Free Republic

She’s a female minority who can’t be held politically accountable for anything because she doesn't hold any office.......There is no other person on the national scene who enjoys more privilege among the national press than Abrams, who lost her bid for Georgia governor last year and refused to accept the result long after the writing was already on the wall. Even if she botches the response on Tuesday, Abrams will still be a hero for having taken on white male Trump. That's because she can expect the national media to frame the conflict as an epic battle between white and...

In the days after President Trump was elected, some women saw his victory as reason to worry: Would he fulfill his campaign promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act? And if so, would it eventually become harder and costlier to obtain birth control? News organizations sounded the alarm: “Get an IUD Before It’s Too Late,” a Daily Beast headline warned. “Here’s Why Everyone Is Saying to Get an IUD Today,” said a New York Magazine piece. In November 2016, Sarah Christopherson, the policy advocacy director at the National Women’s Health Network, told Broadly, a branch of Vice Media, that women...

NBC NEWS PUBLISHED a predictably viral story Friday, claiming that “experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard.” But the whole story was a sham: the only “experts” cited by NBC in support of its key claim was the firm, New Knowledge, that just got caught by the New York Times fabricating Russian troll accounts on behalf of the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to manufacture false accusations that the Kremlin was interfering in that election.

Donald J. Trump was burning through cash. It was early 2016, and he was lending tens of millions of dollars to his presidential campaign and had been spending large sums to expand the Trump Organization’s roster of high-end properties. To finance his business’s growth, Mr. Trump turned to a longtime ally, Deutsche Bank, one of the few banks still willing to lend money to the man who has called himself “The King of Debt.”

“Whom did Donald Trump Jr. speak to on his phone in between calls setting up the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians?” That is the question the New York Times asked about “one of the more tantalizing mysteries of the whole Russia affair” in a glossy report on the campaign. Hundreds of stories referenced the “blocked numbers” and speculated that those belonged to President Trump, who wanted an update on collusion efforts from his son. Last year, when asked by Wolf Blitzer of CNN if he was confirming that Trump Jr. phoned his father, House Intelligence Committee member Andre...

G.O.P. congressional leaders used tactics to minimize the president’s influence and maximize their own control over public policy. Donald Trump has a Congress problem. He can’t get Republicans to promote his policies. And when he forces the issue — as with his border wall — he can’t win their support.But most Americans don’t know that. After all, Republican legislators voted with the president well over 90 percent of the time during the 115th Congress. Record numbers of appellate judges were confirmed, and the president signed major tax legislation. Many observers have concluded that Mr. Trump dominates the Republican Party, and...

Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota were hailed as symbols of diversity when they were sworn in last month as the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, Ms. Tlaib in her mother’s hand-embroidered Palestinian thobe, Ms. Omar in a tradition-shattering hijab. Four weeks later, their uncompromising views on Israel have made them perhaps the most embattled new members of the Democratic House majority. Almost daily, Republicans brashly accuse Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar of anti-Semitism and bigotry, hoping to make them the Democrats’ version of Representative Steve King as they try to tar the...

The same newspaper that crucified President George W. Bush for the Abu Ghrab scandal even though Bush was many, many layers of government removed from the American military guards at the heart of the Iraqi prison scandal has given President Barack Obama absolution for the gross incompetence of the Secret Service even though Obama is in direct contact every minute of every day with the agency charged with protecting his life. Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times has written a churlish, excuse-making article published Tuesday night that at once hints Republican lawmakers want to see...

The talk of the town for the next few days will be this big piece by Peter Baker in the NYT on President Obama. The piece paints a picture of a despondent administration: Yet even if the White House saw it coming, this is an administration that feels shellshocked. Many officials worry, they say, that the best days of the Obama presidency are behind them. They talk about whether it is time to move on. While not in the 30s, Obama’s approval rating in surveys conducted by The New York Times and CBS News had fallen to 45 percent last...

A Bush aide's blunt words New adviser pulled no punches in his magazine pieces By Peter Baker Updated: 5:39 a.m. ET June 13, 2006 WASHINGTON - Bill Clinton is a "virtuoso deceiver" and Hillary Rodham Clinton a "true chameleon" guilty of "self-serving behavior, comparative radicalism, and dubious personal morality." Al Gore is a "mad dog" known to "foam at the mouth." John McCain is given to "showboating." And Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan are all "feckless fools." Says who? President Bush's new chief domestic policy adviser. While most White House aides carefully trim their public commentary,...

