Free Republic

After a Bernie Sanders supporter tried to commit mass murder last week -- the second homicidal Bernie supporter so far this year -- the media blamed President Trump for lowering the bar on heated political rhetoric by calling his campaign opponents cruel names like "Crooked Hillary" and "Lyin' Ted." As soon as any conservative responds to Trump's belittling names for his rivals by erupting in a murderous rage, that will be a fantastically good point. But until then, it's idiotic. Unlike liberals, conservatives aren't easily incited to violence by words. What we're seeing is the following: Prominent liberals repeatedly tell...

UC Berkeley graduate Lauren Kirk-Coehlo pled guilty Friday to vandalizing at a Davis mosque in January. Kirk-Coehlo will serve five years probation for the crime. According to City of Davis Police Department Lt. Thomas Waltz, Kirk-Coehlo broke several of the Islamic Center of Davis’ windows, vandalized some of the nearby bikes and put bacon on one of the doorknobs. Kirk-Coehlo has been prohibited from using social media for five years and is required to attend weekly counseling sessions, participate in cultural sensitivity training and complete 120 hours of community service. She is also not allowed to own guns. Kirk-Cuehlo defended...

... He Can't Obstruct Justice"On Hannity, Mark Levin explained the separation of powers bars the president of the United States from being charged with obstruction of justice. Watch Levin deliver a fiery explanation that Donald Trump not only didn't obstruct justice, but why as (Levin: Trump CANNOT be indicted, say DOJ memoranda)

President Donald Trump publicly proposed the idea of a “solar wall” on the Southern border, to help pay for the building costs. “Solar wall panels, beautiful, I mean actually, think of it. The taller it goes the more valuable it is,” Trump said during a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Trump said that there was “lots of sun” and “lots of heat” on the Southern border, which would allow the wall to create energy and help pay for construction costs. “This way Mexico will have to pay much less money, and that’s good,” Trump said. “We’ll see.” Trump reportedly floated...

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stated that she believes the company has a responsibility to foster “kindness and empathy.” Variety reports while that speaking at the Cannes Lions advertising and media conference on Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg discussed the aims of Facebook as a company, saying, “we have a responsibility to build things that are good” and that they must promote “kindness and empathy.”

In a release issued on Wednesday, the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police was critical of the police department saying it is critically understaffed and that it has no long term plan of action to fight crime. FOP president Gene Ryan says the department cannot hire enough officers to catch up with attrition, and says the city has failed to properly manage the agency. “I really have a problem with elected officials being silent with what’s going on in the streets of Baltimore right now,” Ryan said. “I mean we have bodies dropping on a daily basis".

On June 21 David Frum apologized for referencing murdered Newtown children in reacting to pro-Second Amendment news following the Alexandria attack. Frum reacted to Charles Cooke’s assessment that the FBI undercut gun control arguments via the Bureau’s June 21 press release on the Alexandria attack. Frum responded with a number of tweets, one of which said, “The chop-logic denial of the connection between the developed world’s laxest gun laws-and worst gun violence-just seems such a waste of time.”

Democrats must win back working-class voters from Donald Trump’s blue-and-white-collar coalition — and mere rhetorical support for national unity should do the trick, claims a new article in the Atlantic magazine about the impact of immigration on American politics. “Democrats should put immigrants’ learning English at the center of their immigration agenda,” claims Peter Beinart, author of “How the Democrats Lost Their way on Immigration” in the July/August issue of The Atlantic. Beinart continues: If more immigrants speak English fluently, native-born whites may well feel a stronger connection to them, and be more likely to support government policies that help...

::Tonight:: Wallace Bruschweiler at the Met Club! - When? Thursday, June 22, 2017! Doors: 6:30pm - Where? The Metropolitan Republican Club – 122 E. 83rd Street, New York, NY 10028 Another day another Attack in Europe...yet again.This time a failed terrorist attack in Brussels. And Now the New York City Council wants to require the NYPD to issue reports on what kinds of spy equipment police use — such as license-plate readers, cellphone trackers and X-ray vans used to peer through walls — as well how the department stores and protects private information collected. Mr. Bruschweiler will be joining us...

Democrats in the state Legislature are walking a tightrope, seemingly oblivious to potential danger. First, they raised gas taxes and vehicle fees. Then the Senate passed a ridiculously costly universal healthcare plan. Now, the Legislature is getting close to helping undocumented criminals avoid deportation. How far left can the majority party careen, even in deep blue California, before Republicans start benefiting at the ballot box? California voters only like state taxes that other people pay. A recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found that 58% of voters oppose the transportation funding plan. In contrast to the gas-tax...

