Free Republic

‘The misconduct had stopped in May of 2012,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday about the IRS’s improper targeting of conservative groups. Not so, say two D.C. attorneys, each representing a number of conservative groups that — after years of waiting and countless rounds of invasive questions — have yet to receive recognition from the IRS. The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by chief counsel Jay Sekulow, plans to file suit in federal court in the coming weeks on behalf of more than two dozen conservative groups that claim their harassment at the hands...

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow warned her very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very liberal audience that the Virginia Republican Party just picked a slate of “very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very conservative” candidates to run for office this fall. …… And those Republican loyalists who showed up for the convention picked candidates for this state-wide election who are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very conservative. A very conservative Tea Party style slate of candidates. … But suffice it to say, I didn’t use enough “verys” in describing them. …

Senator John Cornyn’s office has launched an online “hotline” for Texans who believe they were unfairly targeted by the IRS to share their stories.

Local Conservative party campaigners, including the chairman of one constituency association, will this week pledge their support for Nigel Farage after one of David Cameron’s allies described grassroots Tories as “mad, swivel-eyed loons”. Mr Farage uses an advertisement in Monday's Daily Telegraph to urge Conservative voters to back Ukip. The “loons” description, he says, is “the ultimate insult” from a party leadership that has betrayed the trust of its own supporters. He writes in the advertisement: “Only an administration run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives, could so...

For former IRS staff and tax experts, the case confirms what they view as one of the agency's long-standing weaknesses: its inability to cope with the growing number of tax-exempt advocacy groups that appear to stretch the law to engage in politics. With the IRS now under fire for its practices, campaign finance lawyers anticipate that the agency will shy away even more from regulating such organizations. At the heart of the issue is the murky role occupied by nonprofit "social welfare" organizations, set up under Section 501(c)4 of the tax code, which are allowed under IRS regulations to engage...

Like everything else the IRS has said about the tax scandal, its explanation for why it ended up targeting conservative groups turns out to be completely false. Which raises the question: Why are IRS officials trying so desperately to hide what really went on? Ever since the tax scandal broke, top IRS officials have insisted that the reason it started singling out conservative groups for extra review was because the agency was getting a flood of tax-exempt applications.

Men who are physically strong are more likely to take a right wing political stance, while weaker men are inclined to support the welfare state, according to a new study. Researchers discovered political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength. Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to the research. The principal investigators - psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and Daniel Sznycer, of the University of California in the U.S., believe that the link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to...

Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of whether Internal Revenue Service employees broke the law when they targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status — the latest setback for an agency that is the subject of withering bipartisan criticism and multiple congressional inquiries. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that the Justice Department and the FBI began the probe after the IRS acknowledged that it selected conservative groups with the words “tea party” and “patriot” in their names for special reviews. “We are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations,” Holder said at a news...

<p>Lois Lerner’s now infamous conference-call remark about not being good at math came in the course of an exchange where she claimed that 300 or so groups had been singled out by the IRS for special scrutiny, a quarter of which had “tea party� or “patriot� in their name and the rest of which were guilty of sins like criticizing the government.</p>

So, the IRS targeted conservatives, the administration spied on the media and lied about Benghazi. Some of this occurred prior to the election, I'm pretty sure. So, What difference does it make now? He's still president, he's not going to resign, and the Godless, immoral ones of the U.S. will not allow him to be impeached.

The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, according to a revelation made by ProPublica Monday. “The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year,” according to the ProPublica report. “In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications...

A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog President Obama refuses to fire IRS employees who illegally targeted conservative groups In May 2013, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had illegally targeted conservative groups for additional reviews. Organizations with the words “tea party� or “patriot� were singled out for harassment, such as requiring them to provide a list of donors, details about their internet postings on social networking websites, and information about their family members.When this was first reported by the media in May 2013, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that had conducted these illegal activities, claimed that only low level...

If Republican leaders were to fully embrace a conservative reform agenda, it would address pressing national needs. It would position the GOP as forward looking, contemporary, and have appeal to swing voters. It would demonstrate a commitment to a brand of conservatism that is practical rather than narrowly ideological. And it contrasts well with today’s reactionary liberalism, by which I mean liberalism that opposes virtually every effort to reform institutions and programs that are sclerotic, outdated, and ineffective. .... There are five obvious areas for Republicans to focus on, beginning with entitlement reform ... A second area Republicans should focus...

