Free Republic

The New York Times is clamming up about the specific date Bill and Hillary Clinton contributed $100,000 to the paper’s charity group in 2008, but denies the donation played a role in its coverage and endorsement of Clinton in the Democratic primaries that year. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Sunday that the Clinton Family Foundation, a little-known philanthropic organization controlled by the Clintons, donated $100,000 to the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund in 2008. The charity is administered by the paper and run by top brass at the Times Company. On Jan. 25, 2008, the Times endorsed Hillary...

Dozens of health insurers selling plans under ObamaCare have requested hefty premium increases for 2016, according to preliminary information published Monday by the White House. The insurers have cited higher-than-expected care costs from customers they gained under the ObamaCare's coverage expansion and the rising cost of prescription drugs and other expenses as reasons for proposing the increases, many of which are in the double-digit percentages. Among the market leaders, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is seeking a roughly 26 percent premium increase, while plans in Illinois and Florida, among other states, are asking for hikes of 20...

In a letter to Congress, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen defended the decision to allow illegal immigrants to get refunds from the agency. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) went “On The Record” tonight to explain that illegal immigrants who get a social security number can go back and apply for a refund through the earned income tax credit. He said this is due to President Barack Obama’s executive order on illegal immigration, calling it unconstitutional and unfair. “It’s unfair to taxpayers that noncitizen illegals are gonna get this bonus that

Rule Of Law: First, the president issues unlawful executive orders giving illegal immigrants amnesty. Then, he dares an equal branch of government to vote on his orders' legality so he can veto it. Is he establishing a monarchy? While speaking at a town hall meeting Wednesday night at Florida International University, President Obama clearly indicated that he believes he is the final authority on law in this country. He will not tolerate dissent. "If Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I'm doing is...

Illegal immigrants who are able to obtain Social Security Numbers and work permits as a result of President Obama’s executive amnesty could claim tens of thousands of dollars in back tax benefits, a new Congressional Research Service memo obtained first by Breitbart News reveals. The report comes following the Internal Revenue Service’s confirmation that once illegal immigrants are granted Social Security Numbers — as a result of Obama’s executive actions — they will be able to file back tax returns and obtain up to four years of tax benefits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax...

Within hours of the release of a horrific ISIS video showing the gruesome beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, Egypt launched retaliatory airstrikes against Islamic State targets in neighboring Libya where the mass murders apparently occurred. The bombings of ISIS training camps and weapons storage facilities, according to a report on Inquisitr, were Egypt’s first official foreign military action in some 24 years. The ISIS video graphically showing the beheadings of the helpless Christian captives has reportedly been confirmed as authentic by the Coptic Church. In that unspeakably horrible video, an ISIS spokesman with a “North American English accent” echoed what...

Conservative website Newsmax has pledged a very large donation to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a new report in the Wall Street Journal states. "Newsmax, a conservative news organization, last year pledged $1 million to the Clinton Foundation over a five-year period, according to a spokesman for Chris Ruddy, the organization’s CEO. Mr. Ruddy has been friends with the Clintons since 2007," reports the Journal. "Through a spokesman, he said the donation wasn't tantamount to an endorsement of Mrs. Clinton’s potential campaign, though he thinks she would 'make a great presidential candidate.'" Ruddy himself has even written a...

Days after a federal judge issued an injunction against President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) urged Senate Republicans to abandon their defunding efforts and pass a clean Homeland Security funding bill. “We have to fund Homeland Security,” Rubio reportedly said on Wednesday, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We can’t let Homeland Security shut down.” He reportedly “noted that Obama has threatened to veto any bill that would reverse his executive actions on immigration, including the measure to pay for Homeland Security” and “the Senate doesn’t have enough votes to pass the bill that ties the two...

While President Obama has made it clear his administration will appeal District Court Judge Andrew Hanen’s ruling blocking his executive action on immigration, the president’s immigration plan will likely be on hold for months or longer. Though no final decision has been made, Obama administration sources told ABC News today that the Department of Justice is unlikely to seek an emergency stay to block the judge’s order. The reason is simple: While DOJ thinks it will ultimately prevail on the overall appeal, department officials believe they would not succeed in seeking an emergency stay of Judge Hanen’s ruling. The judge’s...

