Free Republic

In December of last year, the Supreme Court continued a decades-long tradition of chipping away at 4th Amendment rights by ruling that police may violate those rights “…if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law…” In the case of Heien v The State of North Carolina, police sergeant Matt Darisse stopped a vehicle he considered “suspicious” because one of three tail lights was faulty. While writing a warning ticket, he then “became suspicious” of vehicle occupants and “their answers to his questions.” When vehicle owner Nick Heien gave Sergeant Darisse permission to search the car, the officer...

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute. Once again, the month of Christmas witnessed some of the most barbaric attacks on Christians throughout the Islamic world. After Andrew White, an Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad,” told of how the Islamic State (IS) “chopped [Christian] children in half; they chopped their heads off,” he offered the following anecdote: IS turned up and they said to the [Christian] children, “You say the words [shehada, convert to Islam], that you will follow Muhammad.” And the children, all under 15, four of them, they said, “No, we love Jesus [Yesua]. We have...

Anemic, confused, totally inept responses by her administration to today's human rights tragedies across the globe. A sad commentary, is it not? Samantha Power made her name on both her hard-hitting, Pulitzer-prize winning book, “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” and her no holds-barred lectures and articles decrying the U.S. Government’s lax responses to crimes against humanity and genocide. In the aforementioned book, Power excoriated a host of presidential administrations for what she deemed to be their “toleration of unspeakable atrocities, often committed in clear view.” Proudly, she welcomed the sobriquet—and took on the mantle of—“the...

Will Congress rein in the president’s immigration lawlessness? President Obama is running a massive illegal operation that has issued 5.5 million work permits never authorized by Congress, according to a disturbing new report from the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies. The report comes as Congress prepares to vote today on legislation that would reverse some of Obama’s executive overreaches that reward illegal aliens with lawful status for breaking the nation’s immigration laws. The report also comes as Republicans grapple with profoundly disturbing comments made by the president’s nominee to replace Attorney General Eric Holder. Loretta Lynch, currently U.S. attorney for...

The targeting of Scott Walker by the progressive left revealed how despicable the leftists truly are, because As the 2016 GOP field for President of the United States takes shape, we have seen a clear division between the progressive establishment, and the conservatives. Mitt Romney has bowed out of the race early, but according to the media, his establishment colleague, Jeb Bush, is the front-runner of the massive field of republican candidates DRUDGE REPORT, especially after the Iowa Freedom Summit, says that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has catapulted to the lead, with a massive gap behind him, between him and...

There can be little doubt that Obama, who was instrumental in the Arab Spring, will be instrumental in the Western fall Barack Obama was meddling in the democratic elections of other countries long before his participation by proxy involvement in Israel and Canada elections through his 2012 campaign national field director Jeremy Bird. Senator Barack Obama campaigned with ruthless Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga back in 2006. It seems to make no difference to Obama that Odinga had ties to Islamic terrorism. “In August and September 2006, Senator Barack Obama traveled to South Africa, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya as...

Recent research into the archives of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm uncovered one of her speeches on the “Cool Cities” concept. The document, housed at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library, raises several questions that are worth asking, given that the former governor is in Detroit for a speaking engagement. The Granholm Administration launched the Cool Cities program in 2003. It encouraged local governments to try making certain neighborhoods or parts of town seem “cool," with an eye toward attracting both investment dollars and hip, young "knowledge workers." In some ways this was Granholm's first foray into the theme of...

“It might be tough, but my dad used to say, tough times don't last — tough people do." – James RobertsonJames, on his 21 mile daily commute on footI know we could all use a feel-good story, and I have a doozy for you today. It comes to us from - of all places – Detroit. As you read James’ story you may begin to understand what once made Detroit a great city; a monument to American enterprise and the “Arsenal of Democracy” before the liberals took it over and tried to “fix” it with government dollars. It’s because people...

I have brought my previous study (see here and here) up-to-date by reviewing peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals over the period from Nov. 12, 2012 through December 31, 2013. I found 2,258 articles, written by a total of 9,136 authors. (Download the chart above here.) Only one article, by a single author in the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, rejected man-made global warming. I discuss that article here. My previous study, of the peer-reviewed literature from 1991 through Nov. 12, 2012, found 13,950 articles on “global warming” or “global climate change.” Of those, I judged that only 24...

