Free Republic

The IRS was in the hot seat Friday, with its outgoing acting commissioner . A Senate panel is scheduled for Tuesday. Congress is prodding to find out why the agency singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny. Attention has focused on the IRS' flagging of these groups starting in 2010. But some liberal groups and journalism organizations say their applications for tax-exempt status also faced long delays and were closely scrutinized during the same period. The year 2010 began a busy period for the IRS office in Cincinnati, the home of the tax-exempt determinations unit. That January, the Supreme Court...

Two years ago on Memorial Day, Nashville songwriter Connie Harrington was driving in her car, listening to a story on the public radio program Here & Now. And she heard a father remembering his son — a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. "He mentioned that he drove his son's truck," Harrington says. "And he went on to describe the truck." Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti was 30 when he was killed in action in 2006. In the radio broadcast, his father, Paul, said his reasons for driving the truck Jared left behind were simple: "What can I tell you?...

NPR’s popular “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me” trivia show gets its fair share of big name political guests (Bill Clinton called in once, for example), but host Peter Sagal knows that there’s a specific shortage he’d like to fill: Republicans. Asked by Vulture, “Is there a dream guest for you? Someone you’ve been trying to get that you think you never will?” Sagal responded, “I would love to get more Republicans on the show.” "One of the things I really envy about Jon Stewart is how many times he’s able to get Republicans on his show. And that’s to his...

Senior Director of Institutional Giving for NPR Betsy Liley said it is still a question of whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States. She clearly is heard talking about a coverup, keeping the birther issue out of the news because it was “political” and even indicating that there was monkey business going on in Hawaii concerning Obama’s birth certificate. Listen to the brief audio below and see for yourself. Birthers are not just on the right. There are clearly birthers on the left, they just want to cover up the truth.

Diana Temple-Raston in NPR’s All ThingsConsidered blames the Boston Marathon bombing on Right Wingers celebrating Hitler’s birthday. Transcript: ALL THINGS CONSIDERED APRIL 17th. Diana Temple-Raston provides insight into the Boston investigation. This thinking as we’re reporting is that this is a domestic extremist attack. And officials are leaning that way largely because of the timing of the attack. April is a big month for anti-government and right wing individuals. There’s the Columbine anniversary. There’s Hitler’s birthday. There’s the Oklahoma City bombing. The assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. So according to NPR we Right Wingers were having a...

Media Bias: There's palpable dismay at outlets such as MSNBC and Salon that the Boston Marathon bombers were radicalized young men from Chechnya and not angry white males from the vast right-wing conspiracy. Shortly after Monday's tragedy in Boston, David Sirota of Salon Magazine penned a piece titled "Let's hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American." His hopes were dashed when the suspects turned out to be Muslim brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose family origins are in Chechnya, the rebellious Russian region that is a breeding ground for terrorists. In 2002, about 40 armed Chechen separatists took...

What a beautiful racket the left has going. Those of us who dare not be liberal are literally paying, through our tax dollars, for NPR to smear us like this: Partial transcript: "The thinking, as we have been reporting, is that this is a domestic, extremist attack and officials are leaning that way largely because of the timing of the attack. April is a big month for anti-government and right-wing individuals. There's the Columbine anniversary, there's Hitler's birthday, there's the Oklahoma City bombing, the assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."

What a beautiful racket the left has going. Those of us who dare not be liberal are literally paying, through our tax dollars, for NPR to smear us like this: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Partial transcript: "The thinking, as we have been reporting, is that this is a domestic, extremist attack and officials are leaning that way largely because of the timing of the attack. April is a big month for anti-government and right-wing individuals. There's the Columbine anniversary, there's Hitler's birthday, there's the Oklahoma City bombing, the assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."(continued)

Pressure is growing Thursday afternoon on a liberal super PAC in Kentucky accused of surreptitiously recording a strategy session held by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Jacob Conway, the Jefferson County Democratic Party’s executive committee member who originally accused Progress Kentucky of making the recording, told NBC News he was on his way to talk to the FBI about the allegations. And the group’s treasurer confirmed he had quit his position after the audio was published. “At this time based on advice of both friends and counsel, I will be not be making a public statement available until everything has...

George Soros isn't behind everything the left does, but it sure seems like he helps fund it all. The lefty magazine Mother Jones released a tape , reportedly obtained from a Democratic Super PAC in Kentucky, in an effort to hurt Mitch McConnell's bid for reelection in the U.S. Senate. But, Mother Jones has funding baggage of its own.Mother Jones is the news outlet of The Foundation for National Progress, the left-wing "umbrella organization that exists to publish and support Mother Jones." It also founded the Media Consortium. The FNP received $485,000 in Soros funding in 2008. The Media Consortium,...

