Free Republic

Reading the profile of Michael Brown by Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times over the weekend, one paragraph stood out. He was heavyset and quiet, but not shy. He recorded rap music with his best friend and smoked marijuana with other young men. Hennessy-Fiske also points out that cigarillos, the kind that Brown allegedly stole from a convenience store, are “often used to smoke marijuana.” So, it should hardly come as a shock that Michael Brown had marijuana in his system when he was shot and killed by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. If anything, this...

Video Link Here

Investigators say they have discovered the case which sparked the West Africa pandemic, as Rwandan authorities quarantine the country's first suspected Ebola patient A toddler who died in a Guinea border town just before Christmas last year was the “patient zero” who sparked the Ebola crisis, according to reports. The two-year-old boy was from Guéckédou, a jungle village which lies on the country’s border with Liberia and Sierra Leone – two countries which have been badly affected by the deadly virus....

Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of President Obama's national debut at the Democratic National Convention. He was tasked with giving the keynote address at the 2004 event. He told a New York Times reporter the week before the convention, ''It came as a surprise that I'd be selected for such a privileged position. As my wife reminds me, I better not screw it up.''

I remember growing up and always hearing my parents and their friends talk about one pivotal moment in their lives. They remembered exactly where they were at that point. Exactly who told them the news. Exactly how they felt once it all sunk in. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, everyone who was alive during that time remembers. One year ago, today, was our generation’s moment. It was late on a Saturday night. Some of us were out to dinner. Some of us were home with our families. Some of us were still shopping. Some of us...

Here is a truth so fundamental that it should be self-evident: When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger. And yet that is exactly what happened at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch this spring: An alleged criminal defeated the cops, because the forces of lawlessness came at them with guns — then Bureau of Land Management officials further surrendered by removing the government markings from their vehicles to prevent violence against them. What should be judged a watershed in American history instead became a story about one...

Rival filmmakers plan Bowe Bergdahl movies Team behind Zero Dark Thirty in race to tell controversial story of American soldier held captive by Taliban for five years By Rob Crilly Two movie production teams are already gearing up to tell the story of Bowe Bergdahl, even before an investigation has worked out how and why he ended up in Taliban hands. Sgt Bergdahl, 28, arrived back on American soil five days ago after spending almost five years in captivity. He was released last month in exchange for five Guantánamo Bay prisoners. Two versions of his politically-charged story are already in...

We have written a couple of times about street artists, especially in Southern California, who are conducting a guerrilla campaign against the Obama administration. That campaign has escalated, as this is well beyond street art: a nicely produced parody movie poster titled “Saving Barack Obama.” It mimics this famous poster for “Saving Private Ryan.” Note the identical font and the teleprompters. The text says, “A Steven Spielberg ploy,” and at the bottom, “the mission is a fraud.” According to the Free Beacon, the posters “have appeared on bus stops and benches throughout Los Angeles, including just outside Melrose Avenue, the...

A new Facebook meme paints two leading Republicans as anti-science because of their alleged views of the age of the Earth. The Facebook group Being Liberal posted a picture March 10, 2014, featuring side-by-side images of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., looking somewhat sheepish. Bolded text under the images describes the senators’ views on the age of the Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs. According to the meme, Rubio "believes Earth (is) 9,000 years old," and "humans hunted dinosaurs to extinction." Paul, the image proclaims, says the Earth is 10,000 years old and believes "God...

Val Vilott, president of the DC Abortion Fund, has responded to “ignorant” conservatives who have recently voiced outrage over the organization’s controversial coat hanger pendants. Before the passage of Roe v Wade (1973), some women seeking illegal abortions resorted to terminating their own pregnancies with coat hangers. While conservatives claim that reproductive rights advocates are insensitive and disgusting for making the horrors of illegal abortion a fashion statement, they apparently fail to realize that the policies they want to put in place may lead some women down that very path. Vilott writes: The coat hanger is a symbol of the...

March 21, 2014, 11:47 am Biden: After healthcare rollout pains, Obama fit 'for sainthood' By Justin Sink Vice President Biden told healthcare workers that "patience and empathy" are required to deal with frustrated ObamaCare enrollees and that the president demonstrated saint-like levels of both during the rollout. Speaking to a conference of community health centers in New York, Biden conceded that enrolling in ObamaCare could be "tedious," and early problems with HealthCare.gov worsened the problem. "We didn't help you much at the front end here, man," Biden said, adding that he wanted to recommend President Obama "for sainthood" because he...

