Free Republic

White House press secretary Jay Carney has been under serious pressure to handle the press’ grilling over the big scandals facing the Obama administration this past week, and when people get particularly stressed, they tend to do a lot of deflecting. In Carney’s case, he attempted to dismiss all the criticism of the Benghazi, IRS, and AP scandals (as well as an emerging one about Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius) by digging up what Bill O’Reilly would call an “old canard”: birtherism. During today’s press briefing, Carney sequentially smacked down the outrage over Benghazi, the IRS, and the...

A vomitous human being. This is really the only way to describe one Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. She’s also the author of following tweet that went out to her 75,000 followers not long after a two-mile-wide tornado destroyed the town of Moore, Oklahoma. Among the 51 dead (the death toll as of 11:40 PM EST Monday) are a reported 20 children–many of whom died at an Elementary School in town–along with mothers, fathers, whole families. Some may be buried alive The IRS targeted conservatives. God is doing the same with this tornado. Get it?...

Oday Aboushi leads a double life. On the one hand, he is an American football player with professional-level athletic skills. On the other, he is a fundamentalist Muslim with radical associations and a heritage that pushes him towards a destructive world of violence and hate. When the New York Jets football team chose Oday Aboushi with the eighth pick of the fifth round of the April 2013 NFL Draft (141st pick overall), the organization knew that it was getting an elite player who could wreak havoc on the field – one of the top offensive linemen in the entire draft....

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Arkansas Treasurer Martha Shoffner has been arrested for extortion by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being held in Pulaski County Jail, the Associated Press reported Saturday. FBI spokeswoman Kimberly Brunell told the AP that Shoffner was arrested Saturday at her home in Newport and is scheduled for a federal court hearing Monday. Brunell said Shoffner was arrested on charges of "extortion under color of official right." Brunell said she would have more details Monday. The arrest comes four months after Arkansas Business reported that the Democratic state treasurer had been under criminal investigation for more than a year...

-with his bare hands' is investigated in Texas A second 'house of horrors' abortion clinic is being investigated in Texas, just days after Dr Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of murdering newborns at his Philadelphia termination center. Dr. Douglas Karpen, seen here in court, is accused of killing babies aborted in their third trimester Houston doctor Douglas Karpen is accused by four former employees of delivering live fetuses during third-trimester abortions and killing them by either snipping their spinal cord, stabbing a surgical instrument into their heads or 'twisting their heads off their necks with his own bare hands'. Other...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the Obama presidential campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship. IRS Exempt Organizations Division director Lois G. Lerner, who has been described as “apolitical” in mainstream press coverage of the IRS scandal, is married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm is based in Atlanta but has...

On Thursday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) lashed out at Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), calling her recent comments regarding Fast and Furious "mind-numbingly stupid," and suggested she "schedule an appointment" with a doctor. On Thursday, Pelosi claimed that the contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder was part of a grand conspiracy to undermine his fight against voter suppression. “This is no accident. It is no coincidence. It is a plan on the part of the Republicans,” Pelosi said. “It’s really beneath the office of a member of Congress to say something that outrageous, and the fact that she was...

I’ve been dealing with this scenario for so long, I had forgotten how strange it was until just a few days ago when I was talking to Joe on the telephone and the topic somehow came up. What scenario am I talking about? Well, that would be a law enforcement call for service that those of us in law enforcement refer to as the “Dial-A-Dad”. The “Dial-A-Dad” is essentially when a parent, for one reason or another, calls the cops to come and discipline their child. I am not talking about the 6’ tall, 200 pound high school football lineman...

Two members of Congress are asking if the Treasury Department disproportionately targeted more Republican or conservative owned auto dealerships during the government-lead restructuring of General Motors in 2009. Breitbart.com reported today that Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jim Renacci (R-OH) released a letter asking Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents regarding the process and methodology that determined which GM dealerships were closed. GM was loaned $50 million by Congress as part of the restructuring included consolidating dealerships and closing some of the under-performing GM dealerships. In 2009 and 2010 there were several reports in the press raising the question whether...

TAMPA, Fla. (970 WFLA) - Beware of cranking up your car stereo in Tampa. City council has given preliminary approval to a new noise ordinance that would outlaw car stereo noise that can be heard 50 feet or more from the car. A first-time offiense will set you back $250. That goes up to $450 for a second offense. If you're cited a third time, it's 60 days in jail. Council member Lisa Monteleone thinks that's a bit too harsh. She believes that will put more young people behind bars. And she spars with Councilman Charlie Miranda over that fact....

