Free Republic

On the surface, conservatives and progressives seem to be in agreement about what should be done about the IRS scandal: Larry Kudlow: “…must find out exactly what happened and who was involved, and then come up with a fix so it never happens again.” Steven Rattner: “…the matter needs to be fully investigated, those responsible need to be held accountable and procedures need to be put in place to ensure that nothing like this can happen again.” However, abuse of IRS power has been going on for almost 80 years. It began under FDR, not long after the IRS was...

A mother-of-two described tonight how she put her own life on the line by trying to persuade the soldier’s murderers to hand over their weapons.

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in...

A recent military report on sexual assault in the military shocked many in Washington and around the nation, but a leading expert on military personnel revealed the prevalence of men assaulting other men is one of the major headlines in this study.[snip] Women are identified as the attacker in just two percent of all assaults, meaning most men who suffer assault are targeted by other men.

EVERSON, WA, May 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 31-year-old illegal immigrant raped a preteen girl in Washington State last June, then took her to Planned Parenthood two months later to cover his crime. According to reports, last June, Luis Gonzalez-Jose approached the young girl as her mother was taking a shower and asked "if it was OK to have a baby with him." After she said no, he stripped the girl and raped her on the spot. In August, he took the pregnant girl to a Planned Parenthood and forced her to abort their child. She told employees she had...

On Friday, May 17, fifty-four Colorado Sheriffs filed a civil rights lawsuit in Federal District Court in Denver, against two anti-gun bills passed by the Colorado legislature in March. Joining the Sheriffs as Plaintiffs are the Colorado Farm Bureau, disabled persons, Outdoor Buddies (an organization that helps disabled persons participate in outdoor sports), the Colorado Outfitters Association (the trade association for hunting guides), the National Shooting Sports Foundation (the trade association for the firearms industry), magazine manufacturer Magpul, federally-licensed firearms dealers, the state’s largest shooting range, the Colorado State Shooting Association (governing body for the shooting sports in Colorado), and...

<p>An immigrant illegally living in Italy went on a rampage with a pickaxe in Milan at dawn Saturday, killing a passer-by and wounding four others in an apparently random attack, police said.</p> <p>The attack, which police say was carried out by a Ghanaian immigrant with a criminal record, immediately revived a long-raging political debate over whether Italy should crack down harder on immigrants or facilitate their path toward citizenship, as recently lobbied for by Italy's first black Cabinet minister, who had immigrated from Congo.</p>

Here is something that I never thought I would write.Fr. Z kudos to Jamie Manson of the National Schismatic Reporter.One of Fishwrap‘s headliners, a darling of LCWR, the openly-lesbian, Margaret Farley-mentored Jamie Manson has sobered up about Pope Francis.She has a piece in the Fishwrap today in which she tosses Francis under the bus. Be clear about this: she is wrong in her positions, but she is honest enough to state her case clearly and she sees accurately what is going on.Context: she starts with the high hopes which the liberal, dissenting LCWR-ers had for Pope Francis, how jazzed they...

Gay activists show up with dirty hands to protest Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, are denied entry NEW YORK CITY, May 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – After Timothy Cardinal Dolan wrote a column comparing practicing homosexuals and others who approach Holy Communion in a state of serious sin to children who fail to wash their hands before supper, homosexual Catholics and their supporters showed up for Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with filthy hands as a form of protest, and were denied entry. Joseph Amodeo, the organizer of the protest, said that the act of dirtying their hands was an attempt...

Veterans outraged: Tsarnaev offered burial at Arlington National Cemetery MAY 8, 2013BY: DEAN CHAMBERS Many veterans were outraged with today's announcement that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers allegedly involved in the Boston Marathon bombing, was offered someone's spot to be buried with America's honored veterans at the Arlington National Cemetery. News blogger Jan Morgan reported today at her janmorganmedia.com site that U.S. Air Force veteran Julie Frein offered her spot at the cemetery for the burial of the older Tsarnaev brother, who was killed in the firefight with law enforcement a few days after the bombing.

JAKE TAPPER: One woman still looking for answers is Pat Smith. Her son, State Department Information Officer Sean Smith was one of the four Americans killed. Pat, thanks so much for being here. I know this is not an easy time. How are you holding up?

