Free Republic

The American People are angry. And it is not cyclical anger – after all, we are sitting at the top of the current business cycle. This anger is a secular trend. There is anger at the lack of jobs, there is anger over class warfare , there is anger at police profiling of young black men, anger at conservatives, anger at political correctness, anger at Liberals, anger at the break down of our inner city infrastructures and the poisoning of water in Flint, Michigan and elsewhere, anger at Hillary Rodham Clinton, anger at Donald Trump, anger at the main...

Donald Trump was the clear favorite in today’s winner-take-all Arizona primary, even before the Brussels terrorist attacks. The immigration issue and the flood of early voters favors him, as does the fact that some of those early voters will have cast ballots for Marco Rubio before he dropped out last Tuesday night. If they had known Rubio would no longer be a candidate, many of those voters might have gone with Cruz. But polls have been tricky and often erratic this year (think Michigan and the surprise win of Bernie Sanders). For example, the latest poll showing a 14 point...

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Tuesday that Donald Trump was engaging in a "pre-emptive surrender" to Islamic terror by calling for a "withdrawal" from NATO on the eve of the Brussels terror attacks. On Monday, Trump told CNN that the U.S. should greatly reduce its support of NATO. "It's too much and frankly it's a different world than it was when we originally conceived of the idea," Trump said of the US-European security alliance. Cruz said he found it "striking" that the terror attacks occurred on the day after his rival candidate Donald Trump called for reducing the U.S....

Faced with a cash shortage in its self-declared caliphate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has slashed salaries, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person. The extremists who once bragged about minting their own currency are having a hard time meeting expenses, thanks to coalition airstrikes and other measures that have eroded millions from their finances since last fall. Having built up loyalty among militants with good salaries and honeymoon and baby bonuses, the group has stopped providing even the smaller...

Few professional analysts seriously expected six months ago that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination. But after Tuesday night, it is a clear possibility. How much of a possibility? To get that answer right, it is important to understand some things about the Trump phenomenon. Perhaps most important, Trump's campaign is not a Tea Party phenomenon. While there's been a tendency to try to lump Trump in with various G.O.P. insurgencies of the last few years, that role is best filled by Sen. Ted Cruz, who really occupies the "Tea Party lane" of the G.O.P. primary more cleanly. Instead,...

What started as a seemingly mild admiration between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin took an uncomfortable turn Friday when the GOP White House hopeful seemed to defend the Russian president’s strong-arm tactics – and dismiss his alleged killing of journalists and others who cross him.

The Unholy Alliance between ISIS and Donald Trump (translated from an Arabic editorial) There is an unholy alliance between Donald Trump and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; its victims are normal Muslims. This alliance might seem strange because it is between two opposites. The American billionaire turns to western American values and the other fancies himself a caliph of the second century of the Muslim calendar. In reality, each one seems the echo of the other more than being opposites of each other. Donald Trump represents a significant portion of Republican voters and other partisans, as the trustworthy candidate, who expresses himself...

2:11pm December 16, 2015 Russia bombs ISIL oil market in Syria as mourners watch from nearby funeral By ninemsn New video appears to show a Syrian funeral interrupted by a Russian bombing raid on a nearby fuel market used by ISIL. The footage shows dark black plumes of smoke rise into the skyline as a group of about 20 men gather beside tombs in a small desert graveyard. The video, posted to YouTube by Kaes Idlby, appears genuine and corresponds with a confirmed attack on a fuel market in the village of Maaret al-Naasan on Tuesday. The town in the...

Back on September 20 (so, a full ten days before a three star Russian general strolled into the US Embassy in Baghdad to let the US know that airstrikes in Syria “start in 1 hour”), we said that the US strategy in Syria had officially unraveled. At the time, John Kerry had just concluded a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in London. "For the last year and a half we have said Assad has to go, but how long and what the modality is, that's a decision that has to be made in the context of the Geneva...

