Free Republic

Obama is often caught on the back foot — more often than not being informed of the big political stories by the media and not by his staff. Still, given how quickly the rest of the world cottoned on to what had happened in Ukraine, it is difficult to believe that, when he stepped onto the stage in Delaware yesterday, he was incapable of changing his plans. He did not. Instead, the president spent a grand total of 38 seconds on the downing of the plane, describing what he knew to have been an atrocity as a “tragedy” that “might”...

How far left was I? So far left my beloved uncle was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in a Communist country. When I returned to his Slovak village to buy him a mass card, the priest refused to sell me one. So far left that a self-identified terrorist proposed marriage to me. So far left I was a two-time Peace Corps volunteer and I have a degree from UC Berkeley. So far left that my Teamster mother used to tell anyone who would listen that she voted for Gus Hall, Communist Party chairman, for president. I wore a...

It's Sunday morning, and I'm reading the reports on the Malaysia Airline mass murder, and it's beyond depressing. Imagine if it were a son or a daughter, a sister or a brother, a mom or a dad—rotting in that field. And surrounding that field are a band of mystery men, preventing recovery. And think to yourself, that these fellows are picking through your loved ones' things—not only destroying a crime scene but possibly helping themselves to whatever’s around them. It’s revolting. How does this world let this happen? Because we let it happen. Amidst the clamoring for action and demands...

A prominent sign at the Detroit water protest..."Where do you expect us to sh**?"Detroit liberals marched to demand free water on Friday. The leftists don’t believe they should have to pay for it. It’s not their responsibility.Hollywood liberal Mark Ruffalo joined the protesters to demand free water as did many attendees from Netroots Nation. Mark Ruffalo is in Detroit fighting water shutoffs. The Avengers actor leading the march downtown. pic.twitter.com/HRik6VWxdn

Here’s our current President talking about the (apparent) Russian attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: (Longer version so you can really get the full effect.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u69nOm-6esHere’s President Ronald Reagan talking about the Russian attack on Korean Airlines Flight KAL-007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VA4W1wDMAk

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One of the classic signs of serious mental illness is “inappropriate affect.” In this context, “affect” is the emotional face we present to the world. To the extent that a narcissist’s only emotional fixed point is his own need, most of a narcissists affects are actually faked, but that doesn’t mean they’re inappropriate.The narcissist knows that it would harm his best interests if he were to giggle uncontrollably at a funeral or pick a fist fight with a patient in hospice. Normal people wouldn’t even think of doing such things (outside of the comedy universe), but a narcissist might want...

RUSH: Here's President Obama, by the way, Wilmington, Delaware, port of Wilmington, he spoke about the downed Malaysian Airlines passenger jet in Ukraine. Listen to the profundity here of the opening line. Are you ready? Just listen. It's about 27 seconds, but just listen. I mean, this is raw intelligence. This is the kind of intelligence, folks, that we expected back in 2008. This is what they all meant when they said, "He's a man unlike any who has ever walked among us! This is a man who is so much above us that we can just barely strive to...

Back in the 1980s, when I was a good ol' liberal Democrat (sort of in the Kennedy mold), I kept hearing those Bible Thumpers in the Moral Majority bandy about a word: Secularist. What the heck was that? Nobody I knew (and everyone I knew was a person of the sort-of Left) called him or herself a "secularist."What in the world did those zealots mean by labeling me that way and pretending that I'm doing something damaging to them? I understood what was really going on: Very religious people were abnormal, and then there were the rest of us who...

Why are Western liberals always more offended by Israeli militarism than by any other kind of militarism? It’s extraordinary. France can invade Mali and there won’t be loud, rowdy protests by peaceniks in Paris. David Cameron, backed by a whopping 557 members of parliament, can order airstrikes on Libya and British leftists won’t give over their Twitterfeeds to publishing gruesome pics of the Libyan civilians killed as a consequence. President Obama can resume his drone attacks in Pakistan, killing 13 people in one strike last month, and Washington won’t be besieged by angry anti-war folk demanding ‘Hands off Pakistan’. But...