Which is, well, kinda what Sen. Mitch McConnell said yesterday. These are the same guys who sent out racist tweets about McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, and her Chinese heritage. Local news in Kentucky is reporting, via a Democratic official, that Progress Kentucky is behind the secret tapes published by Mother Jones this week, which revealed McConnell operatives in the act of…running a campaign. The story immediately went viral in political circles, not so much for the videos’ content as for McConnell’s pushback. The Republican senator quickly went on offense, decrying the left’s “Nixonian-style” tactics, and turning the non-story of the...

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative. Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2. Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting. Conway says neither the local nor the state Democratic party had any part...

Tweets on Elaine Chao: 'They will not get away with attacking my wife,' Mitch McConnell says WINCHESTER, Ky. -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lambasted a liberal group on Saturday for criticizing the Asian heritage of his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, calling its Twitter messages "racial slurs" and "the ultimate outrage." "They will not get away with attacking my wife in this campaign," McConnell told about 100 home-state supporters at a Republican dinner in Winchester. "This woman has the ear of @McConnellPress — she's his #wife," the group Kentucky Progress tweeted on Feb. 14. "May explain why your...

April 12, 2013 Secret McConnell campaign recording was allegedly made by co-founders of a liberal advocacy group, including a Democratic National Convention delegate * Potential suspect was longtime Democratic insider, despite party's claim it was blindsided by investigation* Liberal magazine that published recording may have received the product of a federal wiretapping felonyDavid Martosko The activists who allegedly recorded a private conversation among members of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election team are tied to a liberal political action committee whose co-founder was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. ... The Daily Caller reported that Reilly was a...

(CNN) – A key player in negotiations over potential gun control legislation said on Tuesday a planned GOP filibuster of the bill won’t occur if Democrats allow Republicans to bring amendments up for a vote. Sen. Tom Coburn, speaking on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront,” said a filibuster that’s been promised by more than a dozen fellow Republicans would prevent Americans from seeing where their elected officials stand on the issue. “It’s not going to be filibustered,” Coburn said, adding that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to offer "an open amendment process" in order for Republicans to agree to...

Today, 21 and a half million Americans are unemployed or underemployed—about twice as many as six years ago, according to NPR. Work-force participation, a fancy term for the number of Americans either working or looking for work, has dropped to “the lowest level since the malaise of the late 1970’s,” an era when far fewer women were working, according to MSNBC. Yes, the unemployment rate dropped last month—but only because so many people simply gave up looking for work. The dirty little secret is that after only four weeks of not looking for a job, an unemployed worker stops being...

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher . She was 87. Despite many accomplishments during her 11 years in office, she was a divisive figure, and there is still much bitterness surrounding the woman who was dubbed the Iron Lady. Thatcher's long journey to becoming one of Britain's most influential leaders began in humble surroundings. She was born on Oct. 13, 1925, in the small English town of Grantham. Her mother was a dressmaker, her father a grocer and a local politician. Thatcher often credited her father with introducing her to politics. She said he instilled in her the importance of...

On taxpayer-subsidized NPR's All Things Considered on Saturday, host Laura Sullivan did a lengthy piece about the messaging of Obamacare. Despite running for eleven minutes, no one in the piece viewed Obamacare negatively. Sullivan started out lamenting that the public was "confused" about Obamacare: "just 37 percent of people say they like the law." She then argued that people actually do like Obamacare, since they are in favor of certain provisions. Sullivan brought in health policy correspondent Julie Rovner to explain why the public was "confused": because "there has been a very commanding misinformation and disinformation campaign." After Rovner described...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday once again demonstrated how liberal media members often make statements about issues they know nothing about. On this occasion, it was NPR's Nina Totenberg making unfounded claims about past Israel peace offers on PBS's Inside Washington that led Krauthammer to scold, "You’re simply factually wrong" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Krauthammer Schools Totenberg on Israeli Peace Offers: ‘You Are Simply Factually Wrong’ NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: There also has to be lines that make sense for the Palestinian state, and, you know, I can’t argue this with Charles with the same kind of detail...

