Free Republic

In March 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum, a student at North Carolina Central University, who worked as a stripper and an escort, accused three members of the Duke lacrosse team — Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans — of raping her at an off-campus party. The case captivated the country, with the media breathlessly reporting the statements of prosecutor Mike Nifong, who was later fired, disbarred and imprisoned for 24 hours, and then those of the players' defense attorneys in a seemingly endless loop of contradictions. In April 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said there was "no credible...

Television history was made last night when a guest on “Late Show with David Letterman,” for quite possibly the first and last time, used the words “murdered” and “aborted” in the same sentence. The person doing the talking was former president Jimmy Carter, who’s making the rounds to plug his new book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power.” (Video after the jump) Any conservative saying what Carter said, which was profoundly disturbing, would be immediately condemned by the left as an extremist – jimmycarterLETTERMAN: Things are contained in this book that I was completely ignorant about and...

A new Facebook meme paints two leading Republicans as anti-science because of their alleged views of the age of the Earth. The Facebook group Being Liberal posted a picture March 10, 2014, featuring side-by-side images of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., looking somewhat sheepish. Bolded text under the images describes the senators’ views on the age of the Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs. According to the meme, Rubio "believes Earth (is) 9,000 years old," and "humans hunted dinosaurs to extinction." Paul, the image proclaims, says the Earth is 10,000 years old and believes "God...

You’d think conservatives Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are outspoken enough without liberal media sources having to lie about their words. But you’d be underestimating the unscrupulous partisanship of political “journalists." Case in point: the dishonest reporting of the comments from both GOP senators at the Susan B. Anthony Campaign for Life Summit in Washington, D.C. on March 12. An AP report appearing on The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, U.S. News and World Report and several other organizations cherry-picked and twisted statements from Sen. Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Lee (R-UT) from the pro-life event.  Here’s what Sen. Cruz actually said: (More after video.)...

A Republican Senate candidate in North Carolina is defending his remarks that some abortion rights groups contemplate infanticide. Greg Brannon, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, told a group in November that killing babies who survived abortions could happen in America, according to a report Wednesday in Mother Jones magazine. …

Calling their opponents Satan worshipers and savages, anti-abortion lawmakers on Wednesday insisted that Republican contenders keep an intense focus on social issues in the upcoming midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race. Like many abortion opponents, the Susan B. Anthony List is in search of a White House contender who won’t shy from social issues after back-to-back presidential nominees in 2008 and 2012 who focused their campaigns on the economy and came up short. Several potential 2016 candidates were making their pitches in blunt terms, urging the group members to stick to their principles and fight those who would stand...

Carly Fiorina, former California GOP senate challenger to Barbara Boxer, emerged at the Conservative Political Action Conference here as the speaker most willing to engage the Republicans' persistent problems with appealing to women. Well, after she spent the first half of her speech denying climate change. Priorities! Fiorina didn't offer a solution, but she did offer some great slogans: "I am a proud pro-life woman. ... I believe science is proving us right everyday!" (Hey, don't knock junk science until you've tried it, right?) She also echoed a feminist line when she said, "All issues are women's issues." I like...

Here is a selection of recent headlines: “Jon Stewart Destroys Megyn Kelly,” “Jon Stewart Destroys Fox News’ ‘Spite-Driven Anger Machine,’” “Jon Stewart Destroys What’s Left of Peggy Noonan’s Credibility,” “Jon Stewart Destroys Fox News Over Syria Coverage,” “Jon Stewart Destroys Glenn Beck’s Utopia,” “Jon Stewart Destroys Bill O’Reilly” — there are about 520,000 more — and, not to be missed, “Jon Stewart Destroys Chicago-Style Pizza.” The sound of terrors is in his ears at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central, and in prosperity the destroyer cometh upon him. Mr. Stewart is the host of a fake news show, the genesis of...

A Republican hopeful for Texas governor drew harsh criticism for hitting the campaign trail Tuesday with Ted Nugent, the controversial rocker who recently described President Barack Obama as a "subhuman mongrel." Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appeared at two campaign stops with the outspoken gun-loving musician-turned-commentator on the first day of early primary voting in the traditionally Republican state where he faces a surprisingly tough challenge by a rising-star Democrat.

