Free Republic

The political arm of the Planned Parenthood abortion business says it will spend as much as $3 million in Texas to elect pro-abortion gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and other pro-abortion candidates. Cecile Richards, the president of America’s biggest abortion corporation was in the Lone State State to push her plan. Cecile Richards, president of the national advocacy group Planned Parenthood Votes, said the effort aims to draw differences between Democrat Wendy Davis and Republican Greg Abbott, the state attorney general, in the campaign for governor. wendydavis12“When women have a chance to know the difference between candidates, they won’t vote for...

In the Hobby Lobby decision handed down last month, the Supreme Court was asked to strike a balance between women’s rights and religious freedom. But the major conflict that has erupted in the wake of that decision has been between religious freedom and gay rights. The resulting controversy has split gay-rights and faith groups on the left, with wide-ranging political fallout that some now fear could hurt both causes. One chapter of the controversy is set to close on Monday, when President Obama plans to sign a long-awaited executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gays and lesbians, according...

Organizers of Netroots Nation, America’s largest annual gathering of progressive activists, took the wraps off of a major and welcome surprise this afternoon with the announcement that Vice President Joe Biden would be coming to Detroit to speak to the convention during a special Thursday afternoon general session. It will also be Biden’s first appearance at Netroots Nation. He was invited to participate in the Presidential Leadership Forum held in Netroots Nation’s second year, in Chicago (back then, the convention was known as YearlyKos), but declined to attend due to his desire to participate in another event. The other contenders...

NOTE: Links to webpages begging for end of quarter contributions have been removed. Which is a shame because the begging was truly pathetic. upchuck -- According to our records, here's what we have down for this exact email address: -- Supporter: upchuck -- High-powered lobbyist: No. -- Currently a Koch brother: No. -- Level of awesome: Dangerously high. -- Suggested action today: Keep on being awesome. OFA is about putting power back in the hands of real people. And corporations and shady interest groups (who aren't real people) are spending big to try to stop that from happening. If you...

After supposed RINO Thad Cochran relied in part on African-American voters to defeat Tea Party favorite Chris McDaniel and win the Mississippi GOP’s nomination to the Senate, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe was very upset. Kibbe was so angry, in fact, that he was moved to petulantly declare, “If the only way the K Street wing of the GOP establishment can win is by courting Democrats to vote in GOP primaries then we’ve already won.” This Black Knight-like declaration of victory following conspicuous defeat was widely mocked as yet another example of the Tea Party’s preference to curate reality.

Suburban Albany is not known for its rip-roaring weekend scene, but this most recent Saturday night, it was the momentary center of the political universe, as an underfunded political party was using its quadrennial convention to try to force America’s most powerful and best-financed governor to submit to its demands. Though the Working Families Party’s conventions are typically low-key affairs, this one had drawn 800 activists and operatives and most of the New York press corps—all to see if the party would endorse conservative Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo or run a third-party candidate against him. In the end, when the...

A new documentary makes the controversial case that a political cocktail of big corporate money and racially charged sentiments has helped fuel the rise of the tea party. And squarely behind that movement, the film argues, are the Koch brothers. Co-Directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin sat down with “Top Line” to discuss their film, “Citizen Koch,” and why they say the GOP’s deep-pocketed donors, the Koch brothers, are such figures in American politics today. “Money – $100 billion now,” Deal said in explaining the Kochs’ influence. “When we started out making this film, their net worth was about $68...

What’s an “Islamophobia”-promoting academic to do when there simply aren’t enough hate crimes to sustain the mythical narrative that Muslim-Americans are persecuted for their religion? The Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP) at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race & Gender came up with a brilliant idea for this spring’s Fifth Annual International Islamophobia Conference: they invented a thought crime called “latent Islamophobia.” According to the conference description and “inspired by [the late Columbia professor] Edward Said’s work on Orientalism,” “Islamophobia” can be broken into two categories: latent and manifest: Latent Islamophobia is founded upon an unquestionable certitude...

The Catholics United Education Fund, a Democrat-leaning advocacy group which began criticizing Church opposition to same-sex “marriage” in 2012, received most of its operational budget that year from a gay activist foundation run by influential multi-millionaire Tim Gill. “I would say it is very obvious that Mr. Gill does not agree with the Catholic Church and Her teachings on the issues of homosexuality and marriage,” Jennifer Kraska, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, told CNA May 29. “His attitude toward the Church on these issues is definitely one of extreme disagreement.” Tax forms show the Colorado-based Gill Foundation made...

