Free Republic

Is expected to take questions regarding the IRS scandal and Benghazi. We will see......

An IRS campaign to apply additional scrutiny to conservative groups went beyond targeting "Tea Party" and "patriot" groups to include those focused on government spending, the Constitution and several other broad areas. The additional guidelines created by the agency were part of a timeline, obtained by Fox News, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which is looking into the controversial IRS practice. IRS officials apologized Friday for the scrutiny, but new information suggests senior leaders were apprised of the effort as early as 2011 despite public denials from the top.

A timeline of Internal Revenue Service activities that was developed by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and provided to congressional staff indicates that early last year—as the nation was headed toward a presidential election—the IRS issued a “be on the lookout order” (BOLO) for officials in its “Determinations Unit” to ferret out for heightened scrutiny organizations applying for tax exempt status that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” The inspector general’s timeline indicates that as early as March 2010 the IRS’ “Determinations Unit” had begun targeting for special scrutiny organizations that used...

Employees of Obama donor Leo Hindery Jr.’s media conglomerate Intermedia Partners, which now owns most of the top gun-culture media outlets in the country, believe that Hindery plans to gut and destroy all of them as part of a business plan that has already led to numerous layoffs and the virtual shuttering of prominent television production facilities in Minnesota and Montana. Hindery, who was in consideration to be President Barack Obama’s secretary of commerce, is managing partner of Intermedia Partners. The New York-based media private equity fund owns Intermedia Outdoor Holdings, which publishes 17 hunting, fishing, and shooting magazines, including...

So whatever many of you think of Sean Hannity.. he is doing a great job keeping up with the Libya aftermath. Tonight he had on Lindsay Graham and Congressman Jason Chaffetz from Utah. What I learned from watching this has me FUMING!! Hannity showed multiple emails from Amb Stephens to the White House in which Stephens was concerned about the deteriorating security situation. The LAST email Stephens sent the day before said the British have pulled their Amb because of the security situation!! The British left, The RED CROSS packed up and left.. Al-Queda began putting up flags at government...

Late yesterday afternoon, in an obvious attempt to rescue President Obama from what could and should be a brutal round of Sunday shows examining the cover up the White House is currently engaged in with respect to the sacking of our consulate in Libya, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released a statement revising its assessment of the attack. It is now the official position of the American intelligence community that what happened in Benghazi was a pre-planned terrorist attack. [SNIP] And this, my friends, is how a cover up works. And so, the only response to...

The following news headline appeared on the internet last week: "Scientists warn global warming will fuel spread of ticks that carry Lyme disease." The corresponding article begins this way: Another effect of climate change may be crawling up your leg this summer as you frolic in the woods. Scientists say our warming world is speeding the spread of ticks that carry potentially debilitating Lyme disease. Okay, given that many in the climate change fraternity -- including, famously, Phil Jones of East Anglia University -- have been forced to concede that global warming has been on "pause" since 1995, how exactly...

America’s millionaire population declined last year for the first time since the financial crisis, according to a new report.

Current and former neighbors call George Zimmerman caring, passionate and polite, a regular guy they enjoyed being around... "The portrayal of George Zimmerman in the media, as well as the series of events that led to the tragic shooting, are false and extremely misleading," his father, a retired magistrate judge, wrote in a letter published in the Orlando Sentinel. "Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations have used this tragedy to further their own causes and agendas." "George is a Spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends," Robert Zimmerman wrote. "He would be the last to discriminate for any reason...

London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will ‘help’ older people move from their homes into ‘more suitable accommodation’. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a so-called ‘housing crisis’ as well as creating a system that will ‘permit access to various sources of wealth’ that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration plans a rule change to help reduce the time illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States, a senior administration official said Thursday. Currently, illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission. The official said the new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask...

The Occupy movement is stepping up its confrontational tactics, plotting “alternative forms of protest,” including flash mobs that can be deployed nationwide. Citing the success of last week’s so-called Day of Action protests, Take to the Square, one of Occupy’s main online planning forums, has devised an “Alternative Day of Action” to coincide with international Human Rights Day on Dec. 10. “Our freedom and dignity are under attack as a result of market dynamics and corrupt government institutions that are turning our local and global societies into increasingly unjust places,” the site complains. The Occupy forum calls for “alternative forms...

President Barack Obama on Friday sacked a controversial proposed regulation tightening health-based standards for smog, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders. Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposal, in part because of the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy. The announcement came shortly after a new government report on private sector employment report showed that businesses essentially added no new jobs last month — and that the jobless rate remained stuck at a historically...

"Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." -- Friedrich Nietzsche Does it seem too strong to call the way America deals with its debt "madness?" If not madness, then what? Denial? An addiction? However you phrase it, we're a country that's in deep trouble, but so many of us seem unable to deal with it. Liberals in this country, for the most part, will admit that we're running up "unsustainable" deficits. Yet, these same liberals adamantly oppose any and all serious efforts to do anything about it. Once you...

My post concerning Stephen Lerner yesterday has generated a ton of hits. For awhile if you searched for Stephen Lerner on Yahoo my blog post was #3 on the list. As of the time this post is entered it was still in the top 10. I didn’t do anything to put the post in the top 10, I have no idea how to even do such things. It begs the question how little old Steven Birn, a lawyer from Michigan, could generate an entry that hits the top 10 on a major news story. The answer is simple, the media...

Obama said in 2007: [VIDEO AT SITE] or HERE"It is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior" "It's not going to be painless" He said one of the goals of his Cap and Trade was to ensure no one could build a coal powered plant, or if they did, it would bankrupt them. Now, we're all going bankrupt on rising gas prices: Gasoline prices are up again by double digits in all areas around the country compared to the week before. The national gasoline average is $.77 above the price this time last year. 77...

Public schedule of Vice President Joe Biden for Thursday, Feb. 24: At 10:45 AM, the Vice President and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis will meet with President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka and with presidents of AFL-CIO labor organizations. Whatever do you suppose they're plotting inside this transparent Obama administration White House? Well, we'll never know. Because this meeting of an elected federal official with top labor union officers is closed to press. Then there are the meetings with lobbyists held just off the executive office grounds to avoid reporting them in White House logs. You are dismissed.

American analysts continue to assert that Egyptians just want Western-style pluralistic democracy. No one actually on the scene in Egypt, however, is calling for that. "Egyptians demand restoration of Islam," from AhlulBayt News Agency News Agency, February 6: Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Spokesman of Muslim Brotherhood said that the unprecedented presence of over 7 million Egyptian people in the Friday protests shook the palace of Hosni Mubarak. Ahmad Mersi told al-Alam news network that the Egyptian revolutionary people demand a restoration of Islamic rules in the country andan [sic] ouster of Mubarak's despotic rule. He said the Egyptian people...

Not content with creating havoc in the U.S. economy, setting Americans against each other, and forcing through a health reform act which has nothing to do with health but everything to do with the redistribution of wealth and an immense increase in governmental interference, our president has now opened a Pandora's Box in the Middle East. It may well usher in a catastrophe not seen since World War 2. From his notorious Cairo speech to the present, President Obama speaks, and disaster follows. Some commentators believe that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are so utterly naïve as to...

Back in June, Indiana Gov. Mitch Dan iels, whom many think would be an attractive 2012 presidential candidate, was quoted by Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard as saying the next president "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues." That quickly attracted some harsh criticism from opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage. But Daniels has declined to back down, telling the Indianapolis Star the other day that such issues are secondary to the economy and foreign policy. I think both Daniels and his critics have missed the point. The fact is that there is an ongoing...