Free Republic

On one hand, Progress Kentucky has succeeded in ways most political-action committees rarely do. In only four or five months of existence, they have driven the national news cycle not once but twice. Unfortunately for Progress KY and Democrats in the state, they’ve been the scandal both times. Their operatives turned out to be behind the racist tweets attacking Mitch McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao, and now they’ve allegedly managed to out-bumble the Watergate burglars in secretly recording a McConnell campaign meeting, in which they were most definitely not participants.BuzzFeed calls Progress KY the “least effective liberal group” in the state,...

Which is, well, kinda what Sen. Mitch McConnell said yesterday. These are the same guys who sent out racist tweets about McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, and her Chinese heritage. Local news in Kentucky is reporting, via a Democratic official, that Progress Kentucky is behind the secret tapes published by Mother Jones this week, which revealed McConnell operatives in the act of…running a campaign. The story immediately went viral in political circles, not so much for teh videos’ content as for McConnell’s pushback. The Republican senator quickly went on offense, decrying the left’s “Nixonian-style” tactics, and turning the non-story of the...

McConnell campaign asks for FBI investigation over leaked Ashley Judd tapes By Caitlin Dewey, Updated: April 9, 2013 Mitch McConnell’s campaign has accused opponents of bugging McConnell’s headquarters and has asked for an FBI investigation after a recording from an internal campaign meeting surfaced on Mother Jones this morning.The 12-minute tape reveals McConnell and his campaign staff lampooning then-potential candidate Ashley Judd, whom they call “a haystack of needles” or political liabilities, at a Feb. 2 meeting. Judd has since decided not to run.“We’ve always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Nixonian tactics to...

The FBI has been asked to investigate how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, a source close the McConnell re-election campaign tells CNN.

Attorney General Jerry Brown's office has sparked debate about its interpretation of state privacy laws after it determined that a spokesman had not done anything illegal by secretly taping conversations with news reporters. At issue is state penal code section 632, which prohibits the intentional recording without consent of "confidential communication." While announcing the results of an internal investigation, Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette wrote that the privacy protection of such communication did not include on-the-record media interviews – a view that clashes with the common understanding of a state Supreme Court ruling on the law. Under Gillette's interpretation,...

LOS ANGELES A federal judge refused to suppress evidence in a government case that accused Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano of illegally wiretapping stars. U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer issued six separate rulings on Friday that went against Pellicano and five co-defendants. The motions sought to suppress evidence the defense argued was mishandled or obtained through government misconduct. That included recordings of Pellicano's telephone conversations that were seized in a search of his Sunset Strip offices four years ago. One of the motions sought to have the entire criminal indictment dismissed. "We are extremely pleased with the court's ruling,"...

The British are withdrawing from Basra, leaving it to mercy of the Shiite militias. Because they are embarrassed, UK General Michael Jackson (who has a book to sell), is now trashing the Bush Administration in public.    It's just another sunny day in the NATO neighborhood. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is supposed to be a mutual defense treaty. That has been conveniently forgotten for the last several decades by Europe, where NATO simply came down to Uncle Sam assuming Europe's defense while the locals mostly went on a long, long welfare vacation -- and suicidally imported millions of Jihad supporters to...

GENEVA: The United Nations European headquarters, where a listening device was discovered in a ministerial meeting room, is probably rife with secret spying equipment, a UN security source said yesterday. "It's like Swiss cheese," a UN security source said, referring to the Swiss Emmenthal cheese which contains holes. If we had the technnical means and staff for thorough searches, I'm certain that we would find one microphone after another. The UN in New York and Vienna are the same," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Marie Heuze, chief UN spokeswoman in Geneva, on Thursday confirmed the report by...

'THEY ALSO SPIED ON BLIX' The UN bugging row has escalated with fresh allegations that former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix had his mobile phone tapped in Iraq. Another senior UN inspector, Richard Butler, has also revealed that he knew he was being bugged. The scandal was sparked by former minister Clare Short's claim that British agents spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run-up to war in Iraq. She made the allegation after the case against GCHQ employee-turned whistleblower Katharine Gun was dramatically dropped on Wednesday. The Australian media are now reporting that the US, Britain and...