According to a recent CNN/ORC poll, Americans have once again contracted war fever. For the first time a majority (53 percent) of the public wants to send ground troops to battle ISIS. Coming on the heels of three horrific ISIS-linked terrorist attacks—the Russian jetliner, the November attacks in Paris, and the San Bernardino spree killing—this is not entirely surprising. People are understandably fed up with Islamic crazies killing innocent people. I too am sick of it, though less eager to send ground troops. Not that we have any good options. Our policy thus far has been "no boots on the...

Noah Millman explains how the foreign policy of Trump and Cruz differs from Rubio's: I think the right label, for both Cruz and Trump, is "To Hell With Them Hawk," a coinage invented by John Derbyshire back in 2006. That's a bit cumbersome as labels go, but we need one, and I think this one will do, because it expresses the degree to which the defining aspect of the rising hawkish dispensation is not really caring what happens as a result of American actions, provided those actions are plainly aimed at killing our opponents. I think that's right. The main...

In the last 24 hours, Donald Trump has said he “absolutely” would implement a database of American Muslims and that participation would “have to” be compulsory. Asked how that would differ from the registration of Jews in Nazi Germany, he responded only, “You tell me.” Is his campaign imploding? Fat chance.

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, a Companion of Prophet Muhammad, is credited by many as a principal antecedent of Islamic socialism.[1][2][3][4][5] He protested against the accumulation of wealth by the ruling class during 'Uthman's caliphate and urged the equitable redistribution of wealth. The first Muslim Caliph Abu Bakr introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams.[6] The first experimental Islamic commune was established during the Russian Revolution of 1917 as part of the Waisi movement, an early supporter of the Soviet government. The Muslim Socialist Committee of...

TRUMP IS ATTACKING THE MEDIA... Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump took to his Twitter to attack the media. Trump believes the media is one of the ways people, especially young people, grow an attraction to ISIS. After the Paris attacks, the media at large called the terrorists 'masterminds'. Trump said to call them what they are, 'thugs and losers'.

U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a strike, according to a leading member of Congress.Strikes against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.The policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic State militants to gain...

Putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria to counter the Islamic State and take on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would be a mistake, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday. "I don't believe the answer is sending boots on the ground to Syria," the Republican candidate for president told reporters in Washington. "President Obama , and I think far too many Republicans , are eager to get us in the middle of an internecine civil war in Syria. We don't have a dog in that fight." Assad is a "monster" who has murdered women and children and gassed his...

Russian Long Range Bombers in Action Over Syria. Beautiful planes; impressive operation.

A former member of Al Qaeda in Yemen warned Tuesday that a terror attack is likely within the next two weeks. Morton Storm, an ex-terrorist who later became a double agent for the CIA, told Fox News host Megyn Kelly that he believes an attack is imminent. "I believe that within the next two weeks, we will have an attack," he said. Storm added, "The people who are on the run at the moment from ISIS in Europe are very desperate, and they know their time's up, and they will need to do as much damage as possible."

Two bomb attacks in 24 hours -- one of them involving an 11-year-old female suicide bomber -- killed dozens of people and wounded more than 120 others in the Nigerian cities of Yola and Kano, authorities said. At least 31 people were killed and 72 others injured in a bomb blast Tuesday evening in the northeastern city of Yola, Aliyu Maikano, a local Red Cross official, said. -excerpt- The two bombers, who Katsina said were females ages 11 and 18, blew themselves up at about 4 p.m. local time, during the peak of trading, he said. A minivan carrying four...

During his APEC address tonight, President Obama had some tough words for Republicans refusing to take in Syrian refugees. Yesterday he said that not taking in refugees would violate America’s values, but today he got much, much tougher in going after them. He said the “fear and panic” only serves to make the situation worse if everyone’s basing their judgments on “hysteria or an exaggeration of risks.” ..."I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric that’s coming out of here during the course of this debate,” [he said]. He wasn't finished: Obama...