Free Republic

In an explosive exchange outside the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., security guards for billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg accosted senior Talk Radio Network investigative reporter Jason Mattera when he asked the mayor about his strong support for gun control. In the video, Bloomberg is seen surrounded by security. Mattera approaches Bloomberg and asks, “In the spirit of gun control, will you disarm your entire security team?” Bloomberg’s reply: “Uh, you, we’ll get right back to you.” “Why can you defend yourself but not the majority of Americans?” Mattera asks as the mayor walks away....

The Facebook group "I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive" has surpassed 3,300 "likes." The founder explicitly says, "This is a page about venting dislike over Sarah Palin. This is no way advocates an assassination of Sarah Palin in any way, shape or form." The fact that the group's name specifically wishes for her death is one thing that dispels that ludicrous statement. The second is its main picture, which clearly shows what the group advocates: ...Oddly, the group has also denounced President Obama, calling him "conservative."

Sarah Palin uttered more than 189,000 words over 150 appearances on various FOX broadcasts during her three years as an analyst at the network, or $15.85 per word With the three-year contract now expired between FOX News and Sarah Palin, there is a wealth of commentary made by the former Alaska Governor and GOP Vice-Presidential nominee to dissect. Palin, who was paid a reported $1 million per year as a contributor to FOX since mid-January 2010 when FOX announced her signing, may not have made quite the splash her employers had hoped during this three-year period, and would, on occasion...

Focus group words, continuously repeated to fool both people and politicians.

Unless Congress acts, March 1 will trigger a $55 billion-per-year ($45 billion in 2013, as the fiscal cliff deal delayed the cuts for two months) cut in national defense, known as sequestration, which will weaken the United States’s ability to defend itself. But this does not have to happen; Congress should cut other spending to prevent the debilitating cuts to defense. National defense, unlike most other discretionary programs, is a central constitutional duty and today represents only 17 percent of the budget. Yet nearly half of the Congress-mandated sequestration cuts—$492 billion—would come from defense. These across-the-board cuts threaten our...

The leader of a national gay-rights group says he’s coming out–as a friend of Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy. “I’ve gotten to know Dan, he’s gotten to know me. He’s shared concerns about young people, about Chick-fil-A being used for certain purposes,” Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, told ABC News. SNIP In July, Equality Matters examined tax forms and found that in 2010 the restaurant chain had donated over $1.9 million to “anti-gay causes.” In September, the restaurant chain pledged to stop donating to anti-gay groups. Windmeyer says those donations stopped in 2011.

Probably not only the purposes our devoted civil savants advance to justify them I'm not a stupid racist, so you don't scare me! Uh, you do work for the DHS -- don't you? * * * * * * Stuff that doesn't work An article at PJ Tatler claims that "even supporters admit background checks won't reduce gun violence." However, the article does not contend that a push for background checks might be motivated by additional objectives. The article notes flaws in the aggregation of State data on mental illness and assorted crimes. For instance, while the background checks cover...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Obama said to the New Republic he'd get a lot more done without Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The rest of the media's in the tank. Everybody else has fallen in line. There is no opposition other than Fox News and Limbaugh. The way it works, and what this all boils down to, the Republicans, I mean, everybody knows they want to get along with Democrats. Everybody knows they want to socialize. They want their lives to have meaning, but Limbaugh is the one standing in the way 'cause what happens? The Republicans are simply afraid that...

"When he goes to Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends to relax, not to produce photographs," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday. He said he had never seen any pictures of Obama skeet shooting. ~~SNIP~~ "He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I'm not sure how often he’s done that." According to CBS News' Mark Knoller, who keeps statistics on the president's movements, Obama has visited Camp David 29 times, spending a total of 72 days there since taking office.

When an amateur prospector strapped on a metal detector and set out to look for gold he was hoping to get lucky, but he had no idea how lucky he would be. The prospector, who wishes to remain anonymous, was searching for the precious metal just outside of Ballarat, Australia, on Wednesday, when he came across a massive gold nugget weighing in at over 11 pounds. Cordell Kent, the owner of The Mining Exchange Gold Shop in Ballarat, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the find was one of the most significant in his 20 years in the business: “We...

