Free Republic

The intelligence reports at the center of the Susan Rice unmasking controversy were detailed, and almost resembled a private investigator’s file, according to a Republican congressman familiar with the documents. "This is information about their everyday lives," Rep. Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence committee said. "Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center never lets facts intrude on its fantasies : By the time Donald Trump won the Republican primaries last year, the vile Southern Poverty Law Center was working overtime to manufacture incidents of “hate” to blame on Trump supporters. It didn’t matter that Trump supporters weren’t committing any so-called hate crimes. Fabricating hate crime hoaxes is what the SPLC does best.

The chief investigator for Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s probe of the validity of the image Barack Obama released as his birth certificate says evidence suggests the involvement of the Hawaiian government in the alleged fabrication. WND reported last week that Arpaio and his chief investigator on the Obama birth certificate issue, Mike Zullo, held a news conference to reveal evidence they say shows the document was fabricated on a computer. They conclude it is not a copy of any original Hawaiian document, and while their investigation did not address whether Obama is a “natural-born citizen” as the Constitution requires for presidents,...

The winner of the Nebraska Republican primary on Tuesday was Midland University President Ben Sasse, and tea partiers rejoiced. (SNIP) Clancy pointed out the obvious: Sasse “supports the basic principles of ObamaCare,” offered advice while in Washington as a consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on “how to improve the bill while it was pending,” and then personally prospered “by advising health insurance companies on how to implement it.”

Et Tu Bret Bair? Most of us had been under the impression that he had journalistic ethics. Baier was considered one of the few at Fox who could actually pull off straight news. However we now discover that he had a pre-planned strategy, with an actual script, aimed at physically ejecting Trump from the debate. This proves that the Fox back room had it in for Trump before the debate dust-up where Megyn Kelly tried – and painfully failed - to make a name for herself by using her role as moderator to portray Trump as a misogynist. The...

One of the tender mercies of Stephen Colbert's ascension to the "Late Show" set at CBS is his shedding of the faux-conservative "high-status idiot" character. To conservatives, this "Colbert" has never seemed authentic or sustained cleverness -- how many times can you say you don't read or even like books? It mostly marks the deep ruts of liberal arrogance in their own mental superiority. Colbert has perpetually had trouble staying inside this character, always winking at and mocking it more than inhabiting it. To liberals, abandoning this thin charade is far too much sincerity for an ironic age. They love...

Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, who describes himself as pro-life and campaigned as a pro-life candidate, has vetoed a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. West Virginians for Life, the statewide pro-life group, tells LifeNews it is disappointed in Governor Tomblin’s veto of HB 4588, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Similar bills have been passed in ten other states and Governor Tomblin is the only governor who has vetoed one of these bills. fetalpain2In his veto message, the Governor claimed that attorneys advised him the bill was unconstitutional. Many cite an Arizona law as proof,...

In a stunning display of one-sided journalism, the mainstream media is mostly mute in reporting that a series of racist, anti-gay, and pro-nazi vandalism perpetrated at Oberlin College are hoaxes that were carried out by liberal students. Yes, I am being sarcastic in calling the media reaction a "stunning display" as it happens practically every day. Earlier this year, headlines were made when virulent hateful graffiti was found around Oberlin College and it was hysterically reported that a member of the KKK was walking around at night (which was later realized that it was a woman walking in a blanket)....

Hazardous materials released at Institute for Genomic Biology. Escape area if safe to do so. Otherwise seek shelter.

HONOLULU — President Barack Obama paid his respects at Pearl Harbor on Thursday, offering a solemn tribute to the thousands of Americans killed on the “date which will live in infamy.” The president swapped his casual vacation outfit for a dark suit as he and the first lady toured the memorial on his first visit to the site since he came here in late 2008 as president-elect.

Fiat SpA (FIA.MI) plans to exercise an option to buy the U.S. Treasury's stake in Chrysler, which paves the way for the Italian automaker to clinch a majority share in the company by early next month. Fiat notified the Treasury of its intent on Friday. The purchase price will be based on the equity value of Chrysler agreed by Treasury and Fiat within 10 business days. If Fiat and Treasury cannot settle on the price, the amount will be determined by two of three investment banks appointed by the company and the U.S. government. The option would allow Fiat to...