A retired United States Army colonel expects as many as 30 million like-minded individuals will descend on Washington, DC this week and demand that President Barack Obama and other members of his administration be booted from office. Those are just some of the demands that Col. Harry Riley, founder of “Operation American Spring,” said he’ll ask the Obama administration to adhere to when militia members and patriots of all sorts arrive in the nation’s capital on Friday and begin demonstrating against a government the group considers to be in violation of the principles established by the founders of the country....

Surprise action outside Denver's Brown Palace Hotel this morning, as a press release from a coalition of groups including Together Colorado and the Colorado Immigration Reform Coalition (CIRC) explains: Outside a fundraiser headlined by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) for Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) today, local leaders staged a rally to protest the fact that these three House Republicans are key obstacles standing in the way of immigration reform that would keep Colorado immigrant families together. It has been 322 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, but Speaker Boehner and House...

More Republicans are pushing for an immigration overhaul.House Republican leaders are mum on a timetable for advancing immigration overhaul legislation and have so far been noncommittal on moving on the issue before the end of the 113th Congress. But a group of mayors and business leaders from across the political spectrum is determined to prove that momentum is growing for a rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws — even among conservatives. The coalition, Partnership for a New American Economy, on Wednesday held the first in a series of monthly conference calls moderated by Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist...

The fast-food worker strikes are expanding to more U.S. cities and going global. Workers in up to 150 cities across the country are planning to strike on May 15, according to labor organizers. The movement is also headed overseas, with plans for workers to join protests in 33 countries. On Wednesday, the workers announced the protests outside a McDonald's in New York City, and delivered a letter that called on the fast food giant to raise wages and respect workers' rights worldwide. However, security guards didn't allow the workers to bring the letter inside the restaurant. So, they posted the...

Democrat Who Wanted to Hand Out KKK Hoods to GOP Gets Absolutely Schooled By Black Conservative Woman By Emily Hulsey Days after announcing his plan to hand out KKK hoods at Wisconsin’s GOP convention, State Representative and Democrat candidate for Governor Brett Hulsey (no relation to author) took to the streets once again. Dressed in a (homemade and inaccurate) Confederate uniform, he flagged down conservative attendees to speak about what he says is the GOP’s racist agenda. However, I don’t think he intended for it to go like this…

It's generally a waste of space to reference Sarah Palin, which is why she so rarely appears here. She long ago devolved into a cartoon, and her clout (such as it was) continues to wane. She's like the incoherently choleric aunt you see once a year at Thanksgiving. She's like the real-life version of Kristin Wiig's brain-addled Aunt Linda. But... (You knew there'd be a But.) But every great once in a while, John McCain's Hail Mary gift to America says something so scintillating that we'd be remiss to ignore it. Her remark earlier this week about the religious virtues...

Shane Osborn is done in Nebraska. He cannot get the momentum to win the race. At this point, Osborn is taking the position that if he can’t win the Senate race, neither should Ben Sasse. Osborn, who thought the race was his, is desperately upset. Joined with a Mitch McConnell Super PAC, Osborn is now throwing everything he has at Ben Sasse. Waiting in the wings, with Osborn fully understanding what is happening, is Sid Dinsdale. Dinsdale is extremely rich, has a lot of money to burn at the end of the race, has benefited from sitting on the sidelines...

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday about a big setback for the Wendy Davis campaign for Texas governor.  The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) did not include her campaign as a top target which means it won't be prioritized for heavy spending. The reaction from the Davis campaign could best be described as an angry hissy fit which bitterly attacked the DGA. Pretty big political news from Texas to the extent it was covered by the Wall Street Journal. Therefore you would expect the Texas Tribune which is supposed to cover the nuts and bolts details of Texas politics to...

When Michael Bloomberg announced he would spend $50 million on gun control this year, he said he hoped to make the National Rifle Association “afraid.” This weekend, the Bloomberg-backed group Everytown for Gun Safety will help pay to send hundreds of anti-gun violence supporters to the NRA’s annual convention in Indianapolis. Cleopatra and Nathaniel Pendleton, parents of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl shot and killed in Chicago in 2013, are part of a group of survivors traveling to Indianapolis this weekend for the NRA convention with Bloomberg-backed Everytown for Gun Safety. Ten days after Michael Bloomberg announced a $50 million...

