Free Republic

The embattled mayor of Pennsylvania's financially crippled capital of Harrisburg was ousted on Tuesday when she lost the Democratic primary to the owner of an independent bookstore. Mayor Linda Thompson's loss to Eric Papenfuse comes after a tumultuous term in which her outbursts and statements caused a loss of confidence in her administration. Papenfuse is likely to win the general election in this heavily Democratic city in November, but he must still face off against independent candidate Nevin Mindlin.

Marshall writes that he "was chatting with people yesterday" who said civil service rules may make it "extremely difficult or even impossible" to fire Lerner. Doing so because she exercised her rights under the Fifth Amendment would be unconstitutional. *snip* The White House seems to have an inkling it can't fire Lerner: Klein as well as Marshall emphasized the stringency of civil-service rules. But encouraging the public to draw adverse conclusions from her assertion of her rights under the Fifth Amendment would have a similar effect of turning her into a scapegoat. The American people have a right to know...

Anthony Weiner was lying low this morning after releasing a video announcing his last-minute entry into the race for mayor. A crush of reporters was camped outside his Park Avenue South apartment for so long that campaign aides treated them to three boxes of pizza and made plans for individual interviews later in the day. Some of Weiner's rivals, meanwhile, wasted no time poking fun at the sexually-charged Twitter messages that led their newly-minted opponent to resign from Congress in 2011. "If he can penetrate the field, I'll be ready for him in November," Independence Party candidate Adolfo Carrion declared...

9:30am (ET) LIVE: HOUSE OVERSIGHT CMTE. HEARS ABOUT IRS AND CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATIONS http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

When Lady M addressed the graduating class at Nashville’s Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School last week she reminded them that failure was a part of life – no matter who you are: “And then there’s this guy Barack Obama ... he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband.” Lucky him “I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures.” Well, now it looks like Congress is considering calling her up to testify on the Hill, as they can’t seem to locate another soul who’s willing to talk about...

I received an insightful email from reader Karen Sacandy: Dear Professor Jacobson: I’m among your many grateful readers, but at this time, the Democrats are like Thomas Crown in the flick, “The Thomas Crown Affair,” who created a distraction over here, while over there, he was stealing a multimillion dollar painting. But in this case, it’s a total transformation of the American people, by immigration law changes to aid and abet the non-enforcement we’ve had for decades. All these abuses of power converging at this time are almost COMPLETELY distracting everyone who could bring pressure to bear to prevent the...

In a startling exchange Wednesday during the IRS hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, America learned that the IRS knew in May of 2012 that its employees were targeting conservative organization with paralyzing harassment and Kafka-esque audits. Although the IRS knew this, they did not report this information to Congress. "While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the...

LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – A Muslim political candidate suspected of murdering a Christian has instigated calls from mosque loudspeakers for attacks on Christians, whom he blames for his May 11 election loss. Tensions were high in Punjab Province’s Okara district after provincial assembly seat candidate Mehr Abdul Sattar, sought by police in connection with a 2008 murder, on May 13 arranged for mosque calls for violence against Christian villages.

IRS official Lois Lerner said at hearing today, "I have not done anything wrong." "I have not done anything wrong," she said. "I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee."Lerner adds that she invoke her 5th Amendment right and "will not answer any of the questions or testify today":

President Obama "selective appreciation" of the First Amendment is on full display again. Check out your neighborhood music store because the dark side of "hope and change" has just been released. It's hard to believe that there is anybody out there still caught up in the "hope and change" farce. Yes, it was always a farce and the last two weeks confirm it. We learned that James Rosen of FOX News was the DOJ's latest target: "The Fox News Channel is outraged over new revelations that three of its reporting staffers were targeted by the U.S. Department of Justice in...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was applauded at a congressional hearing Wednesday, after he objected to Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth Amendment and refusing to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. After invoking her right to avoid self-incrimination, Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division of the IRS, was dismissed from the hearing, which is examining the agency’s inappropriate targeting of conservative groups. After giving a brief opening statement -- in which she said she did nothing wrong -- then refusing to answer any questions, Lerner was dismissed by Committee Chairman...

The full face of political evil and arrogance showed its ugly features when progressives went up against the folks. And what we saw were the cruel, prideful, insensitive machinations of an Obama administration whose mantra involves the ends justifying any of their means. Showing no interest in their oath to maintain the public trust, these progressives revealed in real time television their demonic minds at work. When the outgoing IRS chief smirked at one Congressman’s question, hid behind the bureaucrat’s trompe l’oeil of “I don’t know,” and then used the intellectual’s latest, snarky transitional word “So,” we saw how he...

The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen - the man responsible for the aggressive surveillance and phone record scrutiny at Fox News - is also a big donor to the Obama Campaigns. At the time of his appointment, the Washington Post wrote a profile on Machen including this tidbit: Over the years, he has donated $4,350 to Obama's campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation's political radar, according to campaign finance records.