On his Tuesday radio program, comedian Dennis Miller said that while President Obama is taking a lot of heat for the recent spate of scandals, the Department of Justice’s wiretapping of reporters is the only story that will keep the media’s attention. To back up his theory, Miller pointed to former Watergate Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein’s nonchalant reaction on Monday to the IRS-tea party targeted audit allegations, and his reaction 24 hours later to the DOJ’s monitoring of the Associated Press’ phone records. “Listen, a few more days like this — Obama’s going to claim he was born in...

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years. According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval. Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting...

Would-be Belieber Anne Frank has been getting attention for all the wrong reasons lately. One suburban Detroit mom could have it so she gets no attention at all because of her "female genitalia." In Northville, a well-to-do suburb about 30 miles northwest of Detroit, a parent of a 7th grader takes issue with her daughter's classroom reading an newer, unedited edition of "The Diary of a Young Girl." Frankly, I'm surprised seventh-graders are reading any edition of "Diary"; it (and "Schindler's List," while we're on the subject) didn't reach my hands until high school. Besides the whole evils of the...

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I've decided to reprint a piece of work I did nearly five years ago, because it seems very relevant today given Hillary Clinton's performance in the Benghazi hearings. Back in 2008 when she was running for president, I interviewed two erstwhile staff members of the House Judiciary Committee who were involved with the Watergate investigation when Hillary was a low-level staffer there. I interviewed one Democrat staffer and one Republican staffer, and wrote two pieces based on what they told me about Hillary's conduct at the time. -snip- As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing...

It figures. This is what happens when you run out of other people’s money. The Democratic Party in Alabama faces eviction for not paying its bills. The water company wants their money, too. Blog.Al reported: Acting state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley lowered her head and slowly shook it side to side when summing up the financial condition of her once powerful party. “We’re broke, broke, broke,” Worley told the party’s Executive Board in a special called meeting Frida. How broke is broke? Worley didn’t sugar coat the answer. “This is my 18th day as chair and thirty minutes after...

We’ve all seen Gone in 60 Seconds. The remake film from 2000 features an all-star cast and an elusive Mustang that always gets Nicolas Cage’s character in trouble. It’s a unicorn car – no matter how hard he tries to steal it, something always goes wrong. Joshua Nadelhoffer, 29, is not a professional car thief. If he was, he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to (allegedly) try to steal a 2013 Camaro SS from a Hertz Rent-A-Car parking lot at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Not only that, but he surely would have had the foresight to know that leaving...

During the 1950s and 1960s, the American automobile industry arguably peaked both in terms of sales and creativity. Americans were obsessed with cars, buying them as fast as they could be built, and many a television show had cars we today consider cultural icons at the center of the action. Wildly modified versions of street cars became ever more popular both with private collectors and Hollywood, giving rise to a growing custom car industry. Unfortunately that golden age of American cars is long in our past, and many key players are well beyond retirement age. Famed car customizer Dean Jeffries...

Dick Morris, who famously predicted that Mitt Romney would defeat President Barack Obama in a "landslide," has now joined the Beltway mob in blaming radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh for the Republican Party's woes, the Daily Caller reports. Morris also claimed that the Senate immigration bill "is not only a good solution--it's the only solution" to the nation's illegal immigration problem. He attacked Limbaugh for opposing the bill: "Stop losing the elections for us....Focus on the changes that are taking place in the country,

I have to say, I did not see this one coming at all. It's one thing to revive a series that's been dormant for many years, like TNT has done successfully with Dallas, but has there ever been a case of a show coming back only four years after it ended? But hey, I'm not a TV programming executive and I don't want to be. Hands up if you want to see Jack back! Entertainment Weekly reports: For 24 miniseries/limited series, we’re hearing Fox is actually currently looking at a 13-episode order for the show. For a cable series, that’s...

A pro-choice reporter who has been present in the courtroom listening to testimony in the Gosnell trial has changed his mind on abortion, according to one of his fellow reporters. “That's the power of the Gosnell trial,” reporter JD Mullane told former Gov. Mike Huckabee during a recent appearance on the Huckabee Show. Mullane, a pro-life columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times, has been present in the courtroom from the very beginning of the Gosnell trial. His regularly-updated Twitter account has become the go-to place for breaking updates on the case. “There is one journalist sitting in that courtroom...

