Free Republic

You know the people I’m talking about. The Know-Nothings. You know the folks who pushed that one law regarding almost 20 percent of the entire economy before they even read the bill? The ones who rushed it into law just to see what was in it? The ones who managed to write a bill, while still not being familiar with what the bill actually did?   Yeah, those guys? The Know-Nothings. Well, they know nothing about a lot of other stuff too. Obama’s one of those guys. So is Eric Holder. So, apparently, is the entire staff at the IRS...

Scandal In Libya: A new email dump shows that the White House, contrary to public statements, was heavily involved in editing the Benghazi talking points to remove all references to it being a terrorist attack. The limited, heavily redacted package of emails released by the administration Wednesday is noteworthy for what the emails don't say and reflect a concerted effort by the White House and State Department not to get at the truth but to put something together to help President Obama in an election two months out. The email package begins some 67 hours after the Sept. 11, 2012,...

With Soros funding, anything is possible. The growing scandal where the IRS unfairly targeted politically-conservative groups can be traced back to a lobbying effort begun by George Soros-funded liberal groups in 2010, after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

GOP Rep.: White House ‘Hand-Selected’ Benghazi E-Mails By Andrew Johnson May 16, 2013 10:03 AM Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) said the White House e-mails about Benghazi that were released last night were “hand-selected” to leave out other important documents. “I know absolutely, for total certainty, this is just but a small smidgeon of what they have,” Chaffetz said. There are 25,000-pages worth of documents, he said, but the White House released only100 total pages. “The White House has hand-selected these,” he added.

Corruption: The inspector general's report on the IRS targeting of conservatives makes it seem like a case of bureaucratic bumbling. But the more we learn, the more it looks like a concerted effort to hobble Obama's political foes. 'Inappropriate criteria," "insufficient oversight" and "lack of managerial review." That's what led the IRS to target hundreds of conservative groups for intrusive, costly and lengthy scrutiny during their application for tax-exempt status, according to the IG report released on Tuesday. In other words, it wasn't a politically motivated attack on conservative groups during a presidential campaign. It was just a case of...

After months of demands from Republicans in Congress, the White House has released emails related to what the administration said in the days after the terrorist attack in Benghazi. The emails confirm the ABC News report that the so-called "talking points" written by the CIA on the attack underwent extensive revisions – 12 versions – and that substantial changes were made after the State Department expressed concerns. The early versions of the talking points, drafted entirely by the CIA, included references to the al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Sharia and to previous CIA warnings about terror threats in Benghazi. State Department...

Susan Rice went on Sunday talk shows on September 16, 2012 to proclaim that there was no evidence linking the attacks in Benghazi to terrorism... She told ABC on September 16 (emphasis mine): "But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated." And she...

Obama Calls It 'a Cliche' to Say We're 'the Greatest Country on Earth' May 14, 2013 By Craig Bannister It's "a cliché" to say that America "is the greatest country on Earth," Pres. Obama told a DNC event in New York City on Monday. "And more than anything, what I will be striving for over the next three and a half years is to see if that spirit that I saw in Boston and West, Texas, if we can institutionalize that, if we can create a framework where everybody is working together and moving this country forward. "Now, the good...

There is no Helping a Nation of Criminal enablers... (video)

Libya is rapidly deteriorating and could fall into bloody chaos at any moment. When Ambassador Christopher Stevens, under orders from the Obama-Clinton regime, first arrived in Libya he came by boat with approximately 80 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) people and contractors. Their mission was to topple Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi supposedly for humanitarian purposes. They accomplished their task by arming, aligning and coordinating with the “rebels”, who turned out to be Jihadists and Islamic militants. The rebel’s top military commander, Abdelhakim Belhadj, for example, was the emir to an al Qaeda affiliate called Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). Belhadj was...

