Free Republic

ABC’s Nightline has returned to its old timeslot with a larger audience after late local news (instead of after Jimmy Kimmel Live). On Wednesday’s show, co-host Byron Pitts ended an interview with Vice President Mike Pence by asking him “not in a political way,” but whether he “talk[s] to God” about feeling remorse for Americans who have died “because of steps the federal government did not take soon enough.”

ABC NEWS: The Democratic Debate 02/07/20 10:30 p.m. Eastern PITTS: So, Biden isn't expected to do well in New Hampshire. He has to do well in South Carolina which has a larger black vote. Race didn't come up in this debate until about nine minutes in and it came up from Tom Steyer who brought it up and then they engaged. One thing I have to say about all the candidates, when it came to the conversation about race 9 minutes in, I thought in some ways all the candidates were tone deaf. Because so often when they discuss race,...

CLEVELAND — Officials say a man has been arrested for an alleged plan to attack downtown Cleveland on July 4. FBI agents said Monday they began investigating the suspect, identified as Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts, back in 2017. Investigators say they received tips that Pitts, also known as Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq, had made statements in support of Al-Qaeda. Pitts, an American citizen with an extensive criminal background, also expressed a disdain for the U.S. military. Officials say Pitts spoke to undercover agents about the impact an explosion would have on Cleveland's upcoming July 4th parade. Anderson says the Pitts was arrested...

Gigi, a reader in West Palm Beach, Fla., wrote me noting that I agree with the star of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on most political issues. Yet I have, on previous occasions in this space, expressed distaste for him. “I just don’t understand,” wrote Gigi, “why you profess to dislike someone who is so like-minded. It baffles me.” Me, I don’t see the contradiction. To whatever admittedly imperfect degree you can judge character from a television performance, I find Maher smarmy, self-satisfied, condescending and just plain nasty. Besides which, his use of coarse, sexist vulgarisms to describe Sarah...

Last week the House passed with bipartisan support the Protect Life Act, which amends [Obamacare] to assure that no taxpayer dollars will be used to fund abortions. It also assures that health care providers who do not wish to provide abortions are not forced to by government. < . . . . > Liberals love to frame the killing of developing humans as being about women's lives, health and rights. But, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 3 percent of abortions are performed for reasons of a woman's health. Abortions that are performed because a woman's...

A Nation Of Jack-Asses (Who Voted For Obama) Pitts called virtually anyone who doubts the now-overwhelming body of non-birth certificate evidence, a range of nasty names from "jack-ass" to "pinheads" and beyond. The interesting thing is simply this, he seemed to be referring to non-blacks--only--as one perplexedly begins to understand while reading Pitts' column. After glancing through Pitts' words, I later gave the column to a friend who knows Pitts and had indicated him as a very gracious individual who had generously donated a good deal of time, on various occasions, to her college classes. Her response to me, after...

US Politicians Duped By The Brotherhood In the United States, one individual maintained a pretense of "moderation" which would later embarrass the left and the right. According to the testimony of Dr. Michael Waller to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Abdurahman Alamoudi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. A man born in Eritrea in 1951, he arrived in the US in 1979 and became a naturalized US citizen on May 23, 1996. From 1985 onwards he became involved in many Muslim groups. In 1990 he founded the Washington DC-based American Muslim Council (AMC), which Waller states "has...

An average of 17.7 percent of all Americans were at times unable to feed themselves in the 12 months prior to September of this year. That's according to an analysis of data from the Gallup-Healthways Index, conducted and newly released by the Food Resource and Action Center (FRAC), an advocacy group. You may be wondering: In what universe does a 17.7 percent hunger rate qualify as good news? In this one, actually. That figure, after all, represents a slight drop from the average 18.5 percent rate recorded at the end of 2009. But even the smaller figure is hardly reassuring,...

“I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at everybody over it.” Mike Huckabee I'm writing this to say just one thing: I like Mike. That would be Michael Dale Huckabee, former Baptist preacher, former governor of Arkansas, former GOP presidential candidate, current Fox News personality, the guy quoted above being flagrantly reasonable during an interview on “The Daily Show.” I like Mike. The proximate reason I say that is his recent refusal to support a knuckleheaded idea being touted by many of his conservative brethren: altering the 14th Amendment to curtail illegal immigration. But I could have said it a...

