Free Republic

A North Carolina teacher is brain-washing students telling them Republican policies are hurting schools.EAG News reported: It appears that one North Carolina teacher is getting into the spirit of the new Common Core learning standards that promote the use of “informational” texts in the classroom. According to the StopCommonCoreNC.com, a fourth-grade teacher with Henderson County Public Schools gave students a brief reading assignment, titled “Raleigh’s Educational Plan.”(continued)

When it comes to investigative reporters, how do you change a bulldog into a lapdog? Easy: change the occupant of the Oval Office from a Republican into a Democrat. Witness Carl Bernstein's pitiful performance on today's Morning Joe. The man who teamed with Bob Woodward to bring down Richard Nixon now credulously claims that he "can't imagine" that President Obama is possibly involved in the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Bernstein instead blames the "hyper-partisanship" in Washington. Yeah, cause politics were so kumbaya in 1972, Carl. View the video here.

Lois Lerner’s Response to Tea Party Question In response to a question about the IRS’s handling of Tea Party exemption applications, asked at the May 10 meeting of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the Tax Section of the American Bar Association, Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations office, made the following response: “We get about 60,000 applications for tax exemption every year, most of them are 501(c)(3) organizations. But between 2010 and 2012 we started seeing a very big uptick in the number of 501(c)(4) applications we were receiving and many of these organizations applying more than doubled,...

WHEREAS the root of the Watergate scandal and cover-up was the desire of a sitting President to be re-elected, and WHEREAS the Watergate scandal and cover-up ultimately led to the impeachment and resignation of that sitting President, and WHEREAS The Washington Post, a member in good standing of the Mainstream Media, initiated the investigations leading to that impeachment and resignation, and WHEREAS the Mainstream Media continues, nearly forty years later, to regularly and publicly congratulate itself with an unwritten rule that scandals and cover-ups across all spectra of seriousness, malfeasance, and scope, without exception, shall be described with the suffix...

A report out of North Carolina seems almost like a Lifetime move: best man fatally stabs bride. Sadly, that is the situation in Raleigh after Jonathan Broyhill allegedly killed Jameson Kirk Hahn this week. The Associated Press via WMBF News shared the details on April 24. A wedding announcement from the wedding of Jamie Kirk Hahn to Nation Hahn from 2009 lists Broyhill as the groom's best man. Now he is facing charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Both Jamie and Nation Kirk were stabbed in their home Monday night. Jamie Kirk...

Dirty Business as Usual at California High Speed Rail From the article: Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who would stand out as the last person who would win it if there were no political patronage. Put another way, who is the most likely person to win it if there is political patronage? Both questions have the same answer: Richard Blum, the husband of California senator Diane Feinstein. So, who won the contract? Blum, of course, as the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the...

Steve Emerson just broke the shocking news that the Saudi National, Abdul al-Harbi, first questioned in the Boston bombing, is going to be deported on "national security grounds." He is from a very powerful Saudi family with many terrorist ties. Abdul al-Harbi is a devout Muslim from Medina. I said it takes longer than 15 hours to investigate all of Abdul al-Harbi's relatives, friends, acquaintances, and business and school friends. Perhaps a quick look at the Arabic sources should raise the eyebrows of every American relative to the extent of the problem at hand. Many from Al-Harbi’s clan are steeped...

The wife of a former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace was taken into custody early Wednesday morning and charged with capital murder in relation to the deaths of Mike and Cynthia McLelland and Mark Hasse. Kim Lene Williams was arrested just before 3:00 a.m. and is now being held on a $10 million bond. Her husband, Eric Williams, was arrested on Saturday morning for allegedly making terroristic threats against city officials. He is being held behind bars on a $3 million bond. Sources told CBS 11 News that Williams is also expected to be charged with capital murder in...

By itself, Terry McAuliffe’s failure to announce his resignation as chairman of GreenTech Automotive Inc. would not raise many eyebrows. But when the news was reported last week — four months after McAuliffe quietly resigned — it added to questions about the gubernatorial candidate’s ties to the electric car company he founded in 2009, and claims he has made about it on the campaign trail. McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee by default, promotes himself as a job-creating entrepreneur. He has used GreenTech to try to burnish that image. He should have a clear explanation why GreenTech chose Mississippi, not Virginia, for...