The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator. Where the productive man dreams of the things he might create if only left alone by his fellows, the Progressive dreams of the world he could create if only the lives and property of his fellows were at his disposal. The roots of his pathology lie in that oldest and most destructive of all human vices, the desire for the power to rule over other men. As...

Here's the link.

Minnesota U.S. Sen. Al Franken leads all potential GOP opponents by comfortable double-digit margins, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday. Among those tested by the Democratic polling firm was U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who he leads 55-38, a 17 point margin. Franken leads conservative talk show host Jason Lewis by the same 17 point margin (54-37), as well as state Sen. Julianne Ortman (52-35). Narrowing the gap slightly against the first-term senator were businessman Mike McFadden and Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who came within 15 points apiece (both at 51-36). Sen. Julie Rosen trailed by 16...

As more information about the IRS scandal trickles out daily, the White House’s involvement is becoming clearer. Those of us who’ve been warning about the demise of freedom with Barack Obama’s efforts to “fundamentally transform” our great nation are about to witness some sad vindication. Will awakened Americans finally join us in saying “enough is enough”? The president would like us to believe that he only learned about the IRS corruption from watching the news. But we recently learned that the White House was actively working with the IRS on how to roll out the story of this scandal. So,...

MOSCOW — "Russia is like a tub full of dough. You push your hand all the way to the bottom, pull it out, and right before your eyes, the hole disappears, and again, it is a tub full of dough," Nikita Khrushchev once said, assessing the country he ruled. The former premier -- my great grandfather -- who 60 years ago denounced Joseph Stalin and his pervasive security apparatus, must be turning in his grave. Russia's legal institutions are still run along the lines of Stalin's "show trials." Following the politically motivated prosecutions of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and...

With unrelenting determination, we should help fellow citizens understand why the concept of "one nation under God" is essential to preserving America. At an ever accelerating pace, we are tolerating one set of rules for "ordinary" citizens and a separate set of rules for "elite officials" intent on lording over the ordinary. If allowed to continue, these double standards will be the demise of our republic. America is based on a total rejection of the British caste system that respected heredity and rewarded royalty. The old adage that it's impolite to discuss religion or politics in public is a damnable...

At the risk of being investigated by the by the Gestap---er,uh---, Infernal Revenue "Service" (no typo), I bid you greetings, fellow patriots. Just for fun and an undying thirst for the truth, let's talk about the infiltration of of radical Islamonazis of the State Of Confusion Department under Hitlery Clinton, friend of the PLO and Hamas. Now before we get started, a little housekeeping is in order. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I'm not an Alex Jones groupie. I'm not a Paultard who blames Mossad or the CIA for 9/11/01 between bong hits. I'm simply an observant person who...

National Public Radio reporter Ari Shapiro reports that liberal pundits were seen entering the West Wing:

Full title - "SHOCK: Obama was 'incapacitated' due to 'staggering, inapt activities' between the hours of 1800 and 2300 on the night of Benghazi... ""Two sources close to the inner circle of the Obama White House have communicated exclusively to RedFlag News that during the night of Benghazi, President Obama was 'incapacitated' due to 'staggering, inapt activities' between the hours of 1800 and 2300."

An AP report via Fox Nation via claims that although the FBI has identified five men believed to have been behind the September 11 Benghazi attacks, those men remain free because President Barack Obama will not allow the military to seize them. According to the report, the FBI says it has evidence sufficient to support seizing the men as "suspected terrorists." Yet because such an action would have to be carried out by the military, Obama appears unwilling to authorize it. Therefore, for the time being, the men are free while the FBI seeks enough additional evidence to clear a...

Illegal immigrants seeking a reprieve under an election-year program implemented by the Obama administration are being approved at a rate of over 99 percent -- a situation that has the immigration officer union raising concerns about fraud and security risks. The program in question is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to seek tentative legal status. It was the administration's answer to the "Dream Act," a bill Congress drafted but did not approve. The union representing thousands of employees in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes these...

by Roger L Simon PJM EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Diplomats Report New Benghazi Whistleblowers with Info Devastating to Clinton and Obama May 21st, 2013 - 12:05 am More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really...

Nothing there? The hope is gone? Bring in Biden? Tell us what you think.

Carney Compares Questions about Scandals to Birth-Cerificate Inquiries By Andrew Johnson May 21, 2013 2:49 PM Jay Carney tried to move past questions about the series of scandals surrounding the Obama administration by comparing them to questions about the president’s birth certificate at today’s press conference. Major Garrett asked Carney if the White House thought Republican inquiries were “legitimate” on the issues of Benghazi, the IRS, the Department of Justice targeting reporters, and the Department of Health and Human Service’s efforts to raise funds from private companies for promoting the health-care law. “We could go down the list of questions...

Nidal Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder. Islamist killer Nidal Hasan has been paid $278,000 since he murdered 13 Americans in a terrorist attack in 2009. NBC DFW reported: The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty. If Hasan had been a civilian...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 20, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Would the woman most closely associated with the TSA airport stripsearches make a good presidential candidate? The abortion lobbying group EMILY's List and The Washington Post think so. This month, EMILY's List launched an initiative entitled "Madam President" dedicated to electing the first female president. The group's president, Stephanie Schriock, said she was not placing all her bets on a Hilary Clinton candidacy. "If she chooses not to, our options are far from exhausted," she said. "We have a deep bench of women leaders committed to fighting for progressive change who are up...

Sex Beast Muslim Taxi Driver Tried Raping Girl,15 In Oldham May 21 Posted by kafircrusaders Another vile Muslim sexual predator guilty of  sex crimes against children. Pervert taxi driver Tamur Yaqub from Oldham thought because he made eye contact with a 15-year-old girl as he drove past her in his cab. That it somehow entitled him to drag her in his car, drive her to a secluded spot and attempt to rape her.Yaqub is a good Muslim husband and father of 6 children. Yet like we keep on seeing time and time again, Muslims treating infidel females with contempt in a way...

EVERSON, WA, May 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 31-year-old illegal immigrant raped a preteen girl in Washington State last June, then took her to Planned Parenthood two months later to cover his crime. According to reports, last June, Luis Gonzalez-Jose approached the young girl as her mother was taking a shower and asked "if it was OK to have a baby with him." After she said no, he stripped the girl and raped her on the spot. In August, he took the pregnant girl to a Planned Parenthood and forced her to abort their child. She told employees she had...

Barack Obama’s “legacy” continues to erode as more and more corruption, government abuse of power, lying, and cover up stories are exposed and made public. In the latest derailment of the Obama tyranny express, it has been reported by The Washington Post, of all institutions, that Eric Holder and Barack Obama have declared all-out war against conservative media types at FOX NEWS. James Rosen, the network’s chief Washington correspondent, has become a First Amendment cause celebre over his treatment by the Obama administration. But the DOJ, Fox says, also investigated the Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter William La Jeunesse and Fox...

The Senate immigration bill’s authors acknowledged Tuesday that their legislation does not require illegal immigrants to pay all back taxes, saying it would be too difficult to make them ante up everything they might owe. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is chief sponsor of the bill, said illegal immigrants by definition are living in the shadows, and requiring them to reconstruct their pay history could be tough — and potentially keep many of them from legalization. “We all realize that the system is broken. We all realize that people did wrong things. And the goal is...

Will Rogers, the great humorist, once said, “If you ever injected truth into politics, you would have no politics.” If you injected truth into the teleprompter during one of Obama’s speeches, there would be nothing left but an empty chair. Fourteen days after the September 11, 2012 attacks, Obama appeared at the United Nations to deliver a eulogy for the man he had not troubled to save and to declare that the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Obama denounced the “crude and disgusting video” that had “sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world” and...

The IRS has admitted to harassing conservative groups seeking tax exempt status, singling out for extra special scrutiny organizations which featured “patriot” or “tea party” designations in their name. We now know that a number of these groups were forced to withdraw their applications, being unable or unwilling to continue what in some cases had become a 3 year battle with the corrupt federal agency. But few in the media have bothered to ask who directed the IRS to engage in this criminal behavior. It has been reported that Senators Chuck Schumer and Al Franken addressed a letter to IRS...

Passing the buck is nothing new in government. But when four Americans are dead, the secretary testified to a certain version of events to Congress, and an independent report was allegedly not independent, we are in different territory. The gross incompetence that led up to the deaths of four Americans is inexcusable, but so was the mismanagement of the State Department. Under Clinton, critical memos never reached the secretary and the steps taken after the fact look a lot like an all-out effort to shield her from blame. Isn’t it time to get her back under oath?

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm is boasting that it was highlighted in a report on how technology is making the election process more efficient, secure, transparent, accessible and reliable. The report, WND has learned, was authored by a firm with links to billionaire activist George Soros. The information comes after WND reported two weeks ago that SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to Soros’ Open Society Institute. Yesterday, WND reported SCYTL announced its technology will be deployed at more U.S. jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections....

On the heels of news that the Obama administration Department of Justice was spying on reporters at the Associated Press, Monday brought the startling disclosure by the Washington Post that the DOJ had also targeted Fox reporter James Rosen for surveillance in an effort to plug up leaks. Additionally, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza obtained the full application for a search warrant of Rosen’s personal email account, in which the DOJ accused him of being “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator.” As Lizza put it, “Rosen was not charged with any crime, but it is unprecedented for the government, in...