A verified @Faith4Hillary Twitter account purporting to be the "Faith and Value Voters for Hillary Clinton 2016" appears to have purchased a large percentage of its 42.6k followers. The website Twitter Audit determined that more than half of the account's followers were obtained by "inorganic, fraudulent, or dishonest means," and the similar website StatusPeople calculated that only 18 percent of the account's followers were "good." Per StatusPeople, the rest of the followers were either fake accounts or accounts that are inactive. Additionally, the account has a comparatively small amount of interaction via retweets and favorites compared to the amount of...

The journalists at ABC's World News on Sunday enthusiastically touted a fawning question from a Democratic activist to Hillary Clinton. After anchor David Muir insisted that "it didn't take long for a student there to ask a pointed question," college student Vrinda Agrawal wondered, "If you don't represent women in politics in America as a future president, who will?" [MP3 audio here.] This is a tough question? The event was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and held at Yale Law School. Agrawal followed-up by enthusing, "I will proudly run your campaign." At no time did Muir or reporter Susan Saulny inform...

Ten city blocks of Manhattan became a river of black Sunday as 50,000 dark-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets to protest Israel's proposal to force their young boys into its army. The gathering took up a stretch of Water Street, with demonstrators standing behind police barricades amid tight security as they prayed in solidarity with their brethren in Israel. 'These kids, a lot of them don't know how to hold a gun. They don't know what physical warfare is,' said Long Island rabbinical student Shmuel Gruis.

Paramedics and emergency medical technicians made it clear that they do not want to form a union at Huron Valley Ambulance. According to information obtained from the National Labor Relations Board in a Freedom of Information Act request, votes tallied by the NLRB showed that 221 EMS workers voted against forming a union while just 138 voted in favor of the petition to unionize. There were about 430 eligible voters, but only 359 votes counted and 10 others were listed as “changed ballots” and not counted in the total vote. In January, workers from HVA Workers – with the help...

EyeOn College Basketball Missouri students block Westboro Baptist protest of Michael Sam By Chip Patterson | College Writer February 15, 2014 4:46 pm ET The Missouri community has shown overwhelming support for Michael Sam since the Tigers' football star announced that he was gay earlier this month. On Saturday a group of students united to drown out the protest efforts of the Westboro Baptist Church. The group was in town for the Tigers' home basketball game against Tennessee, protesting Missouri's support of Sam outside Mizzou Arena. Students blocked the Westboro Baptist protesters from view with a human wall, turned their...

The tech-bus protest isn’t just a San Francisco thing anymore. This week, the anti-gentrification act of blocking a private shuttle full of high-paid tech workers spread to Seattle, where a handful of buses carrying Microsoft employees were stopped by demonstrators. The protest was chronicled by local Tweeps and community websites.

The GOP divide over the role of outside groups is heating up in the Senate, just days, after Speaker John Boehner railed that conservative organizations had “lost all credibility.” Several prominent GOP senators on Tuesday echoed Boehner’s (R-Ohio) frustration with those organizations, agreeing that outfits like Heritage Action and the Senate Conservatives Fund were out only for themselves and are hurting Republican efforts to take over both chambers of Congress. “I’ve said for a long time that there are some outside groups who do what they do solely to raise money,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “I’m glad that people...

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) primary opponent suggested that he would use the debt-ceiling fight this spring as leverage to defund ObamaCare. In an interview with The Hill, Republican Matt Bevin (Ky.) reiterated his disappointment with congressional GOP leaders, especially their condemnation of outside conservative groups, and said he was “strongly, strongly in favor of doing anything possible” to repeal the healthcare law. ADVERTISEMENT That should include refusing to raise the debt ceiling, he said. “I do not think we should increase the debt ceiling without significant concessions, and if one of them is the repeal of ObamaCare, then terrific,” Bevin...

The latest poll from Kentucky, conducted by Public Policy Polling, completely countermands the conventional wisdom that McConnell is a shoo-in to win the primary. In addition, the poll shows that McConnell is indeed the weaker candidate to go up against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in the general election. Here are some of the highlights: •Senator McConnell is leading conservative Matt Bevin 53 to 26 percent in the primary. Previously, McConnell has led by 39 and 47 points; now he is only up 27 points. A strong majority, 61%, still have no opinion of Bevin. It is quite clear that as...

Maybe you’ve heard about the “bullet fee” that was supposedly charged to the families of prisoners executed by gunfire. The fee, which is almost certainly an urban legend, has been attributed at various times to Bolshevik revolutionaries and the governments of Iran and China. But even if the bullet fee is mythical, there is a very real price to be paid when a society becomes intoxicated by gunplay. What price have we paid for the bullets fired at Newtown and in the year since that tragedy? The financial estimates only scratch the surface.

