Free Republic

In an exclusive interview with the AFRO, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), discussed the events of a March 5 hearing held by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of which Cummings is the ranking member. During the hearing, former IRS employee Lois Lerner was questioned on the agency’s alleged targeting of conservative political groups. Chairman Darrell E. Issa (R-Calif.) posed questions for approximately 15 minutes, though Lerner had already invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to speak. When Cummings tried to take his turn, Issa adjourned the meeting, turned off Cummings’ microphone, and he and other Republicans filed out. AFRO:...

To the Editor: The movie “Gasland 2” about fracking is available at the Cheltenham Library. I urge everyone to get on the list to borrow it and host a movie night at home with friends or neighbors. The information about fracking is important and will take all of our voices if we are to be heard over the mega-millions that the gas brings to the oil companies and monied interests. The Keystone XL pipeline is also something that Americans need to understand more about. China and other nations vying for the exportable resources, and who are already invested in these,...

<p>Those going after the agency want to keep secret hundreds of millions in dark, undisclosed money to run political attack ads and muddy the waters.</p> <p>The Internal Revenue Service’s regulatory process to define clear rules for political activity by nonprofit groups operating as 501(c)(4)s under the tax code has generated an almost unprecedented number of comments and requests to testify, just as the IRS “scandal” continues to generate outrage, much of it bogus, from Fox News, Darrell Issa, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, and others. I have written on the subject before, but its renewed focus demands a new column.</p>

Much has been said and written in favor of and opposition to gun control since the Sandy Hook tragedy unfolded. The heinous crime has cracked the half-century-long gun debate wide open, bringing the discourse from the margins to prime time and center stage. On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden issued a set of gun control recommendations to the president, and I hope, simply, that common sense prevails. It is not my intention to mitigate the significance of the recent atrocities in any way, nor do I intend to minimize the severity of the events that took place, but I wish...

The White House announced Friday that President Barack Obama will come to Fresno on Feb. 14 to discuss the drought and federal efforts to deal with it. A White House official said further details about the president's trip to the central San Joaquin Valley will be made public in the coming days. The trip will mark Obama's first visit to the Fresno area. The only other time he visited the region was in October 2012 when he traveled to the United Farm Workers headquarters at Keene in Kern County to dedicate the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument. The drought has...

Do you know the old joke about the politician who sees a mob of people marching down and street and cries: “There go my people! I must find out where they are going so I can lead them!” I’m put in mind of it by the news that the Republican Party is super-keen now to figure out ways to help the middle class. The Democrats have begun embracing economic populism. Polls show strong public support for many of the ideas that make up this populism. The people are marching. And now the party that’s been the enemy of the middle...

It’s really, really cold as I write this. It’s the morning many of us were greeted by temperatures of 1 and 2 degrees. Staying out for more than five minutes would probably earn you a case of frostbite. It’s been funny to read the comments of some I know on Facebook, who thought it would be so cold they’d have to cancel school, as if we don’t live in a time of heated public buildings and cars that start up easy, even in frigid weather. That’s what counts as a major problem for many of us, that we might get...

The tea party wing of the Republican Party has an entire inventory of myths that it cherishes even though the facts to the contrary are readily available. Here is a partial list. Thirty percent of conservative Republicans believe that the president is a Muslim, and the percentage is increasing. This myth expands despite his well-documented membership in the United Church of Christ for decades. And of course being a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an atheist does not disqualify anyone from any public office. It’s in Article VI, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution. You could look it up. A person...

A New York Times investigation has found no evidence to support claims al-Qaeda or any other international terrorist organization had links to the 2012 storming of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The six-part report published Saturday instead blamed the poorly-planned attack on local extremists outraged by an American-made video mocking Islam. The Times refutes claims made by many Republicans that al-Qaeda was involved in the attack despite Obama administration assertions to the contrary. ‘Extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other

Texas Republican Senate candidate Steve Stockman has nowhere near the millions of dollars his GOP opponent Sen. John Cornyn has, but the tea party congressman has a novel fundraising ploy: selling Obama “barf bags.” Stockman unveiled the bags Tuesday on his website alongside a letter that touts the candidate as a “proud, principled conservative Tea Party Republican” who has spent “the last few years defeating liberals by helping train and launch the Tea Party.” Every $10 donation comes with one bag printed with an image of the president and a tagline that reads, “Socialism Makes Me SICK!”

OAKLAND, Calif. — The weekly meetings of Mouthing Off!, a group for students at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, always start the same way. Members take turns going around the room saying their names and the personal pronouns they want others to use when referring to them — she, he or something else. It’s an exercise that might seem superfluous given that Mills, a small and leafy liberal arts school historically referred to as the Vassar of the West, only admits women as undergraduates. Yet increasingly, the “shes” and “hers” that dominate...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are finalizing a deal to avert a debt default and reopen the government, capping a frantic day that had Washington bracing for an economic crisis of its own making. The deal is essentially done, sources say, as aides for the two leaders finish drafting the legislative language Tuesday night.

More than four decades ago, Mick Jagger claimed that he couldn’t imagine jumping around a stage and singing rock and roll when he was thirty. If things didn’t turn out quite like he imagined they might, Jagger — who turns 70 on July 26 — has certainly beaten the odds. Not only has rock music not cut him down as it has far too many others, it’s kept him young. An impossibly agile performer, Jagger — as these clips, presented in chronological order, attest — still has most of the moves he displayed when he first took the stage with...

Former President George W. Bush is expected to make a speech next week on how immigration reform is good for the country, the Dallas Morning News reports. Bush will speak after a citizenship ceremony at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas on Wednesday followed by a panel discussion titled “What Immigrants Contribute.” Although it is not clear whether Bush will throw his support behind the immigration bill making its way through Congress, he has supported reform in the past. While he was president Congress defeated an immigration reform overhaul Bush supported and the Bush center has published several...

If ever I thought myself objective and unbiased, the George Zimmerman trial is definitely not that moment. So let's cut to the chase. Any attorney, jury member, judge or white person in that courtroom is not going to understand Rachel Jeantel. And I don't expect them to. In fact, I certainly, like my fellow writer Rachel Samara, understand why white people wouldn't like Rachel. She's hard. She's black. And your assumptions about her background and lack of education make you feel like you are better, somehow. That her testimony, no matter how powerful and impactful it may be to this...

When momentous events happen like the election of a new president, White Bear Lake resident Laurie Wenker makes sure to get two copies of that day's newspaper to tuck away in memory boxes for her teenage daughters. She did just that -- and more Tuesday. Wenker and daughters Eleanor, 16, and Lillian, 13, joined a crowd of an estimated 6,000 people who gathered at the state Capitol to witness Gov. Mark Dayton sign a bill legalizing same-sex marriages in Minnesota. "I wanted my kids to experience history, to take in and breathe in the equality in the air," Wenker said.

Control of a Baltimore prison was effectively handed over to a group of gang member inmates who seduced and bribed the female guards. Federal prosecutors say 13 female correctional officers, seven inmates and five others with gang ties have been charged with plotting to smuggle drugs, cellphones and other contraband into the Baltimore jail and other corrections facilities. An indictment unsealed Tuesday said the ring also involved sex between inmates and guards that led to four of the officers becoming pregnant by Tavon White, leader of a jailhouse gang called the Black Guerrilla Family. He is held at the Baltimore...

In some ways, today's Supreme Court arguments over California's proposition 8 were overshadowed by the decision of several Democratic senators from red or purple states to openly and active support marriage equality. Actually, even that pales in comparison to Richard Land, the key Southern Baptist political evangelist, who just said, basically, "nevermind," when it comes to the next generation of evangelicals being uncomfortable about gay rights. (To be sure, he still opposes gay rights, still thinks that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, and believes that anti-gay leaders are being ostracized from polite society.) On that last part, he's kind...

There are two ways to look at the election of Pope Francis. He takes the name of the famous saint, whose life was defined by a vision in which he was commanded by a crucifix to “rebuild my Church, which is in ruins.” That name, combined with rumors that Cardinal Bergoglio impressed his fellow Cardinals at preconclave meetings with his willingness to clean up the Curia, may be a signal that reform is on the way. His choice of name may also signal an affiliation with the Jesuit saint Francis Xavier, an exemplary evangelist and missionary. Cardinal Bergoglio is known...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his congratulations message to the new Pope Francis I, President Obama once again cited his “work with Pope Benedict XVI.” The phrase is reminiscent of his message to Pope Emeritus Benedict upon his resignation, when he wrote, “I have appreciated our work together over these last four years.” President Obama, who opposes the Catholic Church's position on a host of social issues and has defunded Catholic agencies over their opposition to abortion, did not specify what this work might be. His message to the new pope called Pope Francis “a champion of...