What will it take for people to care about climate change? For some, the thought of a crummier cup of coffee in the morning just might do it. A new study finds that Ethiopia, the world's fifth-largest coffee producer, could lose up to 60% of its suitable farming land by the end of this century because of climate change. The study, published Monday in Nature Plants, found the combination of low rainfall and rising temperatures could have substantial effects on the coffee-growing areas in the country. According to a report from World Coffee Research, the demand for coffee will have...

DURHAM, N.C. - A North Carolina man has been arrested after police say he kidnapped a family at gunpoint and forced them to take him shopping. Durham police say on Tuesday 29-year-old Rollin Anthony Owens Jr. knocked on the door of a house in the West End neighborhood asking for money. A resident gave Rollins money, but police say he then used a gun to force the residents - a man, woman and two children - out of the house and into their vehicle. Owens allegedly made the driver take him to a convenience store, then a Target, where police...

Trump administration officials are seeking insight into U.S.-China relations from an unlikely source – the ancient Greek historian Thucydides who chronicled the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Michael Crowley reports in Politico Magazine that Professor Graham Allison of the Harvard Kennedy School met with Trump’s National Security Council staffers last month to discuss the “Thucydides Trap” – a term he coined to explain how the fear of an emerging power can spark conflict with an established power. In Thucydides’ telling, “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” According...

In its recent takeover of the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines, the Islamic State (ISIS) deliberately emphasized its hostility towards Christians, as expressed in the wanton killing of Christians and the destruction of churches. This was also reflected in the rhetoric that accompanied the campaign, which consistently presented the fighting in the Philippines as a centuries-old war against the "Christians" and "Crusaders." The following are examples: In its statement about the attack on Marawi, released on May 24, 2017, ISIS made sure to note that a church had been torched and that over 75 "Crusaders" had been wounded...

A new bulletin from al-Qaeda released two days ago on social media and the terror group's Telegram channel tells jihadists to go forth and just kill Americans without any Islamic consultations first. Al-Qaeda's eleventh al-Nafir Bulletin unleashes fury over allegations that a U.S. airstrike struck a mosque with worshippers at evening prayers, killing up to 42 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain. U.S. Central Command said in a Thursday press release that "U.S. forces conducted an airstrike on an al-Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16 in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists." On Friday, defense...

WASHINGTON – Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told PJM that “nothing,” including President Trump’s decision to delay moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, is going to make the Palestinians “be more conciliatory” toward Israel. Trump, who pledged to move the embassy during the presidential campaign, decided not to order its relocation at this time. "President Trump made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America's national security interests," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement. Lamborn said the embassy should not...

Elections: It has been amusing to watch Democrats twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain away their loss in the special election in Georgia, after spending months promising it would be a referendum on President Trump. Will the party learn anything from this costly mistake? Democrats convinced themselves that neophyte politician Jon Ossoff had a chance to win in Georgia's 6th District, which would have seriously hampered Trump's agenda, and so they dumped an unbelievable amount of money into the race — nearly enough to buy every Ossoff voter an Apple Watch. But instead of proving how unpopular Trump is,...

You'd be forgiven for thinking that all is right with the housing market these days. With prices and sales both soaring nationally, the housing panic of 2007 seems like an all-but-forgotten nightmare. But it's still very much with us. The prestigious State of the Nation's Housing report for 2017, published by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies just last week, touts the newfound health of the housing market. "A decade after the onset of the Great Recession, the national housing market is finally returning to normal," the report says. "With incomes rising and household growth strengthening, the housing sector is...

Donald Trump earned respect from the Washington establishment for appointing three of the nation's most accomplished generals to direct his national security policy: James Mattis (secretary of defense), H.R. McMaster (national security adviser) and John Kelly (secretary of homeland security). In the first five months of the Trump administration, the three generals -- along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil CEO -- have already recalibrated America's defenses. At home, illegal immigration is down by some 70 percent. Abroad, a new policy of principled realism seeks to re-establish deterrence through credible threats of retaliation. The generals are...

One police officer in critical condition, two communities terrorized. Ramadan is in full swing – it doesn’t end until Saturday evening – and Britain has been a particular recipient of Islamic piety during the holy month, with major jihad attacks in Manchester and London. But now the United States has been included in the multicultural festivities, as jihadis have struck, albeit with limited results, in Wisconsin and Michigan. A Taliban spokesmen recently said: “Our fight is Jihad and an obligatory worship. And every obligatory act of worship has 70 times more reward in Ramadan.” Not just the Taliban believe that....