Pardon the age of this item, but it's on an issue of campaign history. On March 13, NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross interviewed new CNN host Jake Tapper about politics and journalism, and whether there was blowback from presidents and candidates over tough questions. But Gross felt compelled to bring up the "lies" told about John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign -- without expressing anything specific. Tapper said he was assigned as a Swift Boat Veteran fact checker by ABC. Gross said, "So you were fact-checking some of the Swift Boat attacks against presidential candidate John Kerry. There...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney during a press briefing on Monday snapped at NPR reporter Mara Liasson for asking whether entitlement reforms would be part of President Barack Obama’s official budget. “Mara, the way you phrase that question makes me think that you’re still working on a typewriter or something. It’s available online. The proposal is there,” a frustrated Carney replied. Liasson then reminded Carney that she was asking specifically if it would be in Obama’s budget. Carney refused to answer the question and said he would not “predict the budget.” “I would wait for the budget to come...

In a case of apparent plagiarism, Fox News pundit Juan Williams lifted — sometimes word for word — from a Center for American Progress report, without ever attributing the information, for a column he wrote last month for The Hill newspaper. Almost two weeks after publication, the column was quietly revised online, with many of the sections rewritten or put in quotation marks, and this time citing the CAP report. It also included an editor’s note that read: “This column was revised on March 2, 2013, to include previously-omitted attribution to the Center for American Progress.” But that editor’s note...

Fox News political analyst and “Special Report” panelist Juan Williams said in an interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas that mainstream media outlets “stab” and “kill” dissenting voices. Williams was fired from National Public Radio in 2010 after saying he sometimes gets “nervous” when seated on an airplane with Muslims, while making a broader point about the importance of religious tolerance. “I always thought it was the Archie Bunkers of the world, the right wingers of world, who were more resistant and more closed-minded about hearing the other side,” he said. “In fact, what I have learned is, in...

I heard Senator Charles Grassley on the Weekend Edition Sunday show of National Public Radio. I expected that he would buckle, and at least leave the door open for "universal background checks" as a way to appease the statists and move us toward universal gun registration. I was wrong. Senator Grassley surprised me by standing up to the MSM bullies. He did not say "we have to do *something*. He did not say "for the children*. He was smart. He did not fall for their implied assumptions that more unconstitutional infringements mean more safety. He was willing to look at...

Is the pro-abortion left beginning to have second thoughts? Could that be the impulse behind a campaign being conducted by Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ?  Anne Sorock of Legal Insurrection highlights the curious appearance of this Facebook-based ad:One of the principal features of life in the richest countries is the collapse of natality. Simply put, when people get rich, they tend to focus on themselves, and lose interest in having babies, which are expensive, and require a focus on something other than personal pleasure. The ready availability of contraception and abortion certainly keeps birthrates down, and the rising numbers of...

This is...about a coordinated effort by about 36 different interest groups with reported revenues of no less than $1.69 billion, pledging millions of dollars to work together to attack conservative supporters and organizations, to intervene directly in Democratic politics, to push for filibuster reform to better enable a push through their agenda without any input from the opposition, and expanding "voting rights" and fighting voter registration laws to further grease the skids for their legislative agenda. 1. Who belongs: Here are a few of them: ...the AFL-CIO, the Center for American Progress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common...

Across the United States, college administrators are poring over student essays, recommendation letters and SAT scores as they select a freshman class for the fall. If this is like most years, administrators at top schools such as Harvard and Stanford will try hard to find talented high school students from poor families in a push to increase the socioeconomic diversity on campus and to counter the growing concern that highly selective colleges cater mainly to students from privileged backgrounds. (snip) (snip) "Imagine a student who is the only student who is a likely candidate for a place like Harvard or...

A "serious" proposal is one that has a reasonable expectation of resolving a conflict. Anyone studying Speaker Boehner's Plan B proposal knows it wasn't serious. Why are so many defending it and bemoaning its defeat? It tells you an awful lot about the dishonest nature of politics in America today. Republicans -- fiscally conservative Republicans -- have argued since forever that tax increases diminish economic growth. For the past two years, they have argued that increasing taxes on the "wealthy" would wreak havoc on our fragile (at best) economy. In fact, three studies have confirmed that this "millionaires tax," now...

Unlike many undocumented immigrants, Sofia Campos is not afraid to give her real name. "It's deliberate, and it's liberating," she says. "It's kind of a shock to hear somebody say, 'I am undocumented' or wear the 'I am undocumented' T-shirt, just in your face." The 22-year-old is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and heads United We Dream — a national network of youth-led immigrant organizations. She's part of an outspoken generation of activists who've lobbied lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike, for changes in immigration policy. This year, their movement scored a victory with President Obama's Deferred...

