Free Republic

<p>Some 50 years ago, in 1964, 42 percent of Americans smoked cigarettes. Smoking in bars and offices was normal and cigarettes were given to soldiers as part of military rations. Half of American physicians smoked. Ads for cigarettes bombarded the American public. That year, the surgeon general released a report outlining the health risks of smoking. Two years later, only 40 percent of Americans said that they believed smoking was a major cause of cancer.</p>

In the feverish heyday of the “birther movement,” conspiracy-hungry readers swarmed to a website called WorldNetDaily for the latest on the specious yet viral theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. The site’s founder, Joseph Farah — a former newspaperman with a dense, jet-black mustache and a cloak-and-dagger mystique — boasted in 2010 that he was well on the way to generating $10 million a year in revenue. His Northern Virginia-headquartered news site, known by the acronym WND, was having its moment by stoking rumors about Obama. But Farah — a conservative Internet pioneer who’d...

Are the wheels finally coming off the Spygate scandal? Are the co-conspirators getting nervous not just about being found out but about suffering legal consequences? Could be. And frankly, it’s about time. Within days after special counsel Robert Mueller filed his report with the Justice Department noting that he’d found no “collusion” between the 2016 Trump campaign and Mother Russia, the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking member, Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) indicated he and others were preparing to file criminal referrals to DoJ regarding individuals Mueller “skipped over” during his 18-month probe. “We’re still continuing to get to the bottom of what...

From the “life imitates art imitates life imitates art” ad nauseam file, I thought this headline was satire, but noooo: “Jussie Smollett is nominated for an NAACP Award.” Of course, Smollett just walked free on 16 felony counts after his hoax hate crime in January. If you ever needed evidence that the NAACP is a race-bait organization run by hoax and scam hustlers, this would be it. Six-time host of Saturday’s festivities, “Black-ish” star Anthony Anderson, said, “I hope he wins. I’m happy for him that the system worked in his favor because the system isn’t always fair, especially for...

LINCOLN, Neb. — Former Colorado senator and two-time presidential candidate Gary Hart told Nebraska Democrats that Barack Obama will heal the national party, while John McCain's nomination may cause a rift among Republicans. "There's a real struggle for the soul of the Republican Party under way," Hart said Saturday before the state Democratic Party's annual Morrison-Exon Day Dinner. About 450 people attended the party's largest fundraising event. Hart, 71, sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, and was a U.S. senator from 1975 to 1987. Hart said the Republican Party is going to find its ties to religious...

Full Title: Sen. John McCain's pallbearers to include Warren Beatty, Joe Biden, Gary Hart, plus billionaire Michael Bloomberg and FedEx CEO while his ushers include health and telecom execs McCain's office announced his pallbearers and other aspects of three days of services for hero Actor Warren Beatty will be among those serving as pall bearers Vice President Joe Biden, a friend from the Senate, also will be there Former Sens. Gary Hart, Phil Gramm, and Russ Feingold will join, as well Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Among those paying tribute to McCain at his memorial services will be Jeff Flake, Joe...

A decision about whether to prosecute Mr. Craig, who was White House counsel for President Barack Obama during his first year in office, is expected in the coming weeks, people familiar with the case said. The investigation centers on whether Mr. Craig should have disclosed work he did in 2012 — while he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom — on behalf of the Russia-aligned government of Viktor F. Yanukovych, then the president of Ukraine. The work was steered to Mr. Craig by Paul Manafort, who was then a political consultant collecting millions of dollars from...

AND WHERE ARE YOU NOW? by Sharon Rondeau (Feb. 24, 2019) — Directly after Democrats won the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in November, then-minority leader and Speaker-“Designate” Nancy Pelosi began invoking the U.S. Constitution and her pledge that she would promote a vision of “E Pluribus Unum,” “checks and balances” and “accountability,” among other attributes, in the 116th Congress. She praised America’s Founding Fathers for their “vision” and quest for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Further, she maintained that “We as Democrats are here to strengthen the institution in which we serve and not to...

I’ll take the Green New Deal seriously as soon as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes a tweet in favor of prosecuting Barack Obama for his illegal actions in the Solyndra scandal I’ll take the Green New Deal seriously as soon as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes a tweet in favor of prosecuting Barack Obama for his illegal actions in the Solyndra scandal.First, here’s some background information.In 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives...