I applaud [the bipartisan group of eight] Senators for setting partisanship aside to tackle a crucial issue facing our nation. This is a positive first step.”“I pledge that I will do everything in my power as Majority Leader to get a bill across the finish line.”“With bipartisan support building in both houses of Congress and a President who is eager to solve this problem, there is no reason we should not pass comprehensive immigration reform immediately.”Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke on the Senate floor today about immigration reform. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery.Last...

An agreement over sweeping overhaul of immigration law reached by a bipartisan group of leading senators has quickly drawn its critics. The outline of the plan covers border security, guest workers and employer verification, as well as a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country. The deal, expected to be announced later this afternoon, has a long wayto go before the thorny details are worked out. But the development heralds the start of what could be the most significant effort in years toward overhauling the nation's inefficient patchwork of immigration laws. It is already...

Last Friday, ex-CIA officer John Kiriakou was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by federal judge Leonie Brinkema under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. It's the first time that a CIA officer will serve prison time for disclosing classified information to news media. The judge rejected his claims that he acted in the interests of the nation as a whistleblower: A plea deal required the judge to impose a sentence of 2 1/2 years. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said she would have given John Kiriakou much more time if she could. Kiriakou's supporters describe him as a...

January 28, 2013 Jay Carney has never seen a photo of Obama skeet-shooting Joel Gerhke President Obama said that he “goes skeet-shooting all the time,” a comment that apparently has the White House press corps a little suspicious. A reporter today asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney how often Obama goes shooting and why hasn’t the press corps heard about this before? Carney simply referred her to Obama’s statement. Is there a photo of the president shooting? “There may be, but I haven’t seen it,” Carney replied. He didn’t mention if he had personally seen Obama go shooting.

He’s the elusive hairy giant of legend, a tabloid hero and news diversion. Now, Bigfoot is back in the headlines. It’s not foot prints, grainy video or sightings. This time it’s audio. A recording that was given to the Oregonian newspaper captured high-pitched shrieks and roars from a swampy area in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, a bigfoot hot spot for decades. People living in the area said they’ve been hearing the strange cries in the night since November.

Why are progressives so eager to suppress the things most necessary for economic growth? In his inaugural address on January 21, President Obama invoked great ideals of human dignity, equality, and most especially “progress” to justify his second-term agenda, a cornerstone of which will be a crusade to limit humanity’s use of carbon.In fact, nothing could be more antithetical to the goal of advancing the human condition than restricting carbon consumption. A look at the relationship between living standards and humanity’s carbon utilization over the past 200 years, as shown in Figure 1, below, makes this perfectly clear.Fig. 1 Average...

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How big of an Obama lapdog is Andrea Mitchell? Even bigger than ardent Obama fan Chris Hughes. The Facebook co-founder, who bought the New Republic last year, recently scored an interview with President Obama that has been criticized for its generally soft questioning. But during an appearance on Mitchell's MSNBC show today, even Hughes was more candid about the prez than Mitchell. When it came to the President's statement during the interview that at Camp David "we do skeet shooting all the time," Mitchell claimed "he didn't say that he was skeet shooting, but he does say that it's one...

The equal treatment of gay spouses in the military took a step forward after the Fort Bragg spouse’s club offered full membership to the wife of a female officer. Ashley Broadway, who is married to Lt. Col. Heather Mack, was offered full membership to the Association of Bragg Officers’ Spouses on Friday, after initially being offered a guest membership. “In order to immediately support all military officer spouses who are eligible for ABOS membership, a more inclusive definition of spouse was needed,” the group wrote on its website. Moving forward, the group said any spouse of an active duty commissioned...

The White House says President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone on Monday, almost a week after Netanyahu's ticket won the most seats in Israel's parliamentary election. Obama reportedly called and congratulated Netanyahu on his success in the election. He said that he looked forward to working with Israel's next government, and affirmed his commitment to a strong U.S. relationship with Israel and to promoting regional peace and security. Relations between Obama and Netanyahu were strained during Obama's first term. Supporters of Obama accused Netanyahu of interfering in the U.S. election in favor of Obama's...