Free Republic

This Is How Hollywood Has Been Fooling You All Along When it comes to contemporary Hollywood films, there's often more than meets the eye. We're not just talking about an elaborate use of special effects and CGI, its those smaller more finite details that are so often easy to ignore. On the set of any movie, along with the crew, actors and stunt doubles you'll also have 'extra's' - people like you and I paid to simply be a warm prop, background fodder if you will. A crowd milling about in a scene or a customer in a shop. Extra's...

Holder Frames Ferguson PD For Racism Using Bogus 'Disparate Impact' Stats 03/05/2015 Racial Politics: Unable to pin racism charges on Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder is using half-baked data to manufacture a case of racism against his entire police force. Holder's race-baiting civil rights crew combed through several years of Ferguson Police Department data on traffic stops, searches and arrests and "found a pattern of racial disparities in Ferguson's police activities." "African Americans are overrepresented in FPD's vehicular stops" and victims of "racial bias," Holder concludes in his report. He...

A defiant Sen. Robert Menendez declared, “I am not going anywhere,” Friday night amid reports the Justice Department is preparing to charge the New Jersey Democrat with corruption counts over allegations he used his office to help a Democratic donor. A person familiar with a federal investigation of Menendez told the Associated Press the Justice Department is expected to bring criminal charges against him in the coming weeks. The pending charges were first reported by CNN. Menendez told a press conference about four hours after the reports surfaced that he had “always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the...

Last April House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) released a report implicating Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in colluding with the IRS and Lois Lerner against the nonpartisan voters rights group “True the Vote.” Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of “True the Vote,” testified before Congress in February. She was targeted by FBI, IRS, ATF, and OSHA after she filed for tax exempt status for her voters rights group. Engelbrecht said this during her testimony before Congress and Cummings, “Frankly, to sit before my accuser and be silent in the face of what he did was unconscionable.” ... This week the...

Reuters) - U.S. Democrat Hillary Clinton on Wednesday broke her silence over a budding controversy involving her use of personal email for work when she was secretary of state, saying she wanted the U.S. State Department to release them swiftly. Clinton's statement was aimed at cooling a political firestorm over allegations that she inappropriately used her personal email for work while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. "I want the public to see my email," the potential 2016 presidential candidate said in a tweet. "I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as...

According to an 86-page report issued by the Department of Justice, six of the most credible witnesses to the shooting of Michael Brown were afraid to give testimony in support of Ferguson, MO, police officer Darren Wilson, because they knew it would undercut the “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative being advanced by their neighbors and, eventually, by the media. Several expressed concern for their safety should they choose to contradict that narrative publicly. As one witness noted, there were signs in the neighborhood reading “snitches get stitches.” The fear experienced by witnesses to the incident is a constant refrain in...

‘We were never going to win’: House GOP caves on immigration Mar. 3, 2015 9:00am Pete Kasperowicz House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has told Republicans that he would call up and pass a “clean” Department of Homeland Security spending bill this week, and give up the fight to use that bill to defund President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. The decision marks the end of a standoff that has lasted for several weeks — a standoff Republicans will lose to Democrats when the clean DHS bill passes.

“We were never going to win in Congress.” That is the epitaph spoken by Speaker Boehner ally Representative Tom Cole on the collapse of House Leadership’s resolve to legislatively fight Executive Amnesty. It may also be the final nail in the coffin for the notion of co-equal branches of government, as President Obama has already announced that he is considering using unilateral executive actions to ban ammunition and raise corporate taxes, on top of his massive Internet regulation announced last week.

Employees at the U.S. Department of Education have repeatedly treated the U.S. government’s trove of student information as a personal playground and piggy bank, according to a Freedom of Information Act release obtained by the Daily Mail.(excerpted)The Daily Mail’s inquiry found other cases of bizarre wrongdoing by the department’s 5,000 employees, including one worker who was caught searching for the student loan records of “Barrack Obama” (sic), apparently unaware that the president has already made most of his student loan details public. (excerpted)

"....Claire Yunker, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health Services, said in a statement that Walker’s proposal is aimed at preventing fraud and abuse in the existing system and creating a more coordinated care regimen. But Daniel Idzikowski, executive director of Disability Rights — a group that advocates for people with disabilities — said his organization was not consulted about Walker’s plan that the Legislature will debate over the next three months. It would drastically restructure Family Care, which administers personal care and long-term care services to elderly, disabled and injured Wisconsinites through Medicaid, he said. “By and large that...