The NRA has filed suit against three Pennsylvania cities claiming their gun laws are illegal. In brief, the NRA states that only state legislation has the authority to regulate firearms and that municipalities are exceeding that line in the sand by openly breaking the law. Here have a look at the article.

The Washington Post published a piece by a teacher which originally appeared in the Daily Kos. We have another issue to add to the never ending list of “privilege” that the left loves to whine about. Educational privilege is apparently a tragedy that has to be dealt with. The teacher complains about a couple of gifted kids, one who appears to take one government school science class and another who attends a private school on scholarship. These confident gifted kids are compared to the sad storied poor kids the teacher has to deal with every day. She complains about hunger,...

LANSING — One out of five students in Michigan takes advantage of school choice – mostly in the form of charter schools, public school district choice, homeschooling, or private schools. In 2015, school choice is part of this state's educational mainstream. This week is National School Choice Week. Across America diverse groups are celebrating the freedom of parents and guardians to choose where and how their children will acquire an education. In Michigan, the main event took place in Lansing. Students signing the school choice banner. Here is a photo slideshow of the activities. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy,...

Borderlands Books, based in San Francisco, put a notice up on its website the other day that caught the attention of economist and IBD Brain Trust member Mark Perry. "Borderlands is Closing," the notice said.[snip] But as Perry points out, the reason Borderlands is closing isn't just because of Amazon.

At about 5:40 a.m. on Tuesday, the 27th of January, a vacationing police officer from Limerick, Ireland, was shot during an armed robbery in New Orleans.  Ireland has a low crime rate, much like most areas in the United States outside of the urban cores.   New Orleans' crime rate is much higher than most of the rest of the United States, so Hanrahan may be forgiven his apparent naiveté in the situation.   Hanrahan met a man who said he knew where they could get a drink at that time of the morning.  He went with a man he...

mm“It has been said truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press,” Senator Zell Miller said at the Republican National Convention in 2004. “It is the soldier, not the poet who has given us the freedom of speech.” “But don’t waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today,” the Democrat added. Miller, a former Marine, was reviled by the same media trolls who had called Michael Moore’s Oscar rant a year earlier “courageous”. But there was nothing courageous in a lefty activist bashing Bush to an...

'a gloomy view of an economy... growing slower...  creating fewer rewards for its workers  than it did in much of the last century' (Reuters) - Beneath President Barack Obama's plan to fight income inequality lies a gloomy view of an economy that is growing slower and creating fewer rewards for its workers than it did in much of the last century. In a budget proposal unveiled on Monday, the White House cut forecasts for an array of economic variables, depicting less growth, weaker inflation and lower interest rates than officials expected only a year ago. This comes despite an unemployment rate...

Employing a time-tested Cloward-Piven tactic, President Obama has created another crisis and right on schedule, has also come up with a brilliant solution. In an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie where the president bragged about turning the White House into a distillery, shared his opinion on deflated balls, and advised against cheating 'If you break the rules, then you break the rules' (like he should talk), Dr. Obama advised parents to “get your kids vaccinated.” This is a man who, expressly for the purpose of philosophical and political expediency, has deliberately placed the children of America in danger by exposing...

U.S.-Cuba talks are getting more and more interesting. The Castro regime wants Guantanamo back, essentially the naval base, since the city of Guantanamo has always been part of Cuba, compensation for the U.S. embargo, and the cancellation of Radio & TV Marti. It won't happen. Another unresolved issue is the status of U.S. nationals living in Cuba, i.e. fugitives of U.S. law. We've all heard about Joanne Chesimard, who killed a police officer in New Jersey and was granted asylum in the island. However, there are others, and apparently we don't have a clue or didn't bother to ask the...

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) unequivocally declared Monday that Texas is a "crazy state" he never wants to live in, infuriating a Texas lawmaker. Tensions flared between Hastings and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) during a House Rules Committee meeting to prepare a bill slated for a floor vote Tuesday to repeal ObamaCare. Hastings showed disdain for Texas during a discussion about states' implementation of the 2010 healthcare overhaul and decisions over whether or not to participate in the exchanges. "I don't know about in your state, which I think is a crazy state to begin with," Hastings told Burgess. Burgess immediately...