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by...

In a new fundraising email, the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is targeting conservatives in the same way that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. "What these leaders are doing to conservatives is no different from what the IRS got caught doing to them this summer," Senate Conservatives Fund executive director Matt Hoskins wrote in the email sent to supporters on Monday. "They're using their power to discriminate against people they see as a political threat." The fundraising email on Monday follows Boehner strongly criticizing conservative outside groups for urging lawmakers...

At a rival protest in Kiev this weekend, impoverished workers from eastern Ukraine turned out to show their support for the government and stronger ties with Moscow even as the pro-EU crowd grew ever more jubilant. They were poor. Their clothes looked cheap and worn, their faces tired; their feelings were hurt. A group of workers and miners from Kirovsk, an industrial town in eastern Ukraine, were among thousands of protesters walking on Sunday morning towards the anti-Euro rally in Kiev’s Mariinsky park, to demonstrate their support for Ukraine’s president, Victor Yanukovych, and for friendship with Russia. Two parts of...

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by...

Tea party activists are pushing back hard against Speaker John Boehner for attacking conservative groups that are opposed to bipartisan budget legislation approved this week by the House, claiming he has “declared war on the Tea Party” with his blunt criticism. In a fundraising email to supporters, Tea Party Patriots referred to the Ohio Republican as a “ruling class politician” who only pretends to be a conservative while remaining a “tax-and-spend liberal,” The Hill reported Friday. The group, which supported efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act, accused Boehner of passing a “back-room budget deal which increases discretionary spending, does...

Former Arkansas Governor and Fox News Channel host Mike Huckabee weighed in on the escalating feud between establishment Republican politicians and conservative activist groups on Saturday. Asked for his thoughts on House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) admonition of the idealized purism advocated by some outside groups, Huckabee sympathized with Boehner saying that governing is more difficult than activism and “politics is not theology.” Huckabee began by saying that Boehner was not scolding the tea party movement but conservative groups that capitalize on that movement. He added that some of those groups appear to have an “all or nothing mindset” and...

Democrats are gleefully using House Speaker John Boehner's own words in an effort to garner donations for mid-term elections next year. 21st Century Democrats, which bills itself as "building a progressive majority from the grassroots up since 1985," uses Boehner's proverbial public spanking of tea party opponents of the Congressional budget proposal to take back control of the House. "Even Speaker Boehner can't hide his disdain for the outside conservative tea party groups," the email reads.

2012 Libertarian Party presidential nominee and chairman of the Our America Initiative, Gary Johnson announced yesterday the formation of a 527 Super PAC called Our America PAC. The new Super PAC has the goal of supporting and ultimately getting into elective public office, principled candidates committed to smaller government, fiscal conservatism and individual liberty... Yesterday, Johnson said of the new Super PAC, “From the realities of government-run healthcare setting in to the continuing disclosures of the breadth of NSA’s domestic spying, more Americans than ever are ready to take a serious look at candidates who offer real alternatives to business-as-usual....

Despite the fact that the Ryan-Murray budget deal passed with overwhelming support from House Republicans, surprisingly, it hangs in the balance in the Senate. Much of the robust showing in the House was a result of Congressman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) strong influence on budgetary issues. However, in the Senate, many of its members are facing tough primary challenges, and they are looking beyond the personalities. Even some of the most moderate Republican members like Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bob Corker (R-TN) have announced their opposition to this deal. After all, the House-passed bill will repeal hard-fought spending cuts and...

AUSTIN, Texas, December 13, 2013 — In the few days since Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) declared his intent to challenge Senator John Cornyn for his Texas Senate seat, there has been a frenzy of attack articles from the left in Texas and in the national media. Stockman’s name is apparently like chum before sharks for leftist commentators and this latest move has them totally unhinged. Stockman’s great offense? He’s a conservative with a sense of humor. Apparently it is absolutely unforgivable to mock the president and the administration. Stockman’s transgressions in this area make him the target of the righteous...

Conservative radio talk show host Glenn Beck took to the airwaves to lambaste the Republican leadership in Congress, calling House Speaker John Boehner "worthless," and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a "liar." Speaking Thursday on the Mark Levin radio show, Beck lashed out against the GOP establishment leaders, referring to them as "big government progressives." "I think John Boehner is one of the prime examples of worthless, worthless Republicans. All these people saying, 'Hey, the Republicans aren't so bad.' No. I think they actually might be worse, because they claim to be something that they're not," Beck said. Levin labeled...

