Free Republic

Is there anyone in American media who trolls more people with less effort than this insufferable wanker? IÂ’m not even mad. ItÂ’s a talent. If you donÂ’t have an actual fan base, the logical thing to do when youÂ’re not playing pattycake with celebrities is to seize a hot-button issue with both hands and start a fight over it at every opportunity. If America ever did ban guns, his first tweet the next morning would be about how, if you think about it, abortion really should be available up to and including the start of labor. Last nightÂ’s talking point:...

No doubt leering at the staff, too: Reid (D-Nev.) said Tea Party Republicans are preventing progress on an energy efficiency bill by offering amendments on ObamaCare and other unrelated issues.“We’re diverted totally from what this bill is about. Why? Because the anarchists have taken over,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “They’ve taken over the House and now they’ve taken over the Senate.“People who don’t believe in government — and that’s what the Tea Party is all about — are winning, and that’s a shame.” Actually, what that is is a lie. On a variety of levels: Anarchists – as...

Thousands of bikers descended on Washington, D.C., Wednesday to protest a Muslim march provocatively timed for the 12th anniversary of 9/11. While the "Million Muslim March" looked likely to be a flop, the "2 Million Bikers" event brought participants from throughout the eastern seaboard. One estimate put the number of bikers there at 880,000. So many turned out that plans to have them ride through the streets of the Capital had to be changed. "There are so many motorcycles that trying to go through Washington, D.C., would not have worked," ride organizer Eric Zern told WTOP-Radio.

Rights: Colorado voters on Tuesday ousted two leading supporters of stricter gun control laws, saying "ready, aim, fired" to those who would deny movie patrons and college women the right to armed self-defense. One would think that Colorado, the site of the tragedies at Columbine and the Aurora movie theater, the purple state where President Obama accepted his first nomination amidst faux Greek columns, would be the least receptive of states for the arguments of Second Amendment defenders. Colorado state Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron found out differently on Tuesday as they were ousted by gun rights...

MOSCOW (AP) — In a surprise move, Russia promised Monday to push its ally Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control and then dismantle them quickly to avert U.S. strikes. The announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came a few hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syrian President Bashar Assad could resolve the crisis surrounding the alleged use of chemical weapons by his forces by surrendering control of "every single bit" of his arsenal to the international community by the end of the week.

Making the case for intervention in Syria to a war-weary American public, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the strike will be "unbelievably small" — a comment that has already earned him relentless mocking in its immediate aftermath. "We’re not going to war. We will not have people at risk in that way," Kerry said during a press conference in London with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, according to a transcript released by the State Department. "We will be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of...

NEW YORK (AP) — A 1-year-old boy in a stroller was fatally shot in the face as his parents pushed him across a city street, and police continued looking for the gunman Monday. Antiq Hennis and his parents were walking across a street in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn at about 7:20 p.m. Sunday when shots were fired and the boy was hit, police said. Investigators have yet to determine who was the intended target, and no arrests have been made, police said Monday.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was sentenced to two and a half years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to scheming to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on TV's, restaurant dinners, an expensive watch and other costly personal items. His wife received a sentence of one year.</p>

Times is back online, although many of its links--including its link to the story on the Clinton Foundation--are still not working. More to follow. .. On Wednesday, The New York Times published a devastating report, detailing the financial tensions and shady business deals surrounding the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times went off-line earlier this morning and is still not up and running. The Daily Telegraph and Fox News are the only sources so far reporting on this issue. But why would the New York Times go down for so long after this news broke? Founded in 2001, the Clinton...

The highly lethal nerve agent VX -- used in weapons of mass destruction -- appears to have been discovered in a mail facility at JFK Airport where two US customs agents were sickened this morning, a law-enforcement source said. Both victims suffered respiratory distress and were taken for emergency treatment after being overcome while inside the US Postal Service facility on North Boundary Road at 9:40 a.m., the source said. Initial testing after the incident revealed the presence of "chemical-grade weapons and nerve gas," and subsequent testing produced a positive reading for VX, the source said.

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A suspected U.S. drone killed four alleged al-Qaida members in Yemen on Tuesday, as the U.S. and British embassies evacuated staff amid reports of a threatened attack by al-Qaida that has triggered temporary shutdowns of 19 American diplomatic posts across the Muslim world. Yemeni officials have suggested al-Qaida threats to multiple potential targets in the Arabian Peninsula country in recent days, including foreign installations and government offices in the capital Sanaa as well as to the strategic Bab al-Mandeb straits at the entrance to the Red Sea to the south. It is not clear if these...