A group of New York veterans is preparing to march into court after a town ordered the Gadsden flag removed from a military armory. The city of New Rochelle, N.Y., has removed the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag from the New Rochelle Armory after the city council refused to let a veterans organization display the flag, World Net Daily reported. The United Veterans Memorial and Patriotic Association of New Rochelle is fighting the decision, ordered by City Manager Chuck Strome after complaints that the flag is a symbol of the Tea Party movement, according to World Net Daily. Read...

A suspicious package addressed to controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio contained a bomb that was powerful enough to maim or even kill him, his office said today. "Had someone opened that package, it would have caused a major explosion and caused serious physical injuries, burns and maybe death," Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman Jerry Sheridan said at a press conference. "That was a very serious threat, it was labeled to come here to this building and be opened by Sheriff Arpaio."

The FBI will have more details soon on the investigation into how a strategy meeting of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell campaign staff was secretly taped, according to McConnell’s campaign manager. Three main theories have emerged about how that audio recording was made: 1. That the office was bugged. But McConnell Campaign Manager Jesse Benton said Tuesday in a statement to the press that the staff had not found a bug in the office. 2. That someone in the room recorded the meeting and released it. Benton told Pure Politics on Wednesday he was confident that didn’t happen because the only...

DEMOCRATS ARE BLOCKING RESOLUTION TO HONOR LADY THATCHER Katherine Rosario April 11, 2013 One would naturally think it impossible that anyone would hesitate – even for an instant – to honor the woman who tackled communism head on as prime minister of Great Britain. Lady Margaret Thatcher was a principled politician who helped to foster the special relationship between Great Britain and the United States that we all benefit from today.A Senate resolution to honor Lady Thatcher was supposed to pass last night. However, per well placed sources on the Hill, Democrats have a hold on the resolution.To refuse to...

Progress Kentucky, the liberal super PAC that came under fire for making racial slurs about the wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is also responsible for a recently-leaked recording of the senator in a strategy meeting, according to Louisville radio station WFPL and Fox News. Both outlets are quoting Jacob Conway, a committee member of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, as naming Sean Reilly and Curtis Morrison, respectively the founder and a former employee of Progress Kentucky, as the culprits. "They happen to be friends of mine. Or were friends of mine," Conway told Fox News in a phone interview...

The State Department has acknowledged that five U.S. personnel killed in Afghanistan, including 25-year-old diplomat Anne Smedinghoff, were on foot when they were attacked by a suicide bomber, and not in an armored vehicle, as officials had told bereaved relatives earlier this week. The violent deaths of U.S. diplomatic personnel — and the State Department’s changing account of how they died — harken back to the debacle in Benghazi, Libya, where Islamist extremists killed four Americans in assaults on the U.S. diplomatic compound on Sept. 11. “We are able to clarify at this point that they were

MSNBC host Touré, a writer and “cultural critic,” has recently been in the news for attacking Dr. Benjamin Carson, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Having insulted black Rush Limbaugh fans in the past, Touré said Dr. Carson’s “un-serious” ideas are tolerated on the right only because he can be held up as a token black friend. Now, a recent report by the Daily Caller suggests the television host has long seen the world through a racial lens. “MSNBC host Touré founded a student newspaper dedicated to black liberation theology while he was a college student attending...

McConnell campaign asks for FBI investigation over leaked Ashley Judd tapes By Caitlin Dewey, Updated: April 9, 2013 Mitch McConnell’s campaign has accused opponents of bugging McConnell’s headquarters and has asked for an FBI investigation after a recording from an internal campaign meeting surfaced on Mother Jones this morning.The 12-minute tape reveals McConnell and his campaign staff lampooning then-potential candidate Ashley Judd, whom they call “a haystack of needles” or political liabilities, at a Feb. 2 meeting. Judd has since decided not to run.“We’ve always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Nixonian tactics to...

The FBI has been asked to investigate how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, a source close the McConnell re-election campaign tells CNN.

Politico story claim gun owners support Obama’s ‘universal background checks’The liberal media will do anything to pressure lawmakers to support President Obama’s gun-control agenda. Politico published a story Wednesday with this headline: “Hunting Group Wants Background Checks.” The story gave the false impression that the millions of hunters in the U.S. support Mr. Obama’s push for “universal background checks.” That is way off target. In fact, 31 well-known hunting and conservation groups sent a letter to Capitol Hill Thursday expressing opposition to intrusion by the federal government into private firearm transfers. Politico only cites one small group in its story,...

