Free Republic

Kamala Harris. Donald Trump. Gish Gallop. All three are expected at Tuesday’s presidential debate, even if most of America is unfamiliar with one name in that lineup. GG, as I’ve now come to call it, is a shell game/debate tactic that takes its name from Duane Gish, a prominent figure in the creationist movement who deployed dubious arguments, selective factoids, and rapid-fire lies to overwhelm his opponents in public discussions about the theory of evolution. The disinformation technique, coined Gish Gallop in 1994 by the National Center for Science Education’s founding director Eugenie Scott, is essentially the art of burying...

It’s less than comforting to hear the President make light of terrorist threats. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, President Obama referred to today’s al-Qaeda fighters as the “jayvee” team. “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” he said. This shows that the Administration’s wishful thinking about al-Qaeda isn’t over. Obama and his fellow officials seem to think if you say something enough times, it will become true. Before Benghazi, they claimed al-Qaeda was defeated and on the...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We did this to put to end the days when the individual market had no standards, when every year, thousands of Americans would be dropped from their coverage. People are acting like this is some new phenomenon. Every year there was churn in this individual market. The average increase was double digits on premiums in this same market, with or without the Affordable Care Act. People were getting, often times, a very bad deal. (Organizing for Action campaign event, November 4, 2013)

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew on Sunday defended President Barack Obama’s decision to relax a requirement that religious employers cover contraception in health plans, saying the president struck an appropriate balance and wasn’t open to further compromise. “I have to say that the solution that we came up with puts no religious institution in a position where it either has to pay for or facilitate the provision of benefits they find objectionable,” Mr. Lew said on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley. Mr. Lew said the president put out a solid plan, and when asked whether...