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews.

Conservatives may be less likely to buy energy efficient light bulbs if they're packaged as environmentally friendly, new research suggests. In one study, participants were given $2 to spend on a light bulb with a choice between a 50-cent incandescent bulb and a $1.50 compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb. They were told the CFL bulb would last 9,000 more hours and reduce energy costs by 75 percent compared with the old-fashioned bulb. Both liberal and conservative participants were more likely to choose the CFL bulb, the researchers found. But if the CFL bulb was marked with a sticker that said...

Credit: NBCWell, here’s an interesting way to respond to the Benghazi scandal, back in the spotlight again this week as whistle-blowers prepare to testify before Congress that the government always knew the assault on the consulate in Libya was a planned terror attack and not a spontaneous protest in response to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon is pre-blaming conservatives should the scandal fail to take off: The charges seem potentially damaging and the accusers credible, but those trying to fan flames of scandal have so embarrassed and discredited themselves by pushing bogus story lines on...

I by-and-large agree with the thrust of Jamelle Bouie’s recent American Prospect article, which argues that Republicans badly misapprehend the reason(s) African-Americans generally vote for Democratic candidates. Too many conservatives assert that African-Americans have developed a “false consciousness” and simply need to be shown the error of their ways before they’ll start supporting Republicans. Asking “What’s the matter with black people?” simply isn’t going to get the GOP very far in its minority outreach efforts. But in the course of this argument, Bouie makes the following statement: “White Southerners jumped ship from Democratic presidential candidates in the 1960s, and this...

Back in college I worked at the Borders in Thousand Oaks. I shelved books at 4 a.m. While working there, politics and religion came up a lot, and I was the sole defender of two ideologies: Christianity and conservatism. One of the most interesting conversations I ever had was with a fellow college student named Bob. Bob and I enjoyed talking about all the great issues of life. One day he looked at me and said something I’ll never forget. “Paul,” he said, “you wanna know the difference between Republicans and Democrats? I’ll tell ya. Everyone’s a Democrat until some...

Who is right? Ann Widdecombe (whom I admire but not necessarily agree with on this point)? She says that, despite having found herself questioning her own loyalty "since Cameron forced through gay marriage against the wishes of his own party": At the General Election a vote for Ukip [right-wing UK Independence Party] will be a vote for Miliband and all that Britain has gone through in the interests of putting the economy right will be brought to nought. I make no apology for repeating what I have said before: the note from Liam Byrne, the outgoing Labour treasury minister, summed...

A few days ago in the Senate, Harry Reid gave a small speech in which he called tea partiers "non-violent anarchists". Most people will probably either debate the merits of his points or refute them, I want to point out that historically, he is in line with what earlier progressives believed. Before I give you the quotes, my reason for doing this is to highlight one single thing: Progressives do not change. They change the outside; they wear different suits, they use different language and key words, they even call themselves by different titles. "I'm a liberal", or "I'm a...

A Republican media consultant recently showed us who he really is. In a conversation he thought was “off the record” Frank “Rat Top” Luntz has tipped his hand and reminded us why we can’t trust him. When he thought only those in front of him would hear his words he attacked talk radio conservatives for destroying Marco Rubio’s plans to erase our national borders. A Fox News favorite, Luntz has a big mouth and awful horse tail brown toupee. (Does it ever occur to people like this that no one on earth has that color hair?) He is a stereotypical...

At a talk to college students, Republican pollster Frank Luntz would only chastise Rush Limbaugh and right-wing radio off the record. GOP "Consultants" and Pollsters helping the MarxoFascist Democrats destroy Conservatism and the GOP from within. Headline only, story at link. H/T Mark Levin Top GOP Consultant Luntz Calls Limbaugh "Problematic"

'GOP' Pollster Frank Luntz Denounced Limbaugh, Levin as 'Problematic' for GOP Future By Tim Graham Created 04/25/2013 - 7:11am The leftists at Mother Jones are brandishing another secret tape. Pollster Frank Luntz, denounced as too conservative by liberals when he turns up on liberal networks, told a group of college students at the University of Pennsylvania this week that Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio are "problematic" for the GOP and that he and Mark Levin were “killing” Marco Rubio for his immigration proposals. Democrats have “got every other source of news on their side. And so that is a...

