Free Republic

A law that makes it illegal to lie about being a war hero is unconstitutional because it violates free speech, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn dismissed a case against Rick Glen Strandlof, who claimed he was an ex-Marine who was wounded in Iraq and received the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. The military had no record that Strandlof had ever served, and he was charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to falsely claim to have won a military medal. Blackburn...

To hear them tell it, the officers who apprehended 39-year-old David Pyles on March 8 thwarted a mass murder. The cops “were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation,” the Medford, Oregon, police department announced in a press release. The subject had been placed on administrative leave from his job not long before, was “very disgruntled,” and had recently purchased several firearms. “Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers,” the press release said. Fortunately, Pyles “voluntarily” turned himself over to police custody,...

As part of today's rally to stop the Democrats' health care reform legislation thousands of protesters descended on the lawn of Capitol building. But many more were also using the occasion to visit the their congressional representative and tell them what they think of the bill. However, Capitol Police recently stopped allowing any of the peaceful protesters to enter into congressional buildings. Crowds are now gathering in front of the House and Senate offices, demanding that they be let in to air their constituent concerns.

A day after House Democrats announced a ban on earmarks for private companies, their Republican counterparts hope to dramatically up the ante with a prohibition on all targeted spending projects. House Republican leaders plan to call for an immediate, across-the-board earmark ban during a special meeting of the GOP Conference on Thursday, according to a draft of a joint leadership statement obtained by Roll Call. Their proposed moratorium would include tax and tariff-related earmarks. “We will support changing the official rules of the House Republican Conference to incorporate such a moratorium when a special conference meeting on the matter takes...

The Obama administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama’s term even though two –thirds of the American public supports such activity, according to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll. Sixty percent also believe that gas and oil prices will drop if the government allows offshore drilling, opening up an estimate 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas On July 14,...

Senate Republicans on Wednesday were preparing to send a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowing to raise potentially crippling objections to any portion of a proposed health care reconciliation package that they believe violates the procedure’s narrow guidelines. The letter, signed by all 41 Senate Republicans and spearheaded by Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.), is actually directed at House Democrats. To sow discord among House Democrats and derail passage of health care reform in that chamber, Senate Republicans are making it very clear that anything House Democrats agree to could die in the Senate. “Forty-one of us have...

A couple years ago, I got a tip about Eric Massa. It involved his aggrieved former campaign manager, Sanford Dickert, who was involved in an ugly dispute. Dickert claimed Massa had fired him and refused to pay him for work he'd done on Massa's unsuccessful 2006 run for Congress. Massa, he said, had retaliated by issuing a series of salacious charges against him, which Dickert denied, including that he had hired, and then given alcohol to, underage staffers, and also that he had made a pass at Massa's teenage son. This seemed like a personal dispute that didn't have much...

The Washington Post seems to be under the impression that they are being attacked for some sort of editorial conspiracy involving Rahm Emanuel and his competence as White House Chief of Staff. After a week where Emanuel became the subject of three of the paper’s major stories—two opinion pieces with opposing views and a front-page news item suggesting anonymous Washington insiders were upset Emanuel’s advice was not being taken—the Post has been taking fire from both sides for alternately undermining the President and attacking one of his top advisers. The confusion has brought about one of the more bizarre columns...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The U.S. military is testing samples of soil, water and air from hundreds of sites in Haiti to determine if troops could have been exposed to hazardous substances during earthquake relief efforts. Preventive medicine teams from the Army, Air Force and Navy have collected the samples, which include rubble from collapsed buildings and dust churned up by rubble removal, from sites where military personnel have worked over the past two months, according to Maj. Rebecca Carter, 43, an Air Force environmental engineer working in Port-au-Prince. U.S. personnel in the Haitian capital have been working in the middle...

<p>Daniel Higgins doesn't look like a Middle Eastern student, but officials say he routinely portrayed himself as one for almost a decade, getting paid up to $1,500 per student to attend their classes and take exams so they could keep their visas current and remain in the U.S.</p>

New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa will resign from the House on Monday, according Massa chief of staff Joe Racalto. While it’s the latest in a string of bad PR the Democrats have taken this week, Massa’s exit will actually help House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her quest to pass health care. Massa announced earlier in the week that he would retire due to health issues. Shortly after his announcement, allegations of sexual harassment surfaced in the press. Few congressional elections draw the kind of national attention that Erica Massa’s did in 2006. Even fewer draw an equal amount of...

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism." The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.” The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said. In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts...

Top proponents of repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' are already talking about a Plan B if they don't have the votes to overturn the policy. Even though the first priority is to repeal the policy immediately, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said they would consider pushing for a moratorium - instead of a permanent repeal — of the policy if they find they do not have the votes. Lieberman stressed the support for a repeal of the bill among the American people, but admitted that he's short of the 60 he'd need in the Senate. "We...

Gawker is reporting that Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran may have pulled some questionable shenanigans to get the Marines to evacuate him from his war zone embed: The "personal reason" that Chandrasekaran needed out of Marja, it turns out, was so he could attend the New York premiere of The Green Zone, the new Matt Damon film based on Chandrasekaran's 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Chandrasekaran's last byline from Marja appeared on February 23, and here he is at the premiere on February 25. "I had a number of reasons for needing to come back," Chandrasekaran told...

<p>A BRITISH climate researcher at the centre of a row over global warming science has admitted he wrote some "pretty awful" emails to sceptics when he was refusing their requests for data.</p> <p>But Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, yesterday defended his decision not to release the data about temperatures from around the world, saying it was not "standard practice" to do so.</p>

Thanks to everyone who came to the Brighton Tea Party, and apologies to those who couldn’t get it. We opened and filled an adjoining room, but it was still quite a squash. The hotel manager told me afterwards that there had been more than 300 people present, not counting those who had had to be turned away. Not bad for a meeting organised with two days’ notice. If you can run a tea-party in Brighton Pavilion – the constituency which the Greens are most hopeful of winning – you can run one anywhere. You don’t have to be a small-government...

The White House has acknowledged that it is considering a proposal that would significantly alter the way it awards federal contracts, but said the discussions are in early stages and that no immediate policy changes are forthcoming. The proposal, dubbed the “High Road Contracting Policy,” was first reported by The Daily Caller in early February. According to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, the proposal would give preference to government contractors that pay their hourly workers a “living wage” and provide additional benefits such as health insurance, employer-funded retirement plans and paid sick leave. An administration official declined to comment...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Employees at the U.S. liberal grass-roots group ACORN who were caught on video giving tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, New York prosecutors said on Monday. The organization has been reeling since a YouTube video was disseminated last September showing ACORN workers giving advice on how to flout the law to two conservative activists who posed as a pimp and a prostitute. The U.S. Congress then voted by wide margins to prohibit the federal government from funding ACORN, and the U.S. Census Bureau ended...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two top House Democrats have introduced a measure aimed at blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating pollution-causing greenhouse gases. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri want to veto the EPA’s finding in December that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. Their resolution, co-sponsored by Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson, mirrors one drafted by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and backed by 41 senators from both parties. At least three states and a host of business groups also have challenged the EPA...

The House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would grant Native Hawaiians special rights as reparations for the 1893 peaceful overthrow of their Queen Liliuokalani which led to the eventual annexation of their island by the United States. The bill creates a new Hawaiian government that would negotiate with the U.S. over things like land rights and natural resources, and could cede large tracts of land that became U.S. government property when Hawaii became a state in 1959, back to Native Hawaiians. The bill defines “Native Hawaiians” as a distinct ethnic group that can trace its lineage directly to...