Free Republic

Liberals seem to think on a different wavelength than the rest of humanity, especially when it comes to the hypocrisy in their “rage” over social issues, gay marriage in particular. “Gay Pride” protests are held on a weekly, possibly daily, basis all around the country, in celebration of someone’s activities that should largely be a private matter behind closed doors. These rallies encourage homosexuals to be proud of their sexual orientation, to flaunt it out in the open, and otherwise revel in it as the fullness of their identity, which seems demeaning as these individuals are certainly more than just...

Demonstrating more lawlessness by the Obama administration, the Government Accountability Office has issued a report in which it claims that it undertook a sting operation to see whether or not the Affordable Care Act's eligibility verification system actually works or not. Their conclusion was that the majority of fake insurance applications submitted were approved. According to testimony by Seto Bagdoyan, who directs GAO's Forensic Audits and Investigative Service, "The federal marketplace approved coverage for 11 of our 12 fictitious applicants who initially applied online, or by telephone." Of course, Americans will be relieved to know that six applications were blocked,...

Scandal: The tangled web of IRS deceit unravels a bit more with news recycled backup tapes of lost emails still exist and statements before a federal judge that Lois Lerner's hard drive was irreparably damaged were untrue. Deliberately destroying evidence pertaining to the investigation of possible criminal activity is a crime. So is lying about it to Congress and the courts as part of a cover-up of that activity. On July 11, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, at a hearing examining a lawsuit against the IRS by the targeted conservative group True the Vote, told Obama administration lawyers he...

When president Obama announced last week that he would be imposing of a new round of sanctions on Russia, he made sure to stress that the package was designed to inflict “maximum” damage on Russia, “while limiting any spillover effects on American companies.” Left unmentioned: the fact that, earlier that same day, officials from the European Union called to inform our State Dept. that they wouldn’t be able to follow suit. If the administration wanted to go forward, they said, it would need to do so unilaterally. Less than a week before, a State Dept. official testified before the Senate...

In Nashville on Thursday, about a half-dozen Tennessee Tea Party leaders gathered with the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund to denounce current Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander and promote his Republican challenger Joe Carr. “Lamar Alexander is not a conservative, Lamar Alexander has never been a conservative, Lamar Alexander will never be a conservative,” asserted Nashville Tea Party president Ben Cunningham. Cunningham explained that every six years, Alexander campaigns as a conservative but fails to fight for conservative values. “If he is re-elected, God forbid, he will go back to the Senate, he will serve for six years, he will warm...

President Obama put his rosy glasses on for an interview with CNBC on Thursday, claiming “It’s pretty hard to find an economic measure where we’re not significantly better off.” Obama spoke with CNBC’s Steve Liesman about the economic policies pushed by the White House and what the federal government expects going forward. “What can you tell average Americans about the outlook of the economy?” Liesman asked, noting that even Obama’s own former economic advisor Larry Summers is forecasting lower growth over the next few years. Obama dismissed that notion. “If you think about where we were, Steve, when I came

Over the past three weeks, one Republican has gained more national attention than any other: Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX). He has been everywhere - calling up the Texas National Guard, appearing on network interviews, headlining Sunday shows, touring the southern border with Fox News' Sean Hannity, appearing on The Blaze with Glenn Beck. Perry has penned national op-eds on border security in The Wall Street Journal and The USA Today. Gov. Perry greeted President Obama on the tarmac, met with him in Dallas, and spent the next day on the southern border--a marked contrast with President Obama who spent the...

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday individuals who fail to get health insurance this year will be fined a maximum of $2,448 and families with five or more members can be fined up to $12,240. Under the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, people are either required to obtain health insurance or risk a tax penalty from the IRS Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/213308-uninsured-could-be-fined-almost-2500#ixzz38REt1dEt Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

At the very end of an interview with CNBC’s Steve Liesman Thursday, President Barack Obama addressed the accusations, from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and others, that the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to ban U.S. flights from landing in Israel for 48 hours was politically motivated. Obama called the move “purely technical,” saying the United States does not make “decisions when it comes to airline safety” based on “politics” or “even our strong alliance with Israel.” He elaborated: “The initial ban that was imposed by the FAA was based on Israel needing to show us that in fact it was safe...

If you blink during the video, you might miss the moment Jonah's tomb in Mosul, Iraq, explodes. The first few frames show the revered shrine towering over its landscape. There's a sudden burst of dust, fire and smoke. Then, nothing. CNN could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the video, which was posted to YouTube. The holy site is thought to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale or fish in both the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions. Militants belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, planted explosives around the...