The ‘Ethics’ of Trump’s Border Wall A wall would cause harm to immigrants and refugees, all of whom are equal to us in the eyes of God. Is the border wall ethical? President Trump has suggested the wall is moral and those who oppose it immoral. His critics claim the opposite. To answer this, we have to consider its effect on humans. What harm could a border wall cause to immigrants and refugees, all of whom are equal to us in the eyes of God? Some people who cross the border are in desperate search of work to support their...

Morton Sobell, who was convicted in the Cold War spy trial that delivered Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to their deaths and divided the nation for decades, died in December in Manhattan, a relative confirmed on Wednesday. He was 101. Mr. Sobell, whose death was not reported at the time, had lived for many years on the Upper West Side and had recently been in nursing care. The family member asked not to be identified. Serving 18 years in prison until he was released in 1969, Mr. Sobell proclaimed his innocence until 2008, when, in an interview with The New York...

They think pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan would be a debacle. They think North Korea cannot be trusted. They think the Islamic State is still a threat to America. They think Russia is bad and NATO is good. The trouble is their president does not agree. More than two years into his administration, the disconnect between President Trump and the Republican establishment on foreign policy has rarely been as stark.

There has been much wailing and rending of garments over the weekend about the layoffs of some writers, editors, and other staff at BuzzFeed, HuffPost, Yahoo, AOL, and Gannett. Naturally, the affected employees are upset and inclined to blame malign forces beyond their control. Predictably, the primary villain to emerge is President Trump, who had the temerity to tweet that the real problem is the market: “Fake News and bad journalism have caused a big downturn. Sadly, many others will follow. The people want the Truth!” This is not what these unhappy folks want to hear, but Trump is right....

I am fed up with the hypocrisy of people who claim to be concerned about the human rights of Palestinians but are silent when it comes to their mistreatment by their fellow Arabs. By After reading Michelle Alexander’s screed in The New York Times, I am not sure whether I should be more outraged by the paper’s publication of yet another in a seemingly never-ending series of anti-Israel articles, by Alexander’s outrageous misstatements of fact and scurrilous attacks on Israel, or by her disreputable effort to suggest that Martin Luther King Jr. would share her contempt for the Jewish state...

A Better Way to Tax the Rich Raise the capital gains tax and treat investment earnings like ordinary income. Steven Rattner By Steven Rattner Mr. Rattner served as counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration. Jan. 28, 2019 Kudos to our latest political supernova, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for helpfully bringing taxes back into focus, with her call for a new top tax rate of 70 percent on incomes above $10 million a year. That seemingly simple concept makes for a great headline, but it’s not great tax policy. While I’m all for raising taxes on the wealthy (in large...

WASHINGTON — An American kidnapped two years ago in Yemen while helping coordinate aid for Unicef and the Red Cross also had a second, secret role: He was shipping materials for elite military commandos under a clandestine contract his employer had with the Pentagon. The arrangement with Special Operations forces has never been made public. {snip} Mr. Darden’s work offers a rare look into the shadowy world of military contractors that operate in lawless war zones like Yemen, Somalia and Libya. But arrangements like the one Transoceanic had with Special Operations forces can cast suspicion over aid workers, potentially putting...

They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible. I know this because, for the past week, I’ve been mingling with corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. And I’ve noticed that their answers to questions about automation depend very much on who is listening. In public, many executives wring their hands over the negative consequences that artificial intelligence and automation could have for workers. They take part in panel discussions about building “human-centered A.I.” for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — Davos-speak for the corporate...

Hot on the heels of demonizing fourteen-year-old Catholic school students at the March for Life, the rabid press is hungry for more. New York Times reporter Dan Levin put out a call for survivors of Christian schooling to contact him with their tales of woe. "I'm a New York Times reporter writing about #exposechristianschools. Are you in your 20s or younger who went to a Christian school? I'd like to hear about your experience and its impact on your life. Please DM me." I'm a New York Times reporter writing about #exposechristianschools. Are you in your 20s or younger...

The front page of the New York Times Sunday Review featured one of the most biased, poorly informed, and historically inaccurate columns about the conflict between Israel and Palestine ever published by a mainstream newspaper. Written by Michelle Alexander, it is entitled, “Time to break the silence on Palestine,” as if the Palestinian issue has not been the most overhyped cause on campuses, at the United Nations, and in the media. There is no silence to break. What must be broken is the double standard of those who elevate the Palestinian claims over those of the Kurds, the Syrians, the...