Free Republic

NBC News star Chuck Todd recently made a lectern-pounding speech to attendees of a journalism awards dinner. He proclaimed: "One thing we're not is the opposition. We've never tried to be a part of the political debate, but people want to drag us into it. We shouldn't take the bait. We're simply a voice of truth." So, let's consider the case of Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI. The FBI Office of Professional Responsibility recommended that McCabe be fired for lying, or, to be gentle, a "lack of candor" -- even under oath -- in the Justice Department...

RUSH: CNN is all excited today because they learned that Donald Trump and John Kelly were livid after a leak that came from actually a very small group of people — the National Security Council staff — that Trump was not to congratulate Putin in his phone call. Here’s what happened. The national security staff prepares a cheat sheet, bullet-point suggestions, things to remember for Trump as a makes his call to Vladimir Putin. Apparently, the cheat sheet or the memo — the advisory piece — said, “Whatever you do, do not offer congratulations.” Well, Trump did anyway — and...

Make no mistake, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are in trouble — not just here in America, but all over the world. The Tech Tyrant has only himself to blame. Had he just left us alone, he would not be so alone or widely viewed as a monopoly with all the inherent risks in that. He would also not be a national pariah. When you are in charge of something, be it a Girl Scout troop or one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, the only way to stay out of trouble is with simple and clear rules...

On March 14, high school students from Parkland, Florida, led a school walkout in favor of gun control. The media have already appointed student witnesses of the horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School untouchable moral authorities; their opinions are not to be questioned. But now, the left has found even more sympathetic faces for its agenda: kindergarteners. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Schools are grappling with how to address the event with children as young as 5 years old and with finding ways for children who are too little to be told about school shootings to take part."...

A sickening act of youth violence in Florida glinted across the news headlines last week, and then disappeared from view. There will be no CNN town halls or student walkouts over the lost life and preventable tragedy, because there are no guns to blame. Only dropped balls. As the exploiters of crisis know full well, bureaucratic screw-ups don't make good fodder for partisan fundraisers and hipster T-shirts. According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Palm Beach County police, 17-year-old Corey Johnson bought a knife last Sunday and brought it with him to a sleepover at longtime friend...

RUSH: What I would say to you is don’t get distracted. The real scandal here is not Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. That’s not the scandal. The real scandal is and remains Barack Obama spying on the Trump campaign. Barack Obama collecting data on Mitt Romney. Barack Obama spying on domestic enemies of his Iran deal using the American intelligence community to do so. That remains the real scandal, not Zuckerberg, not Facebook, not Cambridge Analytica. The scandal isn’t selling data consumers have willingly given to advertisers. That’s not what the scandal is. The scandal is the government choosing sides and...

RUSH: I want you to hear a couple sound bites from 2015. There was an event called the Personal Democracy Forum, and a woman named Carol Davidsen spoke. She was a high-ranking Obama campaign official in 2012. She was at Rentrak [Corporation], the Vice President of Political Technology. I want you to just listen to this. She is describing what we talked about yesterday. When Obama and the Democrats were basically Hoovering every bit of data Facebook had, they were praised! The New York Times… We had a great caller reminded me of this yesterday. In June of 2013, the...

RUSH: Now, after that the second narrative is gotta destroy Facebook. Have to destroy Facebook. The Drive-By Media has made it a primary objective to destroy Facebook. Does that bother you at all, Mr. Snerdley? You use Facebook. (interruption) I know a lot of people that do. It might upset them, but it’s obvious that — well, look, if you’d let me get there. I know where my syllables are going. You don’t need to put thoughts in my mind. I have plenty on my own. Don’t need any little helpers here. As I was saying, the Drive-By Media is...

RUSH: Trump just had a little meeting in the White House, the media was in for a while, with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman — MSB — is his name. He is a Millennial. He is radically changing the culture of Saudi Arabia, radically. It may not seem much to you if you’re told what he’s doing, but it’s radical. Even going so far as to publicly say so, anyway, pull back from the radical Wahhabi sect of militant Islam. Mohammad Bin Salman has made it clear that he doesn’t want the Saudi Arabia under his...

RUSH: I mentioned that there’s the first known, first reported fatality involving an autonomously driven car. It was an Uber car. It was in Arizona. An Arizona pedestrian was killed. And because of this, Uber has halted testing of its autonomous vehicles all across North America, including San Francisco, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and a number of others have canceled theirs too. And, you know, it’s fascinating, folks, to read liberal blogs about this. As you know, I spend time on the tech blogs. And the tech blogs are populated by young Millennial leftist journalists. And while they hate Uber for...