The U.S. military could have prevented one wave of the deadly attack on American personnel in Benghazi if fighter jets had been promptly deployed, a top diplomatic official who was in Benghazi during the Sept. 11 assault told congressional investigators.

As travellers nationwide are learning, the White House has decided to express its dislike of the sequester—otherwise known as modestly smaller government—by choosing to cut basic air traffic control services. We wrote about this human- rights violation on Tuesday in "Flight Delays as Political Strategy," but the story gets worse the closer we look. Start with the Federal Aviation Administration, better known as the Postal Service without the modern technology. Flyers directly fund two-thirds of the FAA's budget through 17 airline taxes and fees—about 20% of the cost of a $300 domestic ticket, up from 7% in the 1970s. Yet...

A West Virginia teen arrested and accused of nearly inciting a riot after a confrontation with a teacher over his National Rifle Association t-shirt has inspired dozens of students across his county to wear similar apparel in solidarity. Jared Marcum, 14, had a confrontation Thursday with a Logan Middle School teacher over his NRA t-shirt, which bears the organization's logo, along with an image of a hunting rifle and the phrase, "Protect your right."

That was not unusual: Tsarnaev often brought in cars for wealthy friends from Boston University and MIT, Junior said, and always paid in cash. What was strange was that the man showed up Tuesday wanting the car back early, clearly agitated. "He was very nervous, biting his nails, agitated," Junior said. "I thought he was on drugs, medication." Junior didn't report it to police. Tsarnaev took the Mercedes without having it fixed. Tsarnaev's visit to Junior's Auto Body took on a new significance Friday after officials linked him to the Boston bombings. Tsarnaev was taken into custody Friday night after...

Actor and comedian Jay Mohr waded into the gun debate on Twitter after Monday’s deadly terrorist attacks at the Boston Marathon. “What bothers me most about today is that we’re getting used 2 it. ENOUGH. 2nd amendment must go. Violence has 2 stop. Culture MUST change,” the Jerry Maguire actor tweeted Monday night. What bothers me most about today is that we’re getting used 2 it. ENOUGH. 2nd amendment must go. Violence has 2 stop. Culture MUST change. — Jay Mohr (@jaymohr37) April 15, 2013

(CNN) -- A Florida police sergeant was fired for possessing several so-called Trayvon Martin shooting targets, authorities said Saturday. Sgt. Ron King of Port Canaveral Police Department was fired Friday after an internal review investigated how he offered the hoodie paper shooting targets to two fellow officers, said John Walsh, interim CEO of the Canaveral Port Authority. The officers, who saw King with the targets in his police vehicle, declined the offer, Walsh said. "Port Canaveral Police Department considers that behavior unacceptable," Walsh said of King's conduct.

There’s never a good time or place to go on an anti-gay tirade, but onstage at a club in San Francisco owned by a gay man, in front of many gay fans, is probably near the bottom of the list. Michelle Shocked, a singer-songwriter whose sexuality was once fairly ambiguous, stunned fans Sunday night at Yoshi’s Jazz Club with a homophobic rant, according to USA Today. The 51-year-old singer reportedly said that if California’s Proposition 8, which effectively bans gay marriage, is overturned, “it will be the downfall of civilization, and Jesus will come back.” As her rant went on,...

...as a cashier. In Massachusetts. Thanks, Democrats. Nice country you’ve developed here. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

The internet is alight today with stories of faith, confections, and one very famous egg roll, but the biggest web destination of them all has opted to honor a leftist labor activist instead of the Easter holiday. Several times per year, and sometimes per month, internet search behemoth Google shakes things up on its incredibly high-traffic homepage by changing its logo to celebrate a memorable day in history like a famous person’s birthday or world-changing event.

WASHINGTON -- I have one question about the way Majority Leader Harry Reid has been conducting the Senate. Has he committed a felony or a mere misdemeanor? The wags will say that a politician from Nevada does not commit misdemeanors, but I am in earnest. The difference between whether Dingy Harry -- as he is known by the eminent political scientist Dr. Rush Limbaugh -- shuffles off to a federal prison or merely pays a hefty fine is significant. I suppose we can leave it to the federal prosecutors to decide, but if he gets off on a misdemeanor I...

