Free Republic

NOGALES, Ariz. (CBS Houston/AP) — Officials are working to improve conditions at a makeshift holding center in southern Arizona

..., Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been ruled mentally unfit and cannot stop the sale of his NBA team. It was announced late Thursday night that Donald's wife Shelly had reached a deal with former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to sell the Clippers for a record $2 billion. According to ESPN, the papers were signed shortly before midnight.

ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- After 17 months of waiting, a family finally learned how much time the man who killed their son will be in prison, reports CBS Minnesota.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't plan to file criminal charges over the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, according to law-enforcement officials, a move that likely will only intensify debate over the politically charged scandal. The officials said investigators didn't find the kind of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy...

The FBI is not planning to file criminal charges involving the Internal Revenue Service's extra scrutiny of the Tea Party and other conservative groups, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing law enforcement officials. The newspaper quoted officials as saying that investigators probing the IRS actions, which unleashed a political furor in Washington, did not uncover the type of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would constitute a criminal violation. The evidence showed a mismanaged agency enforcing rules it did not understand on applications for tax exemptions, the Journal reported. The case is still under investigation, but criminal charges...

The Journal reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is unlikely to file any criminal charges in the targeting of conservative political organizations by the Internal Revenue Service. Yet Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents many of the targets, says that the FBI has never contacted any of her clients to discuss their treatment at the hands of the IRS. "Shouldn't law enforcement talk to the victims in an investigation?," she asks in an email. "That's like investigating a burglary without interviewing the burgled," notes a Journal editorial. The press corps suddenly cares a great deal about cancelled meetings in...

A Georgia couple was shocked and disgusted to find a racial slur scrawled on a valet ticket after a night out at a local restaurant. After Candea and Sam Aarons had dinner at the Spondivits restaurant in East Point, Ga., on New Year’s Day, they found that the valet tag still affixed to their key chain had the phrase “jungle fever” written on one side. The phrase is a racial slur for an interracial couple.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The man accused of faking sign interpretation while standing alongside world leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama at Nelson Mandela's memorial service said Thursday he hallucinated that angels were entering the stadium, has schizophrenia and has been violent in the past. Thamsanqa Jantjie said in a 45-minute interview with The Associated Press that his hallucinations began while he was interpreting and that he tried not to panic because there were "armed policemen around me." He added that he was once hospitalized in a mental health facility for more than one and a half years.....

The budget deal announced Tuesday by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) would boost federal spending by around $65 billion over the next two years. This new spending is offset by increasing user fees, boosting pension contributions by federal employees and the military, and other minor changes. Ryan and Murray also say that the deal will reduce the deficit by $23 billion over the next 10 years. This reduction, however, doesn't start until 2022. According to a 4-page summary document of the deal obtained by Breitbart News, "[t]he budget proposal saves $28 billion over ten years by...

President Barack Obama is not an overtly religious man. He and his family rarely attend church, and he almost never elaborates in public about his own relationship to his Christian faith. But away from the public eye, advisers say, the president has carefully nurtured a sense of spirituality that has served as a grounding mechanism during turbulent times, when the obstacles to governing a deeply divided nation seem nearly insurmountable. Every year on Aug. 4, the president's birthday, Obama convenes a group of pastors by phone to receive their prayers for him for the year to come. During the most...

Bill and Hillary Clinton are angry with efforts by mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner and his campaign to compare his Internet sexcapades — and his wife Huma Abedin’s incredible forgiveness — to the Clintons’ notorious White House saga, The Post has learned. “The Clintons are upset with the comparisons that the Weiners seem to be encouraging — that Huma is ‘standing by her man’ the way Hillary did with Bill, which is not what she in fact did,’’ said a top state Democrat. Weiner and his campaign aides have explicitly referred to the Clintons as they privately seek to convince skeptical...

“I think Speaker Boehner wants comprehensive immigration reform. He wants a solution to the problem. I think he's for comprehensive immigration reform,” said Gutierrez, a long time amnesty advocate. “He's for a complete package, I believe. That's what he has said. My meeting with him last week leads me to no other conclusion but to affirm that.” Speaker Boehner told his Republican conference he would not move any immigration bill to the floor without the majority support of his party. Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R – KS) told Brietbart News on Tuesday that the Speaker would be “going back on his...

Full text of S.744 at the link.

At least it was cordial. But the 150 or so "movement conservatives" gathered at Paul Pressler's this weekend (1/13-14) were a fractured lot. Maybe 10% were for Perry. Almost all of them were against Romney. Well, sort of. Caveat below. There was an official Romney guy there who explained that "You'll either work with us now or work with us later, but you'll all have to get on Mitt's train, because we have the money and the organization, so there's no stopping us." This did not go over well. It just made everyone more determined than ever to do whatever...

DALLAS — In a case involving Continental Airlines, a federal appeals court says benefit administrators don't have the power to decide whether employees' divorces are real or fake. Continental sued nine of its pilots, claiming that they got "sham" divorces so their ex-spouses could tap their lump-sum pensions while they still worked for the airline — then remarried the same partners. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a lower-court ruling that employers can't consider or investigate why employees get divorced or whether the divorce is genuine. The appeals court dismissed Continental's 2009 lawsuit, which was filed...

Back in early May, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he “can probably be talked into” running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. A new poll has done some “talking.” The CNN/(Opinion Research Corporation) survey released on Friday found Giuliani leading the pack of potential GOP candidates with 16 percent of the vote among Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP. Mitt Romney is second with 15 percent, followed by Sarah Palin (13 percent), Ron Paul (12 percent), and Herman Cain (10 percent). The other potential candidates had single-digit percentages. “Call it a sign of how...

In 10 minutes the teleprompter in chief will announce that he is about to freeze government salaries for two years. Of course, government workers thank him, as this means federal salaries which have exploded in the past 5 years will be stuck at all time highs for at least two years, even as nominal salaries for everyone else (except FIRE workers of course) continue to decline. As we suggested a few days ago, in order to promote some vaguely credible idea of austerity, instead of freezing salaries, Obama needs to be cutting. Why? One look at the chart below explains...

Back in early 2009, President-elect Barack Obama was asked on “Meet the Press” how quickly he could create jobs. Oh, very fast, he said. He’d already consulted with a gaggle of governors, and “all of them have projects that are shovel-ready.” When Obama revealed the members of his energy team, he explained that they were part of his effort to get started on “shovel-ready projects all across the country.” When he unveiled his education secretary, he assured everyone that he was going to get started “helping states and local governments with shovel-ready projects.” In interviews, job summits and press conferences,...

PRESIDENT OBAMA TOWN HALL, DC MTV, BET, and CMT (prods.) are casting the audience for a town hall meeting with President Obama. Shooting Oct. 14 at 4 p.m. in Washington, DC. Seeking—Audience Members: males and females, 18+. To apply, email townhallaudience@mtvnmix.com and put "Town Hall" in the subject line. To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name, phone number, hometown, school attending, your job and what issues, if any, you are ...

Seventeen people have been accused of taking part in a scheme that paired Russian woman and U.S. Navy personnel in bogus marriages, federal prosecutors in Virginia said. All of the defendants charged in the 28-count indictment have been arrested. The indictment is the "result of our ongoing effort to crack down on allegations of sham marriages in the Navy," said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride. The 17 indicted Wednesday are among 80 who have been charged in similar schemes, MacBride said. The Russian women charged in the scheme obtained U.S citizenship because they married U.S. citizens. The Navy personnel in...