Free Republic

Jennifer Epstein ✔ @jeneps hey people/trolls of Twitter: Obama did not leave the White House to play golf this weekend. he spent both days at home. Loyal Twitchy readers likely escaped a rebuke from Politico reporter Jennifer Epstein tonight, who made it clear that President Obama did not golf this weekend despite having an empty schedule. A tweet promoting her Politico article, “Government shutdown, cancelled trip leaves Obama schedule empty,” had plenty thinking the president took the opportunity to hit the links. As Twitchy reported yesterday, the president did not go golfing despite summer-like conditions in and around Washington, nor...

School officials in Florida are defending a textbook that declares Muhammad as the “Messenger of God” after critics accused an Islamic education group of launching a stealth jihad in American public school classrooms. The Prentice World History textbook being used in Brevard Public Schools includes a 36-page chapter on Islam but no chapters on Christianity or Judaism. According to a copy obtained by Fox News, The ninth grade textbook declares that Muhammad is the “Messenger of God” and instructs students that jihad is a duty that Muslims must follow. “Jihad may be interpreted

"They're going to contrast the behavior of James Clapper, our national intelligence director, with Edward Snowden," said Paul. "Mr. Clapper lied in Congress in defiance of the law in the name of security. Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy." Paul continued: "So I think there will be a judgment because both of them broke the law, and history will have to determine." But the senator suggested his opinion of Snowden could change. "I do think for Mr. Snowden, if he cozies up to the Russian government, it will be nothing but bad for his name in...

CHRIS WALLACE: Why single out Crossroads when you didn't mention a single liberal group, and there were a bunch that were applying for tax-exempt status at exactly that point with the name "progress" in their name. SEN. DICK DURBIN: I can just tell you flat-out why I did it. Because that Crossroads organization was boasting about how much money they were raising as a 501(c)(4). Let's get back to the basics. Citizens United really unleashed hundreds if not thousands of organizations seeking tax-exempt status to play in political campaigns. The law we wrote as Congress said that they had to...

Today at a Department Of Justice press conference Attorney General Eric Holder said he has no problem without letting the Associate Press answer the charges of a leak endangering national security.

President Obama offered a defiant defense of government funding for Planned Parenthood Friday and urged the group’s members to help his administration sign up more women for benefits under his besieged health-care law. The first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, Mr. Obama accused conservative politicians of trying to “roll back the clock” on abortion rights and health-care services for women. “They’ve been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health,” Mr. Obama told the group’s annual convention in Washington. “When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching...

House Speaker John Boehner Monday defended the way he has handled the investigation into last year's attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, insisting a select committee is not needed to probe the incident. The Ohio Republican told the media that he has resisted lawmakers’ calls for a select committee because he doesn't think one is necessary. “The five committees that have jurisdiction over this matter are working closely together,” said Boehner. “They're getting the job done.” As of Monday, The Hill reports, 117 of Boehner's fellow lawmakers have signed onto a resolution from Republican Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia,...

ABC is defending its decision to edit out an apparently erroneous claim by Michelle Obama in its broadcast of the first lady’s interview on Good Morning America today, saying it made the changes “solely” for the sake of time. As The Washington Examiner reported this morning, the first lady claimed during an interview with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts that 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who was killed in Chicago shortly after performing during the President’s Inauguration, was shot because “some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.” In fact, Chicago Police reported Pendleton was shot by a man who “opened...

Conservative firebrand Glenn Beck has joined a growing chorus of Republican commentators in defending gay marriage, laying out a strong case for ending government opposition to letting same-sex couples wed. "Let me take the pro-gay marriage people and the religious people — I believe that there is a connecting dot there that nobody is looking at, and that's the Constitution," Beck said during a recent segment of his online talk show. "The question is not whether gay people should be married or not. The question is why is the government involved in our marriage?" While Beck's defense of gay marriage...