Most US economic data missed expectations in February. And that investors are sending stocks to all-time highs is making Societe Generale's Albert Edwards crazy. In a note Thursday, Edwards wrote: "With equity markets galore hitting record highs clearly I must be missing something big! We are at that stage in the cycle where I begin to doubt my own sanity. I’ve been here before though and know full well how this story ends and it doesn’t involve me being detained in a mental health establishment (usually)." From Janet Yellen's testimony on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Edwards points out that...

The New Republic, in its February 8th issue, carries an article by Danny Vinik entitled Rand Paul Has the Most Dangerous Economic Views of Any 2016 Candidate. It appears that TNR’s fact checkers decamped along with its top journalists. Vinik: Speaking in front of more than 150 Iowa activists, Paul ripped into the Federal Reserve and promoted his “Audit the Fed” bill, which he introduced earlier this week. “I think there needs to be some sunshine,” he said, according to reports of the event. …Paul’s bill …would significantly damage the Fed’s independence, which exists so that politicians cannot influence the...

Daughter of former Obama pastor sent to jail after new allegations surface By Ray Long Chicago Tribune contact the reporter The daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of President Barack Obama, was sent to jail Monday by a federal judge who revoked her bond in a money laundering case. lRelated Rev. Jeremiah Wright's daughter found guilty of money laundering Breaking News Rev. Jeremiah Wright's daughter found guilty of money laundering Jeri Wright, 49, of Hazel Crest, was convicted last March of 11 corruption counts, including money laundering and lying to a grand jury, in a case tied...

Jeri Wright, the 48-year-old daughter of President Barack Obama’s mentor and former pastor Jeremiah Wright, is heading to jail. Free on bail while awaiting sentencing for money laundering in connection to a government-funded jobs training program, a U.S. District Court Judge found “there was probable cause to believe Wright committed a separate theft while on bail, thereby violating terms of her supervised release.” The new charges against Wright involve more sketchy bookkeeping. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: Prosecutors now say Wright was taking part in another scheme — this one involving ghost payrolling — even as she was standing trial. Between...

According to the American Freedom Fighters, the latest body count associated with the Clintons’ has been updated. All of the people included in the list below have been connected with the Clintons in some form or another, as explained in the description provided. Not included were any deaths that could not be verified or connected to the Clinton scandals. All deaths are listed chronologically by date and current to the best of their knowledge as of January 2014. Susan Coleman: Rumors were circulating in Arkansas of an affair with Bill Clinton. She was found dead with a gunshot wound to...

Irving immigration lawyer and Obama supporter, Sherin Thawer, was arrested on federal fraud charges and for forging applications of illegal immigrants. Sherin Thawer was invited to the Obama White House last year to discuss immigration reform. Dallas.com reported: An Irving immigration lawyer was arrested Friday morning on federal fraud charges for allegedly forging visa applications for illegal immigrants she represented, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Sherin Thawer, 45, was arrested by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations at her Coppell home, authorities said. She made her initial court appearance Friday and was released. The seven-count indictment,...

Rudy Giuliani had the unmitigated gall last week to question President Obama’s love of country. This has been a standing question about Obama since he ran for President in 2008. How can you love a country that you believe needs to be fundamentally transformed? It’s not like Obama wants to fundamentally transform the United States into some romanticized version of the past. He wants to fundamentally transform the country into his own image. In many ways he’s been successful. We have a large number of Americans who believe court orders are mere suggestions to be ignored and that the executive...

The late, great Eric Hoffer once said that, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Some people have started to wonder whether that’s happened to groups in the conservative movement – and that’s understandable. Reports about sleazy activities by conservative groups have not exactly been in short supply over the last couple of years. Damaging stories have popped up on the Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Washington Post, the Politico and at the Daily Caller among other outlets. Additionally, for those of us who have a lot of friends in the Tea...

Illinois poverty on rise since 2010; four counties at greatest risk, says report Caitlin Wilson The number of Illinoisans living in poverty has risen steadily since 2010, with nearly 15 percent of residents living at or below the poverty line, a new report says, the highest mark since 1960. The Social Impact Research Center (SIRC) released a report detailing the statistics surrounding poverty in Illinois, finding that Illinois “has plenty of room for improvement” in comparison to other states when it comes to residents living in poverty, and that 14 of the state’s counties have more than 20,000 residents in...

Her bizarre New Age views on topics such as reincarnation and UFOs have often left the public baffled. Now Shirley MacLaine has provoked widespread fury by claiming the victims of the Holocaust may have brought their fate upon themselves. The veteran Hollywood actress suggests the six million Jews and millions of others systematically murdered in Hitler’s death camps in the 1940s were ‘balancing their karma’ for crimes committed in past lives. She also suggests that cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking may have subconsciously given himself his debilitating motor neurone disease.