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes. The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said. FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m. [snip] Prosecutors are planning to lay out the whole sordid scheme during a news conference later today.

I missed this incident of Academia Gone Wild when it happened, as I was in Rome covering the papal conclave, but it has all the hallmarks of cluelessness and faux “tolerance” that we’ve come to expect from higher education. It started with a professor of intercultural communications (no, seriously) at state-run Florida Atlantic University requiring students to write the name Jesus in large block letters on a piece of paper, and then stomp on it. One student — one? — refused to comply and told the professor that he would file a complaint over the assignment, which offended his religious...

A Florida academic institution that had a professor tell his students to write the name Jesus on paper and trample on it has issued a formal apology for the lesson. "This exercise will not be used again. The University holds dear its core values. We sincerely apologize for any offense this caused," said Florida Atlantic University, a multi-campus institution, in a prepared statement posted on its website. "Florida Atlantic University respects all religions and welcomes people of all faiths, backgrounds and beliefs." FAU also stated that "no students were forced to take part in the exercise" and "that no student...

A state representative in Massachussetts is being investigated after allegedly sending pictures of his genitals to a government computer. The investigation is ongoing and the committee has not formally reprimanded the individual in charge, but it is being widely reported that Democratic State Representative John Fresolo is the one behind the scandal. He allegedly sent 'lascivious photos of his privates' to a computer at the State House, and an aide complained to the Ethics Committee to start the investigation. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297618/Massachusetts-lawmaker-took-pictures-genitals-female-coworkers-computer.html#ixzz2OO43f4D7 Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats will “fill up the DC circuit one way or another,” even it means changing the rules in the Senate to get nominees confirmed. At a Mar. 10 dinner event, the New York senator criticized the GOP for rejecting President Barack Obama’s nomination for judge in the 10th circuit, which currently has four vacancies. “They just rejected on specious grounds a fine New Yorker named Caitlin Halligan for the second time," said Schumer. "Our strategy will be to nominate four more people for each of those vacancies [on the 10th Circuit Court]. And if they...

Four Democrats involved in an upstate New York voter fraud scandal were sentenced yesterday for their respective roles, receiving punishments ranging from hundreds of hours of community service, to jail time. The group consisted of a former city clerk, an ex-City Councilman, a Democrat operative, and a Committeeman who a year ago had declared ballot forgery in upstate New York to be “a normal political tactic“. Those sentenced yesterday were cooperating witnesses in a scheme which saw dozens of voters testify that absentee ballots had been submitted in their names during the 2009 Working Families Party (WFP) primary. Securing the...

Look world: America’s First Lady can out-pole-dance YOUR First Lady! In what has to be the most mind-blowing picture of what NOT to do as First Lady, we have Michelle Obama entertaining the audience. You expect some ghetto chick to do something so crass, but not the First Lady. I know the naysayers will say, “Kevin, she is only being herself … she should be allowed to have fun!” I pay no attention to these America-hating communists, but many people do, particularly young girls. If Michelle Obama can be so crass, well don’t wonder why you see young girls “shaking...

Gun Control: As the Colorado legislature considers a ban on campus concealed carry, a woman testifying how she was raped in a "safe zone" 50 feet from a police station is told that armed defense is useless. It didn't receive quite as much media coverage as Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke's plea for free contraceptives before Congress but on Monday a young woman named Amanda Collins mustered the courage to testify before a Colorado legislative committee on that state's proposed gun ban legislation. Collins was raped at gunpoint in a University of Nevada-Reno parking garage in October 2007. Nevada law...

The State Department just issued a press release stating that Secretary of State John Kerry and First Lady Michelle Obama will be honoring Samira Ibrahim with an "International Women of Courage Award." Interestingly, Samira is a Hitler-quoting anti-Semite who says she wants to see America burn. Gotta respect the intelligence of our leaders. What's next for Samira? A Nobel Prize? On Friday March 8, Michelle Obama will join John Kerry at a special ceremony at the State Department to present ten women the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. The award, says the press release, is given to...

Jose Serrano is a Democratic congressman who represents the South Bronx of New York City (the 15th District). He is also an imbecile. Upon hearing the news of the death of Hugo Chavez, the tyrannical "President" of Venezuela, Serrano could not hold back his thoughts and emotions. He quickly went to twitter and posted this comment: Making certain that no one would misunderstand his sadness, Serrano released an official statement entitled “Chavez Changed the Conversation In Latin America” on his government website. Serrano explained, in part: “I met President Chavez in 2005 when he came to my district at my...

