Free Republic

Pizza Hut’s new rectangular, deep-dish pie has catapulted “Detroit-style” pizza into the national spotlight. The latest iteration of the Italian staple from the Kansas-based chain borrows from a recipe that originated at Buddy’s Rendezvous — now Buddy’s Pizza chain — in Detroit, just after World War II. The pies are baked in a rectangular or round pan and covered in Wisconsin cheese. Red sauce and toppings are added last. For many Americans, the Pizza Hut rollout was their first introduction to the Motor City’s twist on the food more commonly associated with New York and Chicago.

ENCINO (CBSLA.com) —Days after the Internal Revenue Service said low-level employees in a Cincinnati office showed uneven scrutiny to conservative groups with the words “tea party”, “patriots” and “9/12″ in their names, new reports are emerging of the practice at IRS offices in El Monte and Laguna Nigel. Karen Kenney of the San Fernando Valley Patriots said her local Tea Party group was politically targeted by the IRS when it applied for tax exempt status. After Kenney filed for 501(c)(4) status for her group in 2010, she said she was sent a packet with a list of questions. “We had...

Speaker Boehner and the Republican House are frustrated that they can't get President Obama or Senate leader Reid to compromise with them.-SNIP- Chicago's Mayor Daley I gained absolute power by gaining absolute control over the budget. Congress's authority to write a budget is determined not by a Home Rule Commission, but by the Constitution. But President Obama was able to cleverly subvert Congress's power of the purse this way: the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate has not passed a budget in four years. -SNIP-In effect, Obama cleverly usurped congressional budget authority, with the added benefit of eliminating a budgetary paper trail....

One night last February, President Obama was attending a million-dollar fundraiser in Florida when he spotted a local Republican activist he knew was close to Marco Rubio, the star Republican senator from that state. At the time, Mr. Rubio was being discussed as a potential vice presidential pick. Mr. Obama approached the woman and asked, “So, is your boy going to go for it?” “The woman certainly wasn’t expecting this sort of welcome,” Politico reporter Glenn Thrush relates in his new e-book, “Obama’s Last Stand.” “But she had seen this side of Obama before, the puckish trash-talker — not the...

A federal agency inspector general fired last year by President Barack Obama amid claims of bizarre and incompetent behavior, Gerald Walpin, has lost the first round in his legal bid to win back his job.On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Roberts threw out a lawsuit Walpin brought in an attempt to be restored to his position at the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs Americorps and other programs. Walpin has claimed that his firing was political retaliation for his opposition to wasteful spending by the agency and for his aggressive investigation of a friend of Obama, Sacramento Mayor and former...

HBO's Bill Maher recently voiced his disappointment in President Obama's handling of the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig disaster. "This is where I want a real black president," the not-so-funny comic said. "I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants." Filmmaker Spike Lee also voiced his frustration with our unflappable president last week when he said, "If there's any one time to go off, this is it, because this is a disaster." It looks like those who want an angry-man president may get...

The White House says it hasn’t given up on getting Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, to vote in favor of a health care overhaul. “We’re still working hard on that,’’ Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s press secretary, told reporters Tuesday at his regular daily briefing, when asked why the White House hadn’t worked harder to secure Ms. Snowe’s vote. Mr. Obama had a lengthy telephone conversation with Ms. Snowe on Friday, but Mr. Gibbs did not provide details. And with the fate of the health care overhaul hanging on the outcome of Tuesday’s special election for the Senate in Massachusetts,...

My Grandfather was a lawyer in Chicago during Capone's time, and later served as a judge. Grandpa was also a lifelong Republican, back when being one really meant something. Every once in a while, he would tell a story or offer a poignant anecdote from those lawless days.One afternoon while he was reading the newspaper he remarked that here were only two kinds of politicians in Chicago - honest and dishonest. When asked what the difference was, Grandpa replied that an honest politician was one who stayed "bought". Party affiliations did not matter.

Reporting from Washington - The Department of Homeland Security issued but recalled a 2007 intelligence analysis about the Nation of Islam after deciding the document dealing with the black Muslim group broke rules on intelligence activity in the United States, officials said Wednesday. Internal documents revealed that intelligence chiefs found analysts had "unintentionally and inadvertently" violated rules governing the collection, retention and distribution of information concerning "U.S. persons and organizations." The error took place during the George W. Bush administration, and steps have been taken to ensure it does not happen again, a Homeland Security spokesman said. ...The analysis under...

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much for sitting down with us today. Explain what happened today, Tom Daschle, you've let one of the most important domestic issues, which is health care, get caught up in what looks to many Americans like politics as usual. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think what happened was that Tom made an assessment that having made a mistake on his taxes that he took responsibility for, and indicated was a mistake, made the assessment that he was going to be too much of a distraction in trying to lead what...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama awarded grants as an Illinois state legislator to a nonprofit headed by a relative of his wife, records show. The two grants totaling $75,000 were awarded in 1999 and 2000 to a Chicago social services organization led by Capers Funnye, a Jewish rabbi who is a cousin, once removed, of Michelle Obama, The Springfield (Ill.) State Journal- Register reported Tuesday. Funnye told the newspaper there was nothing improper about the way his group, Blue Gargoyle, obtained the grants and that Obama did not encourage him to apply for...

ZIMBABWE’S opposition has obtained evidence that President Robert Mugabe won re-election in March last year with the help of as many as 1.8m “ghost” voters who were added to the electoral roll. Tobaiwa Mudede, the registrar-general and a Mugabe loyalist, has repeatedly refused requests by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for a copy of the roll to be used in a court action challenging the result — even though the roll is a public document. Last week, however, it was revealed that the MDC had succeeded in obtaining a copy. Mugabe, 79, beat Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC candidate, by...