Free Republic

Mayor Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis Democrat who faced sharp criticism over his handling of the George Floyd riots in June, on Monday seemed to place much of the blame on Gov. Tim Walz, another Democrat, for failing to act quickly on early requests from the city for state intervention, a report said. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune published a detailed report that shed light on the interaction between the mayor's office and Walz in the early days of the protest. The governor's office made it clear that National Guard Troops were ready within 24 hours of the mayor's informal request, but Frey...

Former President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations has testified that others made so-called unmasking requests in her name, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy said Tuesday. “Her testimony is they may be under my name, but I did not make those requests,” Gowdy said of former Ambassador Samantha Power during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier on "Special Report with Bret Baier." Power is among the Obama administration figures who made requests to identify Americans whose names surfaced in foreign intelligence reporting, known as unmasking. Last month, Fox News reported that Power was unmasking at such a...

Facing nearly two dozen federal fraud and conspiracy charges, former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown took the stand in her own defense on Thursday, saying she was left in the dark while her former chief of staff siphoned thousands of dollars from what prosecutors are calling a sham charity. The Florida Democrat told the jury she was betrayed by her former top aide, Elias “Ronnie” Simmons. “I loved Ronnie Simmons like a son,” said Brown, crying. “A lot of young people in this community end up in jail. I never would’ve wanted that to happen to Ronnie.” Federal prosecutors want Brown...

It was strange. Joe Scarborough had just completed a comprehensive indictment of failed American foreign policy around the globe. But at the very moment when he should have laid those disasters at the feet of the sitting President of the United States, Scarborough came down with a bad case of . . . cold feet. Scarborough laid out to David Gregory a tour d'horizon of failed American foreign policy from the Middle East, to Iran, to Russia/Ukraine, describing it as "one disaster after another." But perhaps fearful of where the ineluctable logic of his comments was taking him, Scarborough suddenly...

Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump late Wednesday pinned blame for his scriptural gaffe - saying "Two Corinthians" instead of "Second Corinthians" - on evangelical activist Tony Perkins. "Tony Perkins wrote that out for me - he actually wrote out the 2, he wrote out the number 2 Corinthians," Trump said on "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon." "I took exactly what Tony said, and I said, 'Well, Tony has to know better than anybody.'" The slip-up drew laughs from the crowd at evangelical Liberty University and has called into question the religiosity of the billionaire businessman. But Trump said he has...

"Who is responsible for the Bay Bridge?" I asked California Gov. Jerry Brown at a San Francisco Chronicle editorial board meeting in May. Before Brown's 2010 election victory, which made him the boss of all Caltrans, Brown was the mayor of Oakland whose political posturing helped delay the retrofit of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, made necessary after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down a chunk of the span. It took 24 years and $5 billion more than the original budget for the state to complete the $6.4 billion span. Before the new span even opened, the...

US President Barack Obama on Thursday said he was powerless to stop mass expulsions of illegal immigrants, which prompted one Latino advocacy group to brand him “deporter in chief.” The president said Congress was requiring him to enforce existing immigration laws while balking at passing a comprehensive bill that would offer illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. “I am constrained in terms of what I am able to do,” Obama said. …

The Obamacare website contractors plan to tell Congress on Thursday that they are not to blame for the massive problems at HealthCare.gov and that they completed successful testing before the Oct. 1 launch. But, according to prepared testimony, the four contractors ran into unforeseen problems once open enrollment began. The testimony offers a slight glimpse into the problems that made the website all but unworkable — and warnings that the problems are far from over. Lawmakers are expected to press the four contractors for details on what went wrong and when they – and the White House – knew about...

L E B A N O N, Tenn. A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door. The two officers, 25-year-old Kyle Shedran and 24-year-old Greg Day, were placed on administrative leave with pay. “They need to get rid of those men, boys with toys,” said Adams’ 70-year-old widow, Loraine. John Adams was watching television when...

Blaming GOP obstructionism for the lingering jobs crisis, Democratic leaders on Friday called on House Republicans to bring a long-term highway bill to the floor. The Democrats — led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — noted that Friday's dismal jobs numbers included a steep decline — by 28,000 jobs — in construction employment. Reauthorizing transportation spending for two years, they argued, would help put those workers back on payrolls and stabilize the economy.

According to Gallup, "White single women, unmarried, widowed, divorced, and separated" voted "overwhelmingly" for Obama. On this Memorial Day, this crucial slice of Obama's base of support without whom he would have been elected owe this nation an apology. Blacks; Hispanics; and Moslems voted tribal politics. But this group was more than liberal, it included a large segment of conservatives and independents who had soured on Bush. Today with $13 trillion in debt- almost $12 trillion of it accumulated in the last six months alone, a burgeoning government; a foreign policy in tatters from Iran, to N. Korea to the...

