stars to “Celebrating America,” an event scheduled for the evening of Jan. 20. This week, Mr. Biden’s inaugural committee unveiled plans for the program, saying the actor Tom Hanks would host while artists like Justin Timberlake, Jon Bon Jovi and Demi Lovato would perform. Officials have said...

When O'Brien, the interrogator from the Thought Police in Orwell's 1984, holds up four fingers and asks Winston Smith, an imprisoned member of the underground opposition, how many he sees, poor Winston persists in saying he sees four. But that is not what O'Brien wants to hear. "No, Winston, you are insane. There are five fingers." The interrogations continue until Winston, wracked with pain and exhaustion and persuaded of his insanity, agrees finally through his tears that he was lying to himself, that he had always been lying to himself, and admitted that he saw five fingers. He understood that...

Vogue stands by the polarizing cover shot of Kamala Harris, 56, for the fashion bible’s Feb issue....of Harris in her own blazer, jeans and black Converse sneakers; the shot was roundly criticized as “insulting” and “a poor representation of [a] woman of color in power.” Anna Wintour, 71, said “it was absolutely not our intention to, in any way, diminish the importance of Harris’ incredible victory.” A different image featuring Harris in a pale blue Michael Kors Collection pantsuit was used for Vogue’s digital cover..... Wintour stated that there was “no formal agreement” about use of the two shots. “We...

It was a classic false flag operation. – In case you still labor under the illusion that BLM/Antifa agitators did not help cause the Capitol riot on January 6, the federal government disagrees. Radical BLM/Antifa professional agitator John E. Sullivan was arrested yesterday for his role in the rioting: From the story at Fox 13 in Salt Lake City: OOELE COUNTY, Utah — Utah activist John Sullivan was taken into custody in Provo Thursday, over a week after he shared video of himself inside the U.S. Capitol as protesters breached security. Sullivan, 26, was charged in federal court with: One...

President Donald Trump's two greatest foreign policy accomplishments both involve departures from outmoded paradigms that had, for decades, enraptured bipartisan neoliberal elites: unprecedented Arab-Israeli rapprochement in the Middle East and an assertive China containment strategy in the Asia-Pacific. On the former front, Trump boldly departed from the misbegotten "inside-out" conflict resolution approach, which elevated to the forefront the need for Israeli capitulation to Palestinian-Arab intransigence; on the latter front, Trump became the first president since Richard Nixon's famous 1972 trip to China to openly call into question our relationship with that ascendant, hegemonic Communist regime. The key difference is that,...

On this date in 1811, Louisiana planters commenced their executions of rebel slaves involved in the German Coast Uprising. Also known as the Deslondes rebellion after the surname of its mulatto commander, this was a larger insurrection than the better-known Nat Turner rebellion: in fact, it was the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Louisiana at this point was still new to the Union courtesy of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase; Congress in 1811 would take up the question of statehood for the former French colony and its liability to slave rebellions stoked by Gallic sugar magnates offered no small store...

The left has redefined language, what is said and what it means -- words now mean what they say they mean, “nothing more and nothing less.” Silence can become “violence.” Actual violence and destruction can sometimes be “mostly peaceful” at other times, “insurrection” or “sedition.” Control the meaning of things and you control the narrative -- control the narrative and you control communication. Through the control of communication, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, they hope to control America and Americans. That is why Democrats perceive Trump as dangerous; he has used Twitter brilliantly, negating their narrative control. They spent...

It’s interesting to watch the Democrats constantly making historical analogies to Naziism because, at every attempt, they display their astounding ignorance of history. At his press conference on July 8, Joe Biden offered a rather bizarre interpretation of history, in which he likened Ted Cruz and his challenge to some electoral votes to Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and the “Big Lie.” Biden illustrated his point by referring to the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 in which, he said, “250 or 2,500 people” were killed. And yet Joseph Goebbels inflated the number to 25,000, even 250,000, thus perpetrating...

Pardon me if I laugh when reporters tout that some politician they like is posing as being "above the fray." This fray is something reporters usually force politicians to confront. If politicians are effortlessly floating above it, reporters are allowing it. The day House Democrats forced through a very rushed second impeachment of President Donald Trump, a New York Times front-page headline below the fold read, "Biden Stays Above the Fray To Focus on Mounting Crises." Translation: "Biden Allowed to Pose as Bravely Focusing on the People's Business, With Our Help." Reporters Michael Shear and Michael Crowley were mere Mike-rophones...