Free Republic

“We can’t just flip a switch and make [the border crisis] better . . . We inherited an immigration system that is deeply broken.” — Vice President Kamala Harris, Nov. 18We say: President Donald Trump had the border situation largely under control, but President Biden did “flip a switch,” reversing Trump’s policies vital to keeping order at the border and signaling that migrants would be let in, practically no questions asked. Result: an unprecedented border-surge disaster. Fiscal year 2021 (which ended Sept. 30) saw agents detain nearly 1.7 million migrants, more than four times 2020’s number and the second-highest ever....

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) misled Congress on the number of veteran deaths in its health care system, adding to a growing list of untruths that VA has told congressmen trying to investigate the scandal-plagued department. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs, chaired by Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, is the latest victim of VA’s dishonesty. VA provided the committee an April 7, 2014 fact sheet purporting to show all of the cases of delays and preventable veteran deaths it oversaw in its gastrointestinal care in the last fifteen years. “As a result of the consult delay issue VA discovered...

Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis is under fire for apparently misstating facts about her life story, with a Republican opponent claiming the discrepancies raise questions about her honesty. Davis, a Democratic state senator who rose to prominence last year after delivering a lengthy filibuster against abortion restrictions, was the subject of a Dallas Morning News piece on Sunday that took issue with several details in her personal narrative.

WASHINGTON — As a Mormon who did his missionary work in France, Mitt Romney knows something of uphill battles. Imagine spreading a faith that renounces smoking, coffee and alcohol in the cafes of Paris. Romney’s current task may seem easy in comparison. But his religious beliefs remain an obstacle. About 20 percent of Republicans and 23 percent of Protestants tell Gallup they would not support a Mormon for president. A portion of conservative Christianity is unhinged in its condemnation, regarding Mormonism as a dangerous, secretive cult. Even without recourse to calumny, it is clear that evangelicals will not be reconciled...

If it looks like a pizza, and smells like a pizza, it might very well be ... the newest overstuffed offering from the folks at Burger King. The NY Pizza Burger, expected to debut early next month in midtown, features a gut-busting four broiled Whopper burgers. It's topped with pepperoni, mozzarella and marinara sauce, all stacked on a 9-1/2-inch sesame seed bun. The burger is cut into six pizza-style slices, allowing diners to share the agita and the ecstasy. The massive meal will join the menu at the Whopper Bar in Times Square, the new 24-hour, seven-day-a-week flagship fast food...

White House sources say President Obama was presented with a crown Thursday evening by employees of a DC area Burger King restaurant. Mr. Obama was given the iconic paper headgear during what was described as a "date night" there with first lady Michelle. Reading from a teleprompter, the president said he considered the crown a "call to action" that he hoped would spur a "new era of cooperation". He concluded his remarks by saying that he did not feel he deserved the crown. However, White House staff were reported to have seen Mr. Obama wearing the crown for at least...

PETA has a message for Michael Moore: You’re the Sicko. The animal-rights group is blasting the filmmaker as a hypocrite for criticizing the U.S. healthcare system in his new documentary, “Sicko,” because they say he’s in such poor health himself. “There’s an elephant in the room, and it is you,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a letter to Moore. Newkirk urged the rotund Moore to become a vegetarian, which many nutritionists say is a good way to lose weight, and visit PETA’s Web site GoVeg.com for veggie recipes. Writes Newkirk: “As they say at Nike (sorry!): ‘Just do it.”

Two-and-a-half years ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed to power in an unprecedented recall election, vowing to end the gross fiscal mismanagement seen under Gray Davis. Since then, the budget picture has brightened – primarily because of big revenue gains and slight slowing in spending growth. Nevertheless, a vast annual “structural deficit” of at least $5 billion remains. So the 2006 governor's race is likely to hinge on how candidates say they will right California's fiscal ship, just as in 2003? Not even close. In fact, none of the three leading candidates have a credible plan to fix this mess. Here's...

'SCOOTER" LIBBY'S indictment was not exactly good news for the White House, but it could have been a lot worse. Feverish speculation had been building that Karl Rove would soon be "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," as Valerie Plame's bombastic hubby, Joe Wilson, had hoped. Or even that Dick Cheney would have to resign. But with his investigation all but over, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has found no criminal conspiracy and no violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime in some circumstances to disclose the names of undercover CIA operatives. Among other problems,...

In the past few years, there have been several attempts by overweight people to blame their health problems on McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants, and they have sought legal remedy in the courts. They've argued that fast-food restaurants served them food that has made their belts increase in size to a degree that now the only things that they're able to buckle are floor boards. Personal responsibility takes yet another holiday, and now, thanks to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, it's retired to Barbados for the foreseeable future. A lawsuit was brought against McDonald's on behalf of two...

Former president Bill Clinton. Photo by Ralph Stewart Most people waiting in the snaking line had yet to read one of the whopping 957 pages of Bill Clinton’s “My Life,” published by Knopf in June. Some said they might get around to reading the $35 hardback they had to purchase to be admitted to Bunch of Grapes on Monday morning. People of all ages, from little girls too young to remember his presidency (but who still spent all of their allowance money on his book), to elderly Islanders who have likely lived through more than a dozen leaders, really just...

Sen. John Kerry and his media boosters are hoping bogus allegations that President Bush went AWOL from the National Guard will catapult him into the White House - but during the 1992 presidential campaign, Kerry angrily denounced Bush's father for raising Bill Clinton's Vietnam draft record. In fact, back then, Kerry called those who wanted to make Vietnam service an issue "cowardly." "I'm here personally to express my anger, as a veteran," Kerry told National Public Radio two months before the 1992 election, "that a president who would stand before this nation in his inaugural address and promise to put...

BAGHDAD -- Welcome to Iraq, home of the Whopper. Deep inside Baghdad International Airport, past a vehicle search, a body search and four checkpoints, soldiers are lined up for burgers and fries. They have come by plane from Mosul, 220 miles north, for onion rings. They have picked up Chicken Royale sandwiches while picking up buddies flying back from a two-week home leave. They have begged and borrowed Humvees, making up any excuse for a trip to the airport and a reminder of what the pink mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise oozing from a fresh Whopper tastes like. "It tastes...

In his Friday New York Times column, Paul Krugman -- America's most dangerous liberal pundit -- unloaded three huge, enormous, whopping liberal lies. Each was designed to turn the Bush administration's spectacular military success in Iraq into evidence of Bush's brutality, and suggested that success itself sows the seeds of failure and betrayal that Krugman claimed is typical of Bush. Time for the Krugman Truth Squad to uncover more fact-checking of mass destruction. Let's begin with Krugman's idea that Bush's "pattern" in Iraq is one "of conquest followed by malign neglect." This statement led Truth Squad senior member Andrew Sullivan...

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israel's most recent excuse for why it cannot negotiate peace with the Palestinians is that the Palestinians have been unable to develop a fully democratic society while living under Israeli occupation. This excuse is better known as "reform." And yet, when Palestinians are invited to go to London to further the reform process, the government of Israel prevents us from doing so.