Free Republic

The "John Doe" investigation into conservatives is dead. At least for now. In a monumental victory for targeted conservatives in the secret Wisconsin investigation, Judge Rudolph Randa on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction to stop the politically charged probe, ruling in favor of conservative activist Eric O'Keefe, his Wisconsin Club for Growth and "others." The probe had been looking into possible illegal coordination between conservative groups and Republican Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign, but came under fire for the opaque way it was conducted.

Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. A major subplot of this year’s midterm elections is the competition between the Republican establishment and the tea party wing of the party. The establishment is fighting back, but has the tea party already won? The general election is still six months off. But Tuesday opens the summer preseason of intraparty contests, which starts with an important primary in North Carolina. Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. After a July break, the preseason will...

Recently there have been quite a few cases of liberals arguing in favor of certain public policies on the basis of principles that they usually oppose or, at a minimum, ignore. For example, a concerted media campaign is underway arguing that we should increase the minimum wage so that people with jobs are not also collecting government benefits. Yet the people behind the campaign are not people who normally argue for either less government spending or fewer handouts to lower income people. Generally, when you notice somebody arguing using the other side's principles, that should be a signal that their...

David Cameron is planning new powers to muzzle Islamic hate preachers accused of provoking terrorist outrages such as the killing of soldier Lee Rigby. The Prime Minister wants to stop extremist clerics using schools, colleges, prisons and mosques to spread their ‘poison’ and is to head a new Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) made up of senior Ministers, MI5, police and moderate religious leaders. The high-powered group will study a number of measures, including banning extremist clerics from being given public platforms to incite students, prisoners and other followers – and forcing mosque leaders to answer for ‘hate...

ST IVES, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, UK –– An over-capacity crowd of around 650 people met UKIP leader Nigel Farage for the final town hall-style meeting of his pre-European Election tour of the United Kingdom. With UKIP swag plastered all over the Burgess Hall venue, Farage entered to rapturous applause, flanked by increased security following the assault on him earlier this week. Farage was speaking to the throngs of disaffected Brits, who have witnessed their livelihoods sacrificed for multiculturalism, big state-driven debt, and the transfer of sovereignty over their own lives from their local towns and villages to centralised governments in London and...

Since the start of the ill-named “Arab Spring,” the Muslim Brotherhood has been very much in the news. Coming to power through democratic elections in Egypt and Tunisia, they were toppled within a short time by the people, who discovered their true intentions. There were some in the West – but not all – who saw the light as well. British Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered a comprehensive review of the movement,... its activities in Britain and its impact on the country’s interests. The decision was made because the Brotherhood is allegedly behind terrorist operations in Egypt, and because...

Conservatives in the House are making a concerted effort to derail any plans by the GOP leadership to pass immigration reform by the end of the year after Speaker John Boehner mocked them last week for not having the gumption to get it done. -SNIP- It is difficult to plan a specific course of action when the leadership keeps tossing out vague ways to give amnesty to illegal aliens," Brooks told Politico. "When we see a specific plan from the House leadership, then those of us who favor American citizens first will have a better idea of where the leadership...

You can see the video by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above. Previous articles on the topicWinchester: Churchill Quotation Gets Liberty GB Leader Paul Weston ArrestedLiberty GB’s Paul Weston, Arrested in Winchester for Quoting Churchill, Could Face 2 Years in JailTranscript of the videoQ: Where exactly were you speaking, please? A: Winchester, which is in the county of Hampshire, and Hampshire is part of the South-East constituency for the European Union elections which I’m standing in. So I thought: “As it’s part of my constituency, I will go down and try and explain to these people, who do...

Most Americans don’t know who the Koch brothers are, and yet they continue to be the focus of Democrats’ attacks. Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found a full half of Americans didn’t recognize the names of Charles and David Koch. Another 20% have neutral feelings about them – leaving just 21% with negative feelings and 10% with positive opinions. The unknown rating is the highest among political figures in the WSJ/NBC poll – four percentage points more than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and nearly twice as high as likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul (R.,...

David Cameron has promised to quit as Prime Minister if he is unable to deliver an in-out referendum on the European Union by 2017. He promised he would not “barter away” the referendum in new coalition negotiations, as an angry Conservative activist told him the public do not believe he will deliver on his promise to give the British people a say on EU membership. There are fears the pledge could be blocked by the Liberal Democrats during coalition talks if the 2015 election produces another hung parliament. Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, claims Mr. Cameron has no intention of...

