Free Republic

Hollywood can't help itself. The glitteries inevitably use the Academy Awards to push their personal politics, sometimes cheap and occasionally not, rewarding razzle-dazzle over real life. This year the two most important Oscars, for best picture and best director, went to "Birdman," about razzle-dazzle, and not "Boyhood," about real life. The birdman is a faded movie star who tries to redeem his popularity by going on the stage to show he can act before a live audience. Such a tale naturally trumps the everyday concerns of "Boyhood," which follows a divorced couple over 12 years and the trials of raising...

If the sadists of ISIS are seeking -- with their mass executions, child rapes, immolations, and beheadings of Christians -- to stampede us into a new war in the Middle East, they are succeeding. Repeatedly snapping the blood-red cape of terrorist atrocities in our faces has the Yankee bull snorting, pawing the ground, ready to charge again. "Nearly three-quarters of Republicans now favor sending ground troops into combat against the Islamic State," says a CBS News poll. The poll was cited in a New York Times story about how the voice of the hawk is ascendant again in the GOP....

It’s no secret that conservatives need to step up their digital game, and despite great strides since 2008, there are still key facets missing from our arsenal for online organizing. One powerful tool often deployed by progressives is the use of online petitions to rapidly garner substantial support. Petitions themselves aren’t a new concept. In fact, they’ve have been used for hundreds of years to influence decision makers across the globe--from pre-modern Imperial China, to the British House of Commons in the 18th and 19th Centuries, to modern-day American politics. However, the rise of the Internet has dramatically transformed this...

While jousting with Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly a few years ago, Jon Stewart proclaimed him “the Mayor of “Bull---- Mountain.’’ But that image is imprecise. Fox News, the cable network beloved of conservatives, is less a mountain than a fortress, or maybe a tank. Firmly in the driver’s seat is O’Reilly, who worked at a Boston TV station and attended Boston University and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The network’s operational mode is the furthest thing from serene mountaintop remoteness: Day in and day out, Fox girds for ideological battle with what it sees as the...

Gov. Scott Walker has leapt to the top of polls in Iowa. As day follows night, he has moved to the center of the liberal press's crosshairs. This is the world we inhabit: When a Democrat is perceived as popular, the press discovers layers of humor and elan we never suspected. When a Republican is gaining strength, the press sharpens its bayonets. Based on his response to trap-door questions in the past few days, we've been instructed that Walker a) is a crypto young Earther (or, just as bad, a panderer to same); b) that he ought to have answered...

Honestly, are any of my Democratic friends even slightly bothered by President Obama's habitual and brazen lawlessness and what that could mean for our liberties? Does it bother them that he implemented two new administration programs to halt deportations and allow work permits for up to 5 million immigrants living illegally in the United States after clearly admitting he didn't have the constitutional authority to do so? Does it bother them that after having done so, despite his insincere promise, he has been openly defiant about the decision U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen made in favor of the states trying...

Canaries are not very formidable birds, but they have their uses. For instance, coal miners learned over a century ago that when canaries gag and drop dead at the bottom of the cage, it's a sign that maybe there's something wrong with the air in the mine. MSNBC is not a very formidable network, but its wheezing is similarly instructive. MSNBC's slogan is "Lean Forward," which has a robust sound to it. But it turns out the phrase is a more apt descriptor of how the Peacock Network's mini-me is poised to teeter off its perch and plunge beak-first into...

The media noticed that this year's Oscars ceremony contained a lot of political tub-thumping, but they didn't notice that these speeches were predictable and obnoxious left-wing screeds. They were just "passionate pleas for equality," according to the Associated Press. Actress Patricia Arquette unleashed a tirade on wage inequality for women. Singer John Legend said more black men were trapped in prison than America had black men trapped in slavery in 1850. There's apparently no difference between Kunta Kinte and Willie Horton. On CNN, Entertainment Weekly writer Anthony Breznican represented the media fog on this one: "I can't really think of...

In reflecting on relations between the United States and China, Henry Kissinger in his 2011 book, "On China," notes that since he and Richard Nixon ventured to Beijing more than 40 years ago, "Eight American presidents and four generations of Chinese leaders have managed this delicate relationship in an astonishingly consistent manner, considering the difference in starting points." Kissinger diplomatically avoids saying that almost every presidential candidate over the years has campaigned against the Nixon-Kissinger policy and is perhaps taking pride in the fact that every president has continued it. Forty-plus years is a long time for a democracy to...

Dear 2016 GOP hopefuls: First of all, best of luck. If you are successful, it will be your job to dig the United States out of the eight-year abyss of the Obama presidency. This will take courage, vision, hard work and resiliency. If you have these things, great, but before we get to evaluating your worthiness to fight terror or shrink the government, we’d best see if you have the skills to navigate a couple of annoying questions from reporters. Many of you in the field may be tempted to take all of the questions about evolution and Barack...