Election 2020: When Bernie Sanders announced on Tuesday that he was running for president, the only surprising thing was how much competition he'll have on the far left. The current crop of 2020 candidates is so liberal, in fact, that it makes the Barack Obama of 2008 look positively right wing. When Obama first ran, he tried to position himself as something of a fiscal moderate. Obama complained about "the orgy of spending" under President George W. Bush. He pledged that all his spending plans were more than offset with spending cuts. "What I've done throughout this campaign is to...

At 18 years old, Zion Williamson is already getting used to being the biggest name in the building. That was not the case for Wednesday’s Duke-North Carolina showdown at Cameron Indoor Stadium. A number of big names showed up for game, none bigger than noted basketball fan and former President Barack Obama, who was met by a shrieking swath of Cameron Crazies who greeted him with high fives before the game.

OAKLAND, Calif. ― Former President Barack Obama spoke Tuesday about how to “be a man” and the need to combat stereotypes of masculinity that “trap” young men, specifically young men of color. “All of us have to recognize that being a man is first and foremost being a good human. That means being responsible, working hard, being kind, respectful, compassionate,” Obama said at aconference for hisMy Brother’s Keeper initiative in Oakland.

Full headline: In probing the McCabe-Rosenstein coup against Trump, AG Barr MUST question the ringleader: Barack ObamaLast week a series of bombshell reports claimed that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired last year on the recommendation of the Justice Department inspector general’s office for lying to officials, revealed in interviews that he was heavily involved in what amounts to an attempted coup against POTUS Donald Trump. McCabe didn’t come right out and say, “Hey, we tried to oust a duly elected president and have our ‘preferred’ candidate installed.” But given what we know now about actions he...

(Feb. 13, 2019) — Last week, while referencing the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, formerly the Oversight & Government Reform Committee, The Post & Email noted that Chairman Elijah Cummings has invited the public to submit tips on “waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.” On Wednesday, we sent the following regarding the reported “computer-generated forgery” evidenced by a “long-form” birth certificate image posted on the White House website on April 27, 2011 after much public pressure from then-businessman and real estate mogul Donald Trump. To the public’s knowledge, neither the FBI nor Congress has launched an investigation into...

“In one of contemporary history’s intriguing caroms, European politics just now is a story of how one decision by a pastor’s dutiful daughter has made life miserable for a vicar’s dutiful daughter. Two of the world’s most important conservative parties are involved in an unintended tutorial on a cardinal tenet of conservatism, the law of unintended consequences, which is that the unintended consequences of decisions in complex social situations are often larger than, and contrary to, those intended.” That’s the elephantine lead of George Will’s recent column, headlined “Today’s Germany is the best Germany the world has seen.” The real...

Its all played out like a WWE wrestling show produced by President Trump's close friend Vince McMahon, but the drama over border wall funding is moving towards its climax as we approach Christmas.... General Jim Mattis is leaving as Secretary of Defense.... On to Afghanistan where President Trump has decided to pull out half of the US troops in that country.... This week US Afghanistan representative Zalmay Khalilzad met with the Taliban for two days of talks.... The Justice Department is charging two Chinese men with hacking into computer networks of private companies and government agencies..... Israel's "Haaretz" newspaper reported...

It's one thing for Joe Scarborough to criticize President Trump regarding various controversies. But when Scarborough brazenly boasts about the "Obama recovery," and thanks President Obama for it, you know that the former Republican has gone all-in with the Democrats. Playing off the recent drop on Wall Street, Morning Joe opened today by mocking Trump for his positive comments on the market back in August. Fine. But Scarborough then took things a servile step further, declaring: "This tax cut that was passed, was promised, actually, pump the prime [sic] and, you know, we're going to put another $1 trillion or...

I give a brief, partial review of David Garrow's amazing biography of Barack Hussein Obama, up to and including his arrival at Occidental.

Conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi is in plea negotiations with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to Corsi and another person with knowledge of the talks. The talks with Corsi — an associate of both President Trump and GOP operative Roger Stone — could bring Mueller’s team closer to determining whether Trump or his advisers were linked to WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails in 2016, a key part of his long-running inquiry. Corsi provided research on Democratic figures during the campaign to Stone, a longtime Trump adviser. For months, the special counsel has been scrutinizing Stone’s...

The former president told David Axelrod that America is more divided than ever, but that it doesn’t have to be that way. CHICAGO—Barack Obama refused to answer directly when asked whether he could beat Donald Trump in a head-to-head race, but he said on Tuesday that he believes his vision of America is already more in touch with most Americans, and will win out in the end. However, the man who burst onto the national political scene with his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech declaring that there’s no red or blue America agreed with his old political consultant David Axelrod...