That’s when the events of the video above occurred – a guy identified as a Google employee starts yelling and screaming at the protesters, and then walks off in a huff. It’s a masterful performance! But it turned out to be completely false after sharp-eyed social media users identified the man as Max Alper, a Union organizer from Oakland.

Two weeks ago, the liberal Center for Media and Democracy kicked off a national campaign to reveal the identities of anonymous contributors to conservative groups in an effort to unseat the GOP governor here. Now the group may have to answer embarrassing questions about its own finances. A Watchdog.org review of financial documents reveals the Madison-based CMD, which bills itself as a journalism organization, received $520,000 in 2011 from the Schwab Charitable Fund. That’s 60 percent of the $864,740 CMD received that year. CMD lists no donors on its tax returns, but its website identifies numerous financial backers without any...

If you have Obama rent-a-mob demonstrators in your area today, here's your sign. Print it out. Show up. Spend money. Fight back.

DETROIT, MI -- More than 200 protesters waved signs, bounced and shouted chants passionately in unison outside a McDonald's on and other nearby fast food restaurants on Seven Mile near the Lodge Freeway in Detroit Thursday. Their demands: A $15 per hour minimum wage for fast food employees. "Hold the pickles, hold the fries, make our wages super-sized," "We fired up, can't take it no more," and "What do we want? $15. When do we want it? Now," were among the chants.

Dozens of people gathered outside Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's locations Downtown on Thursday morning to protest low wages as part of a national campaign energizing fast-food workers. Carrying placards and shouting slogans such as “No justice, no doughnuts,” about 75 people rallied in front of the Dunkin Donuts in Market Square and the nearby McDonald's on Stanwix Street. The actions are part of push by labor unions, worker advocacy groups and Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25. President Obama says he would back a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, and on Wednesday addressed income equality in...

A spokesman for the liberal organization Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has posted on the group’s website a denunciation of what he states were “incendiary remarks about Pope Francis” by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday. Limbaugh said that Pope Francis was wrong in his apostolic exhortation released this week in which he appears to blame capitalism for the reason why people are poor in the world. CACG’s Christopher Jolly Hale wrote on Wednesday: Catholics of all political stripes are disturbed by Rush Limbaugh's incendiary comments this afternoon about Pope Francis. To call the Holy Father...

The Texas communications director for Enroll America has resigned after a conservative watchdog group posted a video of him discussing his Democratic leanings. A spokesman for the self-proclaimed non-profit, non-partisan group, which is leading efforts to enroll Americans in ObamaCare, confirmed to FoxNews.com Chris Tarango has resigned after the video by Project Veritas was posted online.

Hundreds of gun violence prevention advocates from around the country took to the halls of Congress today calling on members to expand effective Brady background checks to online and gun show sales. "Background checks work and they save lives," said Sarah Brady, Chair, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Twenty years ago this month Congress had the will to take on the corporate gun lobby and pass the Brady law. Since then, two million purchases have been denied to people like convicted felons, domestic abusers, and fugitives. There is still work to be done, thousands of sales go unchecked every...

I was perusing through the news and saw many articles on the horrific destruction the storm in the Philippines had wrought. As I reading through the stories at Google, yahoo News, the term 'Climate Negotiator' kept on appearing in article after article. Well, I had no idea what a Climate Negotiator is, does. I mean, trying to negotiate with the climate seems a sissyphean task if not the most mentally stable thing to attempt. I tried searching Google, Yahoo for some precise meaning, job description for a Climate Negotiator but information was far and few between. It seems it is...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Besieged by unflattering stories about the launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare program, the White House saw a news report that it wanted to swiftly knock down. It was from NBC, which said that Obama had overpromised when he said Americans who liked their insurance could keep it, and that the president knew that many people would see their coverage change. White House officials quickly began firing off a barrage of tweets on Twitter, which has become one of the administration's most potent and relied-upon weapons in trying to shape public opinion and media reports. Josh Earnest,...

The George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF) is organizing a “fly-in” of what it calls conservatives from across the country aimed at lobbying House Republicans for an amnesty bill. ... NIF is planning to organize the fly in with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy. ... The event will take place on Oct. 28, coinciding with President Barack Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s renewed push against House Speaker John Boehner for amnesty. Now that Obama, Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi...