Free Republic

Speaking to the U.S.-Russia Forum on June 16, 2014, the Russian Ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, told the participants that there are “no ideological divides” between the U.S. and Russia. He said both countries were “market economies” with “democratic systems.” He called for increased U.S.-Russian cooperation and claimed that the Edward Snowden “affair”—the case in which the former CIA and NSA contract employee fled to Russia with highly classified documents—was “thrown on us,” as if the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, was caught flat-footed by his defection. With such absurd and outrageous statements, Kislyak betrayed true Russian intentions, as well...

When President Obama announced an unprecedented effort by the EPA to strong-arm states into adopting cap-and-trade, he made the announcement not by focusing on the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but rather on the so-called co-benefits that closing coal plants will have on particulate matter, which is already tightly regulated. These purported co-benefits are based on two secret studies that have never been publicly validated. Amazingly, the architect of this co-benefits strategy is a long-time EPA staffer named John Beale, now known as federal inmate number 33005-016 and locked up for fraud at Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution. For nearly...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has had a rough time of it ever since she asserted that both she and her husband were “dead broke” and “struggled” after leaving the White House in 2001. “A few weeks before they left the White House, the Clintons were able to muster a cash down payment of $855,000 and secure a $1.995 million mortgage,” Politifact observed. “This hardly fits the common meaning of ‘dead broke.’” Clinton might have taken the public backlash over this minor gaffe in stride, but she didn’t. Speaking with The Guardian over the weekend, Clinton again reasserted her credentials...

The top U.S. official in charge of archiving federal records testified Tuesday that the IRS ran afoul of the law by neglecting to tell his office that a trove of emails from the woman at the center of the targeting scandal disappeared after an apparent hard drive crash. Archivist of the U.S. David Ferriero, speaking before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made clear that federal agencies are supposed to report whenever their records are destroyed or even accidentally deleted. But he said that after emails from embattled IRS official Lois Lerner vanished after a computer failure in 2011,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in Congress aren't buying the contention by the head of the Internal Revenue Service that he has seen no evidence anyone committed a crime when the agency lost emails that might shed light on the targeting of tea party and other political groups before the 2010 and 2012 elections. On Tuesday, a House panel will hear from a White House official who once worked at the IRS. Jennifer O'Connor worked at the IRS from May to November 2013, helping the agency gather documents related to the congressional investigations, said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the...

“I said I would provide all the emails. We are providing all the emails. The fact that three years ago, some of them—not all of them, but some of them—were not available, I never said I would provide you emails we didn’t have,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a Monday evening hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Frustrated Republicans and apologetic Democrats questioned Koskinen about Lois Lerner’s vanished emails for several hours, beginning with Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who asked Koskinen if he knew those critical emails were missing when he testified before Issa’s committee on...

Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 2,827 new final regulations, equaling 24,915 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 24,915,000 words. The Gutenberg Bible is only 1,282 pages and 646,128 words. Thus, the new EPA regulations issued by the Obama Administration contain 19 times as many pages as the Bible and 38 times as many words. The Obama EPA regulations have 22 times as many words as the entire Harry Potter series, which includes seven books with 1,084,170 words. They have 5,484 times as many words as the U.S....

Last week the controversy over the NFL Washington Redskins’ name, deemed offensive by the professionally aggrieved, reached a new peak when the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board canceled six federal trademark registrations owned by the team.Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who had previously blustered impotently that he wouldn’t accept an invitation to attend a Redskins home game until the team changed its name (a threat which no doubt sent waves of panic through the Redskins organization), gloated that the ruling proved “the handwriting is on the wall.” “It’s only a matter of time,” he tweeted, “until [Redskins owner] Daniel Snyder is...

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman’s searing criticism of Former Montana Governor Schweitzer’s ridiculously sexist comments inspired some pretty damning headlines yesterday. But, Coffman’s opponent, Andrew Romanoff, was silent on the matter. And, now we know why – Schweitzer was in Colorado seven months ago stumping for Romanoff. ... Calling Diane Feinstein a prostitute-turned-nun is probably not the way to win friends and influence people, so we have to ask – will Romanoff denounce his fundraiser buddy’s comments? We’ve reached out to his campaign for comment. They responded with [drum roll] silence. ... They say you are who your friends are. Perhaps...

The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s cancelation of federal trademark registration for the name Washington “Redskins,” after ruling it disparages Native Americans, puts pressure on team owner Daniel Snyder and the National Football League (NFL) to change the name but falls far short of settling the issue. The split, 2-1, decision by unelected trademark board members shows the increasingly heavy hand that politics is playing in the activities of the private sector, since the ruling followed recent public calls for a name change from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The team counters that the long-standing “Redskins” name...

Brian Schweitzer, the former Democratic governor of Montana and aspiring 2016 presidential candidate, made some rather off-color remarks .. Schweitzer going after Senator Dianne Feinstein on surveillance issues by likening her to a prostitute on a street corner. Schweitzer found it amusing how Feinstein has been a champion of the intelligence community, and has now turned on the CIA for spying on congressional staffers. He said, “She was the woman who was standing under the streetlight with her dress pulled all the way up over her knees, and now she says, ‘I’m a nun,’ when it comes to this spying!…...

The agencies said their needs are too different and manufacturers are not yet ready to build trains that can run on both Amtrak's 100-year-old rail lines and the high-speed corridors planned for California's system. ... Several unfavorable court rulings have also delayed work. In the most high-profile case, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge halted the sale of $8.6 billion in state rail bonds and ordered the state to write a new funding plan, delaying work on the first 28-mile segment from Madera to Fresno. The state has appealed. But the $108 billion budget that Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday night accused President Barack Obama and other Democrats of waging wars against religious liberty and education and said that a rebellion is brewing in the U.S. with people ready for “a hostile takeover” of the nation’s capital. […] The governor said there was a “silent war” on religious liberty being fought in the U.S.—a country that he said was built on that liberty. “I am tired of the left. They say they’re for tolerance; they say they respect diversity. The reality is this: They respect everybody unless you happen to disagree with them,” he...

Top GOP officials are concerned that missing among the IRS’s internal emails are communications with Sen. Mark Udall and a dozen other Democrats who received campaign contributions from the federal agency’s union. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) first issued Freedom of Information Act requests to the IRS last year seeking all electronic and written documents between top officials there and the Democrats who received the campaign funding, but the attempts have been repeatedly stonewalled. Udall has accepted $13,000 in donations from the National Treasury Employees Union that represents IRS employees ... This is just another instance of Mark Udall...

mainstream media reporter Glenn Thrush revealed that a former editor of his at Newsday in 2008 delayed and buried his story on Hillary Clinton's defense of a child rapist because "it might have an impact." When Thrush wrote the story on February 24, 2008, Clinton was battling Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. The more things change, the more they stay the same. ... Newsweek had killed the story to protect its ally Clinton in the White House. ... Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has pioneered the use of social media to further level the playing field, said,...

After the regime issued its latest diktat Wednesday via a three-judge panel at the Patent and Trademark Office, which ruled 2-1 to withdraw trademark protection for the Washington Redskins, Rush Limbaugh was pretty much spot-on when he noted, “This is Barack Obama.”Actually, this goes beyond Obama (as the Patent and Trademark Office has tried this before). This is liberalism. This is what happens when liberals have power. Take note of those who cheered the decision: “The writing is on the wall,” said a jubilant Harry Reid.Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell said, “We're so excited to know that finally people are recognizing...

Elaine Soto and her family left New Jersey at 3 a.m. on Thursday to come to the March for Marriage in Washington. She brought her four children to “open their eyes to the fact they don’t have to shrink. They don’t have to be embarrassed or ashamed even if what they believe is not politically correct.” Jack McGill of Detroit, Mich., along with his wife of 22 years, Diane, and their two children drove 600 miles to D.C. for the second time this year to attend a protest—the first was the March for Life. In both cases, McGill said he...

<p>Currently, federal trademark law does not allow the registration of any names that bring individuals or groups into contempt or disrepute. The PTO cited this rule in their decision regarding the Redskins’ name.</p> <p>Here are twelve other trademarked names that apparently didn’t come up on anyone’s offense radar.</p>

Hey Mississippi. You know Michael Bloomberg right? He’s the guy who wants to take your guns away. He’s the guy who created a non-profit group to agitate against the second amendment. He’s the guy spreading lies about the number of school shootings in the country. Michael Bloomberg is also the guy who just gave a pro-Thad Cochran Super PAC $250,000.00. Gun grabbing Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy Thad Cochran’s re-election. Who do you think Thad Cochran will stand with the next six years if he gets re-elected. You people or the man who bought his re-election? That’s 250,000 reasons...

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an outspoken advocate for gun control, recently gave $250,000 to help re-elect a Mississippi Republican with an A+ rating from the NRA. According to the latest campaign finance filings, Bloomberg gave $250,000 to Mississippi Conservatives PAC, a group aiming to re-elect veteran Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, who is in the fight of his political life against his primary rival, Chris McDaniel. Bloomberg, a billionaire, has contributed heavily to groups pushing for more firearm regulations. In April, Bloomberg launched a $50-million campaign to counter the NRA. As a result, Bloomberg's political brand has become...