Your government, as currently administered by President Obama, doesn’t like the word “patriot.” If you associate yourself with an organization using that word, you may be investigated and prosecuted. Under Obama, government employees think they are doing what their superiors want them to do when they harass and menace political organizations that might oppose the president. Vladimir Putin is probably jealous of Obama. He and others like him will hardly be able to hide their smiles when they hear the United States preach about the need to let political organizations function freely. What lessons should the Muslim Brotherhood learn from...

by John HillStand With ArizonaChris Crane, president of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers union, spoke to radio host Mark Levin, and unleashed two bombshells that should outrage all Americans. First, that Obama is "cooking the books" on his so-called "record" deportation numbers - inflating them by up to 50%, by Crane's estimate. And perhaps most shocking, Crane revealed that the race-baiting pressure group La Raza is effectively "running" ICE - forcing agents to stop enforcing the law against illegal aliens nationwide. Crane revealed these stunning facts to a disgusted Levin on his radio show Thursday night (audio...

Could assets have reached Benghazi in time to save lives?Insiders assess US reaction to terror attack

The brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals too aggressively. CBS News executives have reportedly expressed frustration with their own reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who has steadily covered the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya since late last year. “Network sources” told Politico Wednesday that CBS executives feel Attkisson’s Benghazi coverage is bordering on advocacy, and Attkisson “can’t get some of her stories on the air.” Attkisson, who is in...

Thomas Pickering - the former UN ambassador who along with former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen prepared the Accountability Review Board report on the State Department's handling of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya - says he didn't think it was necessary to interview former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "because in fact we knew where the responsibility rested." BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Ambassador Thomas Pickering is the one who led the State Department's investigation into how those Benghazi attacks where handled. Mr. Ambassador, you and I have known one another as you had...

Por La Raza, Todo! Joe Biden in full pander mode, totally without shame.- by John HillStand With ArizonaFew can equal Vice President Joe Biden as a race-baiting panderer. And Joe is increasingly making his professed amor for "Hispanics" standard fare for his stump speeches pushing amnesty for illegal aliens. Biden never misses an opportunity to put Hispanics - and especially illegals - on a pedestal. In January, addressing a group of newly-elected Latino members of Congress, Biden insisted that "now the nation -- and I might add the hemisphere -- understands the Hispanic community must be courted. Must be courted....

Congressional testimony this week showed the appalling lengths to which the Obama administration went to cover-up its mishandling of last fall’s terrorist attack at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, but President Obama’s precise role in the cynical operation remains hidden.Americans still don’t know what President Obama knew and when he knew it. We don’t know what exactly he did when he learned on Sept. 11, 2012 that U.S. officials in Benghazi were under attack. Obama may have gone to bed while the attack was in progress, leaving others in the administration to develop a politically expedient cover story calculated...

(CNSNews.com) -- Elements of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, the Libyan militia hired by the U.S. State Department to station members as residents inside the U.S. compound in Benghazi and to protect the U.S. diplomats there, were “complicit” in the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans, according to the testimony of Greg Hicks, who was the department's second-ranking diplomat in Libya at the time of the attack. “Certainly, elements of that militia were complicit in the attacks,” Greg Hicks, the State Department’s former deputy chief of mission in Libya told the House...

It's all up-to John Boehner now...  but early signs are good. Just a week ago, House Speaker John Boehner had to be dragged kicking-and-screaming into simply releasing an interim report from his own very quiet Benghazi panel. But he only did this once he felt a GOP rebellion brewing beneath his feet. Yet what a difference a few more days make- the atmosphere on Capitol Hill is rapidly changing in the wake of Wednesday's hearings, as more Americans experience the dawning realization that the radical and incompetent Obama Administration's dereliction of duty is what got Ambassador Stevens and three others...

Thanks to House Republicans, Americans finally got to hear from the State Department officials the Obama administration never wanted to testify. They are now called “whistleblowers,” but that’s only because their accounts of what really happened in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, were buried by the administration, apparently in the furtherance of Democrats’ election-year imperatives.Soon after the testimony, Democratic office-holders took to the airwaves and the internet to assure liberal loyalists that there was nothing really “new” here. Republicans, by contrast, trumpeted the accounts of Gregory Hicks, Eric Nordstrom, and Mark Thompson before the House Oversight Committee as proof that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Politicians love few things better than a scandal to trip up their opponents, and Republicans hope last year's fatal attack on U.S. diplomats in Libya will do exactly that to Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democrats. History suggests it might be a tough lift. The issue is complex, the next presidential election is more than three years away, and a number of reports and officials have disputed criticisms of Clinton's role when she was secretary of state. Still, Republicans and conservative talk hosts are hammering away at Clinton's and the Obama administration's handling of the 8-month-old tragedy....