National Public Radio was quite good at historical re-enactment on Thursday night's All Things Considered. The Nina Totenberg obituary on Reagan's defeated Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork carried almost all the original liberal invective. She included then-Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, who wrote "He looked and talked like a man who would throw the book at you, and maybe the whole country."

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: ...By now you have heard about - you might in fact be tired of hearing about that so-called fiscal cliff. That's the package of automatic spending cuts and tax rate hikes that will go into effect if Congress and the White House can't agree on a plan to reduce the deficit by the end of the year. The speaker and the president of the United States met over the weekend to talk privately, but there's been a lot of public debate about it too, on the public affairs shows and in press conferences, and even some campaigning....

"I am very upset about the changes. I think we need to boycott." "I for one will not give more money until I hear some answers...some real answers about the station." "They're not the people's station." Those were some of the on-air words of WPFW listeners this morning...Word has already spread about impending programming changes to the 35-year-old "jazz and justice" station. Interim Programing Director Bobby Hill announced on the WPFW Facebook page yesterday that the station will begin a new programming schedule on Dec. 3—one that includes more syndicated talk programs. While some of the new programs will be...

Video link below. An award-winning emergency room doctor, accused of careening through a Wellesley parking lot and ramming another car while allegedly high on drugs and alcohol, told cops she was just out trying to buy her Thanksgiving turkey, police report. “I was listening to NPR radio ... in my car ... and decided I needed to get gas,” Dr. Kristin Howard told police. “I was going to Whole Foods to buy a Thanksgiving turkey,” she said. What happened next on Friday morning landed her in handcuffs. The doctor said she couldn’t control the accelerator in her Subaru Outback. Police...

Once a mob began attacking the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of Sept. 11, officials in Washington, D.C., watched with alarm. Now, new details are emerging about their response to the deadly attack. President Obama and his entire national security team monitored what was going on half a world away. Army Gen. Carter Ham, who was the regional commander for Africa, happened to be in Washington that day. One source familiar with the events said there was a sense of urgency. The consulate was burning, and Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was visiting the consulate with a small...

NPR has issued a formal apology to Abigael Evans, the 4-year-old Colorado girl who burst into tears—and Americans' hearts—while listening to a public radio report about the seemingly endless 2012 presidential election.

Recognizing The Right Of Plants To Evolve According to recent reports from a research team led by Australian biologist Monica Gagliano, some plants such as chili peppers may be able to "hear" other plants. iStockphoto.com According to recent reports from a research team led by Australian biologist Monica Gagliano, some plants such as chili peppers may be able to "hear" other plants. If proposals calling for rights for animals are on the table, why not rights for other living things? Plants, for instance. In 2013, the Pennsylvania-based Nonhuman Rights Project, led by attorney Steven Wise, plans to file a series...

Two pubcasting fans in different cities who separately conceived plans for a “Million Muppet March” in support of public broadcasting have teamed up to try to organize the event on Nov. 3 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Michael Bellavia, 42, of Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham, 46, of Boise, Idaho, were watching the presidential debate on Oct. 3 when Republican nominee Mitt Romney said that he would end subsidies to PBS if elected. Even before the debate ended, Bellavia had secured the URL millionmuppetmarch.com, and Mecham created the Million Muppet March Facebook page. “We just merged the two...

The Obama campaign apparently is being run by a humor-deficient would-be Jon Stewart: On Tuesday, it launched an ill-advised attempt at snark in an advertisement featuring Big Bird. How bad was the ad? Even the yellow fellow himself was embarrassed, and Sesame Workshop, the multimillion-dollar enterprise with the $1 million–a–year president behind Sesame Street, asked that the ad be taken down. Even President Obama’s amen corner in the media was aghast: ABC News’ Terry Moran pronounced it the work of a campaign “in panic mode.” Somebody should remind Barack Obama that he is, for the moment, president of the United...

Mitt Romney has done it now. He has attacked the Left where it lives -- on PBS and NPR. Mass-attending Catholics rightly perceive that President Obama launched a direct attack on their church. Their bishops have informed them. Evangelicals and other people of faith have mobilized to support Catholics against the Obamacare regulations that will oblige Catholic hospitals, schools and human welfare agencies to close rather than provide the morning-after pill, sterilization, and other drugs and procedures prohibited by Catholic doctrine. Catholics are angry, and they will vote that anger in key swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Iowa...

If Sesame Street is not commercially viable, then nothing is, and we should just cut to the chase and bail out everything. Apparently, Frank Sinatra served as Mitt Romney's debate coach. As he put it about halfway through "That's Life": "I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly ... ." That's what Mitt did in Denver. Ten minutes in, he jumped right on Big Bird, and then he took off – and never looked back, while the other fellow, whose name escapes me, never got out of the gate. It takes a certain panache to clobber not...