Hoping to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal. If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the United States, the White House...

Testifying before Congress last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen cherry-picked data on inflation by noting prices are up, on a year-over-year basis, less than the Federal Reserve's target of 2 percent. The Labor Department's Consumer Price Index has accelerated recently and averaged 3.5 percent for the three months ending in June. Once inflation gets out of control, history has shown it is difficult to contain without a steep and painful recession. Recognizing these dangers, Ms. Yellen's cognitive dissonance will add new life to proposals in Congress to rein in the Fed's independence. A bill under consideration would require...

President Obama’s plan to transform the U.S. health-care market is once again in trouble. This time, two Republican-appointed judges on a federal appeals court have invalidated a key portion of the program. In other words, the U.S. constitutional system is functioning normally. That’s not to say that the majority of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit correctly struck down the issuance of tax credits through the federal health insurance exchanges in 36 states — though it is true, as the judges said, that the law only speaks of “Exchanges established by the State.”...

... There is indeed Supreme Court precedent stating that courts can sometimes refuse to enforce the plain meaning of a statute where doing so creates an absurd result. But, as Judge Griffith’s D.C. Circuit opinion emphasizes (quoting an earlier DC Circuit ruling), it is limited to cases where enforcement of the text would “render[ the] statute nonsensical or superfluous or . . . create an outcome so contrary to perceived social values that Congress could not have intended it.” In this case, however, the result is far from nonsensical. Indeed, the DC Circuit’s interpretation of the ACA reflects the sort...

Syria has risen as a top threat to the U.S. homeland that rivals Yemen's al Qaeda affiliate known for its innovative bombs successfully smuggled aboard airplanes, a top Pentagon official said on Thursday. "Syria is probably the number one threat -- or, with... threats out of Yemen -- to the American homeland right now and elsewhere in the west," said Michael Vickers, the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Defense Intelligence. In answer to a question by moderator Brian Ross of ABC News at a panel at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering of national security veterans, Vickers, himself a former...

You can’t help but hand it to them – rooftop solar companies have quite cleverly found their way onto the government’s gravy train. For years Washington has subsidized rooftop solar installations for customers in the form of the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which allows homeowners who install rooftop solar panels to receive a tax credit of up to 30 percent of the cost. The subsidy has been one of the many ongoing ways in which the feds insert themselves into the energy marketplace. And while it has hampered efforts to achieve real energy independence in the U.S., and has...

In a book slated for release next month, a journalist recounts a 1999 interview with Hillary Clinton when the former first lady blamed Bill’s mother for his addiction to sex and womanizing because of the abuse he received as a young boy. According to a Daily Mail report, Hillary made the claims that her mother-in-law, Virginia Kelley, abused Bill during his childhood in an interview with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Lucinda Franks. Franks, however, refused to use the quotes for her article in Talk magazine — instead, she waited 15 years to release the interview in her latest memoir, “Timeless:...

There are major clashes occurring currently in The West Bank tonight as claims of 10s of thousands and Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers. Sadly, as the photos below reveal taken moments ago show, things appear set to get very much worse. Rami de Ramallah @Ramideramallah Follow Qalandia now. 7 injured 1 serious. Israelis soldiers use life bullets #48Kmarch #GazaUnderAttack #BDS فلسطين i @iFalasteen Follow RIGHT NOW: thousands of people are clashing in Qalandya with live amo used and kids using rocks... #PalestineResists 1:09 PM - 24 Jul 2014 RIGHT NOW: thousands of people are clashing with Israeli soldiers in...

There was an odd moment during Tuesday's White House press briefing when Ed Henry of Fox News noted that the President was spending three out of five days this week fundraising for his party, and wondered, in effect, whether he still did any work. ... Shuttle diplomacy, of the kind the vainglorious Kerry is attempting, only works if you already have a relationship. You can't start trying to build one after the shooting's started. And in this case the regional leaders' crude self-interest outweighs whatever value they might place on staying on the right side of President Fundraiser and Secretary...

. July 23, 2014 Newt Gingrich : Obama’s Attack on Israel ===================================================== "The success of Hamas in closing Israeli airspace is a great victory for the resistance, and is the crown of Israel’s failure,” a Hamas spokesman said today. When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, the United States became the first country in the world to recognize the Jewish state, just 11 minutes later. That recognition, however, came after one of the greatest foreign policy disputes in American history—a fight in which Secretary of State George C. Marshall told President Truman that “if the President were to [recognize...