Nigel Farage could win a seat at Westminster within weeks after a disgraced Conservative backbencher quit the Commons and forced an unexpected by-election. In a significant blow to the Tories, Patrick Mercer stepped down as MP for Newark on Tuesday night, only days before he was due to be suspended from Parliament for six months. His decision comes after a joint investigation by The Telegraph and the BBC’s Panorama programme disclosed that Mr Mercer had tabled a series of parliamentary questions and put down a motion after accepting £4,000 from undercover reporters. David Cameron now faces the prospect of Mr...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen insisted that differences in the way two organizations were treated by his Agency were not politically motivated. The conservative-oriented Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty was penalized by having its tax-free status revoked. In contrast, Media Matters, a liberal organization funded by billionaire George Soros has not been penalized for its partisan activity. “The key distinction we made was based on the potential economic impact we could expect from the demise of each of these organizations in response to any action we might take,” Koskinen said. “On the one hand, the Patrick Henry Center is a...

Some naive conservatives are still in blind love with Communist KGB dictator, pretender, fake Christian and crook Putin: Warning: Moscow Continue with their old Soviet miss-information strategies and lies: Putin's KGB Long Range Plans Explained by His Communist Mentor: MIKHAIL GORBACHEV's speech at the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917): "....In October 1917, we parted with the old world, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road." And from his speech to the Soviet Politburo, November 1987: "Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned...

I was going to post a reply to another FReeper’s post on the Bundy race non-controversy, but my comments segued dramatically into a rant, supported by a host of sources. What's amazing to me is the abject ignorance of people on the Right, including radio. I won't name him, but I received the following email from a conservative radio host (also does national). This is what he wrote in response to my email critiquing him on calling Bundy a "bigot" and elaborating why he's not: "Before the militarized blm…how was it overbearing for the blm to give him twenty years,...

“If you see some Middle Eastern guy come in, you don’t have to be so worried about that”by Gina Cassini | Top Right NewsThe same FBI that ignored Russian and Saudi intelligence warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers -- the Boston Marathon jihadists -- and refused to question anyone at their radical mosque, is now visiting a gun store near you to target...conservatives!That's right, according to a new report, FBI counterterrorism agents are visiting gun shops in South Carolina to investigate “suspicious purchases” made by people who talk about “big government.”

Retired means you get to receive all of the day time phone calls that you might have missed. Isn't that wonderful? I just hung up from talking to a Ben Carson Pac. They called and asked me to listen to a special message from Dr. Ben Carson. About 1 minute in length, and about Obamacare. Then a different lady came on the line and asked how I was today. Wanted to know if I agreed with Dr Carson that it was time for "conservatives" to begin talking about what we are for instead of what we are against. Well, I...

WASHINGTON — The political attack ad that ran recently in Arizona had some familiar hallmarks of the genre, including a greedy villain who hogged sweets for himself and made children cry. But the bad guy, in this case, wasn't a fat-cat lobbyist or someone's political opponent. He was a solar-energy consumer. Solar, once almost universally regarded as a virtuous, if perhaps over-hyped, energy alternative, has now grown big enough to have enemies. The Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and some of the nation's largest power companies have backed efforts in recent months to roll back state policies that favor...

European lawmakers on Thursday eased the way for cartel victims to claim compensation from companies under new rules that also shield price-fixing whistleblowers from being the main target of million-euro lawsuits. The green light from the European Parliament came nine years after the European Commission broached the idea, seeing it as an additional tool, on top of fines, to deter companies from breaking antitrust laws. According to the Commission, only one in four cartels and antitrust infringements faced damages claims in the last seven years. Its 2010 estimate put the cost of unrecovered damages of infringements at over €20 billion...

LONDON – Setting up an intriguing election battle, Britain’s opposition Labor Party announced Friday that it had hired President Obama’s chief campaign advisor to help the party return to power next year over the ruling Conservatives. The decision to recruit David Axelrod means that the 2015 British election will pit two of Obama’s strategists against each other. Working for the Conservatives is Jim Messina, who, like Axelrod, toiled on both of Obama’s presidential campaigns and who served as his deputy White House chief of staff during his first term. “David is used to tough fights, and he is going to...

Britain's Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has conscripted the services of American campaigns professional David Axelrod, otherwise known as the architect behind President Barack Obama's U.S. election victory in 2008. The appointment of Axelrod to the Labour team is the latest in a long line of foreign consultants brought in to try and help Ed Miliband's team on the run up to the UK General Election in May 2015. Axelrod follows in the footsteps of 69-year-old U.S. community organiser Arnie Graf, who embarrassed Labour by claiming he was working for them, rather than consulting for them, without a UK work...