Free Republic

PARIS -- There's no faster or easier way to shut down legitimate debate than to slap an undesirable label on someone based on their views. Criticize same-sex marriage and you're a bigot. Take issue with immigration policy and you're dismissed as a racist. In the latest incarnation of this phenomenon, any conservative who dares to criticize U.S. President Barack Obama's stance against Russia on the issue of Ukraine runs the risk of being called a Putin-loving communist. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested this week that Republican lawmakers may have helped Russia annex Crimea by delaying a vote on aid...

Recycling her tried-and-true American dream story, Michelle Obama gave Chinese schoolchildren the same stump speech she delivers everywhere she goes, from Ireland to Chicago. The FLOTUS has used her hard-knock life tale to justify more vacations for herself than her husband has golf balls.

Checking out Rembrandts and checking in with European allies, President Obama seems blind to the rubble around him. The U.S. leadership vacuum has left NATO as ravaged as a post-World War II battlefield. In May 1945, a sizable force of Allied bombers flew photographers over European cities to document the destruction of what was then, and remains, the worst war in history. Their images of urban craters and flattened buildings are permanent reminders of the evils of totalitarianism. One can't help wondering, if Barack Obama had been on board, whether he would have looked down and remarked on the day's...

Let’s start with a simple question. What happens when a soldier runs out of ammunition during a firefight? First, he either retreats, or he quickly becomes killed, wounded or captured. Second, his tactical position converts from active to indefensible which imperils the strategic array of the entire battlefield. What do you call a submarine that runs out of torpedoes? Missing in action. That’s an old Navy joke that dates back to WWII. However the fundamental military concept remains true: without the ability to attack your enemy and inflict serious damage, you’re unable to influence any subsequent events on the battlefield....

Take one billionaire former New York City mayor with a Napoleon complex, dress him in drag, and what do you get? “Moms” Demand Action for Gunsense in America. We’ve already been told that Moms Demand has “merged” with MAIG. But did you know that they’ve finally announced that they are just a “campaign” of MAIG? Here’s their “donate” page. Look closely at how they describe themselves and where they ask you to send the checks.

....Diving into the thorny issue of climate change, Hillary Clinton said young people understand the significant threat of global warming and that she hoped there would be a mass movement that demands political change. She said the generation of college students and young people are much more committed to doing something to address climate change and it wasn't "just some ancillary issue" but will determine the quality of life for countries around the globe.

Appointments: America is a country of 320 million people, most of them holding to traditional values. Yet President Obama keeps mining the fringes for his hires. Does he have any friends who aren't crackpots? Seriously. The president keeps saying he champions the middle class and its values. But his choices of people to help him run the country are the most extreme in U.S. history, and his second-term nominations are more radical than the first.

Annoyed by Americans who resist the massive, corporation-backed push for a governmental takeover of healthcare, Organizing for Action sent out a Friday email blast touting a new bumper sticker mocking the tea party, titled “Don’t Tread on My Obamacare.” “Show the world you’re proud of health care reform,” OFA’s site headline reads. The sticker is shown below in a series of photos: stuck onto the back of a green smart car, slapped onto the front of a recycled cardboard journal and covering the Apple logo on a laptop at a rakish angle, clearly meant to convey the supporter’s snarky yet...

The Democrats’ game plan invoking Saul Alinsky’s rule # 13, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it,” has already reached the stage of self-parody when it comes to demonizing the Koch brothers. It’s time to star mocking them ruthlessly. Case in point: The New York Times.

General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book George S. Patton, America's greatest combat general of the Second World War, was assassinated after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book. By Tim Shipman in Washington 20 Dec 2008 The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives. The death of...

Did you know that White House press secretary Jay Carney speaks Russian and has spent a lot of his life talking to Communists?

Ukraine's Crimean parliament voted Monday to nationalize energy companies Ukrtransgaz and Chornomornaftohaz, according to a statement on the Parliament's website. A Crimean official said last week that the local authorities may sell the oil and gas company Chornomornaftohaz to a Russian firm "such as Gazprom" once the region assumes control of it. On Sunday, a Russia-backed referendum in Crimea demonstrated overwhelming support for joining the Russian federation. The US and its European allies are expected to announced sanctions against Russia on Monday after Crimea announced that just under 97% of voters in the region supported leaving Ukraine and becoming a...

Pro-Russian demonstrators in eastern Ukraine smashed their way into public buildings and burned Ukrainian-language books on Sunday in further protests following two deadly clashes in the region last week. Protests, some several thousand strong, spread to Russian-speaking southern districts as Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, under the control of the Russian military for two weeks, voted in a referendum on joining Russia. [...] In Kharkiv, Reuters Television footage showed pro-Russian activists scaling an iron gate, smashing a van and breaking into the offices of a Ukrainian cultural center. Two policemen stood nearby, examining the van. The footage then showed young men seizing...

Russian forces tighten grip on Crimea despite U.S. warning By Alissa de Carbonnel SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Sun Mar 9, 2014 9:25am EDT (Reuters) - Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff. Russian forces' seizure of the Black Sea peninsula has been bloodless but tensions are mounting following the decision by pro-Russian groups that have taken over the regional parliament to make Crimea part of Russia. The operation to seize Crimea began within days of Ukraine's pro-Russian...

In October of 2008, Sarah Palin was mocked as being too far-fetched by foreign policy media elites for predicting that if Obama won the presidency, Putin’s Russia’s might indeed invade Ukraine. "Saturday Night Live" had fun with Palin by lampooning her statement when she said one could see Russia from Alaska. Yet late last week, Palin got the last laugh when Putin invaded the Ukrainian Crimea, “Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I'm usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine....

Contract negotiations are stalled for thousands of workers at casinos on the Strip and in downtown Las Vegas to the point where they may go on strike — and the sticking point is Obamacare. On Feb. 20, thousands of housekeepers, porters, cooks, cocktail servers, and others represented by Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Union Local 226, voted to end a contract extension the workers agreed to last summer. The union wants to maintain its current benefits — including health care coverage at no cost to workers, pensions, and guaranteed 40-hour workweeks. Rising health care costs due to provisions in the...

A handful of Democratic Senators are up in arms about the Golden Globe awards. No, they’re not upset that Breaking Bad beat out House of Cards for best Television Drama Series. Instead, they’re fuming about a few actors using electronic cigarettes during the award show broadcast. They’ve fired off a strongly worded letter to NBC Universal and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for “glamorizing” the use of e-cigarettes. And now they’re going even further in advocating for a ban on these products in the U.S. Capitol. Banning consumption of electronic cigarettes in public has become a troubling trend of paternalistic...

The winners have accepted their statuettes at the 86th Annual Academy Awards show at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. This is the complete list of Oscar award winners:

Joseph Stalin’s firearms confiscation was a tremendous success for the Socialist state.Under the Tsar, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. That all changed when Stalin and the communists took control. Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people… after he took their guns. (Zinnfigur) Ukrainian citizens and gun owners are demanding their own Second Amendment in the country’s constitution. Doug Ross reported: The Ukraine Gun Owners Association wants the new government to add their own right to bear arms to the country’s constitution. As of today Ukrainian Gun Owners Association will...

The French minister for industry, Arnaud Montebourg, has announced the creation of a national company of mines aimed at securing the supply of raw materials and exporting French know-how abroad, EurActiv France reports. The industry minister kicked off the start of the “mining revival” of France recently during his visit to the largest underground gypsum quarry in Europe, located in the French Val d’Oise. […] “The creation of a national company of mines in France will allow us to control the prices, the quantities and our sovereignty. In the past, I have provided a number of mining permits to foreign...