Free Republic

Hours after Floyd "Money" Mayweather Jr. and T.I. squared off over the rapper's wife ... Floyd sent a not so subtle message to T.I. ... "These hos ain't loyal."

In February, a cardiovascular surgeon at the Miami VA hospital complained to one of his superiors that “patients had died” because a piece of equipment that might have saved their lives was left in a Broward warehouse, according to an email obtained by CBS4 News. The February 27 email was sent by Dr. Tomer Karas to the VA’s chief of surgery Dr. Seth Spector. In the email, Karas complained about a device known as the TandemHeart – which keeps blood following during certain sensitive procedures.

...."It's good to be out," he said as he strolled across the Ellipse, suit jacket tossed over his shoulder. "The bear is loose."... He also ran into a very excited woman named Karen. "Oh my gosh, this is like the best day of my life," Karen said. She then posed for a photo with Obama.

The scandal over a made-up study that badly disrupted traffic at the George Washington Bridge may not be New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's biggest problem after all. Less than a year after the charismatic governor was the toast of the Republican Party and a leading contender to run for the White House in 2016, the story was supposed to be about a New Jersey economy that he had managed to turn around and budget problems he had been able to solve. That narrative appears to be unraveling.

.... It’s unlikely Shinseki would exit today -- it just isn’t Obama’s style. But what we do know is that the president, potentially, has a feeding frenzy on his hands; even if all of its bureaucratic problems date back for decades. And it’s now turned into a local news story, in which news organizations are looking closely at their own VA hospitals. Perhaps more importantly, the story has resurrected all of the complaints about President Obama’s management style, especially during a crisis. He’s too methodical. He doesn’t get that mad. He seems to have found about this at the same...

Former Gov. Charlie Crist was apparently a little closer to Scott Rothstein than we knew. Or maybe not. They blew out the candles on Crist's birthday cake a couple of years ago after giving the governor $52,000 (a grand for each candle). Before the disbarred Rothstein's Ponzi scheme imploded, Rothstein and the governor were in regular contact.

CNN President Jeff Zucker declared his network would “not going to be shamed” into covering Benghazi and other stories without “real news value” at an awards dinner Monday. Capital New York reports that Zucker explained CNN’s post-plane plans during an interview at the Deadline Club’s annual dinner on Monday night. “I don’t think there’s any question about our commitment to breaking news, as evidenced by all the questions about the plane,” Zucker told The New York Times’ Bill Carter (RELATED: The five most ridiculous aspects of CNN’s missing Malaysian flight coverage). “So we’re still there whenever that happens,” he continued,...

... Obama will use this week to again focus on incentivizing businesses to make U.S. investments, beginning with a roundtable he will hold Tuesday with top executives from foreign and domestic companies aimed at creating American jobs. Executives from Ford, Globalfoundries, Lufthansa and Hankook Tire will be among those in attendance, the White House said.

President Obama took an unexpected side trip on his way to a fundraiser Monday night -- he stopped at a Little League game... "Omg, it's a dream come true," one player said of Obama's visit to another. Obama then headed to a fundraiser in Maryland, where tickets ranged from $10,000 to $32,000 per couple. That could buy a whole lot of goodies at a concession stand.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge threw out Oregon's same-sex marriage ban Monday, marking the 13th legal victory for gay marriage advocates since the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned part of a federal ban.

Democrats are in a curious political position in this year’s congressional election campaign. Their chance of avoiding political disaster depends more on the Republicans offering up another batch of right-wing dimwits as candidates and less on convincing voters that that the good times are back. So far, establishment GOP candidates has done fairly well fighting off challenges from the tea party, which does not bode well for Democrats.

...the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans and Hispanics will host a roundtable discussion, Mentorship: Supporting the Holistic Development of Boys and Men of Color: A 5000 Role Models of Excellence Case Study. The White House roundtable series is designed to promote positive and asset based approaches to support the learning and development of students of color. The Miami roundtable will highlight the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project which actively supports the cognitive social and emotional development of boys and men of color.

Klein is a leftist journalist who had the audacity to write about his issues with the Obamacare website while working for The Washington Post. His words were immediately savaged by the farther-left blogger, Joan Walsh, who was working for Salon magazine. She penned a harsh critique, headlined: “Liberal pundit fail: Rush to attack Obamacare site only aids unhinged right.” Here’s what Walsh wrote about Klein: “Ezra Klein then picked up the cudgel, telling the crew at MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ where every Obama misstep foretells the end of his presidency, that the Health and Human Services Department is covering up a ‘massive management failure,’...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's longtime press secretary says he's confident his boss of 14 years had no knowledge of or involvement in the scheme that shut traffic near the George Washington Bridge in a political payback plot. The spokesman, Michael Drewniak, called the plot reckless and perplexing in an opening statement Tuesday before a New Jersey legislative committee that's investigating last September's lane closings. Drewniak has also testified before a federal grand jury that's separately investigating the lane closings.

While hyping the alleged effects on climate change, NBC’s May 6 “Nightly News” tried to localize the impact by citing a different problem in each region. The broadcast played a clip of Burr Morse, a seventh-generation maple syrup producer from Montpelier, Vermont, stating that this season’s weather had been too warm. Contrary to this clip’s implications, Morse told the MRC’s Business and Media Institute that cold weather actually did more to harm this year’s maple syrup season. Morse complained that NBC had selected a short sample of his full remarks to “support their point which was global warming.” Morse said he didn’t...

The biggest ever crowd-funding campaign has officially reached its lofty $2.1 million goal with four days to go, and it looks like we’re getting that promised TV movie about Kermit Gosnell from filmmakers Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney, and Magdalena Segieda.

Here’s an unsolicited tip for Rep. Trey Gowdy: A smoking gun explanation for the Obama Administration’s use of false talking points has already been found. And the culprit is not a White House adviser or State Department bureaucrat. It’s the intelligence community’s reliance on the media. It’s tucked inside the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Benghazi, which reveals a key source of the bad intelligence that made it into Ambassador Susan Rice’s famous talking points: the media incorrectly reported that before the attack on Sept. 11, 2012 there were protests outside the U.S. facilities in Benghazi when there...

House Speaker John Boehner would not say Thursday if the House GOP’s campaign arm should stop including the Benghazi attacks in fundraising appeals. Asked three times whether the National Republican Congressional Committee should be fundraising based on what they call Democratic obstruction of the Benghazi investigation, Boehner answered only: “Our focus is on getting the answers to those families who lost their loved ones. Period.” An NRCC email sent Wednesday morning included a link to “become a Benghazi watchdog” – which led to a page where supporters can donate cash. A separate website called “BenghaziWatchdogs.com” still contains a link encouraging...

John Morales, chief meteorologist at WTVJ-Ch. 6 in Miramar, is one of eight weather anchors nationwide visiting the White House today. The meteorologists were invited for the release of a government report, the National Climate Assessment, which details the latest on warming trends and rising sea levels — and what that means for weather in South Florida and the rest of the United States. Morales is expected to interview President Barack Obama about the report.

... Obama is suffering from a shortage of successes. Whatever he's doing, it isn't working. Russia is still threatening Ukraine. Syria is still mired in bloodshed. Secretary of State John F. Kerry's thankless mediation between Israelis and Palestinians seems doomed. But wait a minute. This is a president who used to say we could swing for the fences. We could repair America's relationships with its allies, enjoy a "reset" with Russia, embrace the Muslim world and make peace just about everywhere. The failures call to mind the question a famous Alaskan foreign policy analyst once asked: "How's that hopey-changey thing...