Free Republic

The rioters who attacked police officers with Molotov cocktails and fireworks and torched numerous buildings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for about a week included members of the same pro-China communist group that “sparked” the May riots in Minneapolis after the police-involved killing of George Floyd. Maoist activists from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) can take most, if not all, of the credit for inciting the recent rioting in Kenosha. The town of 100,000 people has been torn apart, businesses and cars have been razed, multiple people have been arrested, and two people have died—yet no one seems to want to...

Screenwriter-director Aaron Sorkin used his Golden Globes win on Sunday as an opportunity to get on his political soapbox, quoting radical leftist Abbie Hoffman to condemn the Capitol Hill riots of January 6. Aaron Sorkin won an award for his screenplay for the Netflix movie The Trial of the Chicago 7. In his acceptance speech, the Hollywood writer, known for The West Wing and The Newsroom, quoted the late left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman, who is one of the protagonists of the historical drama. “Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it’s something...

In the seconds immediately after The Who concluded "Pinball Wizard", from Tommy, Hoffman, who had ingested LSD after working the past few hours at the medical tent, abruptly walked onto the stage and began addressing the crowd from Pete Townshend's microphone. He shouted, "I think this is a pile of sh**! ... While John Sinclair rots in prison ..." Alerted to the disturbance, Townshend (who apparently had been too distracted to notice Hoffman ambling onto the platform), snarled at Hoffman, "F*** off! F*** off my f***ing stage!" He then struck Hoffman with his guitar (which you can hear in the...

Diplomacy: As the Castros rejoice at President Obama's move to normalize ties, extend trade credits, take their country off the terror list and free its deadly spies, the queasy question remains: What did the U.S. get in return? The question is being asked by the more serious leaders in Washington. Marco Rubio for one. "(Obama's) foreign policy is, at a minimum, naive and perhaps truly counterproductive to the future of democracy in the region," said the Florida senator in the wake of the giveaway. "Barack Obama is the worst negotiator that we've had as president since at least Jimmy Carter,...

Fresh off his 2012 re-election victory, President Barack Obama summoned senior advisers to a series of meetings, asking them to “think big” about a second-term agenda, including the possibilities of new starts with long-standing U.S. foes such as Iran and Cuba. Two years later, after painstaking secret diplomacy on separate but surprisingly similar tracks, efforts with Tehran and Havana are in full swing. The nuclear negotiations with Iran continue and are far from a guaranteed success. But Wednesday’s announcement that the U.S. and Cuba will normalize relations after more than 50 years of hostility suggests one of the last chapters...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding the President’s announcement to change U.S. policy with Cuba and lift economic embargos. “We rejoice that Alan Gross’ wrongful imprisonment by the brutal Castro regime has finally come to an end, and that he will be able to spend the holidays with his loved ones. But make no mistake, although we are glad Alan is now free, the agreement the Obama Administration has entered into with the Castro regime has done nothing to resolve the underlying problem. Indeed, it has made it worse. “Fidel and Raul...

The Chicago conspiracy trial defendants were the first individuals prosecuted under the anti-riot provisions that Congress incorporated in the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The U.S. House of Representatives in 1967 overwhelmingly passed a version of the anti-riot provision in response to the urban riots of that summer and assertions from some members of Congress that African-American political activists had instigated the violence. The Senate included the provision in an open housing bill, and although President Johnson and Attorney General Ramsey Clark did not support the anti-riot provision, the administration accepted it to secure passage of the civil rights measure....

Reporting from Atlanta - President Obama has loosened travel restrictions to Cuba. His critics accuse him of harboring socialist sentiments. And he is, of course, a member of the African American intelligentsia -- a group that has tended, for the last half-century, to have a soft spot for the Cuban revolution. It sounds like the perfect atmosphere for the love affair between black American liberals and the regime of the Castros to fully flourish. Except that it's not. A group of 60 African American artists and thinkers have launched a rare -- and some say unprecedented -- attack on Cuba's...

Democrats, including Rep. Betty McCollum, launched into an assault on incivility Tuesday, saying incendiary words from members of Congress were inflaming tensions that could provoke another incident of Oklahoma City-style domestic terrorism."When Members of Congress compare health-care legislation to ‘government tyranny,’ ‘socialism,’ or ‘totalitarianism’ — in the hopes of scoring political points — it's like pouring gas on the fire of extremism," McCollum said. McCollum's St. Paul office was one of a few that received an envelope containing gasoline-soaked tatters of an American flag and a letter that called her things not fit for print in this or any publication....

'Taking Woodstock' set to start Emile Hirsch, Demetri Martin to star in Ang Lee pic By MICHAEL FLEMING Focus Features will begin production late this month on "Taking Woodstock," scripted by James Schamus and to be directed by Ang Lee. Lee's ensemble cast includes Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton and Liev Schreiber. Pic is an adaptation of the memoir of Elliot Tiber, who played a role in helping the historic 1969 music fest unfold on his neighbor's farm (Daily Variety, April 22). Less than a month ago, Focus had been thinking about postponing the start of production over concerns that a...

WRITTEN BY LT.COLONEL CHARLES WADE Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Even before the primary elections, President Bush’s military service was a political issue as was Senator Kerry’s military service which he touted and others questioned. Reporters continue to seek comment from candidates, political operatives, and pundits. It seems that everyone is an expert, and everyone has an answer. Some of the more interesting responses have come from Republican senators who typically begin by asserting that they honor Senator Kerry’s Viet Nam service, but… Honor: What is that all about? What virtues are honorable? More important, what virtues are both militarily and...

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP)--Peace activist David Dellinger, one of the Chicago Seven arrested and tried for their part in the violent anti-war protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, has died at 88. Dellinger died Tuesday, said Peggy Rocque, administrator of Heaton Woods, the Montpelier retirement home where the activist had been living. Dellinger was a pacifist who devoted much of his life to protesting. A member of the Old Left whose first arrest came in the 1930s during a union-organizing protest at Yale, he was a generation older than his Yippie co-defendants in the Chicago Seven case. ``Mainly I think...