The U.S. military could have prevented one wave of the deadly attack on American personnel in Benghazi if fighter jets had been promptly deployed, a top diplomatic official who was in Benghazi during the Sept. 11 assault told congressional investigators.

My iPhone buzzes on a regular basis with "news alerts" from Politico, The Hill and other sources. Politico provides breathless, this-cannot-wait-till-you-get-to-your desk "breaking news" sirens on every hiccup emanating from the White House. On April 22, for example, the news flash permitted me to learn without delay that "President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will on Thursday attend a memorial service for the victims of last week's explosion in West, Texas." When three career employees of the State Department announced their intention to testify before Congress -- contradicting the Obama administration's carefully constructed storyline about events in Benghazi,...

In the hours that followed, Hicks says, the Libyan military agreed to fly a C-130 from Tripoli to Benghazi in the early morning hours of September 12 – a flight that was to include a second team of Special Operations soldiers – dispatched from the Libyan capital to join a team sent earlier to Benghazi. But as those reinforcements were leaving for the flight, they were told to stand down. Hicks received the news in an early morning phone call from a top military commander in the region. “So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you...

Full title - "Report: Nearby US special forces blocked during Benghazi attack, told ‘you don’t have authority to go’" As the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya raged on for more than seven hours, a team of U.S. special forces in Tripoli was blocked from flying in to attempt a rescue, according to a top American diplomat who was in the region. In previously secret testimony given by Gregory Hicks — the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya — to congressional investigators last month, Hicks revealed two possible...

With whistleblowers coming forward and charging that members of President Barack Obama’s administration actively hindered the investigation into the events leading up to and following the deadly 2012 attack on an American consulate in Benghazi, the political blame game is also taking shape. On Monday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) appeared on Fox & Friends where he alleged that his Democratic colleagues in the Congress were not interested in the investigation into Benghazi until recently. When asked by the Fox News Channel hosts why some members of the administration appear to have engaged in a cover-up,

The deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya during a 2012 attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi told investigators he thought it was a terrorist strike from the beginning, according to interview excerpts released Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” “I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go. I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” Gregory Hicks said in an interview with investigators shared with “Face the Nation.” The excerpt was one of several host Bob Schieffer revealed on the program.Hicks is one of the...

President Barack Obama cited in his address to the people of Mexico on Friday a deceased Mexican writer who wrote that the United States was “the protector of tyrants,” condemned “North American imperialism” and expressed sympathy with an anti-American regime.Obama repeatedly referenced Nobel Prize-winning Mexican writer Octavio Paz (1914-1998) in his speech Friday at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, which he visited on the second day of a three-day tour of Mexico and Costa Rica.“In modern times, Mexico’s blend of cultures and traditions found its expression in the murals of Rivera and the paintings of Frida, and the poetry...

President Obama took a moment yesterday in Mexico to "editorialize just for a second about gun control," as he said at a joint press conference with his Mexican counterpart.

President Barack Obama, speaking in Mexico City on Friday, said the United States is responsible for much of the crime and violence in Mexico because of the demand for drugs and the illegal smuggling of guns across the southern border. … Obama acknowledged the illegal smuggling of guns into Mexico by American criminals, but did not mention the Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious that allowed the flow of about 2,000 U.S. guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009 and was halted in December 2010 after two of the weapons from the...

Pelosi: Hillary 'Would Be the Most Qualified Person to Enter the White House in Modern History' 'With all due respect to President Clinton when he went in, President Obama, and President Bush and everybody else.' Daniel Halper May 3, 2013 7:44 AM Ex-speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that she's praying Hillary Clinton will decide to run for president next election, because the former first lady is supremely qualified. "I pray that Hillary Clinton decides to run for president of the United States," the San Francisco congresswoman said at an event in Little Rock, Arkansas. And she said that...