Vid at link

When Iranian President Ahmadinejad ascended the podium to speak on the rule of law at the UN today, Israeli UN envoy Ron Prosor rose from his seat and walked out while the U.S. envoys remained, according to Fox News. Update: Raw video from the UN confirms that U.S. representatives attended the entire speech. (Snip) He also bore down on those who have revolted at Holocaust revisionism. He did this by calling attention to those who "infringe upon other's freedom and allow sacrilege to people's beliefs and sanctities, while they criticize posing questions or investigating into historical issues." Throughout all of

President Obama defended the tone of his campaign today, saying his team doesn't "go out of bounds." The president was asked by CBS's Nancy Cordes if he had compunctions about the tenor of the campaign, saying that "your campaign has suggested repeatedly without proof that Mr. Romney might be hiding something in his tax returns, they have suggested that Mr. Romney might be a felon for the way that he handed over power of Bain Capital, and your campaign and the White House have declined to condemn an ad by one of your top supporters that links Mr. Romney to...

RENO, Nev.— President Obama today argued that his foreign policy has ushered in a “new era of American leadership,” while suggesting that Republican rival Mitt Romney has not shown he is ready to be commander in chief. “Four years ago, I made you a promise. I pledged to take the fight to our enemies and renew our leadership in the world. As president, that’s what I’ve done,” Obama said at the national convention for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “As you reflect on recent years, as we look ahead to the challenges we face as a nation

The head of the National Security Agency on Monday denied reports that NSA’s new data center in Utah would collect and store data about Americans, including their e-mails and web-browsing habits. The $2 billion data center in Bluffdale, Utah, will house massive supercomputers capable of storing and analyzing vast quantities of data when it comes online next year, but U.S. ArmyGen. Keith B. Alexander reiterated NSA’s insistence it does not unlawfully conduct surveillance of Americans. (Snip) However, “I’m not going to come out and say what we are doing” at NSA, he added. “That would be ludicrous, too.”

Substitute hosting MSNBC's The Ed Show, Georgtown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson defended comedian Chris Rock's recent lambasting of July 4 as "white people's Independence Day." Dyson even invoked a quote from 19th century abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass expressing similar sentiments, missing the point that, in modern times, all Americans benefit from America's existence as an independent nation. By contrast, during the years slavery still existed in 19th century, it was more reasonable to complain that actual slaves were not benefiting from independence. Dyson rationalized: What Chris Rock alluded to is hardly new. In 1852, Frederick Douglass gave...

University of California President Mark Yudof defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s right to speak at the university’s Berkeley campus. Farrakhan’s speech Saturday was billed as being about black empowerment, but was also peppered with anti-Semitic and hate speech, students told The Daily Californian student newspaper. A petition circulated after the speech by Jewish student leaders, which opposed Farrakhan’s speech and character, but not the Black Student Union’s right to bring him to campus, garnered more than 350 signatures, the student newspaper reported. “Louis Farrakhan is a provocative, divisive figure with a long history of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argued Monday that a new rule that requires many religious employers to cover birth control in employee health plans respects those with “deeply held beliefs opposing the use of birth control.” “We specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship and could also include other church-affiliated organizations,” wrote Sebelius in an op-ed in USA Today. The policy put forward by the Obama administration exempts Catholic churches but doesn’t carve out other religious institutions such as

President Barack Obama says the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is the chance to recognize the “fundamental constitutional right” to abortion and to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court nationalized abortion law, prohibiting states from deciding on the matter. In his written statement, Obama acknowledged that abortion has been a divisive political issue. Obama, while serving in the Illinois State Legislature and as president of the United States, has taken a hard line on abortion rights. In his...

January 20, 2012 Gingrich's record on the hot seat in SC debate Republican rivals target House ethics violations

The Transportation Security Administration defended the decision of one of its workers to confiscate a passenger's cupcake Monday, saying the pastry that was taken was not a normal piece of dessert. During the Christmas travel season, when between 1.6 million and 2.3 million people were estimated to have taken a trip by airplane, TSA was heavily criticized for reportedly not allowing a passenger to carry a cupcake through security at Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport. On Monday, the agency said the cupcake in question was in a jar,