WASHINGTON — The Washington National Cathedral, where the nation gathers to mourn tragedies and celebrate new presidents, will soon begin hosting same-sex marriages. Cathedral officials say the church will be among the first Episcopal congregations to implement a new rite of marriage for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members. The church announced its new policy Wednesday. As the nation’s most prominent church, the decision carries huge symbolism. The 106-year-old cathedral has long been a spiritual center for the nation, hosting presidential inaugural services and funerals for Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last...

Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report for 2011-2012, released Monday, reveals that the abortion and women’s health provider received $542.4 million from taxpayers in government grants and reimbursements — constituting 45 percent of the organization’s revenue. Abortions constituted 3 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provided from October 2010 to September 2011. According to the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, the 333,964 abortions the organization performed in that timeframe represented a record high for Planned Parenthood. The group noted that from 2009 through 2011, Planned Parenthood performed 995,687 abortions.

Since Ed and I have each written about the latest round of Obamacare-exacerbated premium hikes, let’s check in on Britain’s single-payer system, which many American liberals fetishize: An official inquiry into failings at [Stafford] hospital, where between 400 and 1,200 patients died needlessly due to a catalogue of failings and appalling standards of care, is due to be published later this month. The report is expected to blame managers who cut costs and reduced staffing levels in an attempt to hit "efficiency" targets and win foundation status. Before taking control of the health service, Sir David ran the health authority...

t hasn’t been a great 24 hours for Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III. The rookie captain wasn’t able to finish Sunday’s playoff loss to the Seahawks after his knee buckled midway through the fourth quarter. The Redskins were eliminated, 24-14 and questions of whether or not head coach Mike Shanahan should have pulled Griffin dominated sports pages and media Monday. And then Rob Parker re-emerged. Sunday morning, hours before the Redskins playoff game, the suspended ESPN host talked exclusively with WDIV-TV’s Devin Scillian on the station’s weekly community affairs program ‘Flashpoint.’ Parker said his ‘cornball brother’ comments were taken out...

Following Pope Benedict XVI's repeated messages denouncing same-sex marriage, more Dutch Catholics are seeking ways to leave the Catholic Church. And one website is helping people to "de-baptize" themselves. According to Reuters, the website ontdopen.nl ("de-baptize.nl") has gained significant traffic this month after the pope took the time in his Christmas speech to the Vatican bureaucracy to condemn gay marriage. "They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves," he said. "The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's...

Two weeks ago, Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx made national headlines when he called President Obama "Our lord and savior." While hosting NBC's Saturday Night Live this weekend, Foxx joked about how in his new film "Django Unchained," "I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO JAMIE FOXX: My name is Jamie Foxx. Give it up, give it up, New York City, Saturday Night Live. Come on, make some noise, man. New York City, New York City, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, it’s crazy. I'm...

Sick and tired of a burglar stealing packages from homes in her neighborhood, a San Francisco woman took matters into her own hands on Tuesday, according to the Daily Mail. Luring the thief with a dummy package, Sonya Yu sprayed him with bear repellent and threatened him with a wooden sword, chasing him away. Minutes later, the alleged burglar, Andy Anduha, 51, was apprehended by law enforcement. Protect your home from theft this holiday season Yu, a photographer, recounted the entire incident on her Twitter account as events unfolded. Yu informed her followers that several items had been stolen by...

Throughout his perpetual campaigning, President Obama has made a big point about being the champion of students and young people in helping to make college more accessible and affordable and helping out with student debt --- and yet, miraculously, here we are with student-loan debt and college tuition prices both quickly ballooning, and no end in sight. Could it be that perhaps the government trying to do more to "help" prospective-and-past students is actually what's dramatically worsening the student-debt problem? From the WSJ: Nearly all student loans—93% of them last year—are made directly by the government, which asks little or...

'The U.S. had planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb in the 1950s. At the height of the space race, the U.S. considered detonating an atom bomb on the moon as a display of America's Cold War muscle. The secret project, named 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights' and nicknamed 'Project A119,' however was never carried out. America's planning included calculations by astronomer Carl Sagan, then a young graduate student, of the behavior of dust and gas generated by the blast, the Daily Mail reports.'

