Free Republic

After the big bang of the Singapore summit in June, with its showy but vague North Korean commitment to denuclearization, many analysts doubted that the deal had any real substance. But we're beginning to see the first signs of what a serious accord would look like. This week's North-South summit meeting in Pyongyang produced accord on some basic essentials of a real denuclearization process. North Korea agreed to accept internal inspectors to monitor destruction of one of its test sites, a first step toward the broader inspection process that will be essential for any verifiable pact. North Korea also agreed...

It's surprising that a White House incapable of organizing a two-car funeral - if you believe the mainstream liberal media - is presiding over the most robust economy the U.S. has had in years. One could almost say it makes America great again. Strange, isn't it? The Obama administration boy and girl geniuses were managing up a storm when it came to the economy, yet growth was sluggish, wages stagnant and economic optimism was nowhere to be found. Then the Trump clown car crashed into the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and all hell broke loose. And that's...

On Monday at the White House, I participated in the White House’s reception for Hispanic Heritage Month.  President Trump told the enthusiastic audience: “Hispanic Americans enrich our nation in countless ways – from small businesses to support for our neighborhoods, and the innovations that improve our lives, and through military service that protects our people and our great American flag.”The East Room of the erupted with a raucous affirmation more befitting a sports pep rally versus a White House event.  That reaction encapsulated the infectious enthusiasm that presently spreads across our land, and particularly for Hispanic Americans.   Consider that just...

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s actions, as recounted by the New York Times Friday, are the equivalent of an attempted coup -- a plot to overthrow the president. As the Times reveals, Rosenstein was furious that Democrats blamed him for the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Rosenstein, who had volunteered to write the firing memorandum, was “regretful and emotional.” His behavior was described as “erratic.” He blamed Trump. So, in an apparent act of vengeance, he proposed secretly recording the president to try to gain damaging information about him. He solicited others to wear wires, including Andrew McCabe, who...

In the era of the #MeToo movement, we are expected to automatically believe claims made by women about sexual abuse. Anyone who dares to ask simple questions about the situation, like who, what, when, where, why and how, is automatically characterized as “doubting the story of a survivor.” Sexual assault is one of the most sensitive areas of criminal misconduct in American society. Allegations of sexual assault are very serious for all parties involved and they should be treated as such. Women who are victimized should be taken seriously as they seek justice. Men who are accused of sexual misconduct...

Will allegation against Kavanaugh derail his nomination? Democrats are doing everything possible to keep Judge Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court because they don’t want to confirm a conservative jurist who will faithfully and accurately apply the Constitution to cases that come before the high court. The framers who signed the Constitution knew it would need to change with changing times, so they set up a process to amend the document – a process that has led to the adoption of 27 amendments. It was never the intention of the framers to have Supreme Court justices effectively amend the Constitution...

About three years ago, I was shocked to learn that the Israeli government decided to establish a new town for the Druze community on the southern slopes of the Horns of Hattin National Park. A GROUP of about 20 men take part in a three-day reenactment of the Battle of Hattin, which climaxed with the beheading of Raynald de Châtillon at Horns of Hattin, overlooking the Kinneret.. (photo credit: MEIR VAKNIN/FLASH90) bout three years ago, I was shocked to learn that the Israeli government decided to establish a new town for the Druze community on the southern slopes of the...

"In the past 25 years, Israel’s economy has changed from a socialist command economy to a free-market economy and today Israel’s GDP per capita is higher than Japan’s." The so-called “Oslo process,” is really two processes. The first was the Oslo peace process. It began with secret negotiations between Israeli leftists with ties to then-foreign minister Shimon Peres in Oslo, Norway, in 1993. It led to Israel’s recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the establishment of the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority to run the Palestinian autonomy in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. It also led to a seven-year attempt by Israel...

Christine Blasey Ford has accused Brett M. Kavanaugh of attempted rape while they were both in high school -- a charge he unequivocally denies. She can't remember the date the alleged attack took place. She isn't even certain about the year (although she reportedly thinks it may have been the summer around the end of her sophomore year when she was 15). She can't remember whose house she was in. She can't remember how she got there. She says she didn't tell anyone about it at the time, not even her closest friends -- so there are no contemporaneous witnesses...

Unmasking the waste and corruption in America’s Democrat-controlled inner city school districts. Editor's note: The following is a brief description of the Freedom Center's newest pamphlet, "The Shame of Our Schools," which sheds light on the culture of waste and corruption plaguing America's Democrat-run inner city school districts. To order the pamphlet, click here.  You’ve heard it so often you probably tune it out--leftwing Democrats claiming that the failure of our inner city schools is the responsibility of mean spirited, tight fisted, and outright racist Republicans who have no qualms about consigning minority children to the social ash heap. This is the...

