Free Republic

LOS ANGELES—After continued calls demanding that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) apologize for his remarks and actions demonizing the tea party by comparing them to Ku-Klux-Klan members, the South Central LA. Tea Party, a black-led group, is calling on the liberal Democrat’s top donors to stop funding his re-election campaign. The far-left congressman recently attacked the tea party on MSNBC and sent out a campaign mailer to his constituents depicting an image of a burning cross in place of the letter “T” for tea party surrounded by Klansmen. The image also had the following caption: “Now You Know What the ‘T’...

Of all the people bidding for your pity today, Amber Langford and Annie Collinge might seem unlikely recipients. The pair, both 19-year-old students at the University of Chester, dressed as the blazing Twin Towers on Halloween. According to the Sun: “Each was labelled North and South Tower and featured explosions, flames and even people jumping from windows in a shocking reminder of the 9/11 atrocity. The girls topped off their costumes with hats bearing US flags and what seemed to be the smouldering wreckage of a plane.” It’s sick and stupid, to put it mildly. But the punishment is huge....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We're gonna start in Pittsburgh. This is Bob. It's great to have you, sir. Hello. CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. This is a pleasure for me to be able to speak to you today. RUSH: Thank you, sir. CALLER: You know, I've been a listener only since the days of Operation Chaos, and before that I was one of those hard-core Democrat union goons, but I've come a long way and have to thank you for that. RUSH: Welcome home, sir. Welcome home. CALLER: What I'm thinking about today is not... So the blood is in the water....

Illinois all but became the 15th state to enact gay marriage Tuesday as lawmakers passed the bill with only one vote to spare in the lower chamber, sending the bill to a governor eager to sign it. The bill, which was still sitting on the desk of Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, on Tuesday evening, will permit gay marriages to begin in June, a delay crucial in winning passage as it changed the needed number of votes. Tuesday’s crucial vote came in the House, which had unexpectedly refused to go along the last time it was presented with a gay-marriage...

Chris Matthews' idea of a promo for his show immediately goes to race-baiting and instilling fear in the hearts of African American voters. Hey Reince! Didn't you start a 36 state effort to suppress the black vote? I wouldn't call anybody the culture of hatred. During tonight's Hardball with Chris Matthews the host sarcastically called GOP Chairman Reince Priebus a "genius" during a promo for an upcoming segment. After the commercial break, the segment pulled a clip from an episode of Priebus on Hannity saying President Obama has created a culture of hatred. Matthews spent the entire segment talking about what he deemed GOP voter suppression...

The word "paternalism" has been bandied about concerning the various pathetic defenses of Barack Obama's now infamous claim that "If you like your health care, you can keep it. Period." Well, yes, you can actually keep the health care you had before Obamacare was crammed through Congress. The caveat that was always unstated by the president, by any and all Democrats in Congress or the administration and by the mainstream media was that you could keep it if, and only if, it complied with every aspect of the new (Orwellian) Affordable Care Act. Certain people who might generally be viewed...

The Dutch foreign minister on Tuesday denounced Russia's law banning homosexual "propaganda" among minors and said the violation of gay rights could be grounds for asylum in the Netherlands.

The ex-chief of staff for House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) helped Democrat Terry McAuliffe beat Republican Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia’s gubernatorial election race.Boyd Marcus, the chief of staff for Cantor until 2003—who later teamed with another GOP operative Ray Allen to found the firm Marcus Allen, which Cantor employed until earlier this year—joined the McAuliffe campaign after Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, with whom Marcus campaigned, did not win the GOP nominee in Virginia.“I was looking at the candidates, and I saw Terry McAuliffe as the guy who will work with everybody to get things done,” Marcus told the...

I have mentioned before that many years ago in seminary I was quite surprised to listen to some of my professors declare what I considered to be heretical things about Jesus Christ. They often said, he did not claim to be God, or he did not know he was God.When I might meekly suggest a certain biblical text that more than suggested he darn well knew he was divine they seemed unimpressed and invoked dubious theories that denied the biblical text was a credible source.Thankfully I had some other professors who were able to reassure me that the Divinity of...

Even if healthcare.gov, the web portal for federal health insurance exchange, worked perfectly, more than 5 million poor, uninsured adults, many of them Black, will continue to go without coverage, because they live in states that didn’t expand Medicaid, according to a recent brief by the the Kaiser Family Foundation. Through the Affordable Care Act, the federal government agreed to pay 100 percent of the cost of the Medicaid expansion through 2016 and at least 90 percent through 2020. The Obama administration planned for nationwide expansion of Medicaid, the health insurance program that covers the poor and disabled, setting the...