MSNBC isn’t a news organization. It’s a commentary company that uses the news to justify pro-establishment liberal statism. The news is just a tool to them, and they ignore the important headlines to push their agenda. It’s that simple. They aren’t here to give you the truth — their here to tell you what to people, and ignore the truth in order to do that. And now, even MSNBC is starting to turn on Obama, admitting that this was a terrible event, Benghazi was a cover-up, they lied to us all, and people didn’t have to die, and admits it...

Finally, Bill Maher got something right. Following the Boston bombings, Maher responded to Brian Levy, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino (a great example of needed reforms in public higher education), "[T]here's only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There's only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith." There you have it. Even a flaming atheist can recognize the difference between a religion of...

A 20-year-old driver was able to elude Pinellas County deputies at a traffic stop, but then was bitten by an alligator early Thursday. Deputies pulled over a vehicle that was not staying in a lane about 2:47 a.m. Thursday. Bryan Zuniga, 20, stopped the vehicle, but then jumped out of the passenger side door. Zuniga kicked a hole in a vinyl fence so he could escape, deputies said, near the 7100 block of 78th Avenue N. He was found hours later at a hospital being treated for multiple puncture wounds to his face, arm and armpit, police said. He told...

TAMPA - Bomb threats, fistfights and TV news vans outside. It's just another day for a taco joint serving tacos made with real lion meat. “We're getting all kinds of threats over it,” said Ryan Gougeon, owner of Taco Fusion on Bay to Bay Boulevard in Tampa that put lion meat on their taco menu this week. Controversy soon erupted and social media exploded with criticism that anyone would serve lion meat. “Now we're getting bomb threats, and everything else. Some guy just called and said he'd kidnap me and grind me up for a taco. There are so many...

Dan Savage is an author, advice columnist, and founder of It Gets Better, an anti-bullying project. If you’ve ever seen one of those videos of a celebrity telling gay teens “it gets better,” that was Dan’s idea. A noble goal, to be sure. But when he says things like this, it makes me wonder just how noble he is: Woke up to Sarah Palin’s voice. She’s taken up chewing tobacco now cuz LIBRULS or Bloomberg or something. Now seeing upside of oral cancers. — Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) May 4, 2013 And yes, that’s the real Dan Savage. His Twitter handle...

And at the moment, they appear to be in denial about it. Peter Beinart on an outrageous Democratic attack on Nikki Haley—and why Democrats need to strongly denounce it. Dick Harpootlian were a Republican, liberals would be jumping over one another to call him a bigot. In 2002 Harpootlian called Lindsey Graham, then running for a South Carolina Senate seat, “light in the loafers,” thus fueling a nasty whispering campaign about Graham’s sexual orientation. Last Friday he struck again, telling activists to “send Nikki Haley”—South Carolina’s Indian-American governor—“back to wherever the hell she came from.”

“I noticed the protesters,” said Nugent during his speech. “And I notice this all the time, both of them,” he said to laughter from the NRA crowd. As the final speaker at the National Rifle Association convention in downtown Houston, legendary guitarist and 2nd Amendment rock star Ted Nugent implored an enthusiastic crowd to increase NRA membership 20-fold as the “culture war” over guns continues. “I want to show them how much we will fight for freedom,” he said as the crowd stood and cheered. Nugent had just spent two hours signing autographs for the same fans who lined up...

Young girls at a New York middle school were instructed to ask one another for a lesbian kiss and boys were given guidance on how to tell if women are sluts during an anti-bullying presentation on gender identity and sexual orientation, angry parents allege. The special health class was held last week at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, NY. The students were separated by gender – with students from Bard College leading the workshops. Parents are especially furious after their young daughters were told that it was perfectly normal for 14-year-old girls to have sex and there was...

The federal government is spending $152,000 to study “voice therapy” for transgenders, saying it is incumbent to being “accepted as one's preferred gender.” “This study will illuminate the capabilities of the human larynx and inform the relationship between voice production and perception,” states a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, awarded to George Washington University. “The long term goal of this research is to inform and provide new directions for Transgender (TG) voice care, thereby improving the lives of TG people who feel their voice is a great obstacle to living as their preferred gender.” “Incomplete gender presentation can negatively...