ABC chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl says many of Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s fellow Republican senators despise him — like, really, totally hate him. “The Republicans in the Senate had this all set. This was going to be able to pass with only Democratic votes. He stands up, says ‘I’m going to filibuster’, suddenly they need 60 votes,” Karl explained on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, speaking of last week’s vote to increase the debt ceiling. “I’ll tell you, Ted Cruz is so hated among his Republicans now — more so than even during the shutdown — that at...

David Remnick of The New Yorker showed up on PBS’s Charlie Rose Monday night to discuss his long, mostly sympathetic profile of Barack Obama from the January 27 issue of the magazine. Near the end of the interview, Rose focused in on the president’s reported desire to be “big.” The host wondered, “[W]hat's his definition of 'big,' and does he believe in his deep recesses of his own mind that the chance of that has slipped away?” Remnick replied that no, Obama does not think his chance of being “big” has slipped away. The editor then rattled off a laundry...

...And here’s the Democratic candidate, Jennifer Wexton. In court, she put rapists in prison, and in Richmond, she’ll fight Tea Partiers, who are basically the same thing: (video at link)

<p>On Friday a producer and former CBS reporter named Itay Hod put up a Facebook post intended to out Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock. The tabloid media, for years, has played a game with the young Republican—wink-wink stories about his photoshoot for a men's health magazine, the sexy celebrities he follows on Twitter, stuff like that.</p>

In 2009, the gap between the share of Republicans and Democrats who believed in evolution was just 10 percentage points, 54 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Last year, that gap widened to a whopping 24 points because as the percentage of Democrats who believed in evolution inched up to 67 percent, the percentage of Republicans believing so plummeted to 43 percent. Now, more Republicans believe that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” than believe in evolution. This sad news comes via a survey released this week by the Pew Research...

When it comes to increasing partisanship in the United States, it seems no issue is immune. And that includes evolution. A new Pew Research Center poll shows a widening political gap over theories about how humans came to be, with Republicans growing increasingly skeptical about the idea that humans evolved over time. …

While certain Democrats remain undaunted in their insistence that the whole lot of ‘em are totally, absolutely, unequivocally going to be running on ObamaCare in 2014 and using it “as an advantage,” other Democrats are clearly feeling a little more… well, daunted. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO When Sen. Landrieu learned that individuals who liked their health insurance could no longer keep it, despite the President’s promise, she wrote legislation to insure that the promise was kept. As a result, the President issued guidance allowing states and insurance companies to renew individual health plans for another year. Dang. This...

Republican men in Congress “aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be” when it comes to running against female candidates and appealing to female voters, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “We’re trying to get them to be a little more sensitive,” Boehner said at his weekly Capitol press conference. “You look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican caucus. And some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” The Speaker was responding to a question about an article in Politico reporting that...

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the various polls on Barack Obama’s performance and noted the dramatic decline in approval on both policy areas and personal qualities. Today, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan take a look at the former, and inform readers that Obama is in much bigger trouble than just dropping below 40% overall approval: Recent polling from the Pew Research Center and Quinnipiac University has shown Obama’s approval rating on almost all major issues plunging into the 30s — below even his lowest-ever overall approval rating, which has stood around 40 percent...

Just a few dozen stations now carry liberal talkers, as key affiliates in cities with active left-wing politics are falling like dominoes, going dark or switching formats. Detroit’s progressive outlet shut down in January, along with Seattle’s liberal talk station, which changed to sports. And after last year’s election, Portland’s progressive talk station ended its political programming. With the political battlegrounds of 2014 and 2016 on the horizon, reducing the whopping imbalance between conservative radio, with its huge fan base, and the left has become more important than ever, according to those in the progressive media world. POLITICO spoke with...

Oh my gosh — This is really bad— James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released video tonight showing an Obamacare navigator conspiring to release private data for political purposes. Busted! Do you know where your personal data is going? After meeting with several Obamacare Navigators who openly encouraged our undercover reporters to lie about income status, health history and more, it became clear that personal data was also being “cross-pollinated.” Enter Enroll America, a Sebelius-linked group dedicated to signing people up for Obamacare and Chris Tarango, Texas Enroll America Communications Director who Project Veritas caught on tape agreeing to help obtain a...