Failing to heed the lessons of the Solyndra debacle, Energy Department officials kept quiet about their knowledge that a government-backed electric car charger company was sliding toward bankruptcy and putting taxpayer money at risk, the agency’s chief watchdog has found.Inspector General Greg Friedman admonished department officials for failing to disclose during an audit this summer what they knew about San Francisco-based Ecotality’s financial troubles and the possibility that the firm might not meet the terms of its taxpayer funding. The company received $100 million in aid from the 2009 stimulus.“We are deeply concerned because the information directly related to the...

A mortar round hit the apostolic nunciature in the Syrian capital, causing limited damage to the building and no casualties because of the early hour of the strike, said the Vatican ambassador to Syria. Archbishop Mario Zenari, the Vatican nuncio, told Vatican Radio Nov. 5 that if the rocket had been launched just a half-hour later, he would have been saying morning prayers on the terrace near where the mortar struck. "You can imagine what I would have encountered," he said. He told the radio that he was just getting out of bed at 6:35 a.m. local time "when I...

The United States is the global leader in medical innovation. You can measure that by Nobel Prizes or biotech R&D or where breakthrough treatments are developed or commercialized. And as University of Michigan economist Miles Kimball points out, one reason healthcare spending is lower in other advanced economies is their ability to “ cheaply copy drugs and medical techniques developed in the US at great expense.” But healthcare innovation isn’t just about miracle drugs and cutting-edge technology. Innovation can happen in how healthcare services are delivered and paid for. And it is in this area that the Affordable Care Act...

In February of 1967, a 1953 Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle was stolen from a man's backyard in Omaha, Nebraska. More than 45 years later, that same bike was found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at a Los Angeles port. The bike had been on its way to Yokohama, Japan when authorities from Customs decided to take a closer look, the Orange County Register reported. Upon seeing that bike's vehicle identification number (VIN) matched a bike that was reported stolen way back when, agents seized the bike. The bike, estimated to be worth around $9,000, was then...

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Among the many rules I grew up with, two stand out. The first was to never call someone a liar, which was considered the worst character indictment one could issue. The accuser had best be prepared to fight or be fleet of foot. The other was a dictum so oft- repeated that it is permanently tattooed on my brain: “If you’ll lie by omission, you’ll lie by commission.” This first rule sheds light on why it was so shocking when in 2009 Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted, “You lie,” as President Obama was addressing Congress. Beyond an insult to decorum,...

".......In a damning account of the Obamacare implementation, my Post colleagues Amy Goldstein and Juliet Eilperin described how Obama rejected pleas from outside experts and even some of his own advisers to bring in people with the expertise to handle the mammoth task; he instead left the project in the care of in-house loyalists. “Three and a half years later, such insularity — in that decision and others that would follow — has emerged as a central factor in the disastrous rollout,” Goldstein and Eilperin reported. Their report is based in part on a prescient memo sent to the White...

Asbury Park, N.J. — Signed, sealed, delivered. A triumphant Chris Christie took the stage to the Stevie Wonder classic on Tuesday night after trouncing his opponent by over 20 points and propelling himself to the front of the GOP’s 2016 presidential pack. Though the 51-year-old governor addressed himself to New Jerseyans, his message was clearly aimed at Republicans across the country. Choose leaders, not lecturers; be willing to compromise; stop insisting on ideological purity, he counseled. “We stand here tonight showing that it is possible to put doing your job first, to put working together first, to stand by your...

An Egyptian delegation visited Moscow last Thursday to strengthen ties between the two countries, reports Haaretz, just a few days after America announced the suspension of $250 million in military aid to Egypt. With the return of the delegation from Moscow, Egypt expressed intentions to buy MiG-29 planes and other military equipment from Russia in a $15 billion deal. Some reports indicate Saudi Arabia—which is itself experiencing something of a crisis in its relations with the Obama administration—will help finance the deal. …

A three-judge panel unanimously acquitted former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman of the charges against him Wednesday morning. The verdict means he can return to serve as foreign minister, but the state is expected to appeal it. “Seventeen years are over; it’s behind me,” Lieberman told reporters after the verdict. “I want to thank my family and friends who truly stood by me in all of those 17 years and gave me the support. I want to thank the defense team that did an amazing job; extraordinary.” “I do not intend to deal with this issue anymore,” he added. “This chapter...