Free Republic

On Tuesday’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CNN Contributor and Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that the revelations about then-President Joe Biden’s mental fitness don’t impact the credibility of the Democratic Party at all and “I don’t think any Democrat who’s going to be facing voters in the midterms was at all complicit.” And there were “a whole bunch of politicians who understandably were rooting for him and hoping that he was doing fine, but they didn’t know.”Co-host Mary Louise Kelly asked, “What does this mean to your party’s ability to hold President Trump, his administration, and Republicans accountable...

Democratic political strategist James Carville expressed frustration with the state of his party on his podcast Thursday, arguing that Republicans are able to get away with lying while Democrats are held to a higher standard of credibility. Talking to guest Ryan Lizza, a journalist, he said, “People say to me all the time, ‘James, why don’t we just do like the Republicans do? Just stand up and lie?’ Because our f—ing people wouldn’t stand for it!” Carville said. “If I stood up and lied, you would be the first person to say, ‘James Carville lost all credibility last night when...

Forty years ago, a radio personality coined the phrase “jump the shark” in reference to the episode of the sitcom “Happy Days” in which the character Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumps over a live shark on water skis. The term is often applied to dying franchises that turn to sensational language or scenes to try to revive the fading interest of the public. More often, you jump the shark and land in utter obscurity. This week, the Democratic Party jumped the shark. For years, Dems and their allies pushed the absurd claim that democracy was about to die if Joe Biden...

BRUSSELS (AP) – NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned on Thursday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would undermine the dissuasive force of the world´s biggest military alliance and that its credibility could cost trillions to restore. NATO has been ramping up its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to deter Moscow from expanding its war into the territory of any of the organization´s 32 member countries. “If Ukraine loses then to restore the deterrence of the rest of NATO again, it will be a much, much higher price than what...

The Justice Department did little, if anything, to stop the millions of illegals that the Biden administration openly allowed to come across the border. The illegals crossing included gangs, terrorists, killers, rapists, and tens of thousands of young Chinese men. And now, on Joe Biden's, Merrick Garland's and Christopher Wray's way out, we learn that Chinese "transactional criminal organizations" are getting licenses to sell marijuana in Maine. Anyone who would think this is only going on in Maine needs to have his head examined. The Chinese have been allowed to essentially infiltrate America in many ways, including the Biden administration...

The last eight years at the Department of Justice have been a disaster for the rule of law. The sprawling intelligence and law enforcement agency ran the Russia collusion hoax, hamstringing President Donald Trump during his entire first term in office. It interfered in the 2020 election by falsely telling social media companies that a laptop with incriminating information about the Biden family business was Russian disinformation, and telling them to censor speech and debate about the topic. Under President Joe Biden, the department ran two norm-obliterating politicized prosecutions against Trump in an effort to silence, bankrupt, imprison, and defeat...

Growing signs that Trump may win the election are unnerving media moguls. One network executive told New York Magazine writer Charlotte Klein "as a group, 85% of our coverage of Trump has been negative. In contrast, 78% of our coverage of Harris has been positive. How can this not have doomed Trump's candidacy? If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means we've lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form." "The partnership we've had with the Biden Administration to discredit and censor dissenters from the...

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) argued that publicly attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci’s credibility is putting him in danger and is “threatening to this country.” Host Wolf Blitzer asked, “So, Congresswoman, did Republicans put Dr. Fauci at even more risk today by publicly blasting his credibility?” Dingell answered, “I’m certain that they did. And we’ve got to take this further, Wolf, what I’m concerned about is how people don’t trust public health at the local level, at the state level, and the national level. People don’t want to go into public health. They’re afraid of...

There has been plenty of talk lately about Silicon Valley abandoning the news business. That’s largely true, but it doesn’t get to an even deeper problem: the utter erosion of public confidence in the media, which stems from a long history of self-inflicted wounds, high-profile errors and unmistakable bias. *** The newer iterations – TikTok and YouTube influencers – are now stealing some of their market share, so this blame game isn’t convincing. The mainstream media, which once monopolized the industry, have blown it. *** As Charlie Warzel put in the Atlantic: "Readers are breaking up with traditional news." ***...

Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the United States was losing moral credibility for not calling out Israel’s military moves in response to the Hamas terror attack. Kristen Welker said, “As The New York Times points out today, Hamas is actually sitting on a lot of that fuel, food and aid that you reference. Their headquarters is underneath that hospital there. So, ultimately, they are the ones who are depriving the civilians of Gaza of all of those necessary aid items that you referenced. If there were to be a cease-fire, what’s the guarantee...

The Costs and Casualties of Government’s Information Total War“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,”This phrase, misattributed to Voltaire, has largely come to dominate—and confuse—our understanding of the importance of free speech in a free society. That misunderstanding seems to be at the heart of the very lukewarm response elicited by the exposure of “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history” unearthed through discovery in Missouri v. Biden now before the Supreme Court. The trouble with this framing of free speech is that it focuses...

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said on Sunday that the armed rebellion from the Wagner Group shows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power is waning among his people. In an interview with Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday,” Cardin pointed to the rebellion by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group as evidence of Putin’s declining credibility, even among his longtime allies. “Putin has lost his credibility with his own people. His account of why he went into Ukraine is now being challenged, I think, with public opinion and Russia itself,” Cardin told Bream.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is expected to become chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee next year, said he blames Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) for what he sees as lowered credibility of congressional probes. Schiff chairs the House Intelligence Committee and sits on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — and the California lawmaker also led the first impeachment effort against former President Trump.

Former Gov. Chris Christie created a firestorm on ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, with what he had to say about the Jan. 6 Committee. Christie pointed out that, to many Republicans, the Committee doesn’t have any credibility. That’s because they don’t have any real Republicans on the Committee to make any points against the Democratic narrative. The January 6 committee was “resigned to having a credibility problem because of the membership of the committee and the way that was done,” Christie opened by saying. “There are lots of Republicans across this country who just say, there’s...

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) does not have “credibility” when addressing his criticism of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson before her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “You are the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings are set to begin. In the face of those hearing, we are seeing attacks. Josh Hawley set out a series of tweets suggesting Judge Jackson is soft on child porn. It has been debunked by several independent fact-checkers. What does that tell you about the confirmation fight ahead?...

2023 Synod Faces a Credibility and Practicality GapCOMMENTARY: The planetary process leading up to the 2023 synod has to confront two major challenges before it begins. Six weeks before the Catholic Church-wide consultations for the 2023 synod on synodality are set to begin, the Vatican released a vademecum, or “handbook,” that will guide a process that is supposed to occupy every single diocese in the world from October 2021 to April 2022.The most massive set of meetings ever conducted in the history of the Catholic Church was announced only four months ago, between the third and fourth waves of...

The establishment media, the president of the United States, left-wing politicians, Big Tech, establishment Republicans and even rising GOP star Ron DeSantis are telling Americans this is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." Governments and organizations around the globe are now instituting vaccine mandates. In Israel, hospitals are being filled with a surge of new COVID-19 cases. But at a major hospital in Jerusalem, up to 90% of the hospitalizations and 95% of patients who are listed as "severe" were fully vaccinated. The Associated Press argues in a fact check that such information is being presented without context, noting the COVID-19...

Earlier this week, Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Francis Collins appeared on CNN. There he dispenses some of the weirdest advice of the COVID era. He tells parents to wear masks at home around their own children if those children are unvaccinated, but the parents are.COVID vaccines aren’t even yet approved for kids below 12. So that’s an issue. Another is the fact that COVID still is very unlikely to spread to or from kids. They’re not vectors for this virus. Still, Dr. Collins clearly says to wear masks at home around your kids, even admitting that...

As a graduate of Oral Roberts University, I was blessed to spend a lot of time with Oral Roberts himself. Roberts repeatedly told me, “Go into every man’s world and meet them at the point of their need.” He was referring to Christians evangelizing throughout the world. We Christians cannot wait for people seeking God to stumble into our churches. Rather, Christians must go to them and invite them to join our movement. In a similar manner, conservatives must go! They must go to black entrepreneurs. They must go to black parents. They must go to black preachers. No more...

Sen. Ted Cruz ripped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wednesday, saying the agency had “destroyed their credibility” with their “absurd” recommendation that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas of “substantial” or “high” coronavirus transmission. “That’s not science. That’s politics. It’s pure politics,” the Texas Republican told Fox News’ “Hannity”. “You know what? Yesterday, vaccines worked. Today, they still work, but as a political matter, the Democrats decided they want to control your lives, they want everyone to wear a mask, and my view is real simple: We shouldn’t have federal government mandates on COVID.