Free Republic

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), a likely 2016 presidential candidate, faced off against a hostile college student on Wednesday. The student, identified in reports as 19-year-old Ivy Ziedrich, introduced herself as a young Democrat attending the University of Nevada, Reno. She quickly moved on to accuse Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, of laying the groundwork for the rise of the Islamic State jihadist group (also known as ISIS). Ziedrich argued that the US didn't do enough to take care of former Iraqi soldiers after Geroge W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. "The threat of ISIS was created...

Remember when George Stephanopoulos declared during an interview with Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer that the book had found no “smoking gun” against the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons themselves? Guess what Stephanopoulos didn’t declare — his own financial contributions to an organization that Sunlight Foundation official Bill Allison said operates like “a slush fund for the Clintons.” Dylan Byers at Politico discovered a smoking gun aimed at the credibility of Stephanopoulos as a journalist: ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose...

President Obama talked this week about poverty, a subject he should know a lot about, since he's done such a good job of expanding it. Instead, he offered only fact-challenged and badly misguided ideas.

Is there anything about the POS that isn’t fake? (See “Obama’s entire life is a lie“) Fake birth certificate. Fake military draft (Selective Service) registration. A fake female as wife. Add fake family photos to the list. 1. Pic of Obama and his grandparents You’ve probably all seen that picture of Obama seated between his maternal grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, supposedly taken in Central Park sometime in the early 1980s while the Dunhams were visiting Obama when he was a student at Columbia University. The photo was among other family photos of Obama which were released by his presidential...

CHATSWORTH Investigators probing Friday's fatal Metrolink collision planned to interview the freight train's brakeman and the conductor Wednesday, the first full day of resumed service along the stretch of track that was closed after the crash that killed 25 people and injured 135 others. Investigations have linked the cause of the crash to Metrolink engineer Robert Martin Sanchez, a La Crescenta resident who previously lived in Menifee. Authorities Tuesday staged a re-creation of the collision, bringing two trains nose-to-nose on the tracks in Chatsworth and then moving them back and forth to determine what the engineers on each was able...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has filed an amendment to the Trade Act of 2015 to lock in assurances that this legislation cannot be used to change federal immigration law. “The Obama Administration has repeatedly assured Members of Congress that there is nothing in the Trade Act of 2015 that would allow the President to unilaterally make changes to federal immigration laws,” said Sen. Cruz. “I agree, and we should put it in writing and make it binding law. I am a strong supporter of free trade, but I cannot support legislation that would allow the President to once again circumvent...

The Obama administration has delivered a critical natural gas export license to Cheniere Energy’s proposed liquefaction terminal in Corpus Christi, marking the first such approval for a greenfield project that would not be built on the footprint of an older LNG facility. With the move late Tuesday, the Energy Department is allowing Cheniere to export as much as 2.1 billion cubic feet per day of liquefied natural gas over the next 20 years from the planned facility to countries with which the United States does not have free trade agreements. The company announced Wednesday that its board of directors had...

We had previously evaluated this organization, but have since determined that this charity's atypical business model can not be accurately captured in our current rating methodology. Our removal of The Clinton Foundation from our site is neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity.

Reflections on the Latest Pew Survey Documenting “Religious Decline” – Not So Fast By: Msgr. Charles PopeA well-publicized Pew Survey given publicity in yesterday’s Washington Post announced a kind of “doom” for traditional religion in this country. I do not dispute most of the results as an accurate snapshot of today.But snapshots have a way of recording things that eventually are replaced by other realities in the ensuing years. It is clear that what we have called “traditional religious practice” is in trouble. Cultural trends no longer favor the Sunday observance or the sectarian loyalty with which many of us...

