Free Republic

Here’s to hoping you enjoyed your long Independence Day weekend. I sure enjoyed mine, because it wasn’t until today that I looked past the touchy-feelgood headline numbers in the June jobs report. 288,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.1%, the lowest it’s been since before the beginning of the Great Recession. Even the figures for April and May were unexpectedly revised upwards. Helping to keep that good mood humming along was the big increase in auto sales, which “shattered expectations [1].” Sales were so hot that even beleaguered GM, which in recent months has announced recalls for...

When I learned of the deceitful campaign tactics used in securing Thad Cochran’s victory over Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel, I became enraged to the point of losing a good night’s sleep. My first reaction was disappointment and disbelief that a Republican senator would stoop to that level against another Republican. My anger soon turned to the black citizens of Mississippi.

According to an Associated Press report, a federal judge has held the EPA in contempt for destroying computer files sought after by a conservative group: Landmark Legal Foundation…U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ordered the EPA on Jan. 19, 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration, to preserve all documents relevant to a Freedom of Information Act request by Landmark regarding the federal agency’s contact with outside groups. That same day, EPA Administrator Carol Browner asked a technician to delete her computer files. Browner later testified that she was unaware of the court order and simply wanted to remove...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker criticized the accusation he illegally coordinated fundraising with conservative groups during an appearance on Fox News. "We tried to take the government away from the big government special interest and put it firmly in the hands of the hard working taxpayers, both at the state level and the local governments," Walker, a Republican and potential 2016 presidential candidate, told "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

“We are in a situation now where most Americans are criminals, but they either don’t know it, or they think they will not be prosecuted” says Tim Lynch in his introduction to this Cato panel last month. Perhaps even worse, “federal regulators and prosecutors have so much power that they can pressure people who are totally innocent into pleading guilty and paying fines.”

More than 40 bicycles belonging to Baltimore's Recreation and Parks department for a bike-share program were stolen this week, and the activity has been suspended indefinitely, city officials said. The bikes, which included children's bikes and adult-size blue beach cruisers, were stolen on Monday during the city's Ride Around the Reservoir program in Druid Hill Park. Recreation and Parks spokeswoman Gwendolyn Chambers said staff had set up the bikes to lend out when a large group of youths began stealing them. One staffer was kicked by a youth, though the injury was not serious, Chambers said. "We don't want our...

Detectives say Jonas Charles ambushed teens who returned to lot after stealing keys.... Instead of waiting for authorities to arrive, Charles took the law into his own hands and ignored the 15-year-old's plea not to shoot him, detectives said. Charles then chased the wounded teen, yelling at him and firing another shot while on the phone with a BSO dispatcher, detectives said.

With little fanfare and nearly no national media attention, the National Popular Vote effort is now 61 percent of the way toward its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the U.S. Constitution. Last month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the National Popular Vote, or NPV, bill, making his state the 11th jurisdiction to enact the plan. With the passage of the bill, the interstate compact now has 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to put it into effect.

The IRS’ Washington, D.C. headquarters targeted conservative groups in part due to pressure from Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, according to emails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch and reviewed by The Daily Caller. Levin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ permanent subcommittee on investigations, wrote a March 30, 2012 letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman discussing the “urgency” of the issue of possible political activity by nonprofit applicants. Levin asked if the IRS was sending out additional information requests to applicant groups and citing an IRS rejection letter to a conservative group as an example of...

President Obama is preparing to use “the pen and phone” to push more solar power and energy efficiency measures. He wants to deal with global warming but not congressional Republicans. Obama will order executive agencies to push a slew of new programs to promote solar power, green jobs training and subsidize investing in energy efficient appliances and equipment. Obama will also announce a plan to complete solar panel installations on the roof of the White House. The president will make his announcement Friday at a Wal-Mart in Mountain View, California and outline 300 “private and public sector commitments” to reduce...

