Free Republic

What’s most successful when it appears to be something it’s not? Astroturf. As in fake grassroots.The many ways that corporations, special interests and political interests of all stripes exploit media and the Internet to perpetuate astroturf is ever-expanding. Surreptitious astroturf methods are now more important to these interests than traditional lobbying of Congress. There’s an entire PR industry built around it in Washington.Below are the top ten astroturfers as viewed by respondents in an informal, non-scientific survey.* TOP 10 ASTROTURFERS 1. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Everytown2. Media Matters for America3. University of California Hastings Professor...

The Secret Service said Monday that its second-ranking official was resigning his post, a departure under pressure of one of the last remaining senior managers who had presided over a string of embarrassing security lapses in recent years. The ouster of Deputy Director Alvin “A.T.” Smith, which followed pressure from lawmakers who have called for fresh leadership at the troubled agency, came three days before he was scheduled to testify before a House oversight committee. He was considered one of the few people with a deep understanding of the Secret Service’s highly specialized mission.

"We're as free of foreign oil as we've been in 30 years," Obama said. "We've doubled the amount of clean energy that we're producing. A lot of families are saving a lot of money at the gas pump, which is putting some smiles on folks' faces." "You're welcome," Obama said to tepid applause.

At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama reminded attendees that violence rooted in religion isn’t exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well. ~snip~ “Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

No amount of false bravado, professorial sounding outrage or political denials can erase the truth about Common Core Dr. William J. (Bill) Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan from 1986 to 1988, advocates for Common Core in a CNN op-ed published on Dec. 2, 2014, and as recently as Feb. 1, 2015, in a televised debate with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. In his CNN op-ed, Dr. Bennett concludes that because America “offers no better alternative”, we should accept Common Core. His argument dovetails closely with establishment Republican and Democrat ideology; one imbedded with flawed logic, compounded falsehoods...

Advertising websites have the ability to obtain a sizable chunk of personal data provided by users of Healthcare.gov. Following up on a January 20 Associated Press report, a congressional analysis confirmed that in many instances, personal data collected by Healthcare.gov is shared with companies like Google, Yahoo, Twitter, and Advertising.com. The type of information acquired by these companies includes age, income, zip code, use of tobacco, and pregnancy. …

Former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson said the Obama administration has been producing its own video content to promote “unfiltered” messages with taxpayer-funded staff, including hairstylists, makeup artists and wardrobe consultants. By cutting out the news media, Attkisson said the White House has figured out how to avoid questions and accountability. She also revealed that the Department of Agriculture has more than 1,200 “media relations employees” nationwide. “White House officials have exploited non-news media to spoon-feed unfiltered messaging, at times pure propaganda, into the public’s mouth. The Google-sponsored chat I mentioned – that came with a pre-selected audience and questions...

"Elibiary...states that, “no matter xenophobia & hatefulness from this loud ‪#‎Christianist‬ subculture, we won’t abandon our vision for this nation.” [See other Tweets]

The U.S. Department of Justice secretly spies on millions of cars by gathering and storing information about motorists in order to build a national database to track movements, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. The database was originally used by the Drug Enforcement Administration to hunt vehicles involved in drug crimes by tracking license plates, but according to the WSJ, the program expanded to hunt for criminals sought for crimes that were non-drug related. DEA officials have been on record saying they track vehicles near the U.S.-Mexico border to help fight drug cartels, but the new...

A former CBS investigative reporter who has filed a $35 million lawsuit against the Obama administration for hacking will be among the witnesses at a hearing on President Obama's attorney general nominee. Sharyl Attkisson has accused the Obama administration of breaking into her computer and phone after she reported stories that were critical of the administration, such as the events surrounding the 2012 attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and the failed “Fast and Furious” operation. She told her story in the book "Stonewalled." She will testify during this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Loretta Lynch, Obama’s...