A reflection on a wish-fulfilling folly. Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Twenty-five years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat stood in front of Bill Clinton in the White House Rose Garden and shook hands to mark their signing of the Oslo Accords. This pact included handing part of Judea and Samaria to the control of Palestinian Arabs. A year later the Palestinian Authority was created as the controlling authority that still governs part of the so-called West Bank. These changes were celebrated as a major step toward...

If we aren’t going to assume Kavanaugh’s guilt, we have to be willing to challenge Ford’s story. Christine Blasey Ford deserves a hearing, although at the moment it’s not clear if she really wants one. What she doesn’t deserve is to be believed automatically just because she’s a woman making an accusation. At its best, our system of justice judges each individual — the accuser and the accused — on the basis of the evidence and with an adversarial process that has proved over the centuries to be the best way to ascertain the truth. The problem is that Ford’s...

This is about preventing a conservative justice from being added to the Supreme Court, nothing more. Senate Democrats’ blatant abuse of the hearing process, their “delay, delay, delay” strategy, continues to pay dividends. Putting a stop to it would be long overdue. Thursday was the day Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s manifestly meritorious nomination to the Supreme Court should have been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and sent to the full Senate. Instead the nomination languishes because of an eleventh-hour stunt pulled by committee Democrats — led by ranking member Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.). Notwithstanding that Feinstein was well...

As the media frenzy over unsubstantiated accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh reach a fever pitch, it’s truly instructive to observe the virtual news blackout over the case of Karen Monahan. Ms. Monahan has accused Rep. Keith Ellison, the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and the party’s nominee for Minnesota attorney general, of physical abuse during the course of their relationship. Unlike Judge Cavanaugh’s accuser, Ms. Monahan is willing to go on the record to discuss the details of Mr. Ellison’s behavior. Also unlike Judge Cavanaugh’s accuser, Ms. Monahan has produced evidence to support the claims of...

Want to help prevent rape? Withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination . If we care about all the sexual assaults that haven’t yet occurred, we must treat attempted rape as disqualifying for a Supreme Court justice. By Sandra Newman Sandra Newman has written widely about sexual assault and is the author of several books, including the forthcoming novel The Heavens. September 20 at 3:19 AM When Christine Blasey Ford came forward with allegations that Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party when he was 17, it was no surprise that Republicans were quick to deny it ever happened. What was surprising,...

Media bias has real consequences. Ohio’s wealthiest supporter of the Republican party, Leslie Wexner, has withdrawn his support because he was ‘ashamed’ by President Trump’s response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Wexner announced his decision on Friday, just a day after former President Obama gave a speech in Ohio where he attacked Republicans who “try to shield and deflect oversight of [Trump’s] behavior.”A lot of smart people seem to have fallen for the mainstream media's lies about Trump’s comments. NBC News’ coverage of Charlottesville last year was all too typical: “On Tuesday [August 15th, 2017], Trump gave a freewheeling press...

We Need to Hear From Christine Blasey Ford Republicans are being unfair. I hope she testifies anyway. By Michelle Goldberg Opinion Columnist Sept. 20, 2018 n amoral political terms, Senate Republicans have been skillful in handling Christine Blasey’s Ford’s allegations that the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. On Monday, when Senator Charles Grassley, head of the Judiciary Committee, announced that a hearing on Blasey’s allegations would be held in a week, it wasn’t immediately clear that neither she nor her lawyer had been consulted. “They sent out a notice of...

Forget a wounded animal, there is nothing more desperate and vicious than a Democrat on the verge of losing a political battle. So when California Senator Dianne Feinstein released a vague statement implying some sort of criminal activity in Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s past, it was not surprising. Republicans did what they always do – they tried to make nice. But this isn’t your father’s Democratic Party, appeasement isn’t possible when they will only accept capitulation. How do you find common ground with someone who wants to destroy you? Do you offer to be half destroyed? One-quarter? No. In fact, Hell...

Democrats want to examine President Donald Trump’s tax returns. There’s talk of launching an independent commission into his administration’s handling of the hurricane that wracked Puerto Rico. Progressive activists are ready to start impeachment proceedings. Get ready. If Democrats take control of a chamber in the November election, expect a flood of hearings, investigations, probes and special commissions starting in January. Democrats on two government watchdog House panels say Republicans have stifled and blocked nearly 75 lines of inquiry into various Trump policies and issues. Democratic members of Congress are already at the starting gate, ready to pounce. “What we...

Democrats want you to believe that what is happening on Capitol Hill in the Kavanaugh nomination is an earnest investigation of an allegation of sexual assault. Make no mistake, it’s a political hit job. With the circus we’re witnessing in Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination hearings, Democrats have politicized sexual harassment and violence against women by holding Republican men accountable for allegations of sexual misconduct - without evidence - while ignoring allegations of sexual harassment and violence against women by high-ranking Democratic men within their own caucus. Democrats will stop at nothing to derail the Trump administration in their...