“More than 1,000 gay, lesbian and transgender Cubans marched through Havana on Saturday,” reports Reuters, “proudly displaying their truest selves.” This once-unthinkable display in Cuba was no less than its eighth annual “March Against Homophobia and Transphobia.” This one took on extra special meaning for 20 couples who “symbolically exchanged” wedding vows, even as same-sex marriage remains illegal in Cuba, but obviously not for long. If this can happen under the dictatorial nose of despots Fidel and Raul Castro, then it’s already permissible. Gay Cubans erupted into a celebratory parade, banging conga drums and waving rainbow-colored banners. The special day...

On Tuesday, Pew Research released a new study finding a radical increase in the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans. That increase correlated strongly with the decrease in the number of Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelical Protestants over the past seven years.

Jeb Bush’s decision to forego this summer’s Iowa Straw Poll has roiled many conservatives in the state, but that snub might only be the beginning: According to three sources with knowledge of Bush’s campaign strategy, the likely Republican presidential candidate does not plan to seriously contest the first-in-the-nation caucuses — and may ultimately skip the state altogether. Tim Miller, a spokesman for Bush, strongly denied that the candidate planned to write off Iowa, and suggested those who say otherwise are merely speculating. “There is nobody with any shred of authority or proximity to Gov. Bush suggesting that, should he decide...

You might know Nicolle Wallace as one of the co-hosts of The View, but you’re more likely to be familiar with her work as the GOP campaign operative that was once responsible for handling vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It was a role for which she apparently feels duty-bound to repent. Absolution from the liberal entertainers who have given her a second career seems, however, eternally just beyond her reach. As a commentator and frequent television guest in the Obama era, Wallace has embraced punditry. Offering unsolicited advice to political figures is part of that job description, and Wallace has...

You might know Nicolle Wallace as one of the co-hosts of The View, but you’re more likely to be familiar with her work as the GOP campaign operative that was once responsible for handling vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It was a role for which she apparently feels duty-bound to repent. Absolution from the liberal entertainers who have given her a second career seems, however, eternally just beyond her reach. As a commentator and frequent television guest in the Obama era, Wallace has embraced punditry. Offering unsolicited advice to political figures is part of that job description, and Wallace has...

The South Carolina Supreme Court has suspended a Columbia area lawyer who had sex with a married man for years while representing both the man and his wife in more than 20 legal actions. The lawyer, Kay Paschal, has admitted she committed misconduct and created ethical conflicts with her “secret, sexual relationship” and has accepted her suspension for a term of three years, the Supreme Court wrote in a unanimous seven-page opinion released Wednesday. During the more than 30 years the relationship and legal representations took place, Paschal, who’s now in her late 60s, earned about $87,000 in fees from...

BREAKING: GotNews IDs Gay Activist Train Engineer Who Caused Amtrak Crash UPDATED W/ PHOTOS! May 13, 2015 by Charles C. Johnson 184 Comments Gotnews.com has independently identified the engineer at the center of the Amtrak crash that has killed at least seven. Brandon Bostian is the 32-year-old gay man who lawyered up after a deadly derailment in Philadelphia. The train was reportedly going twice the speed limit.

On a panel promoting pre-Kindergarten programs at a conference recently in Austin, Texas, a pair of government officials–one local, one federal–made their case. Representing the City of New York, Richard Buery suggested that employing universal preschool is the number-one issue for Mayor Bill de Blasio. To critics of increasingly centralized learning schemes, Buery had something to say. “There are people who do not want us to succeed for a variety of reasons,” he acknowledged. “People speak ill of government so often.” But apparently there is nothing about which to worry because “[g]overnment is doing big things for people.” Far-left Democrats...

Congress won't stop it. We have to.

The state of Connecticut may be embarking on new territory as they seem to be pushing a rather creative way to extract revenue from for-profit businesses. The state legislature of Connecticut has proposed what’s commonly referred to as SB1044. Muddled in the labyrinth known as legal terminology, we find this gem of a sentence in the bill itself: Any covered employer that employs, or whose franchisee employs, any employee (1) who was listed on such covered employer’s or such franchisee’s payroll for at least ninety calendar days prior to the completion of the most recent calendar quarter, and (2) whose...