Free Republic

A major development occurred today in the scandal surrounding the Washington Post’s attempt to advance Democratic Party talking points by falsely linking Koch Industries to the Keystone Pipeline. In the unlikely event that you are not already familiar with the story, you should begin by reading this post and this one, as well as the one from last October where I dismantled the International Forum on Globalization report that was the basis for the Washington Post’s story of March 20. The facts, very briefly, are these: Koch Industries has no interest in the Keystone Pipeline; it has not lobbied in...

Rand Paul is the most intriguing — and for Democrats, perhaps the most frightening — figure in today’s Republican Party. The Kentucky senator, who is more than flirting with a 2016 presidential run, is making a smart play for the millennial generation that was key to President Obama’s twin victories and that his own party has convincingly repelled. Paul’s unlikely pilgrimage to the progressive precincts of the University of California at Berkeley offered the most convincing evidence so far that he is serious about carving out this (sorry, President Clinton) third way space — and a demonstration of his potential...

Full title: MILLER: Exclusive — Shock verdict — Mark Witaschek guilty of possessing muzzleloader bullets in D.C.… while NBC’s David Gregory got off scot freeIn a surprising twist at the end of a long trial, a District of Columbia judge found Mark Witaschek guilty of “attempted possession of unlawful ammunition” for antique replica muzzleloader bullets. Judge Robert Morin sentenced Mr. Witaschek to time served, a $50 fine and required him to enroll with the Metropolitan Police Department’s firearm offenders’ registry within 48 hours. Outside the courtroom, I asked Mr. Witaschek how he felt about the verdict. “I’m completely outraged by...

Could a White House spell-off be in the works between President Obama and former Vice President Dan Quayle? In a throwback to the latter's infamous misspelling of the word "potato," Obama accidentally misspelled "respect" while introducing singer Aretha Franklin during a tribute to "Women of Soul" at the White House Thursday. “When Aretha first told us what … R-S-P-E-C-T meant to her,” Obama said, pausing briefly before the audience began laughing, apparently realizing his mistake. “She had no idea it would become a rallying cry for African Americans and women and anyone else who felt marginalized because of what they...

You can imagine the field day the media would have with this photograph were it President Bush delivering a lecture to Russian president Vladimir Putin over the Ukrainian crisis. Earlier today, Fox News reporter Bryan Cole, snapped an photo of the president delivering remarks from a podium in a Washington, D.C., elementary classroom. The podium was resting atop a blue oval rug with the letters of the alphabet around the edge [see below page break for image]. After Mark Knoller of CBS radio tweeted about it, our friends at Twitchy had fun lampooning the president, among other folks in the...

Consuming marijuana in a private home will no longer be a criminal offense in the nation’s capital under a measure that passed the D.C. Council on Tuesday and that instantly escalated a simmering national debate over loosening marijuana laws. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) intends to sign the measure, a spokesman said, putting District drug law in conflict with federal law. The signed measure will go to Congress, which has veto authority over D.C. laws but has organized to override only three times since 1979. National advocates for marijuana legalization celebrated the 10 to 1 vote by the D.C. Council,...

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A massive machine — longer than a football field — is munching away beneath Washington like a giant earthworm. Before it’s done, it will devour about 2 million cubic yards of soil that has been sitting under the city since the days of the dinosaurs. It is the most amazing and expensive construction project that no one ever will see. It will come within a center fielder’s throw of Nationals Park, within a corner kick of RFK Stadium, nibble at the deepest roots from the National Arboretum, pass below the Love Nightclub and the United House of Prayer for All,...

ASHBURN, Virginia - The latest back-and-forth over the Washington Redskins name includes a stern letter from two lawmakers and a new "community voices" campaign from the team. A letter sent Monday from Congressman Tom Cole [R-Oklahoma] and Senator Maria Cantwell [D-Washington], tells NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that the league is on "the wrong side of history" and mentions the league's tax-exempt status. Cantwell chairs the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Cole is a member of the Chickasaw Nation. The lawmakers specifically objected to Goodell's Super Bowl week news conference, when he said the Redskins name has been "presented in a...

