Free Republic

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...