A GUNMAN who tried to rob a hairdressers came a cropper when he was beaten and tied up naked by the female owner – who then fed him Viagra and used him as a sex slave. Viktor Jasinski, 32, had gone to the salon with the intention of robbing it. But after demanding the day’s takings he instead found himself overcome by the owner – karate black belt Olga Zajac, 28, – who floored him with a kick and tied him up with a hair dryer cable. She then took him into a back room at the salon at Meshchovsk,...

Hostess employees in Nash County, North Carolina on Friday were relieved that they would lose their jobs because union workers would not agree to an 8-percent pay cut, which was approved by a bankruptcy judge, and end their strike, which crippled the company's factories across the United States. Their reactions were surprising, because Nash County has an unemployment rate of 11.1 percent. Lamont Phillips, an employee, said the company had been, “holding this over our head for a long time,” and he was relieved he did not “have to deal with that anymore.” “They always hold that over our heads,...

In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president's daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that "that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region."He adds: The details from the CIA and Pentagon assessments of the killing of Ambassador Chris [Stevens] were far more...

On the streets of Manhattan last week, the American public were more concerned about the delay in restoring their public services after Hurricane Sandy than about the entrails of politics following the presidential elections. New York votes Democrat. It took for granted that Barack Obama would get a second term, and did not look much beyond that. Now, though, all America is having to peer into an abyss – or, to use the metaphor of the moment, over a ‘fiscal cliff’. It describes the moment on January 1 when, unless the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat President come...

DENVER – It’s a mile high mystery in the skies over Denver. Strange objects caught on camera flying over the city and nobody can explain it. We first learned about these sightings when a metro area man, who does not want to be identified brought us his home video. He captured the images on his digital camera from a hilltop in Federal Heights looking south toward downtown Denver. He said, “The flying objects appear around noon or 1:00 p.m. at least a couple of times a week.” The strangest part is they are flying too fast to see with the...

Well, that was fast. Just two days after President Barack Obama won a second term, boosted by more than 70 percent of the Latino vote, some Republicans are striking a new tone on illegal immigration. Conservative Fox News and radio host Sean Hannity said Thursday that his views on immigration have "evolved."

Denver, Colo., Nov 1, 2012 / 04:03 am (CNA).- The Obama campaign attempted to schedule a rally-like event on a Catholic university campus in the key swing state of Colorado before settling on a dialogue with a co-chair of Catholics for Obama. “Their original intent was to have more of a rally element to it,” said Paul Alexander, director of Regis University's Institute for the Common Good, which hosted the event. “We just felt we couldn’t do a rally, but we felt a healthy dialogue among Catholics was important.” About 45 people attended the Oct. 25 dialogue and small group...

A gun-toting teenager grabbed a pregnant mom’s iPhone as she walked through a Williamsburg park with her 14-month-old daughter — so she handed the baby to a relative and took off after the punk. “I don’t think a 16-year-old kid really knows how sleep-deprived mothers really are,’’ Rachel Massey, 36, an interior designer who lives in the neighborhood, said yesterday. “I just reacted. I felt angry and violated, and I was probably in shock. I probably have weird hormones now. I should have felt more fear than I did.” The chase took place Tuesday in trouble-plagued McCarren Park, the scene...

The Stand Up America US Research and Analysis team has learned from a senior and sensitive intelligence community source and official that President Obama did not know of the raid in Abbottabad to kill Osama Bin Laden on May 1st, 2011 until after the helicopters with SEAL TEAM 6 had crossed into Pakistani airspace. America’s most sophisticated deception techniques were used to make this very dangerous penetration into Pakistan without Pakistani knowledge. The President was notified at the golf course and called off the golf course, which is likely why he was in the strange sitting position in the picture...

Nearly 2,000 pro-lifers called local Planned Parenthood clinics Oct. 18 to schedule mammograms, after President Obama implied the organization offers the service. "When Gov. Romney says that we should eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, there are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for not just contraceptive care, they rely on it for mammograms,” said Obama Oct. 16 during the second presidential debate. Planned Parenthood does not actually provide women with mammograms, but refers patients out to other facilities for the exam. “Call it for what it is … if you're not doing mammograms, don't...

During an appearance on NBC’s Today Show Friday morning, Meet the Press host David Gregory called the Obama administration’s response to the September 11th violent attacks in Benghazi, Libya, “sluggish, sloppy, and incoherent at some times.”

Equity: The president touts equal pay for equal work but hasn't practiced what he preaches with the women he has employed — including a well-known staffer who complained of a hostile work environment. It remains a mystery as to why equal pay for women was one of the questions elected by unofficial Team Obama debate coach Candy Crowley of CNN during the second presidential debate. But it let President Obama launch into breathtaking hypocrisy regarding the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Lilly Ledbetter, which in Crowley's view ranked right up there with BenghaziGate as a pivotal issue, woke up one...

President Obama's bringing in The Boss. On Thursday, Bruce Springsteen will join former president Bill Clinton at an Obama rally in Parma, Ohio. The campaign announced later that the iconic New Jersey rocker would add another stop that same day in Ames, Iowa. Springsteen is no stranger to Democratic rallies. The weekend before election day in 2008, he warmed up a crowd of 80,000 people at an Obama event in Cleveland. Four years prior, Springsteen took part in a similar rally for Sen. John Kerry. Tuesday will be his first campaign event in this election cycle. "Bruce Springsteen’s values echo...

“Steven Soderbergh made certain his movie, “Che," about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che" Guevara, couldn't be attacked -- at least on a factual level,� stressed CNN Entertainment, upon the movie’s release in 2009. “I didn't want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, 'That never happened.' "(Steven Soderbergh CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009) Well, Mr Steven Soderbergh (and CNN,) pull up a chair. Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture (45 years ago this week.) Why, according to Soderbergh, only seconds before his capture, Che’s very M-2...

On the heels of a positive September jobs report, which showed a 0.3 percentage point drop in the national unemployment rate, prominent conservative Jack Welch and some others on the right are questioning the source of the numbers, suggesting on Twitter that the Obama team had in some way manipulated the data to their advantage. "Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers," wrote Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric, shortly after the September jobs report was released. Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham piled on in a Twitter message of her own: "Jobs...

Fox’s Chris Wallace apparently is sick of hearing critiques of polls showing Mitt Romney trailing President Obama, and isn’t afraid to let a wide audience know it. In a clip captured by Media Matters, Wallace tells radio host Mike Gallagher that criticizing the polls is an example of what he terms “craziness,“ and that ”no self-respecting pollster” weights their polls to make party ID even. Those comments followed others that said Romney is “in trouble” and must win the upcoming presidential debate. In fact, he even had some harsh words for Gallagher when the host called out Wallace for thinking...

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who guided The New York Times and its parent company through a long, sometimes turbulent period of expansion and change on a scale not seen since the newspaper’s founding in 1851, died early Saturday at his home in Southampton, N.Y. He was 86.

A new California law could expose young women who have abortions to additional safety risks because it allows unlicensed individuals to perform abortions under certain circumstances, according to pro-life advocates. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law over the weekend permitting nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and midwives to perform abortions due to what Democrats see as a shortage of available doctors.

Obama is having trouble drawing large crowds on the campaign trail. At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, his campaign was forced to move his acceptance speech from the 74,000-seat Bank of America Stadium to the 20,000 Time Warner Cable Arena, citing weather as the excuse. But the media are always eager to help--for example, putting 18,000 people inside a 5,000-seat arena at an Obama event in Milwaukee on Saturday. The contradiction was first noted by battlegroundwatch.com. Local media, including the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, reported that Obama had addressed "supporters who filled the 5,000-seat BMO Harris Pavilion, along with thousands more...

Well, gee whiz — in a press conference earlier this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi yet again brought out the over-the-top dramatics the blame all of President Obama’s ‘inherited’ economic problems on ‘the previous administration.’ This level of political pageantry is right up there with the ‘Republicans hate clean air and clean water’ she likes to trot out at every available opportunity: Four years ago on September 18 – read it, I won’t go into all the details, except to bottom-line it — we had a meeting in the Speaker’s office in the Capitol — bipartisan, bicameral — at...