The numbers are in. Thanks to a new CBS News/New York Times poll, we now have a statistical picture of the tea party movement. There are few surprises. It turns out that not quite 20 percent of Americans are tea party supporters. They tend to be white, Republican, male, over 45 and wealthier than the rest of us. Fifty-seven percent hold a favorable opinion of George W. Bush. And where most Republicans describe themselves as ``dissatisfied'' with Washington, tea partiers are apt to use a different term. They say they're angry. It is a telling word, especially in light of...

A Muslim chaplain for the city’s Department of Correction showed up for work on Wednesday as he routinely does — entering the city jail in Lower Manhattan to minister to some of the roughly 900 male inmates there. But when the chaplain, Imam Zulqarnain Abu-Shahid, flung his shoulder bag onto an X-ray machine at the entrance of the Manhattan Detention Complex, at 125 White Street, officers were alerted to the presence of metal. They found a pair of scissors and three metal blades, the kind used in box cutters, in the bag’s outer flap, the authorities said. Imam Abu-Shahid was...

Asampling from the web: ``Why are these Muslim invaders allowed to carry on freely in this country -- protected by outreach, Obama, and PC mental illness?'' ``Simply put, most Muslims in non-Islamic countries have an evil axe to grind and a scurrilous hidden agenda.''

“I hope he fails.” — Rush Limbaugh It is, of course, a calculated outrage. Meaning, it was spewed by a clown in the media circus to kick a familiar sequence into motion: angry denunciation by bloggers, pundits and supporters of President Obama (the “he” whose failure is hoped), followed by Rush Limbaugh refusing to retract a word, a courageous truth teller who will not be moved. And, trailing behind, like the folks with brooms trail the elephants in the circus parade, Limbaugh’s devotees, complaining that their hero has been misquoted, misunderstood or otherwise mistreated. “What Rush meant was ... yadda...

GRAHAM, Texas -- A couple whose pit bulls fatally mauled their 7-year-old neighbor were sentenced to seven years in prison, the first conviction under a new state law that holds owners responsible if their dogs injure or kill someone. Crystal Michelle Watson, 28, and Jack Wayne Smith, 45, were convicted Thursday of a dog attack resulting in a death, a second-degree felony with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The law says owners are guilty if their unsecured dogs injure or kill a person in an unprovoked attack off their property. "I compared it to someone leaving a...

Yes, there's a list of titles floating around the Internet right now, but it's a fake. It is, however, established fact that our would-be vice president has in the past tried to pull books off library shelves. The New York Times reports that as a member of the City Council of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin complained to colleagues about a book called Daddy's Roommate, described in promotional material as being ''for and about the children of lesbian and gay parents.'' Laura Chase, who ran Palin's campaign for mayor, explained that the book was harmless and suggested Palin read it. Chase told...

So, what's going on with you? Nothing much? Wish I could say the same. As you may know if you've seen CNN or read the paper, yours truly has lately been the target of death threats and harassment from the ranks of the not-so-tightly-wrapped. This, after a June 3 column about the torture murder of a young white couple, allegedly by four African Americans. My column took on white supremacists and far right bloggers who contend that this ''genocide'' -- their word -- goes unremarked by news media too PC to report black-on-white crime. It was an argument made for...

Friday, August 11, 2006 A LITTLE INCONVENIENCE?? I almost chocked on my extra-hot latte this morning when I started reading Leonard Pitts' (Miami Herald) column. Seemed that Leonard was coming over to the dark side by agreeing that a little inconvenience, when it comes to added airport security after the London arrests, was fine and that "getting killed is the biggest inconvenience of all." Leonard went on to praise the British for their handling of this situation and even suggested that it might be a good idea to adopt a more El Al form of airport security. For those not...

All the news that's fit to be requested By LEONARD PITTS JR. lpitts@herald.com Dear Colleagues: Have you had enough bad news? I don't mean the bad news we report. No, I'm talking about the bad news that is reported to us, the steady diet of doom and/or gloom that goes with working for a daily newspaper these days. I'm talking about reports that, despite all the focus groups we study, all the redesigns we commission, all the shorter stories we write and all the bigger typefaces we employ, newspaper readership is still falling like a boulder from a skyscraper. It's...

Lee Pitts, an embed reporter of the Chattanooga Times traveling with a National Guard unit, prodded one of its soldiers to ask Rumsfeld about why military units in Iraq are lacking proper armor for many vehicles. Tony is also talking to Lieutenant Bryan Suits, who hosts a radio show in Seattle, Washington on KVI, but is serving in Iraq now. Suits recently experienced an IED attack... Listen to the inside story - You can hear Tony Snow's radio show audio streaming online at www.tonysnow.com.