A warning by the Federal Election Commission chairman that “some on the left” want to restrict conservative media outlets on the Internet underscores a long history of various efforts that set out to limit the impact of money on politics, even the playing field for minorities and provide equal time to conflicting political arguments but end up squelching free speech. FEC Chairman Lee E. Goodman said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that government officials are reacting to the growing power of conservative media, particularly independent news outlets with an Internet presence, by devising ways to curb the media’s...

*This video will be deleted by Youtube soon. :( Sign says: "Warning: Masturbators, Thieves, Liars, Drunkards, Fornicators, Homosexuals: Judgement Day."

Former CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson had some harsh words to share about the Obama administration and its supporters while she was a guest on Monday morning's Fox & Friends program. After viewing some clips from Sunday's edition of ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos in which conservative pundit Laura Ingraham and Democratic analyst David Plouffe clashed over the death of four Americans in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, Attkisson said she believes that a concerted effort is taking place to divert investigations into that deadly attack, an effort that is being orchestrated by people close to the White House....

Only a few weeks after President Obama's controversial decision to delay the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama administration is expected in the next several weeks to approve a 500-mile green energy transmission line project running through Arizona and New Mexico that his own Defense Department says may pose "an unacceptable risk to national security." The multibillion-dollar electric power line project, financed by a group called SunZia, would connect wind power facilities in eastern New Mexico to the electric grid and supply power to Arizona and California.

A group of wealthy liberal donors who helped bankroll the Center for American Progress and other major advocacy groups on the left is developing a new big-money strategy that could boost state-level Democratic candidates and mobilize core party voters. The plan, being crafted in private by a group of about 100 donors that includes billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros and San Francisco venture capitalist Rob McKay, seeks to give Democrats a stronger hand in the redrawing of district lines for state legislatures and the U.S. House.

President Barack Obama is testing a much-needed replacement for Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen whose media-magnified death helped spike African-American turnout in the 2012 election. The new campaign-trail martyr is Clayton Lockett, an African-American who kidnapped four people, including a 18 year-old woman whom he raped and then killed after she watched her grave being dug for 20 minutes. Obama has the same motive as he did 2012 — boosting turnout of his most important bloc.

Identity thieves have victimized 12.6 million Americans in 2012 to the tune of nearly $21 billion. Eighteen percent of all Federal Trade Commission complaints received that year involved identity theft. More complaints were lodged in 2012 when compared to 11.6 million in 2011 and 10.2 million in 2010. (Javelin Strategy and Research, 2013 Identity Fraud Report: Data Breaches Becoming a Treasure Trove for Fraudsters, February 2013) Globalization and the world wide use of the Internet have allowed thieves with actual, stolen, or cyber identities to engage in highly sophisticated crimes involving credit card fraud, bank fraud, immigration fraud, medical use...

As more information becomes available, it is becoming clear to me as a former Las Vegas and Clark County land planner, that the Bundy story is not about cows,tortoises, grazing rights, childish name calling, or alleged threats. It’s about prime real estate, and Bundy’s cows were grazing on land that the City of Mesquite has had its eye on for years for annexation to be used to “meet future demands for its citizens and a rapidly growing tourism industry.” The City of Mesquite’s “Purchased, Unpurchased and Acquirable Lands” map (CLICK HERE) shows areas within yellow lined blocks on the southern...

There is a pastime among liberal pundits — the latest is Nicholas Kristof — to quote a new center left global ranking (with unbiased titles such as “The Social Progress Imperative”) and then to decry that the United States is behind its major industrial competitors in things like “Internet Access” and “Ecosystem sustainability.” The subtext of these rants is that an illiberal, reactionary U.S. does not spend enough on government entitlements to promote parity, equality and social justice among its citizenry. These pessimistic rankings increase the angst about the American condition when viewed from scowling perches in Washington or New...

The nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy as Surgeon General is on ice until after November’s election, and top Senate Democrats say that decision was made in the White House. Democrats’ decision to back off the nomination in the face of NRA opposition has prompted much hand-wringing on editorial pages and the left, along with some back-biting over the last week. Amid the fallout, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s staff has privately worked to emphasize to concerned allies that the decision to pull the plug on Murthy came from the White House.