A defiantly unapologetic Tawana Brawley began paying off damages last week, 25 years after falsely accusing ex-prosecutor Steven Pagones of rape, The New York Post reported. Ten checks totaling $3,764.61 were delivered to Mr. Pagones — the first payments Miss Brawley has made since she defamed him in 1988, The Post said. She still owes Mr. Pagones $431,000. A Virginia court this year ordered the money garnisheed from six months of Miss Brawley’s wages as a licensed practical nurse at The Laurels of Bon Air in Richmond, The Post reported. She can appeal the wage garnishment every six months.

The way this feud is progressing, I half-expect Christie to reply, “And you’re the queen.”Ostensibly Paul means “bacon” in terms of “pork,” i.e. wasteful federal spending. Which I guess means he’ll be referring to Christie as “Porky” before the week’s out. “This is the king of bacon talking about bacon,” Paul said about Christie. Both are considered potential 2016 contenders for the Republican presidential nomination…“What does he want to do, shut down military bases in Kentucky?” he said.Fort Campbell and Fort Knox, both Army bases, are located in Kentucky. New Jersey itself is home to a large joint military base...

Another court ruling has taken the fizz out of New York City's ban on big, sugary sodas. A New York appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the city Board of Health exceeded its legal authority and acted unconstitutionally when it tried to put a size limit on soft drinks served in city restaurants. "The Board of Health overstepped the boundaries of its lawfully delegated authority," the court said in its decision. The state Supreme Court Appellate Division, with its opinion, upheld an earlier ruling that stopped the ban from taking effect in March. The rule would stop many eateries from...

They may take our lives, but they will never take…our FANTA! New York City’s plan to ban large sugary drinks from restaurants and other eateries was an illegal overreach of executive power, a state appeals court ruled on Tuesday, upholding a lower court decision in March that struck down the law.The law, which would have prohibited those businesses from selling sodas and other sugary beverages larger than 16 ounces, “violated the state principle of separation of powers,” the First Department of the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division said in a unanimous decision. The appeals court echoed a court’s March decision,...

He’s light on specifics here about the pros and cons of the NSA program as he sees them, but any time three serious contenders for 2016 are in a scrum over national security and civil liberties, it’s blogworthy. More than that, it’s blogworthy because the Paul/Cruz Senate partnership is to some extent a proxy for the tea-party/libertarian partnership generally. It won’t go on forever, but it’s fascinating while it lasts. I won’t bore you with rehashing why I think Cruz is more a tea partier than a true blue libertarian; read these two posts if you care, or read Nick...

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Houston on Monday to protest against the acquittal of George Zimmerman, but what started as a peaceful rally turned terrifying for one woman who claims she was assaulted while trying to get her daughter to the hospital. “I looked up and I see all the protesters, they’re everywhere,” said Georgia, who asked Click 2 Houston that her last name not be used. “So, we got into the traffic and they’re stopping us and not letting us go.” Police told the station that protesters spilled into the road, blocking traffic for about 15...

U.S. Olympic boxer Terrell Gausha is so disgusted over the George Zimmerman verdict ... he's vowing to never sport the red, white and blue again. Gausha -- who boxed in the 2012 London Summer Games -- started wearing the American flag on his boxing trunks after his Olympic run ... but tells TMZ he's done with that now in the wake of Zimmerman's acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Just when it seemed that the racial tensions couldn't get any worse after George Zimmerman's “not guilty” verdict regarding the charge of the second-degree murder of black teenager Trayvon Martin, along comes Nancy Grace, the host of a weeknight news/interview program on the HLN cable news network, who did her best to fan the flames even higher. Responding to lead defense attorney Mark O'Mara's closing argument on Friday night asking the jury to give Zimmerman his life back, the acerbic host growled: “Give Zimmerman back his life? He’s out on bond driving through Taco Bell every night, having a churro.”

I listened to Rush this morning, explaining how the liberals overlooked how Jeantel's interview on the "crazy ass crumpet's" show last night had warned St. Trayvon to run away from the chicken hawk. Here is the original testimony that describes what she feared. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjaNsWK8oW8 I kept on cracking up how the prosecution kept asking her to repeat "crazy ass cracker." The defense should have made much more of the "rapist" remark, since this was not about the facts, but about social engineering. It is conceivable that she think Trayvon is a hero for saving his kid brother, who was back...