LONDON, A U.S. scrap metal dealer intending to melt down an ornament for its gold was shocked to discover it was a $33 million Faberge egg, a British expert said. Kieran McCarthy of London jeweler Wartski said the scrap metal dealer, who wished to remain anonymous, bought the gold egg for $13,302 from an antiques dealer about a decade ago and had planned to melt it down and sell the metal, but the project was put on hold when he was unable to find a buyer, the Telegraph reported Wednesday. McCarthy said the egg stayed in the man's home until...

Three Los Angeles City Council members want city, state and federal groups to look into whether hydraulic fracturing and other forms of oil and gas “well stimulation” played any role in the earthquake that rattled the city early Monday morning. The motion, presented Tuesday by Councilmen Paul Koretz and Mike Bonin and seconded by Councilman Bernard Parks, asks for city departments to team up with the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey and the South Coast Air Quality Management District to report back on the likelihood that such activities contributed to the 4.4-magnitude quake....

Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is no closer to being found as the disappearance of the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people nears its two-week mark. Pilot suicide, terrorism and hijacking are some possibilities that are being theorized to the plane as the search area expanded to 7 million square miles. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week that “there are a number of possible scenarios that are being investigated as to what happened to the flight.” Rick Mathews, of the National Center for Security & Preparedness at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy of SUNY Albany, tells...

Frozen, the Oscar-winning Disney cartoon adapted from Hans Christian Andersen, is a vehicle for pro-gay propaganda as well a promoting bestiality, according to a Christian radio show in Colorado. Pastor Kevin Swanson of the Reformation Church, who hosts Generations Radio, denounced the film as "very evil", and that Disney was "one of the most pro-homosexual organisations in the country". Swanson said: "You wonder sometimes if maybe there's something very evil happening here ... I wonder if people are thinking: 'You know I think this cute little movie is going to indoctrinate my 5-year-old to be a lesbian or treat homosexuality...

You’d think conservatives Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are outspoken enough without liberal media sources having to lie about their words. But you’d be underestimating the unscrupulous partisanship of political “journalists." Case in point: the dishonest reporting of the comments from both GOP senators at the Susan B. Anthony Campaign for Life Summit in Washington, D.C. on March 12. An AP report appearing on The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, U.S. News and World Report and several other organizations cherry-picked and twisted statements from Sen. Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Lee (R-UT) from the pro-life event.  Here’s what Sen. Cruz actually said: (More after video.)...

Special operations sources have claimed that the terror leader was shot more than one hundred times in the fatal 2011 raid. A new report from a website known within the intelligence and armed services community claims that the sheer number of times that Osama bin Laden was shot is the reason why the government has never released photos of his dead body. Citing two confidential sources, The Special Operations Forces Situation Report tells how 'operator after operator took turns dumping magazines-worth of ammunition into Bin Laden’s body'. The site goes on to argue that while the Navy SEALs may have...

Police say a transgender teen who said he was beaten and sexually assaulted in a California high school bathroom has recanted the story. Hercules police spokeswoman Detective Connie Van Putten says detectives interviewed the student Tuesday and determined nothing had happened to him. On Monday, the 15-year-old student reported he was attacked by three boys in a bathroom at a suburban San Francisco public school. The teen, who is biologically female but identifies as male, had told officers he was leaving a boy's bathroom late Monday morning at Hercules Middle/High School when the assailants...

A Jihad Watch reader attended the Georgetown University presentation on “Islamophobia” last week and kindly sent in this report. I wrote about this presentation here before it happened, saying that it would not be a true academic inquiry, amassing the facts and training the student to make an informed judgment, but an exercise in propaganda, attempting to manipulate attendees into holding certain opinions and skewing the presentation to ensure that those opinions would be the only ones anyone could come away with. This report shows that that was indeed what it was, with professors Daniel Varisco and John Esposito openly...

John Kerry invoked his Vietnam War service to push back against an Israeli cabinet member who criticized his recent comments on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. During a security conference in Munich last weekend, Kerry suggested that if his Israeli-Palestinian peace effort fails, there could be serious consequences for Israel. “For Israel there is an increasing delegitimizing campaign that has been building up,” Kerry said, without condemning the effort. “People are very sensitive to it. There are talks of boycotts and other kinds of things.” In response, Israel’s economy minister Naftali Bennett harshly criticized Kerry’s failure to speak out against the...