Free Republic

When Beto O’Rourke proclaimed, during the second round of Democratic presidential debates, that “there’s a new battleground state, Texas, and it has 38 Electoral College votes,” eyes rolled in unison across America. We’ve all heard that nonsense before! Pundits and progressives have been predicting that minority-white Texas would go blue for so long, it’s practically become a running joke. And while O’Rourke came tantalizingly close to knocking off Ted Cruz last fall, that race seemed to have all the hallmarks of a fluke—a Republican senator who even Republicans can’t stomach, running in a strong Democratic midterm cycle against a fresh-faced...

The Guardian has been hit by a journalism ethics scandal after the newspaper admitted a reporter fabricated interviews and made up quotes in articles. Lee Glendinning, editor of Guardian US and a former Fairfax Media journalist, said reporter Joseph Mayton also falsely claimed to have been present at events he wrote about. The former deputy editor of Guardian Australia apologised to readers and to the “people whose words were misrepresented or falsified”. The newspaper, which was instrumental in campaigning for a British inquiry into press standards, has now removed 13 of contributor Mr Mayton’s articles from its website. Other articles...

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on Wednesday declined to ask the Justice Department to release thousands of records from the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into his conduct as speaker in the 1990s. Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond likened the request from the open-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to “wild goose chases.” The organization asked the Justice Department to release documents forwarded from the House in 1997 after it investigated Gingrich’s use of tax-exempt organizations for political gain.

It's one thing to have a philosophical disagreement with the Texas governor on whether he should have mandated a vaccine for girls against a sexually transmitted virus. But it's an entirely different matter to spread false rumors about the vaccine, hoping to leverage parental fears for political gain. That's the depths to which Minnesota's Michele Bachmann has sunk in her bid to counter Rick Perry's surge in polls. It's conduct unbecoming a member of Congress, much less a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Bachmann used the issue last week at the CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Tampa to land...

MIDI - IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND If you have read their paper...you know it is a load of crap They think you're uninformed and you must be some sort of a sap They are leftist shills...they've said they will change but they are spinning still Their slanted news is screwed So when you read the NEW YORK TIMES do not think that what you're reading must be true If have read their paper...you might think that the war is wrong Anti-American coverage...it is such a worn out song Leftist to the core...for the Democrats they'll always play...

Republicans get chance to undo a mistake they made two years ago. It's still February, but the March primary is nearly upon us. In the movie "Groundhog Day," a cynical TV weatherman is trapped into reliving the same day until he gets it right. Like Phil Connors in the movie, Texas voters have a chance to get it right in this election and correct a mistake made two years ago. The most important judicial race on the March 9 Republican primary ballot is the Supreme Court contest for Place 5 between Steven Wayne Smith and Paul Green. Smith was elected...