There is no "set price" to meet with President Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday amid continued outcry over the role of Organizing for Action, the outside group supporting the president's agenda. "Any notion that there is a set price for a meeting with the president of the United States is just wrong," Carney said during his daily briefing. Since OFA is intended to back the president's agenda, it makes sense that Obama would meet with the group, Carney said. "As anyone would expect, the president would likely meet with their representatives to discuss his agenda." "But,...

The Democratic National Committee has no plans to repay Duke Energy for an unprecedented $10 million line of credit it guaranteed to help the Democratic convention’s local host committee put on President Obama’s three-day nominating convention in Charlotte, N.C., last September. A Duke company official said the company was claiming the money as a business expense for tax purposes, meaning shareholders will foot $6 million of the cost, according to a report in the Charlotte Observer. The company didn’t limit its convention financial support to the loan guarantee. It also donated $4.1 million to a separate fund formed to accept...

Rep. Maxine Waters of California was roundly mocked and even became a trending topic on Twitter on Thursday after a video of her claiming erroneously that the automatic budget sequester, which becomes effective tonight, will cost America 170 million jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, America currently has fewer than 135 million working people. Reporting information that allegedly came from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, Congresswoman Waters warned ominously of the catastrophic number of job losses that would hit America once the budget sequester becomes law. "We don't need to be having something like sequestration...

The case of the phantom ballots: an electoral whodunit By Patricia Mazzei pmazzei@MiamiHerald.com TIM CHAPMAN / MIAMI HERALD STAFF About 2,000 rejected absentee ballots at Miami-Dade Elections Department, mostly for lack of signatures or review of signatures from the last election. The first phantom absentee ballot request hit the Miami-Dade elections website at 9:11 p.m. Saturday, July 7. The next one came at 9:14. Then 9:17. 9:22. 9:24. 9:25. Within 2½ weeks, 2,552 online requests arrived from voters who had not applied for absentee ballots. They streamed in much too quickly for real people to be filling them out. They...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is speaking out against a cut in congressional pay because she says it will undermine the dignity of their positions. "I think we should respect the work we do," Pelosi said. "I think it's necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded."

Prostitution is both legal and widespread in the Dominican Republic, where as many as 100,000 women are part of the industry in a nation that has become a major sex-tourism hotspot of the Caribbean. So it would not be a crime for Sen. Robert Menendez to have availed himself of such services during his trips to the Dominican Republic, as has been alleged.Menendez has strenuously denied patronizing prostitutes, however, denouncing the accusations Monday in a CNN interview as “smears that right-wing blogs have been pushing since the election.” Any claim that Menendez consorted with hookers during his D>. ominican holidays...

One of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's last interviews before his death on Friday came in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire. The most interesting part of the Q&A came when he was asked who was what living person he "most despise[s]." ... Which living person do you most despise? Former president Jimmy Carter.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) confronted former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel with a clip from his 2009 interview with Al Jazeera during today's Defense Secretary confirmation hearing. The Secretary of Defense nominee can be heard agreeing with a caller's assertion that the United States is the "world's bully."

In a little-noticed email published online Wednesday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a young Dominican woman wrote nine months ago that she slept with 59-year-old New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez at a series of sex parties organized by Dr. Salomon Melgen, a longtime Menendez campaign donor. “That senator also likes the youngest and newest girls,” the woman wrote on April 21, 2002, according to an English translation provided to The Daily Caller by a native Spanish speaker. “In the beginning he seemed so serious, because he never spoke to anyone, but he is just like...

On Friday it was revealed that the FBI is investigating Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) for allegedly sleeping with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. Despite this, when Menendez was given a six-minute interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week Sunday, he was not asked one question about the investigation or the allegations (commentary follows with full transcript at end of post): Raddatz began the interview asking Menendez about what Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had previously said on the program concerning immigration. She followed this up by asking Menendez what he wanted to hear from the President about this issue....

The media are not covering this story despite the FBI agent in the emails saying that most of the information has been confirmed. If the allegations are true Menendez could be prosecuted under the 2003 PROTECT ACT making travel and having sex with minors knowingly or not a federal offense with up to 30 years in prison. DOCUMENTS published online for the first time Thursday indicate that the FBI opened an inquiry into New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez on August 1, 2012, focusing on repeated trips he took to the Dominican Republic with longtime campaign contributor and Miami eye...