Just saw a local Miami tv station using video from the government web site with an "interview" of Obama, where he spews some crap about how his goal is to outline for the nation how he is going to make sure things are fair, now that we have "made it through the crisis". I nearly spit my coffee out. We are not out of a crisis. My point is that these kind of videos are NOT a proper use for news....and I expect that if a REPUBLICAN president put out this type of "interview", the media would ignore it....on the...

Thursday on Fox News Radio’s “John Gibson Show,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explained she is suing the Department of Justice to get discovery, which she said hopefully will start with the names of the agents or third-party contractors sometimes hired for “certain dark projects,” who hacked her computer and planted a fiber optics cable at her house.

Did the Obama administration put a journalist under surveillance for reporting critically on its activities? Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson says yes — and she wants $35 million in damages from the Department of Justice for it. Attkisson filed a series of legal motions today that claim the DoJ hacked into her computer and attacked her professionally: In a series of legal filings that seek $35 million in damages, Attkisson alleges that three separate computer forensic exams showed that hackers used sophisticated methods to surreptitiously monitor her work between 2011 and 2013. … In the lawsuit and related claims against...

President Obama has led tributes to Stuart Scott, the longtime SportsCenter anchor and ESPN personality who died today from cancer at age 49. The network says Scott died Sunday and had fought cancer since a diagnosis in late 2007, remaining dedicated to his craft even as he underwent chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. In his sports presenting career, which began in 1987 in South Carolina, he rose from local stations to prominence on the national sports network, coining now-unavoidable phrases including the celebratory 'boo yah'. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2896280/Longtime-ESPN-sportscaster-Scott-dies-49.html#ixzz3NtFFzWHE Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Black protesters targeted white people eating brunch today at New York City restaurants. They joined hands and screamed at white patrons. Posted by Kristinn Taylor on Sunday, January 4, 2015, 1:10 PM Black protesters targeted white people eating brunch today at New York City restaurants. They joined hands and screamed at white patrons. “ATTN WHITE Man, I have no guilt disturbing your brunch. Its YOU that has no right to be here. #blackbrunchnyc” The protesters stormed the restaurants and harassed staff and patrons.

It is difficult to compare presidents outside of a narrow context of time. It is like trying to compare baseball players, like Ruth and Aaron, or football players, like Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning. For athletes, the games they play were different then; and for presidents, not only the country, but the world is different. There is no way of knowing how a president today would have fared when faced with the prospect of the First or Second World War, or how they would have handled the advent of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. These are answers we...

I'm not one for boycotts, but I am one for data. And I like this kind of data. It's just good to have data when spending money. That's all. I mean, if I have no choice in keeping a SIGNIFICANTLY large portion of my money from being squandered by the folks that I've freaking employed up on the Hill (like drunk girls on Spring break with their Daddy's credit cards), I'm going to be as informed as possible with what's left of said money. Thus, the data thing. You know. According to the source article above and the New York...

HONOLULU (AP) - Warning from President Barack Obama to congressional Republicans: I have a veto pen and, come January, I won't be afraid to use it. Continue reading Since taking office in 2009, Obama has only vetoed legislation twice, both in fairly minor circumstances. But with Republicans set to take full control of Congress next year, Obama is losing his last bulwark against a barrage of bills he doesn't like: the Senate. "I haven't used the veto pen very often since I've been in office," Obama said in an NPR interview airing Monday. "Now, I suspect, there are going to...

First Sgt. Katrina Moerk, now the first sergeant of Charlie Company, 741st Military Intelligence Battalion, was browsing a social media network's community page earlier this year, when she came upon a video that she found offensive and sexist. When she commented as much, several respondents attacked her with insults. Some of these respondents were wearing uniforms in their profile photos, the first sergeant said, so she wrote to them directly. "I looked them up, introduced myself and explained to them why they were stupid. And I [copied] the director of the Army SHARP program to help their units improve their...

VICTORY!!!!!!! The PEOPLE and THE PRESIDENT have spoken!!! SONY to release THE INTERVIEW in theaters…