On May 21, Los Angeles voters will go to the polls to select a new mayor. Who will govern Los Angeles, however, is only the second-most important local question in the city today. The most important, by far, is who will buy the Los Angeles Times. The Times is one of the eight daily newspapers now owned by the creditors who took control of the Tribune Co. after real estate wheeler-dealer Sam Zell drove it into bankruptcy. Others include the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and the Hartford Courant. The Tribune board members whom the creditors selected...

LaGrange, IL— This weekend’s epic showdown between movement conservatives and more moderate elements of the Illinois Republican Party ended with a split result. Embattled Party Chairman Pat Brady remains at the helm of the State Central Committee but the committee is beginning the process of lining up a successor in the event Chairman Brady resigns or his detractors can garner enough votes to oust him while simultaneously navigating party rules to make it happen. Brady’s term runs through the 2014 primary season when a new, 18-member central committee, selected under the downsized 2011 congressional map, will organize itself and elect...

Star Parker, the black conservative who founded C.U.R.E. — the Center for Urban Renewal and Education — is raising eyebrows with her latest 30-second ad released late last week title , “Never Again.” ... The clip, which presents powerful images of the KKK and hangings of blacks in America, also makes the case that the latest round of gun control laws could threaten the safety and security of African Americans. ... “The Second Amendment of the Constitution is a right for all Americans, including blacks, to protect themselves and their families from both private and public violence,” Parker told CNS.com.

Wealthy Conservative donors are defecting to the UK Independence Party to pledge financial backing ahead of next month’s local elections, it emerged today. UKIP leader Nigel Farage suggested five or six former members of the Tory Leader’s Group who paid £50,000-a-year to dine with David Cameron and other frontbenchers had switched to support his anti-EU party. One ex-donor said he decided to switch after a dinner with Mr Cameron where he just wanted to talk about contestants on X-Factor. UKIP hopes to secure several donations of more than £1million to bankroll the party’s campaigning in next year’s elections to the...

A group of high-profile social conservatives warned Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus in a letter this week that their supporters could abandon the GOP if the party seeks to change its position on social issues, particularly same-sex marriage. Thirteen social conservatives, representing various influential groups, wrote Priebus ahead of the RNC's quarterly meeting this week in Los Angeles to sternly rebuke the conclusions of a post-election report that advised Republican elected officials to adopt a softer tone toward social issues. "We respectfully warn GOP Leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our...

Margaret Thatcher not only broke a glass ceiling; she broke a class ceiling. Today we say goodbye to a towering figure of the 20th century. With the passing of Margaret Thatcher, we’ve sadly lost the last living member of that great triumvirate that included Ronald Reagan and John Paul II — those giants who defeated the evil empire of Soviet Communism and allowed the liberation of its captive nations. We’ve also lost one of the great champions of economic freedom and democratic ideals. Many will focus on the fact that Margaret Thatcher’s career was a collection of “firsts” for women...

Tea Party favorite former US Congressman Allen West admitted to investigator Lt. Mike Zullo that political expediency was more important to him than supporting the investigation of Barack Obama’s eligibility for office. “I would really have to think about this, but I don’t think so,” West said in response to Zullo’s question: ”Would you support an individual that steps forward to bring this (document fraud) to the forefront?” The officer heading up Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse investigation went to the Conservative C-PAC enclave with radio talk host Carl Gallups to tell any and all listeners about the criminal...

At a meeting of the Ripon Society held in Washington, D.C.'s exclusive Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday, new Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Mike Shields effectively declared war on the conservative grassroots. In a strong attack, Shields coined a new derogatory term, "the professional right," to refer to groups that have publicly criticized the recent RNC "Autopsy" report. "It's a term I'll be using often in the coming months," he told the crowd of about 40 Ripon Society members, RNC insiders, and Capitol Hill staffers. But Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, who was not one of those in attendance at...

