Free Republic

The lawlessness of the Obama administration has been astounding. Entire books have been written about President Obama’s notion that he should be and is free to do whatever he wants (such as Lawless by Professor David Bernstein, which I wrote about here). No doubt more will be. One remarkably brazen instance I recently learned about is his administration’s funneling of money from lawsuit settlements into the pockets of left-wing activist groups. It makes you wonder if there is anything this administration won’t try to get away with. Following the collapse of the housing bubble, the federal government initiated several grandstanding,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that while presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is “a phenomenon” and political outsider, he has earned the right to the GOP nomination and the party’s support. “I think Donald Trump is a phenomenon. I don’t believe Donald Trump is going to change the Republican Party in a fundamental way. He appeals to a lot of voters, he’ll be the nominee. I don’t have any problem supporting him,” McConnell said. McConnell said Trump is helping the party reach out to voters who “have not lately voted for Republicans.” That will...

Former Attorney Gen. Eric Holder’s contention that former NSA contractor Edward Snowden performed a “public service” by leaking classified documents is “outrageous,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. “That’s a truly outrageous comment,” the Kentucky senator told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program. “It makes me glad I voted against confirming him. He’s the worst attorney general in history.” […] McConnell, pivoting to his book, recounted behind-the-scenes dealings with President Barack Obama, saying that it was Vice President Joe Biden who was the one who could really get things done. “The president is a very smart guy, but I...

here are an awful lot of people who ended up with egg on their face late Monday. The Daily Mail revealed Facebook photos of the couple who they reported as the parents of the inquisitive little four-year-old boy who fell into the gorilla habitat Saturday, resulting in the shooting death of the gorilla in order to save the life of the child. This happened at the Cincinnati Zoo, and one of the zoo-goers captured heart-pounding video of the boy’s life-and-death struggle with the gorilla. Liberals and Black Lives Matter activists took to social media to call the shooting of the...

**SNIP** Jarrett has denied that she leaked any damaging information about the Clintons. "I'm trying to light a fire under Joe," Jarrett is quoted as saying in the book, which claims Obama sees Biden as the best person to carry on his legacy.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will support Donald Trump and thinks the business mogul can win the presidency, the Kentucky Republican tells "CBS Sunday Morning." To people afraid of a Trump presidency, McConnell sees protections in the system to prevent mistakes by the White House occupant. "What protects us in this country against big mistakes being made is the structure, the Constitution, the institutions," McConnell tells Jan Crawford. "No matter how unusual a personality may be who gets elected to office, there are constraints in this country. You don't get to do anything you want to. So I'm very optimistic...

WASHINGTON — There’s no love lost for outside conservative groups in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s new memoir that hits bookshelves this week. The Kentucky Republican, always a political strategist, makes the case in “The Long Game” that he could have ascended to majority leader earlier if not for forces like the Senate Conservatives Fund. “As more dollars from patriotic Americans rolled in, SCF staff would direct those resources exclusively toward campaigning against the most electable Republicans from the comfort of their townhome on Capitol Hill,” McConnell writes, according to excerpts posted by Google Books. “[R]eminiscent of what happened in...

Washington (CNN)Vice President Joe Biden offered an account Tuesday of the decision to launch the raid that killed Osama bin Laden that differed from some of his previous retellings -- and from Hillary Clinton's. His remarks come as he considers facing off against the former secretary of state in the 2016 presidential race, and they seem to signal that he sees his earlier stance on the raid as a potential liability.

President Obama’s endorsement of a Joe Biden White House run will be conditional on having a “final say” over his choice for vice president, according to Ed Klein, author of the Hillary Rodham Clinton biography “Unlikeable.” “Barack Obama would like to see Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts and an African-American, run on the Biden ticket,” Klein told John Catsimatidis on AM 970 radio Sunday. Patrick, who served as assistant attorney general under then-President Bill Clinton, grew up in Chicago, Obama’s former stomping grounds. He succeeded Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts. Klein said that the first family is...

A Navy sailor entered a guilty plea Friday in a classified information mishandling case that critics charge illustrates a double standard between the treatment of low-ranking government employees and top officials like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus. Prosecutors allege that Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier used a cellphone camera to take photos in the classified engine room of the nuclear submarine where he worked as a mechanic, the USS Alexandria, then destroyed a laptop, camera and memory card after learning he was under investigation.