<p>The Washington Redskins issued a scathing response to two lawmakers Monday after they called for the team to change its controversial name.</p> <p>Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., told NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a letter that the league is on the “wrong side of history” in allowing the Redskins to keep their name, which some see as a slur.</p>

As those in power continues to hang onto the 19th century model of education or accept Common Core indoctrination for their students, parents are moving toward becoming the “deciders” as they chose charter and private schools, homeschooling, and online programs, it is leaving thousands of empty school buildings all across America. According to a recent study among the cities with vacant school buildings are

(CNSNews.com) – Speaking at the United States Conference of Mayors on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the approximately 11 million people who are in the country illegally have “earned the right to be citizens.”

When Republican delegates nominate their presidential candidate this week, they will be doing it in a city where residents who support George Bush have, for all practical purposes, already been disenfranchised. Barring a tsunami of a sweep, heavily Democratic New York will send its electoral votes to John Kerry and both parties have already written New York off as a surefire blue state. The Electoral College makes Republicans in New York, and Democrats in Utah, superfluous. It also makes members of the majority party in those states feel less than crucial. It's hard to tell New York City children that...

Driven to distraction by the amorous betrayals of her husband, Jackie Kennedy embarked on a wild fling with ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev while she was still in the White House, according to a new tell-all book. Nureyev, who was nine years younger than the First Lady, was also once spotted with Jackie’s brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy ‘kissing each other passionately in a phone box’, the book claims. Much has been written through the years about President Kennedy’s dalliances while in office. His mistresses were famously said to include actresses Marilyn Monroe and Angie Dickinson, mafia moll Judith Exner and a...

Governmental sources report that US Secretary of State John Kerry is behind the European boycott threats on Israeli products and companies operating in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The EU published its guidelines last July, boycotting Israeli companies operating over the 1949 Armistice lines. At the moment, Kerry is making sure the threats stay in check, but as soon as the peace talks fail he intends to open the floodgates and spur on full-blown international boycotts on Israel, reports Galei Tzahal (IDF Radio). …

One of the men seeking the GOP nomination for Nebraska’s open Senate seat is proposing moving the capital from Washington to his home state, saying it would be an effective way to cut out the lobbyists and special interests that have turned Capitol Hill into an ATM dispensing taxpayers’ money. “That’s it, the way to cure the incredible ineffectiveness and dysfunction of both parties in Washington — we move the Capitol to Nebraska,” Ben Sasse, a university president and former Bush administration official, said in 30-second campaign ad that ran in Nebraska over the weekend during the NFL playoff games....

Ezra Klein, an analyst, columnist and television commentator who runs The Washington Post’s Wonkblog, is making plans to leave the newspaper after failing to win support for a new website he wanted to create within the company, according to four people with knowledge of the negotiations. Mr. Klein, who quickly ascended into the ranks of the Washington media establishment with a multiplatform blend of policy nuance and number-crunching on Wonkblog, approached Katharine Weymouth, the Post’s publisher, in recent weeks, the people said. After consultation with the newspaper’s editor, Marty Baron, according to one of the people, he put forward a...

As new owner Jeff Bezos begins his tenure as the head man for the Washington Post, Wonkblog editor Ezra Klein is reportedly making plans to exit the paper after being denied funding for a pet project. Klein built a media presence on the Internet, newspapers, and TV as a "wonk" at a young age. Now, he apparently wants to expand his reach in the media with an extensive new website that he wanted the Washington Post to fund.

Kevin Lewis Crouch walked into a tow lot in Northeast Washington on Tuesday afternoon and asked about a green car. But D.C. police said the 22-year-old man quickly pulled a gun on the tow truck driver who was trying to help him and demanded money. The driver began to run but tripped and fell, police said, and Crouch struck him twice in the head with the butt of his gun. The driver then heaved his wallet against a fence in the lot on Kenilworth Avenue. As Crouch went to grab the wallet, police said, the driver climbed into his white...

Businesses near the White House were riddled with bullets in a two-block drive-by shooting this weekend, prompting a Secret Service investigation. Two of those bullets entered the window and hit the walls inside Brewood Engravers & Printers at 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, just a block from the White House, in a shooting that occurred at approximately 2:30 AM early Saturday morning. The office building entrance, next door to the shop, also has a window boarded up. The Caribou Coffee at the corner of 17th and Pennsylvania, right across the street from the White House — and normally, a large Secret...