While many Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Sunday, Barack Obama, his family, and everyone else attending St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. received a message that included an attack on conservatives, the Weekly Standard reported. "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back ... for blacks to be back in the back of the bus ... for women to be back in the kitchen ... for immigrants to be back on their side of the border," said Dr. Luis Leon. According to a tweet sent by Reuters'...

Telling them how, not what, to think How is it that when a person disagrees politically with a teacher, suddenly said teacher is “indoctrinating” students instead of teaching them? OK, I admit it: I indoctrinated students. I indoctrinated them that their job was being a student. Instead of a check, they got paid every nine weeks with a report card. At the end of four years’ service, they got a “bonus”: a diploma. I indoctrinated them by telling them to consider their “paycheck” an investment account that, once earned, no one could take away from them. I told them a...

Recently, Republican Governors Rick Perry of Texas and Terry Branstad of Iowa appealed to those wanting to flee liberal California. “Move your business to our state,” they implore. “We’ll welcome you with open arms here.” They should be careful what they wish for. When my wife and I used to vacation in Colorado in the 1970s, I started noticing bumper stickers that read “Don’t Californicate Colorado.” The initial movement that spawned that sentiment was a way for Colorado residents to express their disapproval of how Southern California had exploded with seemingly unlimited development. However, since that time, “Californicate” has taken...

Since Hispanics,as well as most Democrats, are for big government and big liberal media, Republicans can only regain the Presidency by waiting for President Barack Hussein Obama's mistakes to become as conspicuous as his Democrat presidential predecessors. President Obama has made too many mortal mistakes to mention, so far, but the Dems have hidden his disastrous decisions better than FDR's legs, Clinton's Lewinsky affair, and Jimmy Carter's high inflation. A recent survey, as mentioned by Rush Limbaugh, shows that American Hispanics desire big government, so that plants them firmly in the Democrat camp, although  Hispanic Americans escaped from a big government and crony...

From The Bible: Satan… or Obama… Like, whichever. Daniel Wattenberg, the arts and features editor of the conservative Washington Times, wrote a piece last week chiding Hollywood for being confounded by the ratings success of the History channel’s mini-series The Bible. �Blockbuster ratings for a compilation of bible stories from a reality TV producer taking his first crack at drama? Can’t be,� Wattenberg writes in the persona of a studio exec. “If there was a market for biblical epics, then Hollywood wouldn’t have long ago abandoned the genre. … Makes no sense.� No one can blame Wattenberg for taking...

20) “I was told I got 10 measly minutes, but just in case, I brought 13 hours worth of material.” -- Rand Paul 19) “American Journalism is dead… They have behaved like hockey goalies in front of Barack Obama’s net.” -- Roger Noriega 18) “The GOP of old has grown old and moss covered.” -- Rand Paul 17) “If standing for liberty and the Constitution makes you a Wacko Bird, then count me a proud Wacko Bird.” -- Ted Cruz 16) “If these experts keep losing elections, keep raking in millions, if they feel that strongly about who should run...

America could be on the threshold of its greatest century. With new drilling technologies, the United States will soon have an energy surplus. This means trillions of dollars in new wealth and a foreign policy not dominated by oil. .... But the bright future is at risk if the federal government continues on its arc of irresponsibility. America's government-spending addiction and its lackluster system of public education are the two greatest impediments to achieving the country's potential. I know conservatives have the solution. As governor of Florida, I balanced the state budget for eight years in a row while cutting...

Fox News is carrying it live. Ben Carson spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast and openly criticized Obamacare just a few feet from Obama. His speech at CPAC should be interesting.

Colorado School Names Conservative-Studies Professor By DOUGLAS BELKIN The University of Colorado, Boulder, is the kind of campus that conservatives have long criticized as a bastion of liberal groupthink. That perception could start to change this year. The school on Wednesday named Steven Hayward, a former fellow at the Heritage Foundation think tank, as its first visiting scholar of Conservative Thought and Policy. The position, which was funded with private donations and is among the first of its kind on a U.S. campus, was created to broaden the intellectual diversity among the faculty, said Earl Wright, a Denver banker who...