According to Obama’s advisor on religious tolerance within the U.S. military, Christians sharing their faith, including chaplains, present “… a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs is to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.” “Criminalize Christianity” as an official policy of the federal government pertaining to military personnel? It is a short distance from that to jailing pastors, as they already do in Iran. Once the government grossly violates the 1st Amendment, preferring one group over another, it can prosecute anyone deemed...

The US government knows who organized the Benghazi attack that killed our ambassador and three others and yet he walks freely in Libya today. Why? The whistleblower says “we basically don’t want to upset anybody”.

Religious liberty groups have grave concerns after they learned the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group that compared Christian evangelism to “rape” and advocated that military personnel who proselytize should be court martialed. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is calling on the Air Force to enforce a regulation that they believe calls for the court martial of any service member caught proselytizing. President Mikey Weinstein and others from his organization met privately with Pentagon officials on April 23. He said U.S. troops who proselytize are guilty of sedition and treason and should be punished –...

The Pentagon’s top brass has dealt another blow to a decorated Army officer who was fired last year as a war college instructor because of his teachings about radical Islam, his attorney told The Washington Times. A four-star general’s rejection of Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley for consideration for command of a combat battalion likely means the end of a promising Army career of an armor officer who was decorated for valor in Iraq and received glowing evaluations. Last year, Col. Dooley underwent an Army command selection board review after he was transferred from the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk,...

Acting Deputy Spokesman Patrick Ventrell defended the State Department restricting access to Congress from lower-level staffers directly involved with the Benghazi investigation. Ventrell said that it was "appropriate" for the FBI and the Accountability Review Board to interview the Department employees but that Congress should only have access to their superiors. "Just as you wouldn’t have necessarily a soldier or troops called as witnesses, you have their superior officers, that’s the same practice for the State Department," Ventrell argued. Ventrell went on to say, "I think that these folks want to be able to continue their professional duties and activities,"...

'You’re a nice guy. That's a problem.  Nice guys are only popular in prison and in the Senate- and for similar reasons.' Today's Republican Party suffers from a paucity of those who can effectively communicate the conservative message. So what a shame I might not be able to vote for one of the few who DID possess that gift... WHAT on God's green Earth are you thinking, dude? Has it yet occurred that you're a DREAM prop for the Democrats here- the hispanic Republican who's marching lockstep with them on a bill that MANY of us see little good in? That...

The U.S. government had the ability to “react and respond” to the Benghazi terrorist attack and could have had forces on the ground before the second wave of the assault began, a special operator with knowledge of the response told Fox News in an exclusive interview. Due to the explosive nature of his allegations, the special ops member asked to remain anonymous. “I know for a fact that C 110 the UComm CIF was doing a training exercise, not in the region of northern Africa, but in Europe. And they had the ability to react and respond,” he told Fox...

UPDATE: Judge Bowler lists herself as “a dedicated international traveler” on her bio in Business Week. Where does she travel to in such a dedicated fashion? Who does she see there, and what does she do, so regularly as to be self-described as “dedicated”? And, perhaps, “dedicated” to anything in particular? Did she take on a radical Muslim boyfriend in her travels? UPDATE – BOWLER’S APPROVAL TO SPEAK IN EGYPT CAME FROM THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD – Excerpted from The Conservative Tree House: That 2012 trip is “Post Morsi” – Meaning she was delivering her speech at Cairo University after the...

Apparently, granny will still be getting the full pat down experience at the airport instead of young Muslim men returning home from volatile, Jihad ridden regions of the world like Dagestan. Attorney General Eric Holder is warning Americans not to discriminate against Muslims in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. Attorney General Eric Holder declared Monday that the Justice Department is on the lookout for acts of violence or discrimination that signal a backlash to the Boston Marathon bombings earlier this month in which three people were killed and scores wounded. "Our investigation into this matter remains ongoing –...