USBC News Wire- According to a post via Twitter by a Columnist with the Washington Times, aides in the scandal-ridden Obama administration are “terrified” by information being closely guarded by the White House. Joseph Curl says that a CIA source has told him that the increasingly withdrawn Obama Administration’s most recent scandal, involving the monitoring of Fox News reporter James Rosen’s email account, “goes much deeper.” He goes on to say, in future posts, that “only a few in WH know that ‘something’ — ‘It’s been deep sixed, like Osama bin Laden.’” Mr. Curl’s ominous revelations via twitter...

MADISON — Federal health bureaucrats know applying for health insurance through the federal health care exchanges won’t be easy. If it were, there wouldn’t be the need for tens of thousands of taxpaye- backed “navigators,” new positions that soon will be created to help steer consumers through the rough waters of Obamacare. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will provide Wisconsin with $829,300 in navigator grant funds as part of the $54 million HHS set aside nationally for one year’s worth of navigators. There is $1.7 million more available for community health centers through HHS. Republicans on the...

With three full-blown scandals currently surrounding the Obama administration, there are too many “-gates” to name just one. There is the cover-up of the fatal Benghazi terrorist attack, the IRS targeting conservatives, and the Justice Department spying on members of the press. The level of corruption is so high right now it is like Saul Alinsky is running the White House. Alinsky, the radical activist who wrote Rules for Radicals, which he dedicated to Satan, taught the radical left to use dishonest tactics in order to achieve their agenda – “by any means necessary.” He advocated lying and harassing those...

Niqab, Burkas and Islam doesn’t help: Muslim countries lead web searches for ‘sex’, ‘goat sex’, ‘dog sex’, ‘rape’, ‘gay sex’, ‘ass sex’, ‘bird sex’ and ‘sexy child’ Islam appears to contribute to Muslim men turning into sexually distorted and imbalanced individuals. While the Islamic world believe (imagine) that the western world is obsessed and addicted to sex and cause crime and problems, low birth rates and search terms reveal a completely different picture. Muslim addiction to sex and sexual perversions is enormous and evident not only from the Quran and their prophet Muhammad and his history of rape, sodomy, murders,...

Between 1986 and 2001, Lerner served as head of investigations for the Federal Election Commission. From that post, Hemingway relates, she launched a lengthy, very expensive and ultimately fruitless investigation of the Christian Coalition...[A]ttorneys deposed Lt. Col. Oliver North, who had run for Senate in Virginia in 1994. Hemingway produces a stunning transcript of this deposition, in which the FEC's attorney ruthlessly interrogates North about an offhand remark he made in a letter, thanking Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson for his "kind regards and prayers."

Maxwell, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs from August 2011 until his removal last December, following tours in Iraq and Syria, spoke publicly for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast. “The overall goal is to restore my honor,” said Maxwell, who has now filed grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department’s human resources bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three officials placed on leave were in the diplomatic security bureau, leaving Maxwell as the only official in the...

Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct.

Scandal Watch: Despite White House attempts to brush the IRS scandal aside as "irrelevant" or the work of rogue miscreants, huge questions remain about who ordered IRS agents to harass Tea Party groups, and why. Every day, in fact, raises new and more disturbing questions that congressional investigators must get answers to. Among them:

"Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter." -- Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” -- Ayn Rand One of the most disturbing things about...

This IRS politicization is not an isolated problem. It is an inevitable result of the broader efforts to regulate and, in fact, suppress political speech. The IRS crackdown on tax-exemption approvals for conservative groups was directed at nonprofit social-welfare groups, often called 501(c)(4)s after the Internal Revenue Code section granting them tax-exempt status. Such groups do not have to disclose their donors and are exempt from most taxation, although donations to them generally aren't tax deductible. Social-welfare organizations are permitted to engage in a range of political activities promoting their causes or beliefs, so long as these activities aren't their...

Yesterday I asked in this space, among other questions about the IRS scandal, this: What was the subject of the Obama-Kelley March 31, 2010 meeting? I received the following response to my question from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) — the union for IRS employees headed by ex-14 year agent Colleen Kelley. The response came from union spokesperson Dina Long. It reads, in its entirety, this: Statement of NTEU On March 31, 2010, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley attended the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility at the Old Executive Office Building. The forum was attended by approximately 200...

Slow but sure seems to be working for the supporters of the Senate’s immigration bill. With Washington distracted by scandals large and small, the Senate Judiciary Committee continued to chew its way through amendments to the bipartisan measure on Monday. With 10 Democratic supporters and two Republican authors of the bill on the 18-member panel, the committee has parried dozens of attempts to undermine the measure during the first four days of debate, such as a Republican proposal on Monday that would have allowed profiling of immigrants based on their country of origin.