Glenn Beck To Debut His Own “60 Minutes” Amid a growing debate about the future of conservative media, The Blaze's For the Record aspires to 60 Minutes-level credibility, run by Beck's own “Woodwards and Bernsteins.” On Wednesday night, Glenn Beck's TV network The Blaze will air the first episode of an investigative newsmagazine show called For the Record — the latest move by the network to build journalistic credibility amid a broader debate about the state of conservative media. Beck introduced the idea for the show in January as part of a larger plan to build out the network's news...

<p>One of the biggest problems that conservatives have in this country is that we're far too willing to support people who mock, despise and hate us. They tell the world we're awful people and then we turn right around and put money in their pockets and help them become bigger stars. Meanwhile, conservative celebrities are afraid to support Republican candidates or speak up for conservatism because they know the Left will unleash a tsunami of hysteria on them. In other words, there may be a lot more conservatives than there are liberals, but celebrities can get away with criticizing us, but not them. This dynamic is at the heart of why conservatives are losing the culture.</p>

With its economic troubles, California has been losing people in droves. The plurality of those migrants have moved to Texas, as many as 70,000 in 2011 and 60,000 in 2012. Given this influx of new residents, we are fortunate to have at times asked our respondents whether they have moved to Texas from California, and though the actual number of these people is but a small subsample of our surveys, we have enough respondents to make two broad conclusions. First, these newcomers, on average, tend to be conservative. Pooling data from the May 2012 and February 2013 UT/Tribune surveys, we...

With more and more conservatives in the House rebelling against John Boehner’s increasingly questionable Speakership, Republican House leadership is now moving to quash in-house concerns by reaching across the aisle for support. [...] This is a declaration of war within the Republican ranks. And it should be deeply troubling to Republicans across the country, watching as the recently and controversially reminted House leadership continues to pursue the same political philosophy that led to a mini-rebellion in the House in January.

Paul showed you can take on Obama without fear of a media backlash amidst the cheers from your fellow conservatives! Want proof that Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) filibuster was a success? Look no further than Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) strong disapproval. I had my own run in with Senator McCain on the matter of filibusters in 2007 so I know how strongly he feels about the issue.  But McCain was wrong then and he's wrong now. You don't win by  being on defense or so afraid of being criticized for speaking out on important issues that you mute your disagreement with the...

Mitt Romney says it "kills" him that he's not president. But he doesn't blame Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or anything else on his loss to President Barack Obama--except his campaign's failure to connect with minority voters. “I lost my election because of my campaign," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday" in his first television interview since his November defeat, "not because of what anyone else did." The former Massachusetts governor refused place blame on Christie, who some Republicans say elevated Obama in his embrace of the president in the wake of the storm. Romney said his inability...

The Harvard Crimson published an editorial urging conservatives not to apply to Harvard if they intend to criticize the university down the line for political points. The editorial, titled “Warning: Do Not Enroll,” denigrates famous conservatives who graduated from Harvard and later sharply — and perhaps hypocritically — complained about the university’s liberal ideology, including former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, and Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly. “If we could have spoken to these three men, we would have told them never to come to Cambridge,” wrote the staff of the Crimson. “We at The Crimson...

David Cameron is facing turmoil after a UKIP surge enabled the scandal-hit Liberal Democrats to cling on in the most crucial by-election battle for 30 years and pushed the Tories into a humiliating third place. The Liberal Democrats held the South Coast seat of Eastleigh seat vacated by Chris Huhne - despite an unprecedented period of bad publicity over the Lord Rennard scandal and record lows in national opinion polls.

It’s really simple, folks. Everything boils down to Obamacare. Do we really believe that Obamacare will make private health insurance unaffordable? Do we really believe Obamacare will bankrupt the nation and relegate the next generation of Americans to a dimmer future of less freedom and opportunity? Do we really believe Obamacare will create incorrigible dependency? Do we really believe that Obamacare will lead to a deterioration of healthcare services and rationed care? Are we really serious about balancing the budget and reforming entitlements? If the answer to the aforementioned questions is a resounding yes, which is presumably the case for...