Free Republic

One of the Russian companies indicted by Robert Mueller in the troll farm case has responded to the special counsel’s recently-filed motion prevent discovery of evidence with a blistering (and somewhat trolling) court filing. On Thursday, attorneys for Concord Management and Consulting LLC timely submitted their 13-page memorandum in opposition to Mueller’s requested order.

This patently false claim is part of the ongoing Big Lie campaign to try to downplay and minimize the jihad threat. It first surfaced in June, and in wake of he Oregon murders, the media elites are dragging it back out again. But it is no more coherent or reasonable than it was in the summer.The study is based on the number of those killed by each group since 9/11. It skews the results by leaving out 9/11: what possible justification can there be for leaving 9/11 out of what is supposed to be a calculation of the magnitude of...

One of the dangers of the the social internet is the potential to destroy someone. We have seen it with liberals attacking conservatives over issues. But, rarely have we seen it when one group attacks itself. The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today about how a person at the Brookings Institution think tank was deliberately attacked by Senator Elizabeth Warren. What’s pretty clear is that it was organized behind the scenes and launched. It wasn’t random. You might have read about thought police in science fiction. They aren’t science fiction anymore. What was his crime? Using cost-benefit analysis, Robert...

A human rights activist and writer is dismayed that there are no laws that allow the imprisonment of those who state certain offensive positions, such as Bill Maher and Phil Robertson. If the United States were a "civilized country" like those in Europe, Tanya Cohen wrote for Thought Catalog, then Robertson, a reality show star on A&E's "Duck Dynasty," "would have been taken before a government Human Rights Tribunal or Human Rights Commission and given a fine or prison sentence for the hateful and bigoted comments that he made about LGBT people." Among the types of speech that should be...

If you're poor, the only way you're likely to injure someone is the old traditional way: artisanal violence, we could call it – by hands, by knife, by club, or maybe modern hands-on violence, by gun or by car. But if you're tremendously wealthy, you can practice industrial-scale violence without any manual labor on your own part. You can, say, build a sweatshop factory that will collapse in Bangladesh and kill more people than any hands-on mass murderer ever did, or you can calculate risk and benefit about putting poisons or unsafe machines into the world, as manufacturers do every...

Interviewed on Fox just moments ago, Andrew Breitbart claimed that alleged Landrieu phone tamperer James O'Keefe "sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney." Breitbart, who has been on a public campaign defending O'Keefe, a paid contributor to Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, also charged that the U.S. Attorney's office in Louisiana leaked information to the press "helping" them to frame the episode as "Watergate Junior." Breitbart complained that after the news of the arrests broke last Tuesday, O'Keefe's attorney and Breitbart himself were being called by the media but they could not locate O'Keefe -- "and that's because he...

Not content with the mess they created when the university threw innocent lacrosse team players to the wolves following a manifestly false accusation of group rape, Duke university has now instituted a policy for handling rape charges manifestly unfair to the accused. KC Johnson whose work in defense of the lacrosse team was outstanding, has exposed this outrage as well oin his site, Durham in Wonderland. Three Duke University students were the victims of the highest-profile fraudulent rape claim in modern American history. That fact alone should make the University particularly sensitive to the dangers of false rape allegations, and...

I'm wary of drawing too many lessons from anonymous message board comments. One could certainly pluck comments from Beliefnet's boards to prove that we harbor either right wing or left wing extremists. But it's worth perusing the message boards of FreeRepublic, a conservative community, to gauge the general mood of the most hardcore conservatives. First, quite a few people are saying that murder is wrong, no matter how evil the victim was. SnakeDoc: Thou Shalt Not Murder. Both the shooter and the victim will be judged. Patriot preacher: Pro-lifers should condemn this as antithetical to their philosophy and beliefs. Hopefully,...

Forty-five percent (45%) of U.S. voters now have an unfavorable opinion of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano following her department’s release of a controversial report on right-wing extremist groups last week. Twenty-three percent (23%) say their view of her is Very Unfavorable. Thirty percent (30%) have a favorable view of the former Arizona governor, with eight percent (8%) Very Favorable, in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. However, one-out-of-four voters (25%) do not know enough about Napolitano to have an opinion about her one way or the other. At the time President Obama nominated her for the Homeland Security...

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret. Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But...

Media Matters thinks Jim Quinn's hot-button speeches can be hazardous to listeners, so he gets a "radioactive" rating from the watchdog group. You can follow what the top syndicated talk hosts are saying -- and you don't even have to listen -- thanks to media watchdog groups who monitor them on a daily basis. Media Matters, which launched in 2004, is a progressive/liberal organization whose site monitors all media -- print, broadcast and Web. Its "Radioactive" section is devoted to extensive coverage of syndicated talk radio. The site monitors well-known nationally syndicated hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and...

With the Bush administration ending and the Obama administration beginning, it is worth pondering John McCain’s gracious concession speech, giving due consideration to the ways in which the political opposition behaved during the tenures of our last two presidents. Even though President Bill Clinton governed as a centrist and most of his major accomplishments were ripped from the conservative playbook (balancing the federal budget, passing a major free trade act, enacting dramatic reforms of the country’s welfare program), he inspired a visceral hatred from the base of the Republican Party. Perhaps it was his draft dodging, his inveterate extramarital liaisons,...

(AP) The government is investigating whether any laws were broken in the disclosure that Barack Obama's aunt was living in the country illegally. Obama's half-aunt, who is from Kenya, was ordered to leave the United States years ago after an immigration judge denied her request for asylum, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss the case. The woman, Zeituni Onyango, is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama's late father. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked...

Dems worry Bush could pardon Rove, Miers By Susan Crabtree Posted: 10/03/08 12:55 PM [ET] Democrats are worried that President Bush may pardon Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and other key administration officials alleged to have played a role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), who chairs a Judiciary Committee subcommittee, expressed concern Friday that Bush pardons on the final day of his tenure in the Oval Office could cut off any chance of former White House officials being forced to testify before Congress about their role in the U.S. attorneys' removal in 2006. The Department...

Joe Biden was backtracking big-time over suggestions that Obama-Biden might bring criminal charges against Pres Bush. "I don't know where that report is coming from," said the Delaware senator. Why, from Joe Biden is where. Speaking in Deerfield Beach, Fla, this week, Biden was asked whether "you are going to pursue violations that have been made against our Constitution by the present administration." Biden's reply: "Yes. We will not be 'estopped' from pursuing any criminal offenses that occurred" during the Bush years. What about Obama? Last April he said he would "have my justice Department and my AG immediately review...

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon. County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office. Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole." That prompted Judge Thomas Jones,...

TRENTON, N.J. - A local Republican Club in New Jersey has removed a slogan from its Web site that read, "Obama loves America like O.J. loved Nicole." The Pemberton Republican Club removed the slogan after Democrats alleged racist campaign tactics. The club's Web master, Ed Kuck, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that he saw the slogan on an Internet site and copied it onto the club's Web page as a joke. The chairman of the Burlington County Democratic Committee says comparing Obama to O.J. Simpson was reprehensible.

John McCain has called off a fundraiser at the home of a Texas oilman who joked about rape during a 1990 gubernatorial run in the state. The Texan, Republican Clayton Williams, made the joke during his failed campaign against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt." Williams' comments made national news at the time and remain easy to find...

Camp Pendleton, California – A vindicated Marine lance corporal accused of war crimes at Haditha, Iraq has been granted testimonial immunity, Defend Our Marines has learned. Former Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt will testify on behalf of two enlisted Marine infantrymen waiting general court-martial in the infamous case. It is expected by both defense teams and courtroom observers that Justin Sharratt will provide testimony beneficial to Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum and Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the two Marine enlisted men still facing trial for unlawfully killing Iraqi civilians. Tatum was Sharratt’s squad mate during two vicious combat tours in Iraq in...

Five months after the Larry Craig sex-sting scandal broke, the senator is operating publicly as if nothing ever happened. With just a year remaining in Larry Craig's Senate term, there's little indication that the Senate Ethics Committee is doing much about the Idaho Republican's controversial arrest last summer. Craig, who said he'd step down at the end of his term, is under investigation by the ethics committee in connection with his arrest in the men's room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. He was cited on a disorderly conduct charge in a sex sting. No one on the tight-lipped Senate committee...