Free Republic

Contradicting Trump, Mexican president says he made it clear Mexico will not pay for a border wall

Americans viewing the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey as some exotic foreign news story -- the latest, violent yet hardly unusual political development to occur in a region constantly beset by turmoil -- should pause to consider that the prospect of similar instability would not be unfathomable in this country if Donald Trump were to win the presidency.

Ignore Cruz And Trump — Scapegoating Muslims Is An Un-American Response To The Brussels Attacks It has been clear at least since the massacre in Paris last November that jihadist terrorists are embedded in Europe, difficult to detect and determined to engage in spectacular acts of violence. So while Tuesday's carnage in Brussels was horrific, it also was achingly familiar. This time more than 30 people were killed and hundreds injured in separate attacks at the Brussels airport and at a downtown subway close to the headquarters of the European Union. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks. While condemnations...

hough other companies and organizations are cutting ties with Donald Trump following his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants, the golf world is continuing to do business with the Republican presidential candidate. NBC, Univision and Macy's have cut ties with the real estate mogul following his comments, but the PGA of America, the LPGA, the USGA and the PGA Tour will go forward with their previously scheduled plans to host tournaments on his courses.

On February 19, the Los Angeles Times reacted to the growing momentum for Campus Carry legislation across the country by referring to the NRA as “crackpots” and reminding the organization that it is the government’s “responsibility to protect the public through reasonable gun control laws.” In other words, “shall not be infringed” does not mean shall not be regulated and/or controlled. According to the Times, the NRA has hit a new low by promoting the idea that an expansion of Campus Carry means “gun-toting women would be armed to defend themselves in the event of sexual assaults.” The Times claims...

Washington — Consumers saved nearly $1.5 billion in 2011 as a result of rules in President Obama´s healthcare law that limit what insurance companies can spend on expenses unrelated to medical care, including profit, a new analysis shows. Much of those savings — an estimated $1.1 billion — came in rebates to consumers required because insurers had exceeded the required limits. The study by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund also suggests that the Affordable Care Act forced insurers to become more efficient by limiting their administrative expenses, a key goal of the 2010 law. In some cases, insurers passed savings...

The assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than a long-planned operation, and intelligence agencies have found no evidence that it was ordered by Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials and witnesses interviewed in Libya. The attack was "carried out following a minimum amount of planning," said a U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter still under investigation. "The attackers exhibited a high degree of disorganization. Some joined the attack in progress, some did not have weapons and others just seemed...

Rush Limbaugh celebrated 24 years on his national radio talk show Wednesday, and that date is as good as any to benchmark when the country began its journey into a deeply polarized political climate. Limbaugh -- universally called Rush by friends and critics alike -- almost single-handedly started a narrative that recast Americans into conservative heroes or liberal villains, patriotic saviors or mainstream media dupes. He was helped by the 1987 demise of the Fairness Doctrine, the longstanding regulation that required broadcasters to present both sides of a issue in roughly equal measure. He was perfectly poised to take advantage....

A Times pressroom is being further downsized “in response to the decline in revenue and page counts.” Ten union pressroom employees will be laid off at the end of August. The LAT pressroom has been hit hard by layoffs in the past. Last year the paper closed their Orange County printing facility as a cost-cutting measure. There are currently about 127 pressroom employees at the one remaining printing facility The full email from management is included after the jump. The email below was found at the union blog Save Our Trade. Ronnie Pineda GCC-IBT Local #140N As we have previously...

Legacy Media's Selective Bachmann Outrage Carol Platt Liebau Posted at 12:12 PM ET, 6/26/2011 The editors of the LA Times clearly thought they had caught Michele Bachmann in some sort of hypocrisy, given her support for a smaller, less expensive federal government. Today's paper features a big story running on the front page that breathlessly reports that Rep. Bachmann and her husband have -- gasp! -- benefited from "federal aid." That's because the counseling clinic run by Mr. Bachmann has received money over the past six years "that in part came from the federal government," because a farm in which...

After well over 20 years as a proud non-subscriber to the LA Times (I did buy the edition with Clinton's Impeachment story back in 1998 at the news stand), I have subscribed to the Sunday Edition for $0.19 per week for a year. This Sunday paper is regularly $2.50 at the newstand. I told the lady who called that I thought there was no way they could make any money on this and I thought this would make them go out of business sooner so I couldn't refuse the offer. Please seek this offer out and maybe we can sink...