RUSH: The Drive-By Media has two primary narratives today. The first narrative is that Trump is gonna fire Mueller, and then he can be impeached. No matter what they say at the White House, no matter what Sean Hannity said, Hannity went on Fox News yesterday and assured everybody Trump is not gonna fire Mueller. And Trump tweeted and promoted Hannity’s appearance on Fox & Friends, his favorite show. He wouldn’t send Hannity out there to say Mueller’s not gonna be fired and then turn around and fire Mueller. Trump wouldn’t do that. He’s not gonna fire Mueller. But the...

John covered this story last night, but the death of a pedestrian struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle in Arizona should have ramifications for the entire idea of autonomous vehicles. (Something I’ve been concerned about for a couple of years now.) After covering the initial reports from the accident, John concluded with the following observations and questions. There will be an investigation of this accident as well, but my first thought is to wonder why the human ‘backup driver’ didn’t stop the car and prevent this. Reliable self-driving cars and trucks may still be a couple years away but it’s...

While not bothering to calculate it down to the precise minute, spring is arriving in the northern hemisphere today. I’ll confess that I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately and this winter has been a particularly trying one for a number of reasons. But this is the time when hope springs eternal, plants begin to bloom, love is in the air and all of that romantic nonsense, right? Why not find something pleasant to focus on even in the midst of far too much depressing news.I’d first like to share with you a column written back in the...

In the wake of the 100% preventable Valentine's Day maniac murders of 17 children, calls for mental health assessments have become popular.  President Trump tweeted a ringing endorsement of mental health checks: the murderer "was a sick person – very sick – and we had a lot of warning about him being sick.  This wasn't a surprise."  The president repeated the mental health mantra the next day at CPAC. This enthusiasm for mental health should be viewed with extreme caution.  It is a classic example of the old adage "be careful what you wish for."  No one ought to realize this better than President Trump himself.  After all, his own mental...

A 7-year-old in second grade came home and said, "Mom, Dad, guess what! Our teacher read us the funniest book. It was so silly. It was about a prince who was getting married, but he didn't marry a princess. He married a prince! Isn't that so silly, Mom?" The book read to the confused child to introduce 7-year-olds to same-sex "marriage" is King and King by Linda de Haan. Without parental knowledge or consent, 5-year-old Jacob, entering kindergarten, came home with a "diversity bookbag." Inside was a book introducing kindergartners to same-sex households, celebrating Clifford and her dad's "partner," Henry...

Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative icon, well known and respected; a prolific author of twenty-plus books and current occupant of a chair of historical, military, and agrarian classical studies; a Ph.D. from Stanford; and the founder of classical studies at University of California at Fresno. ;Now he occupies a chair at the Hoover Foundation of Stanford University. I first came to know him reading The Western Way of War (1989), which explained the reason for the lethality and effectiveness of Western armies throughout history. ;This past year, he wrote one of his best books: The Second World Wars: How...

Remember the good old days of the Latin American "death squads"? Every liberal chanted with one voice to end these extrajudicial paramilitaries used by right-wing Latin American dictators to do the dirty work that they didn't want the regular armed forces, police, and justice system to do. Liberals invented the term to differentiate between noble lefty revolutionary guerrillas who were good and evil right-wing regime thugs who were bad. As any child could tell. I strongly feel that our liberal friends' devotion to activism, the notion of the marginalized and the oppressed rising up in righteous rage against the ruling...

IT HAS BEEN nearly 17 months since Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election, yet she can't seem to stop talking about her defeat, or all the culprits she holds responsible.She was at it again in India last weekend. Answering a question about the 2016 election, she portrayed Trump supporters as primitives motivated by racism, misogyny, and hatred of immigrants. "Make America Great Again" was a pitch to American bigots, Clinton said — to voters who "didn't like black people getting rights . . . don't like women getting jobs . . . don't want to see that Indian-American succeeding." That...

Britain has yet to identify the assassin who tried to murder the double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England. But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson knows who ordered the hit. "We think it overwhelmingly likely that it was (Russian President Vladimir Putin's) decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K." "Unforgivable," says Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov of the charge, which also defies "common sense." On Sunday, Putin echoed Peskov: "It is just sheer nonsense, complete rubbish, to think that anyone in Russia could do anything like that in the run-up...

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether pro-life pregnancy help centers in California should be required to post notices informing women of the availability of abortions elsewhere. The pregnancy help centers are contesting the law, disingenuously named the California Reproductive FACT Act, claiming it violates their free speech rights, as well as undercuts the reason for their existence. Some might ask in the interest of fairness and equality (two buzzwords the left likes to use in other situations) whether abortion clinics are required to post notices with information about alternatives to the procedure. According to Ingrid Duran,...