It is axiomatic that the freedom of speech provisions of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution are specifically intended to protect unpopular and/or offensive speech. After all, speech that is neither unpopular nor offensive is, obviously, not in need of any particular protections. It is equally indisputable that of all the various forms of speech possible, it is political and religious speech that lies at the heart of 1st Amendment protections.Meet Todd Kincannon, that &$(#*&%! Lawyer from South Carolina In the context of the Conservative polito-sphere one of the greatest founts of offensive conservative political and religious speech is...

Contrary to what those who defend the right to own high-powered assault rifles believe, not all guns are created equal. Due to a combination of availability, portability and criminal usage the following five types of guns are the country's most dangerous. Using firearm trace data from the ATF, as well as FBI homicide records, we determined the types of guns most often recovered from crime scenes and/or used in murders. The numbers are stark: According to the FBI's 2012 Crime in the US data, nearly 70 percent of homicides for which the FBI received weapons data involved the use of...

Welcome to America!The Obama administration has awarded a $50 million contract to a charitable group to buy a Texas resort hotel and transform it in to a 600 bed facility for juvenile illegal aliens. The beautiful Palm Aire resort and hotel has an indoor Olympic sized pool and an outdoor pool. Free Wi-Fi and cable TV are included in the simply decorated guest rooms.The Palm Aire Hotel and Suites is set to be sold to Baptist Child & Family Services (BCFS) operating under a federal contract, pending local government approval, according to reports from Weslaco, Texas where the hotel is...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, as an adjunct, or a continuation of the discussion just now on the polling data, the Washington Post/ABC News showing how bad it is for the Republicans, the way they're handling the immigration crisis on the Southern border. I had a sound bite yesterday from the governor of Nebraska and I did not get to it, and I could shoot myself for not getting to it. I don't need it now, too late now. It's my bad. But I can tell you what it was about. The governor of Nebraska was livid when he found out...

Everyone knows there are gays and lesbians in everybody’s family. And no office would be complete without a sassy gay character. And just about every other kid in high school is wresting with his sexuality. I know. I watch TV. Except it isn’t true, and the Centers for Disease Control just proved it. A new comprehensive study by the CDC with over 33,000 participants has confirmed earlier estimates; less than 3 percent of the U.S. population self-identifies as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Earlier, much smaller-scale surveys have put that number at 4 percent. The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), published...

John Kerry made a name for himself by attacking the military and the United States. [video] So it should come as no surprise that Kerry is still bashing America. The Secretary of State recently told a crowd, “I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional we are.” The State Department reported, via Weekly Standard: "I was privileged to speak to the graduating class of Yale this year, and it was particularly a pleasure because it happened to turn out to be, literally, I hate to say it, 48 years to the day that I was...

The best litmus test of any society’s success or failure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfN2IvnIA4M

RUSH: Why should Obama even bother going to the border when you have a news agency that will actually lie and say that you have been? I am holding in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a printout of a post by Michelle Malkin at Twitchy. Reuters has actually posted an out-and-out lie. There is a picture of Obama standing on the edge of a wooded area, also known as a forest. There is a giant American flag in the background. In the lower right-hand corner there's a group of starstruck young people watching the president speak from the presidential podium. And...

The crisis on the Mexican border is worsening by the hour. In his latest FIREWALL, Bill Whittle hammers home three devastating points regarding the dangerous legal precedents, the morally gray areas, and the hypocritical pose of unearned moral superiority on the part of those proposing amnesty and open borders. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkN4XiqRnrE TRANSCRIPT: WHERE DO YOU LIVE, MARK ZUCKERBERG? "Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall. Today I want to make three points regarding the current, artificially created emergency on the southern border, as children are used as innocent pawns to force an issue in order to gain political...

RUSH: Where is the Hollywood telethon for the suffering children crossing the border? We do "We Are the World" for the starving in Ethiopia. Where is the telethon? Where is the massive leftist outpouring of compassion and fundraising for these hungry, thirsty, ill, sick, victimized-through-no-fault-of-their-own children? It's just like you said to me yesterday, "Rush, you may as well give it up. You're not got gonna win this." I said, "Win what?" "You're not gonna convince people to send the kids back." I said, "Why does somebody think that's what I'm doing?" "Rush, there's nobody under 25 in this country...