With the Innocence of Muslims director under arrest for rather thin parole violation charges, many on the right have wondered where the Left has been on free speech. Should the ACLU, who regularly champion flag burners, step in to protest the backlash against clearly protected speech? Where are the Hollywood elites whose livelihoods depend on churning out offensive films? Nowhere, of course, and one cannot fully blame them; people who go against jihadists often find themselves with severed heads. There is another reason – to the Left, free speech has always been a canard to promote progressive change. The ACLU...

On Friday's All Things Considered, NPR anchor Robert Siegel wasn't mincing words about wanting the 2012 presidential race to be over after the secret Romney tape surfaced: " What do you make of that shift, E.J.? Is it just a terrible week with several more weeks to go in the campaign or did the wheels just fall off the Republican campaign?" Dionne temporized a little before saying the speech was "really harmful" to Romney's chances. But he was almost polite compared to "conservative" David Brooks, who dug a grave for Romney, saying he's not a "plausible alternative' to Obama and...

NPR’s Terry Gross brought on CNN judicial analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Monday to discuss his new book on the Supreme Court (called The Oath) for 44 minutes of her program Fresh Air. Toobin proclaimed that Barack Obama is the conservative when it comes to the Supreme Court, and John Roberts is the radical revolutionary. This is the same Toobin who complained overturning ObamaCare would be "judicial activism." Toobin also claimed with a straight face (or at least an ungiggly voice) that Roberts voted to uphold ObamaCare to pave the way for more conservative decisions, to insulate the court from being...

Following Gov. Mitt Romney recently to an American Legion convention in Indianapolis, correspondent Ari Shapiro worked the audience with his recorder as he waited for Romney to speak. It was, he would say in his report, "not an Obama-friendly crowd." He aired comments from Bobbie Lucie, a veteran's wife, as illustration. "I just—I don't like him," Lucie said of the president. "Can't stand to look at him. I don't like his wife. She's far from the first lady. It's about time we get a first lady in there that acts like a first lady and looks like a first lady."...

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. "Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem."This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: @Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant. And then: "Yet most reporters around me stand for...

... when former President Bill Clinton took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, he portrayed President Barack Obama as a pragmatic compromiser who has been stymied at every turn by Republicans. There was no mention of the role that the president and the Democrats have played in grinding compromise to a halt on some of the most important issues facing the country. That was among the lines by the former president and others Wednesday that either cherry-picked facts or mischaracterized the opposition.

The bus is always the center of attention. Partly because it's a hulking 1970s tour bus that somehow made it from Arizona all the way to Charlotte, but mostly because of what's inscribed on the side of it in thick, black letters. "Sin Papeles, Sin Miedo," it reads in Spanish. "No papers, no fear." Carrying a bunch of undocumented activists, the bus rolled through the country, through states like Arizona, Texas, Louisiana and Georgia, and into Charlotte on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. The activists participated in a march that snaked through Charlotte on Sunday and by Monday,...

Notorious PBS liberal Gwen Ifill took to Twitter to defend David Chalian, the former Yahoo Washington bureau chief who was fired for claiming that Mitt and Ann Romney are "happy to have a party with black people drowning," claiming that he was unjustly fired. Her defense was markedly over-the-top: "One mistake does not change this. @DavidChalian is God's gift to political journalism. #IStandwithDavid" One wonders if the always liberal Ifill would have said a conservative journalist who had been fired was "God's gift to political journalism." Actually one really doesn't. Hat tip: Clay Waters. Incidentally, Ifill is said to have...

Could it be that the people at Fox News were more concerned with their own elevator relationships than with their viewers' opinions when they immediately decided to enhance Juan Williams' contract mere hours after his firing by NPR? I say yes. What they failed to calculate was how dramatically different their viewers feel about Williams compared to how Williams' Fox cohorts feel. I submit that Fox viewers don't really care that Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly -- who know Williams personally -- think he's a fine, stand-up guy. Whoop-dee-doo. For all we know, he may be. It is likely that...

took a road trip with my daughter this week and she tuned in NPR for a few minutes. The section that caught my attention was a report on the upcoming Republican convention. Here is what NPR believes is important for you to know about the Republican convention: · It’s a gathering of fat cat lobbyists · Buying the allegiance of Republicans · By renting out a whole restaurant for an entire week · With costs running into tens of millions of dollars · The Democrats are the good guys who tried to keep costs down and refusing to accept corporate...