North Korean sympathizers have invaded our schools like this guy Myers (see info below) who is apparently teaching at colleges in Raleigh plus working to send school groups over to north korea and making money off it. North Korea has threatened to nuke us, says they are at war with us and this guy gets away with pushing hard currency and young minds over to them. He needs to be reported or at least we should let him know what we think of him. Maybe good old peer pressure will shut him down. His website and email and phone below:...

In comments made on April 25, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) both said they were saddened gun control didn't pass on April 17 but assured reporters the measures would be brought up for another vote some time this year. "I think we will bring the bill back before the end of the year... lots of Senators who thought it was safe to vote against it [on April 17] because of the intensity [pro-gun groups] are not so sure anymore," Schumer said. Schumer said the intensity for gun control has increased since the failed vote for gun control...

Back in March 2008, the State Department launched an investigation of improper computer access to the passport records of Barack Hussein Obama, and days later those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. The investigation centered on one employee: a contract worker for a company that was headed by John O. Brennan, a key Obama campaign adviser who later became assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Then, a month later, the key witness in this case was murdered. Leiutenant (sic) Quarles Harris, Jr., 24, was shot in the head in his car, in...

The full title - "(VIDEO) Fireworks at Napolitano hearing-DHS Sec unaware of classified doc leak and WH terror group visit" Fireworks on Capitol Hill happened at a Homeland Security Oversight hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Congressman Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, grilled Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano over reports (h/t Daily Beast) that an Egyptian terrorist group obtained visas and gained access to meet with top White House officials. Gohmert also went after Napolitano over Mohammed Elibiary, an individual she placed on the homeland security advisory council and, according to Gohmert, gained secret security clearance...

The FBI works for, and falls under the authority of, the Federal Department of Justice, Eric Holder. Which brings in a strange series of questions regarding the stoppage of questioning by the FBI of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Megyn Kelly outlines the initial issue: Initially the feds proclaimed Tsarnaev would fall under the “public safety exception to miranda” which would have given them 48 hours to question him prior to the delivery of Miranda protection. The feds didn’t even need to charge him with anything right away – but they did. In addition, something, obviously unexpected by the FBI interrogators, was changed....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require background checks to be run on anyone buying explosive powder, a reaction to last week's Boston Marathon bombing. Reid introduced the bill, S. 792, for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has been out sick for much of the year. But in a press statement, Lautenberg said the Boston bombing shows that background checks are needed for explosive materials. "It defies common sense that anyone, even a terrorist, can walk into a store in America and buy explosive powders without a background check or any questions asked,"...

The White House accused Republicans of a political distraction Wednesday after House committee chairmen asked President Obama to release a State Department cable that they said would prove Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary off state, signed off on security cuts at the diplomatic post in Benghazi ahead of the attack Sept. 11. According to the committee chairmen, the April 2012 Clinton cable denies the U.S. Embassy in Libya’s request for more security. Five months later, the outpost in Benghazi was attacked and four Americans were killed, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

A federal judge said this week that the Obama administration is likely violating the law by telling immigration agents and officers not to arrest illegal immigrants they deem low priority, in a case that could upend President Obama’s enforcement policy. For the last several years the administration has said it will no longer arrest most illegal immigrants, arguing it wants to focus only on those with serious criminal records or gang ties. The Homeland Security department said it was using “prosecutorial discretion.” Immigration agents and officers sued, saying federal law requires them to make the arrests, but the Obama administration...

Big Sis: Obama Admin Can Pick Which Laws to Enforce by Matthew Boyle 24 Apr 2013, 11:10 AM PDT During her testimony on the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that she, President Barack Obama and other political officials at the top of this administration have the authority to decide which laws to enforce, and which ones to ignore. Napolitano made the declaration in an exchange with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) when he was questioning her on how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have alleged...

HOLY CRAP– Saudi student Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi was injured in the Boston Marathon Bombings. He was once a “person of interest” in the bombings. He was put on a terror watch list after the bombings. Michelle Obama visited al-Harbi in the hospital last week. He posted pictures on his Facebook page: Then there’s this… Abdul Rahman Al-Harbi has visited the White House several times since 2009.