For many Afghans, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's dismissal over intemperate remarks in a magazine profile has served mainly to underscore their own weariness with a conflict that has dragged on for nearly nine years with no end in sight.For some, the general's woes have sharpened fears that the Western campaign against the Taliban movement — which ruled the country for five long, harsh years — is floundering. And many Afghans think that the Americans, like the Soviet Union two decades ago and so many would-be conquerors, ultimately will fail.McChrystal won the respect, even affection, of many Afghans with...

There are glimmers of hope for Democrats battling to retain control of Congress in this fall's elections, with the party holding a slender edge in public trust for shepherding the economy and small gains in those saying their finances are healthy, according to a new poll. The reeling economy remains the American public's top concern, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted earlier this month, making public attitudes about it crucial for both parties' hopes in November. The good news for Democrats: By a slim margin (47% to 42%), people trust them more than Republicans to guide the economy. And...

I have sent the following e-mail to Nick Goldberg, the Editorial Page Editor for the Los Angeles Times: Nick, A recent op-ed in your paper defending ACORN makes at least two factual misstatements: 1) that ACORN staff offered to help shield an underage prostitution ring at only two offices, and 2) that no voter fraudulently registered to vote by ACORN had ever actually cast a ballot. Furthermore, your paper failed to disclose that the author of the op-ed, Peter Dreier, has been a (presumably paid) consultant for ACORN in the past . . . something that might help explain how...

Monday 12/22, 2:41am CT -- This entry was formerly entitled, "Elect Schwarzenegger President? Obama Says Yes We Can! Dear L.A. Times..." Now, the plot thickens -- the story of the story. As it turns out, this article was featured in Drudge Report as well as Free Republic and then... poof! The lead disappeared! Funny how that can happen. Was it because of the implications this has, at such a sensitive time -- what with cases before the Supreme Court showing Obama to be a fictitious candidate, not a natural born Citizen at all? And with Congress yet to certify the...

One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.Ivins’ name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that disrupted mail service...

Critics say the Arkansas governor cashed in on the school shooting with the 1998 publication of 'Kids Who Kill.' By Richard A. Serrano Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 26, 2008 JONESBORO, ARK. — After two middle-school boys in camouflage gear shot and killed four classmates and a teacher here, leaving 10 others wounded and a community shattered, it seemed inevitable that someone would see opportunity in the tragedy for a book deal. Indeed, within days a publisher agreed to pay $25,000 to an Arkansas writer to produce a book on youth violence. Victims' families were outraged. They called the...

The U.S. is known for its "paranoid style" of politics, so brace yourself for the next Big Scare coming down the pike (literally) -- the Trans-Texas Corridor. Isolationist conservatives, emboldened by their jihad last year against the Dubai Ports World deal, have identified this road project as the spearhead of a conspiracy to dissolve the United States of America. Texas awarded a planning contract in 2005 for the first phase of the corridor to Cintra, a Spanish multinational company, and its San Antonio partner, Zachry Construction. (Cintra also won a $1.3-billion contract last year to build a 40-mile extension of...

Over at Captains Quarters, Captain Ed ponders an interesting question brought forth by one of his readers. Apparently, the only evidence of Fred's work at National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association is a copy of the NFPRHA's board minutes from September 14, 1991 that claims that the group had hired Fred. The big question is, at what point did Fred begin working there? Here's what Captain Ed found. Now a new bit of indirect evidence has been found. Arent Fox brought Thompson into the firm to be "of counsel" in 1991 for his expertise in their lobbying business, including...

GARDEZ, Afghanistan — After completing their deployment to this remote firebase, the Green Berets of ODA 2021 left for home covered in glory. The 10-member Special Forces team, part of the Alabama National Guard, returned to their families in the spring of 2003 with tales to tell of frenzied firefights and narrow escapes. ADVERTISEMENT Its commander had nominated each of his men — as well as himself — for medals for valor. The team's performance was heralded as evidence that the Guard could play as equals with the regular Army in the war on terrorism. But the team also had...