In this video at Representative Jim Moran’s (D-VA) town hall meeting on ObamaCare held at South Lakes High School in Reston, VA, many people were left outside when the school filled to capacity. School security officer Wesley Cheeks, Jr. did not like a protester’s anti-ObamaCare poster which used one of the viral "Joker" graphics. Officer Cheeks told some town hall protesters to put away their signs or he’ll "charge them with trespassing or whatever he wants." Then, when a protester said to Officer Cheeks, "This used to be America!" his response was: “It ain’t no more, OK?” Pro-Obama Cop to...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Under pressure to fight child sex abuse, the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee said Tuesday that the denomination should not create its own database to help churches identity predators or establish an office to field abuse claims. The report decried sexual abuse as reprehensible and a sin. But the Southern Baptist principle of local church autonomy means it's up to individual churches _ and not the convention _ to screen employees and take action against offenders, the committee said.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Republican Mitt Romney denies any responsibility for hiring illegal immigrants as workers at his home, insisting it was the fault of contractors and calling for tighter federal guidelines to verify the status of workers. Asked by a reporter today if he shouldn’t go the "extra mile" because of his business background and his strong advocacy of clamping down on illegal immigration in his presidential bid, the former Massachusetts governor shot back: "And what’s the extra mile? So for instance, if I go to a restaurant, do I make sure all the waiters there are all legal?"

Governor Michael S. Dukakis, whose administration hired Big Dig manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, yesterday attributed problems on the huge construction project to later administrations. Dukakis, the last Democrat to hold the Massachusetts governor's office, told a television interviewer last night that he had urged Governor William F. Weld, a Republican, to ask Frederick P. Salvucci, transportation secretary under Dukakis, "to stay on and run that project for you." "Well, he didn't do that," Dukakis said of Weld on WGBH's "Greater Boston." "So we've had a series of people over there who aren't bad people," Dukakis said, "but they didn't have anywhere...

BATON ROUGE -- Facing mounting pressure to strike pork-barrel projects from the state budget bill, Gov. Kathleen Blanco suggested this week that the responsibility for policing wasteful spending falls instead to the state treasurer's office and other state agencies. Blanco's comments have intensified the annual debate over legislative earmarks, which this year total more than $30 million in the $26.7 billion spending bill that awaits the governor's signature. State Treasurer John Kennedy, a frequent critic of the governor, accused Blanco of abdicating her leadership responsibility and said that if it were up to him, the pet projects requested by legislators...

WASHINGTON (AP)—``Boutique'' gasoline blends to help states meet clean air rules are not a factor in higher prices as President Bush has suggested, says a draft of a study ordered by the White House. Although often cited as a reason for volatile gasoline prices, so-called ``boutique fuels'' have not caused unusual distribution problems or contributed to price increases, the report concludes. The review was conducted by a task force headed by the Environmental Protection Agency and involving representatives from the 50 states as well as the Energy and Agriculture departments. Facing growing public outrage over soaring gasoline prices, Bush ordered...

NEW ORLEANS — Mayor Ray Nagin finished work today on a plan to rebuild New Orleans, endorsing a proposal that would allow all residents to rebuild their homes in neighborhoods shattered by Hurricane Katrina. The mayor's advisory commission, formed after Katrina struck Aug. 29, recommended in January that some flooded neighborhoods be replaced with parks and that the city take a go-slow attitude in rebuilding low-lying areas. But that suggestion was greeted with jeers and outrage at public meetings. Nagin, who is running for re-election on April 22, distanced himself from that plan, which included a proposed moratorium on building...

<p>John Kerry said something amazing the other day. He was talking to the Wall Street Journal and was asked about his many attacks on "Benedict Arnold CEOs."</p> <p>In Virginia on Feb. 10, for example, he said: "We will repeal every single benefit, every single loophole, every single reward for any Benedict Arnold CEO or corporation that take American jobs overseas and stick you with the bill."</p>

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON - Two federal law enforcement agencies had information before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing suggesting that white supremacists living nearby were considering an attack on government buildings, but the intelligence was never passed on to federal officials in the state, documents and interviews show. AP Photo   FBI (news - web sites) headquarters officials in Washington were so concerned that white separatists at the Elohim City compound in Muldrow, Okla., might lash out on April 19, 1995 — the day Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) did choose — that a month earlier they...