ERIE, Pa. -- A sign in the front of a building on West 39th Street tells visitors that it's the Unicredit Debt Resolution Center in Erie. Once debtors got inside, they were fooled into believing they were in a courtroom with a judge, but the whole thing was a fake, according to a lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania attorney general. Team 4's Jim Parsons reported that Unicredit America is accused in the lawsuit of deceiving, misleading and coercing hundreds of consumers into paying off their debts. Inside the building is a pair of locked oak doors with brass handles resembling...

I try to ignore the birther movement unless it inducts someone important -- a congressman, for example. The (sigh) American Patriot Foundation's announcement that Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (ret.) has signed an affidavit supporting court martialed birther Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is actually a pretty big coup. How wild is McInerney's statement? This wild: [I]t is my opinion that LTC Lakin's request for discovery relating to the President's birth records in Hawaii is absolutely essential to determining not merely his guilt or innocence but to reassuring all military personnel once and for all for this President whether his service as...

[snip] In addition, Romney is presenting a more "easygoing and accessible" image instead of again offering up "the formally dressed, perfectly coiffed, carefully rehearsed candidate" of the 2008 campaign, according to the Globe. "Mitt is doing a better job at low-keying it,'' former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman Steve Duprey told the newspaper. "He would be wise to stay with it right through a presidential primary.'' Romney has been spending the summer at his $3.5 million home on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, where he drives a Chevy Silverado truck and can be seen in jeans, not suits. (That's an image...

U.S. President Barack Obama says March's health-care reform bill already is improving millions of Americans' lives. In his weekly address Saturday, Mr. Obama touted the first benefits of Democrat-backed legislation that narrowly passed through Congress earlier this year. Mr. Obama says the entire health-insurance industry has agreed to stop canceling the coverage of people when they get sick, ahead of a September deadline requiring insurers to do so. Mr. Obama also says a new federal office, the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, will help states stop insurance companies from "gaming" (exploiting) the health-care system. He says his administration...

The cap and trade bill will be huge business for investment banks, leading to a boom in M&A and underwriting activity, says Kyle Stock on the WSJ's Deal Journal blog. In particular, U.S. industrial companies will begin to look more attractive to companies in Europe, which has had a carbon market since 2005. While the U.S. power market has long looked good to foreigners, because Americans buy a relatively large amount of electricity per-capita and the regulatory structure here lends itself to rate increases, European companies have shied away from acquisitions because of the carbon question mark. They would likely...

Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups. Politicians love cap and trade because they can claim to be taxing "polluters," not workers. Hardly. Once the government creates a scarce new commodity -- in this case the right to...

This week President Obama’s team once again repeated what I believe is the most outrageous lie of his Administration. The President and his team again claimed the stimulus has “saved” 150,000 jobs during a time when 1.6 million jobs were actually lost, and job losses were far worse than had been projected if there had been no stimulus spending. Obama’s magical “saved” jobs This is the same BALD-FACED LIE Obama has been telling since last November -- when his plan to “create” jobs was carefully morphed into a plan to “save or create” jobs. That small change has given Obama...

Mayor Bloomberg will run for reelection as a Republican this fall, the Daily News has learned, after successfully courting the party to let him back on its ballot line two years after he left it. "Mayor Bloomberg and I have had healthy disagreements over issues at times, but I know he is the right person to lead this city forward," said Jay Savino, chairman of the Bronx GOP, who followed his Brooklyn and Staten Island counterparts to become the third county chairman to back the mayor. Bloomberg twice ran for mayor as a Republican, but quit the party in 2007...

Sarah Palin is seeking the advice of a Scientologist as she plots her 2012 presidential run, which just makes sense to us. John P. Coale, a prominent Washington lawyer and power-broker, is secretly running Palin's political action committee and working to "protect the Palin brand," according to the Washington Post. He is very, very good at doing that because he can walk through walls and read minds and leave his body and never gets sick because he is a Scientologist.