City University of New York Professor Ruth O'Brien complains in an op-ed that "too much force" had been used against Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by the police. -snip- This said, the mortuary pictures of the older brother of the two are extremely disturbing, raising questions as to whether the Boston Police Department captured him with too much force. I understand the explanation offered by Katharine Q. Seelye, William H. Rashbaum, and Michael Cooper. Yet, it does not ring true. A picture is worth a thousand words that will keep our ears ringing as we recoil from...

The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is reportedly awake and responding in writing to questions from authorities. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is unable to speak after being shot in the throat during a gunfight with police, and is currently in intensive care in a Boston hospital. This morning America's ABC and NBC networks reported that he was responding in writing to questions from law enforcement officials. Earlier Boston mayor Tom Menino said he feared authorities may never be able to question Tsarnaev because of the nature of his injuries. The 19-year-old was captured after hiding in a boat in a...

Is it now racist to call Juan Williams by his given name? Apparently so, according to liberals like radio talk show host and Fox contributor Geraldo Rivera and MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who seem to have acquired the gift of determining racism simply by the way a person's name is spoken. Rivera was "analyzing" Newt Gingrich's response to Juan Williams' question at last Monday night's Fox News debate. "When you listen to the way Newt Gingrich says Juan William’s first name, he says it like it’s a racial epithet, I swear to God, that’s my impression," Rivera said. He then played...

In a tweet issued Sunday, Fox News' Geraldo Rivera expressed "regrets" to his "Muslim brothers and sisters" over the tragic Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured over 170, Twitchy reported. "Regrets to my Muslim brothers/sisters. We know how Boston will aggravate life's friction-Now's the time for patience pride & understanding," he tweeted. Last Monday, Twitchy said, Rivera blamed "homegrown anarchists" for the bombing, saying the explosive devices were "relatively modest in killing power." Twitchy said that what Rivera "really regrets about what transpired in Boston this week is not that four innocent people died or that scores...

It was a shining moment for Fisker Automotive. In the summer of 2011, four years after the upstart electric car company opened its doors, its first cars were finally rolling off the factory line in Finland, and the sleek vehicles were landing in the garages of some of the biggest names in Hollywood, politics and Silicon Valley. Actor and Fisker investor Leonardo DiCaprio received one. Al Gore and Colin Powell were next in line. A couple months after that, boy megastar Justin Bieber got one for his 18th birthday as a present from his manager. The car even had its...

Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was thrown out of his local mosque for 'crazy' behavior after getting involved a 'shouting match' with his imam according to one member of the congregation. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was ejected from his Boston mosque for aggressive behavior after insulting Martin Luther King Jr. during a Friday prayer service three months ago Tamerlan Tsarnaev was ejected from his Boston mosque for aggressive behavior after insulting Martin Luther King Jr. during a Friday prayer service three months ago Described as being full of rage by a worshiper who would give his name only as Muhammad, Tamerlan was...

One of the curious, but also most predictable, responses to the Boston Marathon bombings from the Left has been the fervent expression — amounting nearly to a prayer — that the perpetrator or perpetrators of this act of mass murder be “homegrown,” preferably white, male, Christian, and conservative. Why? Why does the Left prefer to have its terrorism served up by Timothy McVeigh rather than Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad? It’s an interesting question. That the Left exhibits this prejudice is, like Falstaff’s dishonesty, “gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” David Sirota, writing at Salon, gives almost comic expression to the...

Suspect: ‘I’m on the Hidden Front Lines of a Secret War’ Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, of Tupelo, Miss., has been arrested in connection with ricin letters that were sent to both Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and President Barack Obama,” The New York Times reports. Initial reports listed the suspect as “Kenneth Curtis,” however, the Times updated its report with the corrected name. The letters, which were intercepted by sorting facilities before they reached their intended targets, were signed: “I am KC and I approve this message.” “We have an investigation that is going on that has got local and federal...

‘This Is Not a Threat, It Is a Promise’ Former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) threw down big time Wednesday, saying campus “left wing groups” have been harassing his wife Angela, a trustee at Florida Atlantic University. In online messages, West—who was a highly decorated Army combat vet—seemed ready to declare war on those who’ve been attempting to intimidate his wife by “stalking” her, showing up at her office uninvited, and sending letters to her company. West’s advice: End it. “This is not a threat, it is a promise that if Angela calls and tells me of one more incident,...