Politico reported this morning that "Henry R. Muñoz III of San Antonio -- an Obama bundler and a national chairman of the Futuro Fund, a group of Latino leaders who raised money for the president’s reelection -- is expected to be named DNC Finance Chair, the first Latino to hold the title." What's also interesting about Muñoz, though Politico omitted this fact, is that he at least once dined with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. "Muñoz’s clout has only expanded in the ensuing years — in politics, philanthropy and his profession," mysanantonio.com reported two years ago.

A Wilmington man told police he intentionally ran a car into a restaurant Friday after a woman criticized his political views, according to Star News Online. Police say at least one person was injured in the wreck that happened just before 11 p.m. Friday. The man ran his dark green Honda Civic through the front of Katy's Great Eats in Wilmington before driving away from the scene. Police later found the car and arrested Jacob Spivey, 26. Spivey told police he was trying to hurt a woman who criticized his political views. The woman, in her 40s, was injured in...

<p>GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - The government won't seek the death penalty for a group of men charged in the 2010 death of a Lansing woman.</p> <p>The Grand Rapids Press reported Friday (http://bit.ly/WxWIie ) that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder notified West Michigan federal prosecutors of the government's decision.</p>

Vice President Joe Biden got a little frisky with the wife of Senator Angus King at today's ceremonial swearing-in at the Capitol:

Angelo Mozilo In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi used an old Jedi mind trick on Stormtroopers to deflect them from their real quarry: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.� It worked.It looks as if another mind trick, well known in the Congress — delay and deflection — will now work to make Americans forget one of the biggest scandals of our time: the housing collapse that triggered the 2008 financial meltdown we are still suffering from. We shouldn’t just gaze over the fiscal cliff everyone else is scrutinizing; we should also examine the droids who helped set in motion our...

Updated: A Massachusetts lawmaker who agreed to plead guilty to casting invalid absentee ballots in 2009 and 2010 has submitted his resignation letter. State Rep. Stephen Smith submitted a letter dated Monday to the state's top election official, Secretary William Galvin. Galvin said Tuesday Smith's signed letter states, "I respectfully decline to accept this office."

**SNIP** On Friday, however, CNN reported that "doctors have grounded her from overseas travel for several more weeks." The report made no mention of the trip to the Dominican Republic. The Huffington Post said Thursday that according to Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines, Secretary Clinton "continues to recuperate at home and will resume her office schedule next week." Reines also said that "Clinton had no schedule this week because of a long-planned holiday," Matthew Lee wrote. Last week, CNN said Clinton was too sick to appear before Congress to testify on the attack that saw four Americans killed, including Ambassador Chris...

Administration puts an expensive end to a disgraceful episodeGeneral Motors will no longer be “Government Motors.” The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced its intention to liquidate federal holdings in the automobile company over the next 15 months. The final tally will show this policy has been a disaster for taxpayers. Under the best case scenario, the public will wind up shelling out more than $13 billion by the close of this unfortunate episode. Though President Obama has portrayed the GM bailout as saving Detroit, it was really a reward for the auto unions. It was a celebration of bad management...

Jesse Jackson Jr. & Wife Sandi Jackson, Accused of ‘Double Dippin’By Brittney M. Walker December 23, 2012 *Oops, Jesse Jackson, Jr. did it again. Just five days after the politician resigned from Congress, his lovely wife and fellow politician, Alderwoman Sandi Jackson, filed a series of interesting amendments to her ward committee’s campaign fund, revealing dozens of previously undisclosed transactions that date back three years. One of the records includes a hefty $13,000 from her hubby’s congressional account into her ward organization account, according to the Chicago Sun Times. So far, these two aren’t looking so good.

Merry Christmas to the Fourth Estate! Hope you've enjoyed your goose or turkey or whatever your family tradition includes (latkes for those who are Jewish). When you return to work, there are a few loose ends on which you might want to follow up. "Follow up." It's a term that has gone out of style in the age of Obama. You members of the press have become remarkably uncurious since he's been in the White House. A blanket of benevolent uncuriousness smothers news about Obama administration wrongdoing. The Secretary of State, who took "full responsibility" for the Benghazi debacle, has...