Free Republic

If it is true that the best defense is a good offense, President Obama should be celebrating in the end zone now. Obviously furious over criticism that his anti-terror policies are weak and that the Orlando slaughter proves it, he went on a televised tirade to let America know he’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. He laid waste to a field of straw men, cable-TV pundits and the always-evil “partisan rhetoric,” by which he means anyone who disagrees with him.

Well, thank goodness we have President Obama on the case. He will get to the bottom of it and finally put a stop to all this murder, madness and mayhem. "And there also at this stage is no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot," a dazed Mr. Obama said haltingly as he — once again — downplayed this crazy notion that America and Western Civilization is under relentless attack from barbaric animals slaughtering humans in the name of Islam.

Now And Then THEN In October 2008, you were a freshman in college, still just 18 years old. You’d already had four years of high school during which your teachers demonstrated the ability to blame everything from cracked heels to rainy days on the occupant of the Oval Office who just happened to be a Republican and who just happened to be named George W. Bush. 9/11 took place when you were still in middle school. You remember your teachers bravely showing up for class the next day and glumly talking about the tragedy that befell New York, Washington DC...

Both sides in the debate about deporting illegal aliens seem to have accepted wholesale certain phrases, concepts and images. We hear about roundups as if we're talking about lassos and runaway cattle. Advocates for illegal immigration are, as always, quick to forward the notion that apprehending criminals (yes they've committed a crime. QED.) will be akin to (all together now) Nazi Germany's arbitrary persecution, collection and detention of Jews. Cue the Photoshops and cartoons of guards, dogs, prison buses, trains, camps, groups of sad sacks with hands raised in surrender, long lines of prisoners chained together, etc. But we're talking...

When the Labour leadership was in the throes of one of its recent shambolic policy re-alignments – it may have been the volte face on support for the Government’s fiscal charter, or the contradictory announcements on renewing Trident – a colleague of mine said: “Is this too serious to be funny, or is it too funny to be serious?” I think we have the answer to that question now. With the announcement last week of Seumas Milne’s appointment as head of Labour strategy and communications, there can no longer be scope for doubt. This is deadly serious. To appreciate just...

Michael Dodds, a former top-level administrator who oversaw several Columbus City Schools buildings, will report to jail today to start serving a 14 day sentence for his role in manipulating student data to make the district look better. Dodds pleaded no contest in June and was convicted on three felony charges: attempted tampering with government records and two counts of unauthorized use of property. Today, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kimberly Cocroft sentenced Dodds to a jail term of one day less than that received by Stephen B. Tankovich, the former district administrator who masterminded the data purging, received for...

Barbara Byrd-Bennett has resigned as chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools amid a federal investigation into a $20.5 million no-bid contract. In a letter dated last week, Byrd-Bennett said she planned to step down Monday. She did not give any reasons for her decision. Byrd-Bennett has been on paid leave since mid-April, when school officials released wide-ranging subpoenas from the federal investigation. Her paid leave was scheduled to end next week and she had not been expected to return to her post. The investigation centers on a $20.5 million no-bid contract at CPS related to an elite nonprofit education...

The Michael Brown & Eric Garner circus has demonstrated (again) that the media are happy to fill the air with 'X reacts to Y' and 'Y reacts to Z' and 'Z reacts to X' - conveniently arriving back at X to start another cycle - without ever engaging in actual journalistic due diligence. Despite billions in state of the art satellite trucks, audio/video gear and an army of reporters, the media (apparently) cannot bring themselves to break out of the mode of providing a megaphone to those who are already screaming unintelligibly. In the 90s, before the truth about his...

Hadn't watched the McLaughlin Group in quite some time as they had lost or jettisoned some of the more interesting panelists (and no, Jay Carney wasn't one of them!). The lineup seems to have stabilized although these poor folks are looking O-L-D...perhaps because they are. Felt bad for McLaughlin who apparently was wearing someone else's suit, so baggy was it on his frame. I'm not condemning anyone for aging or illness but it was a bit alarming. In the days before cable news and the internet, the McLaughlin Group were one of the few doses of political candor and a...

The Springfield Police Department, along with the Clark County Sheriff’s Department and Ohio State Highway Patrol were in for a big surprise last night when members of a local “Cop Block” chapter turned up to warn drivers about the disturbing “sobriety” checkpoint that was set up. The Clark County OVI Task Force said that their sobriety checkpoint was a “no refusal” inspection of drivers, to “make sure no one’s out drinking and driving,” an officer with the Springfield Police told us. The checkpoint was conducted at State Route 40 and State Route 68 in Clark County and began at 8:00...