Singer Erykah Badu took to her Twitter account early in the morning on Wednesday to share her very-candid views on the Minister Louis Farrakhan. Rather than taking aim at some of the divisive comments that the faith leader continues to utter, she labeled him a “Super Hero” and a “beautiful, brave being.” “Louis Farakahn is a SuperHero. That’s A beautiful brave being,” she wrote (note: the minister’s name is “Farrakhan” not “Farakahn” as noted in her tweet; spelling and grammar kept in tact). Clearly confounded by the message, Twitchy asked, “Since when are racism and anti-Semitism beautiful or brave?,”...

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.

Suddenly, the press is insisting it has been covering the “House of Horrors” trial. But that’s easily disproved, writes Kirsten Powers. The local press has extensively covered the shocking testimony about the Philadelphia "House of Horrors" where Gosnell allegedly killed seven babies and one woman since the trial began on March 18, nearly a month ago. But while it seems obvious that the national media has mostly ignored the story, a bevy of left-wing journalists and activists have loudly disagreed in recent days—asserting that the big three networks and the major newspapers have appropriately covered a trial that none sent...

Assigning essay against Jews widely condemned. The Albany school district has placed on leave a teacher whose persuasive writing assignment was for students to argue that Jews are evil in order to convince a Nazi official of their loyalty. The teacher was not in class at Albany High School on Friday and Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said the district will take some form of disciplinary action. She said it was too early to say exactly what that would be, but it could range from a letter of reprimand to termination. She did not say when the district would allow the...

Last week the IRS decided to award Bradley Birkenfeld his $104 million dollar share for helping bust UBS bank. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and his staff were instrumental. Senator Grassley vowed to delay pending Department of Treasury nominations if the IRS Whistleblower Program, he wrote the legislation in 2006, continued to be mismanaged. This powerful voice from Iowa has been a beacon in the storm during an Obama Administration that has targeted whistleblowers and prevented accountability as never before. The Pentagon is also under Senator Grassley’s fire for failing to examine 1,700 of the 5,200 reports of employees doing child...

Shocked at last week’s Rockland County Times revelation that Columbia University has hired convicted, jailed and released Weather Underground terrorist Kathy Boudin as an adjunct professor, a furious Orangetown Town Board Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution of condemnation, and has demanded the university terminate Boudin immediately and send letters of apology to the families of the three officers killed during the infamous 1981 Brinks armored truck robbery in Nanuet and Nyack. In a similar resolution the Town Board also continued it years-long effort to keep the killers of Pearl River teenager Paula Bohovesky in prison for the remainder of their...

The trailblazing comic improviser Jonathan Winters, who died Thursday at age 87, was a seminal influence on scores of comedians and the person Robin Williams credits as his mentor. Winters' high energy, unpredictable and often surreal comic riffs included an array of characters, reenactments of movie scenes and pointed, quick-morphing sound effects that he often produced on the spot. Take, for example, his 1964 appearance on "The Jack Paar Program." In order to illustrate Winters' genius for creating comedy out of thin air, Paar gave him a simple wooden stick. “Do something with the stick” Paar said, and in what’s...

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,...

BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- The defense for the teen accused of killing a Brunswick baby wants evidence released that may connect another local woman to the crime. Action News uncovered startling new details in the death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago. According to police, 17-year-old De'Marquis Elkins murdered the Brunswick baby nearly two weeks ago. Now his attorney, Kevin Gough, claims someone else may have plotted to have the baby killed and used Elkins as the trigger man. Action News isn't releasing the woman's name because she hasn't been charged with a crime. "I know she hasn't been involved in anything. I...

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed Jews today for the "global scourge of erectile dysfunction." In a speech broadcast on state television, the Islamic firebrand claimed an international Jewish cabal is provoking male impotence though chemicals in bottled water and then making billions by treating the syndrome with pharmaceutical drugs like Viagra. In the middle of one of his more typical rants against Israel, the United States, and global Zionism, Ahmadinejad unveiled his latest conspiracy theory. "One of the most insidious new methods of global Zionist oppression is the effort to sap the life-forces of non-Jews around the world," he thundered....