Sometimes the rigors of daily life just get too overwhelming, causing me to turn to other less stressful items of interest. So I am now reading, “Benjamin Franklin -- An American Life,” by famed biographer, Walter Isaacson. It is already an amazing story about an amazing man, and I am not half way through its 586 pages --- small type, no pictures! Benjamin Franklin: author, inventor, scientist, politician, raconteur. But he considered himself, first and foremost, to be a printer. And would generally sign his name, “Benjamin Franklin, printer.” For in that Colonial period, a printer was a person of...

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, read from the book Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer at a Trump campaign rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tuesday evening. “I’m here today with a very important mission, which is to talk about this very important book here; it’s called Clinton Cash,” Miller said as he held up a copy of Schweizer’s book before approximately 10,000 people in attendance. “Has anybody heard of it?”The crowd cheered, as Miller delved into a more-than-ten-minute-long dissection of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, while reading from the...

The Clinton Foundation, which has done a number of good works over the past 15 years, would appear to present an inherent conflict of interest should Mrs. Clinton become president, and possibly does even now with her as a candidate. Mrs. Clinton has suggested that if she is elected, the foundation — which collects contributions from wealthy interests, including foreign governments — would continue basically as is. “If Bill seeks to raise large sums of money from donors who also have an interest in U.S. policy, the public will rightly question whether the grants affected United States foreign policy,” said...

TEL AVIV – A group that advocates a nuclear-free world and was identified earlier this month by the White House as central in helping to market the Iran nuclear deal to the news media has funded National Public Radio since 2005, an Associated Press investigation has revealed. Think tanks funded by the Ploughshares Fund include the Arms Control Association, Brookings Institution, and the Atlantic Council, the AP reported. Unmentioned by the AP is that the Ploughshares Fund is financed by billionaire GEORGE SOROS' OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE. The involvement of Ploughshares in selling the Iran agreement to the public was revealed...

<p>The New York Times’ front-page article last Saturday on Donald J. Trump’s dealings with women forced me into a weekend of self-examination. As much as I support Trump, this isn’t a cult of personality. He’s not Mao, Kim Jong-un or L. Ron Hubbard. We can like our candidates, but still acknowledge their flaws. No one’s perfect.</p>

Nowadays, the “smoke-filled room” is mostly just a metaphor—but there was a real room that started it all. Well, sort of. The compelling image of the smoke-filled room, a “place of political intrigue and chicanery, where candidates were selected by party bosses in cigar-chewing session,” per William Safire, arose during the 1920 Republican convention. That year, Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio was the come-from-behind nominee for president, selected after ten ballots. According to historian David Pietrusza, author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents, the room in question is often credited with the phrase “because the people who...

In the manner of Ed Driscoll ... Shot: Friedman, 61, paid for the books out of his own pocket — about $220 with shipping — then sold them to students for $2 apiece to recoup most of the expenses. Chaser: He noted that students spent $6 for “Hamlet” at the school bookstore, triple what he asked to recoup his layout for “Frankenstein.” Hangover: Friedman said the action by Midwood’s administrators was retaliation for his filing unfair-labor charges against the school in March of last year. He said he filed the charges to protest a new “dumbed down” curriculum and unfair...

In a gripping new look at the important relationship between American founders George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams – authors of the new book Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Formed America, tell the story below of the American founding, which would not have been possible without this grand alliance.  While many historians focus on the friendship and alliance of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Washington and Hamilton reminds us why America would truly not be the prosperous country it is today without this special alliance.Congratulations Stephen & Tony on the paperback release of your new book: Washington and...

(Professor and Bisbee students conduct archeology dig at Warren Ballpark) BISBEE — Warren Ballpark was the scene of a groundbreaking expedition Wednesday as students from Bisbee High School participated in an archeological dig in their own backyard. University of Arizona anthropology professor Rob Schon came to the idea to do a dig at the park through his love of baseball. “My family and I are into baseball and I was searching on the internet, and Warren Ballpark came up,” he said. “I found their website and found Mike Anderson’s book ‘Warren Ballpark’ and realized we know a lot about the...

An anonymous congressman has dropped a bombshell election-year book that confirms why Americans hate their national government and have rallied to anti-establishment presidential candidates like Donald Trump. The veteran politician lays bare a rotten and corrupt Congress enslaved by lobbyists and interested only in re-election in an anonymous, 65-page manifesto called “The Confessions of Congressman X.” “Like most of my colleagues, I promise my constituents a lot of stuff I can never deliver,” he admits. “But what the hell? It makes them happy hearing it . . . My main job is to keep my job.” The House member —...