(Reuters) - U.S. regulators are poised to impose the toughest rules yet on Internet service providers, aiming to ensure fair treatment of all web traffic through their networks. The Federal Communications Commission is expected Thursday to approve Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed "net neutrality" rules, regulating broadband providers more heavily than in the past and restricting their power to control download speeds on the web, for instance by potentially giving preference to companies that can afford to pay more. The vote, expected along party lines with Democrats in favor, comes after a year of jostling between cable and telecom companies and...

When Scott Walker pronounced himself agnostic about President Barack Obama’s patriotism and Christian faith, it must have seemed like a clever formulation. “I’ve never asked him, so I don’t know,” he said. And about Obama’s Christianity: “I’ve never asked him that.”Walker quickly found his pitch unequal to the presidential big leagues. His argument can’t be generalized into a rule. I have never met Billy Graham, for example, but I’m pretty sure what he believes. As political attacks go, this one is particularly heavy-handed—the equivalent of saying: As far as I know, my opponent is not a swindler and a degenerate....

A constant refrain when discussing issues of radical Islam is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not radicalized. I agree completely. The vast majority of Muslim men and women are people who just want to live their lives, bring up their families and make the most out of the short time they have available to them. Almost all Western intelligence agencies are unanimous in their estimates that anywhere between 15-25 percent of Muslims worldwide are radicalized. That means there are between 180-300 million radicalized Muslim men and women in the world today. It is quite right to point out...

Netanyahu is coming to Washington next week because Obama has left him no choice. It is hard to get your arms around the stubborn determination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. For most of the nine years he has served as Israel’s leader, first from 1996 to 1999 and now since 2009, Netanyahu shied away from confrontations or buckled under pressure. He signed deals with the Palestinians he knew the Palestinians would never uphold in the hopes of winning the support of hostile US administrations and a fair shake from the pathologically hateful Israeli media. In recent years he released...

To save the nation from a future Greek-style fiscal meltdown, we should reform entitlements.But as part of the effort to restore limited, constitutional government, we also should shut down various departments that deal with issues that shouldnÂ’t be handled by the central government.IÂ’ve already identified some low-hanging fruit.Get rid of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.Shut down the Department of Agriculture.Eliminate the Department of Transportation.We need to add the Department of Education to the list. And maybe even make it one of the first targets.Increasing federal involvement and intervention, after all,is associated with more spending and more bureaucracy,but NOT...

What isn’t there to love about Obamacare? It was moved through Congress in hurry-up mode to head off Scott Brown coming into the Senate and was never really reviewed. It was crafted to funnel tax dollars to the healthcare industry and indeed stock prices for the health insurers have done nicely since the law’s passing. (One of the main reasons Obamacare remains in place.) It’s shutting out small doctors offices because of the regulatory burden. (The codes these offices must deal with we are told are mind boggling.) Many people’s insurance costs have gone up, in some cases doubled or more. And...

We can’t say that Barack Obama hasn’t warned us. While running for his first term as president he clearly told us that he intended to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America. The naïve among us took that proclamation to mean something positive. Those who looked at Obama’s history with a little more discernment were very uncomfortable with exactly what Barack Obama intended to do if elected. Promising to “fundamentally transform” was a rather vague and ambiguous statement, unless one took a close look at who he associated with throughout his life. It then quickly sent chills down one’s spine....

Those fingers in my hairThat sly come-hither stareThat strips my conscience bareIt's witchcraftAnd I've got no defense for itThe heat is too intense for itWhat good would common sense for it do?-Frank SinatraThe Frank Sinatra standard could have been the theme for Tuesday's session where stocks hung on every word from the Fed Chairman. For many, the sway Janet Yellen has over the market is akin to witchcraft and there is no defense for it, but then again, the rub is that too few want that come-hither to be broken. Of course, one day, the Fed will raise rates and they...

In my career as a TV producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing all sorts of movers and shakers within modern Christendom. I’ve seen them on camera and off camera. One leading example of such is the Hon. Roy S. Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. From 1995 to 2003, I traveled to that state about ten times with a TV crew for Roy Moore-related cases. Now he’s in trouble again---for sticking to his guns. I’ll get to that in a moment. When I first met Roy Moore in 1995 and interviewed him...

Gov. Scott Walker refuses to let the media dictate the conversation. “There has been much discussion about a media double standard where Republicans are covered differently than Democrats, asked to weigh in on issues the Democrats don't face," the potential GOP presidential candidate wrote Wednesday in an op-ed for USA Today. "As a result, when we refuse to take the media's bait, we suffer." The Wisconsin Republican's commentary comes on the heels of comments made by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who questioned whether President Obama “loves America” during a private dinner featuring Walker. Since then, the media...