The Obama administration is telling Customs and Border Protection agents in a busy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico crossing that they don’t have to arrest intoxicated drivers, sparking backlash from advocacy groups and others. The Department of Homeland Security issued the advisory, which informs agents in the Tucson, Ariz., sector that they have three options if they encounter suspected drunk drivers -- detain them at the request of local law enforcement, detain them without the involvement of another agency or let them go. In stark terms, the bulletin explains which options put the officers at greatest risk of being sued. The...

our Muslims in Porte Dorée (the Golden door), a ghetto east of Paris, beat artist Combo after he refused to take down his Coexist street art. Combo suffered a dislocated shoulder, bruises and a black eye. Artnet reported, via Jihad Watch: It seems like something one would be hard pressed to disagree with: the word “coexist,” written on a wall using a Muslim crescent as the letter “C,” a Star of David as the letter “X,” and a Christian cross as a “T.”

NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who apologized on the air Wednesday night for lying about an experience covering the Iraq War, is now facing scrutiny over his gripping accounts of Hurricane Katrina, the disaster that burnished his nightly news bona fides almost a decade ago. Williams’ account of seeing a body float by in the French Quarter — which remained largely dry — and even a claim of catching dysentery from drinking Katrina floodwaters have raised eyebrows among bloggers and elsewhere since he took it on the chin this week over a claim that he rode in a helicopter that...

NBC News anchor Brian Williams faced swift, and often harsh and sarcastic, reaction Wednesday after he recanted a story that he was aboard an Army helicopter that was hit with enemy fire in Iraq and forced to land. The longtime NBC News journalist apologized in an interview with Stars & Stripes, saying he had “misremembered” what happened. He was actually in another nearby helicopter. “I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams told the newspaper. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.” The story drew immediate scorn...

Williams, the anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," apologized on Wednesday for claiming -- as recently as last Friday -- that he'd been aboard a helicopter that was "forced down after being hit by an RPG." The incident happened on March 24, 2003. A Chinook helicopter was forced down by enemy fire. But Williams was not aboard. Stars and Stripes reported on Wednesday that "Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter," one that "took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert." Williams is blaming...

Calling it the biggest disappointment of his career, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday he was abandoning plans to make Vermont the first state in the country with a universal, publicly funded health care system. Going forward with a project four years in the making would require tax increases too big for the state to absorb, Shumlin said. The measure had been the centerpiece of the Democratic governor's agenda and was watched and rooted for by single-payer health care supporters around the country. "I am not going (to) undermine the hope of achieving critically important health care reforms for this state...

Returning Obamacare enrollees have until next Monday to decide whether they want to keep or switch insurance policies for next year. If they do nothing, they will be renewed automatically in their old plans. In addition to getting hit by higher premiums, auto-enrolling in health exchange plans next year could hit consumers’ wallets in another way. Because of the complicated way federal subsidies are calculated, some subsidy-eligible consumers could be surprised with a lower tax credit than last year - further driving up the total cost of their health insurance. Here’s how it works: Subsidies or tax credits are calculated...

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber lied to Congress when he said that he did not write Obamacare. Gruber said in a heated exchange with Wisconsin Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis at Tuesday morning’s Oversight hearing that he did not write Obamacare.

The health insurance industry is firing back at Republicans' decision to cut government payments that could help plans struggling under the healthcare law. America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) blasted legislation changing ObamaCare's "risk corridors" program and predicted that it would raise healthcare costs for families. "American budgets are already strained by healthcare costs, and this change will lead to higher premiums for consumers and make it more difficult to achieve affordability," said Clare Krusing, AHIP spokeswoman. "Our focus should be on changes to the law that will lower costs — like repealing the health insurance tax — not those that...

The ObamaCare lies keep coming. In two highly publicized announcements last week, top Obama health officials claimed the Affordable Care Act is slowing health care spending and improving hospital safety. The media parroted these boasts, but the evidence shows they’re bogus. Even as administration figures — from President Obama down — distance themselves from Jonathan Gruber, the ObamaCare adviser caught calling the public stupid, they’re still relying on his playbook: They assume we’re not going to check their facts. On Dec. 3, federal actuaries released data showing that health spending inched up only 3.6 percent in 2013. Marilyn Tavenner, the...

Chuck Schumer isn’t the only Democrat suffering from buyer’s remorse from March 2010. Outgoing progressive Senator Tom Harkin, whose seat will be filled by conservative Joni Ernst in large part because of voter unhappiness with ObamaCare, told The Hill that the Affordable Care Act was a huge mistake — but not quite for the same reasons Schumer believes. While Schumer belatedly lamented the lost opportunity to boost the middle class rather than climb on the Democratic hobby horse of health-insurance overhauls, Harkin regrets not doing more to demolish the health-insurance industry: He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made...