LANGUAGE matters and every day our lives are governed by things we are told. And language means the use of words. That is why propaganda is the first weapon of the dictator - the power to bend the real meaning of words in order to bend the listener/reader's mind. The two weapons of the propagandist are the misnomer (the wrong word with the wrong meaning) and the euphemism (the wimp that dare not say what it really means.) Way out in the lead for both categories is the BBC. Listen to the news and you'll see what I mean. The...

Is there anyone on the planet who wouldn’t pay to avoid travelling with other people’s children? A survey has found that almost 70 per cent of travellers think planes should have child-free zones. Half of those would pay up to £63 extra to fly without children, especially on long-haul flights. I can see what they mean. Flying back from Italy recently, I had my back so thoroughly bruised by a small, restless boy that if King Herod were standing in the European elections, I’d almost be tempted. Under normal circumstances, I like children – an eccentricity which has led to...

Hauling a truckload of logs to a Southern Oregon mill last fall, Chris Hill noticed a sheriff's deputy behind him and flashed his lights to warn a UPS driver coming the other way. The deputy pulled over Hill on U.S. Highway 140 in White City and handed him a $260 ticket for improperly using his headlights, saying another deputy had seen the flashing lights from behind the UPS truck and alerted him to stop the log truck because of the signaling. Outraged, Hill decided to fight the ticket, and on Wednesday, a Jackson County Justice Court judge dismissed the citation,...

Seattle Monday became the first city in the country to limit drivers for Lyft, uberX and Sidecar, in what will eventually be an overhaul of all of the city’s ride-service rules. The regulations, approved unanimously by the City Council, will limit each company to 150 drivers on the road at the same time, collectively capping them at 450.

The Census Bureau’s holiday treat is its release of annual state population estimates, to be digested slowly in the new year. The headline from this year’s release is that population growth from July 2012 to July 2013 was 0.72 percent, lower than in the two preceding years and the lowest since the Great Depression 1930s. This reflects continuing low, below-replacement-rate birth rates and lower immigration than in 1982-2007. Net immigration from Mexico evidently continues to be zero. The nation's economy may be growing again, but Americans -- and potential Americans -- are not acting like it. There's a parallel here...

A forum on an everyday, non-political topic I visit nevertheless has a folder dedicated to politics as a repository for any discussions that start out or veer into political territory. It also gives the mods a method of policing the forums without deleting posts outright. Since I have the lovely FR and its denizens I rarely view the folder but in a moment of ennui I clicked through to it yesterday where a discussion of the minimum wage was, er, waged. It will not shock you to learn that there are all manner of armchair saints out there who believe...

A plane crash (albeit one with pilots & cargo and no passengers) is, unfortunately, a big deal. Except in DC, where USA Today believes that the death of political commentator Jack Germond is worthy of headline placement ABOVE the plane crash. While we're all sorry for Germond's family & friends, he had a good innings considering he had been obese for decades (his book was titled 'Fat Man In A Middle Seat') and still reached age 85. Is a death at that age truly breaking news worthy of a red alert banner? USA Today might claim this is down...

A sobriety checkpoint in Burbank on Saturday that screened 1,021 drivers yielded zero arrests, police reported.

The chairman of the Australian company behind Chicago's red-light program resigned this week and trading in the company's stock was suspended amid an intensifying investigation into allegations of corruption in its Chicago contract. Redflex Holdings Ltd. announced the extraordinary actions just days after board members were briefed by an outside legal team hired to examine ties between the company's U.S. subsidiary and the city official who oversaw its contract, a relationship first disclosed in October by the Tribune. In a brief statement Thursday to the newspaper, the company also revealed for the first time that it is sharing information with...

By now most have viewed at least one of the HHS anti-smoking commercials featuring victims of various cancers and other ailments caused - they say - by smoking and tobacco use. It's a cliche but still true: these are our tax dollars at work. Your government commissioned these ads and purchased the airtime with your cash. HHS Secretary Sebelius and her minions risk another sort of medical problem - namely, rotator cuff injuries from patting themselves on the back for foisting these grotesque, voyeuristic images on an unsuspecting, undeserving public. This isn't a tear in the eye of Iron Eyes...