Free Republic

Last week, Barack Obama delivered speeches at universities in Chapel Hill, N.C.; Iowa City, Iowa, and Boulder, Colo. The trip was, press secretary Jay Carney assured us, official government business, not political campaigning. It's part of a pattern. Neil Munro of the Daily Caller has counted 130 appearances by the president, vice president, their spouses, White House officials and Cabinet secretaries at colleges and universities since spring 2011. Obviously, the Obama campaign strategists are worried that he cannot duplicate his 66% to 32% margin among young voters back in 2008. Recent surveys of young people show inconsistent results. Gallup's tracking...

BELLINGHAM (CBS) – A presentation at an elementary school in Bellingham will go on next week following a controversy in which the words of a patriotic song were changed. Students at Stall Brook Elementary are doing a project on the 50 states and they planned to sing two songs at an assembly April 12. One was to be a tune about the states, and the other was the popular 1984 Lee Greenwood song “God Bless The USA.” But someone changed the chorus of Greenwood’s song to “We love the USA” for the assembly. That didn’t go over well with parents,...

Furious conservatives have taken to blogs and Twitter on Thursday to vent their ire against what they allege is a conspiratorial dumping of twisted and manipulated negative attacks on Newt Gingrich. The target of their fury: The Drudge Report. For the last 48 hours, the conservative Web site led by Matt Drudge has become a virtual campaign arm for Mitt Romney, featuring huge, screaming headlines about Mr. Gingrich and his past. That prompted conservatives who support Mr. Gingrich to accuse Mr. Drudge of selling out to the Republican establishment — many of whom have come to Mr. Romney’s aid as...

Why did you pull this thread?

Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner will not be marrying his Playmate bride-to-be Crystal Harris. "The wedding is off," Hefner, 85, tweeted Tuesday. "Crystal has had a change of heart."

(05-22) 19:18 PDT ALAMEDA -- The man who said the world was going to end appeared at his front door in Alameda a day later, very much alive but not so well. "It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m. Massive earthquakes would strike, he said. Believers would ascend to heaven and the rest would be left to wander a godforsaken planet until Oct. 21, when Camping promised a fiery end to the world. But on Sunday,...

Does this mean that Donald Trump’s media tour was nothing more than a self-serving publicity stunt? Perish the thought: Donald Trump announced Monday that he will not run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Despite months of speculation and a brief pop in the polls, Trump said in a statement that he was “not ready to leave the private sector.” Nothing proved that more than his oxygen-sucking clown act in pandering to conspiracy theorists. Did anyone seriously think that Trump was serious about running for the nomination? Hardest hit — Charles Krauthammer?

We’ve been told that former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee, a rumored candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is giving his former S.C. supporters the nod to seek work on other presidential campaigns. The word is that he’s told South Carolina staffers that they have his blessing for them to peddle their wares elsewhere. If this is as true as it appears, it’s the second major shakeup. Monday, Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour surprised everyone but himself when he announced that he would not seek the GOP nod.

Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book. In Jesus of Nazareth-Part II excerpts released on Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death. Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews. While the Catholic Church has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said on...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it has dropped plans to build a superstore near the site of an historic 1864 Civil War battlefield in Virginia, bowing to pressure from preservationists. The world's largest retailer had been approved to build on the 52-acre site near Orange, Virginia, but ran into strong opposition from those looking to preserve the site near one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The Battle of the Wilderness, considered one of the war's turning points, marked the first clash between the two sides' top generals -- Ulysses Grant for the Union and Robert E. Lee of...

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens' TV commercials blasted the airwaves in 2008 with his big idea to get America off foreign oil imports: natural gas and wind energy. Two years later, let’s just make that natural gas. Since the billionaire’s plans for the world’s largest wind farm fell apart in the Texas Panhandle, Pickens has edited his much-hyped “Pickens Plan” to focus primarily on his other big business interest: natural gas. Touting 1.7 million Pickens Plan supporters, he’s now pushing Congress to pass legislation that would offer incentives to convert 18-wheelers and fleet vehicles to run on compressed natural gas,...

There’s a wonderful riddle about the stranger traveling in the land of the two tribes — liars and truth tellers. Members of the two tribes look identical. The difference is that one tribe always lies, and one tribe always tells the truth. The stranger is walking along a road trying to reach the capital. Presently he comes to a fork, at which is standing one of the locals. The stranger is unable to detect whether the local is a truth-teller or a liar. But he needs to find out which fork leads to the capital. He is permitted one question....

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama. Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008. “Is the recession, which is hitting young people very hard, doing lasting or permanent damage to what looked like a good Democratic advantage with this age group?”...

Google translation: Chief prosecutor Eva Is anhållningsbeslutet has lifted by Julian Assange. She does not believe that there are reasons for him to remain in custody. I do not think there is reason to suspect that he committed rape, "says Eva Finn. Eva Is leaving no further comment on Saturday. .

(The article and other links, see below, are all in Swedish. So far international media has not reacted. But it will not be long....) Julian Assange is wanted by Swedish police on probable grounds suspected of rape. Two women 20 and 30 years old contacted the police on Friday.

fter weeks of heated debate over plans for an Islamic community center near Ground Zero – the site of the 9/11 attacks on New York - it seems Muslim leaders will soon back down, agreeing to move to a new site. The decision follows a high-profile campaign against the project that included advertisements on New York buses showing images of the burning Twin Towers, an iconic landmark razed when al-Qaida terrorists flew packed passenger planes into them in 2001. The New York Republican party is also said to be planning a hostile television campaign. Sources in New York said on...

Chelsea Clinton’s wedding—now dubbed “the wedding of the century”—is such an exclusive event that HUMAN EVENTS had not been able to find anyone who is actually attending the July 31 wedding. So many of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s friends and supporters are not invited to the wedding that feelings are getting hurt and egos bruised.

The NCAA just blew up USC football's world by forcing the Trojans to forfeit their victory in the '05 Orange Bowl ... a win that earned them the National Championship. This all comes after an NCAA investigation concluded Reggie Bush got improper benefits while at USC. According to the NCAA findings Bush received a car, and his family received a house and other financial benefits.

MYFOXNY.COM - A passenger was reportedly pulled off of an Emirates Airlines aircraft at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens on Thursday morning. The passenger was reportedly discovered to be on the no-fly list, according to Breaking News Network.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, under fire for keeping a $4,500 contribution from Goldman Sachs’s political action committee, has canceled a fundraising lunch with Goldman executives that was scheduled for Monday and would have netted many times that amount for the Arkansas Senator’s reelection campaign. The cancelled fundraiser, which was to have been held at Goldman’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, is emblematic of the investment bank’s swift fall from well-connected fundraising powerhouse to political pariah – a fate sealed Friday when the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the firm with defrauding investors