Free Republic

Mitt Romney now leads President Obama in the race for Florida's 29 electoral votes, a significant reversal from earlier this spring, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released early on Wednesday. Romney leads Obama overall, 47 percent to 41 percent, the poll shows. Two percent of voters prefer another candidate, 7 percent are undecided, and 3 percent said they would not vote. Three weeks ago, in another Quinnipiac poll, the two candidates were statistically tied, with Romney at 44 percent and Obama at 43 percent.

In the cover for a 1991 booklet, President Obama is billed as ‘the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, (who) was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.’ ‘It is evidence – not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.’ President Obama released his birth certificate to the public last April. He said during a press briefing at the time that he was ‘puzzled at the degree to which this thing just keeps going on.’ He said: ‘We’ve had every official in Hawaii, Democrat...

Police and Yassam officers equipped with a backhoe arrived on Wednesday night at the community of Ramat Migron in Binyamin, the Tazpit news agency reported.

A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a "closed fracture" of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.

Headline only.

Thankfully, our long national nightmare is over: Mitt Romney apologized on Thursday morning for pranks he helped orchestrate in high school that he said “might have gone too far,” including an incident in which he pinned down a fellow student and cut his hair.The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was responding to an article published a few hours earlier by The Washington Post documenting the episode with first-hand accounts from Romney’s classmates.“Back in high school, I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that,” Romney said in a live radio interview...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. In a hypothetical Election 2012 matchup, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney earns 47% of the vote, while President Obama attracts support from 44%. Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.

The Sanford, Florida, City Commission decided Monday not to accept the proposed resignation of its embattled police chief, who has been under fire for the handling of the investigation into Trayvon Martin's death in February. Chief Bill Lee has been on leave since March 22, a day after the commission expressed a lack of confidence in him for how he's handled the investigation. George Zimmerman, who has said he killed the 17-year-old Martin in self-defense, was not arrested after being questioned by police the night of the shooting. He was charged weeks later with second-degree murder. Earlier Monday, the city...

The Department of Justice is using the liberal “watchdog” group Media Matters for America to deflect questions about the Fast and Furious scandal, including those regarding a gun that might have been used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. A new book raises questions as to whether the FBI hid the existence of a weapon recovered at the scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Conservative commentator and author Katie Pavlich lays out evidence she says points to a FBI cover-up to protect a confidential informant in her recently released book, Fast and Furious: Barack...

Following rocker Ted Nugent's recent comments about President Barack Obama, he has been dropped from a scheduled performance at Fort Knox, the post announced Thursday afternoon. Nugent set off a controversy at last weekend's National Rifle Association convention when he criticized high-ranking members of Obama's administration and offered support for possible Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In a video posted on YouTube by the NRA, Nugent said, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. If you can't go home and get everybody in your lives...

For no reason in particular, I thought it would be helpful (or irritating, depending upon your point of view) to post a list of words that are commonly misspelled or improperly used on FreeRepublic. Feel free to add any of your own. I realize that this will open me up to greater scrutiny of the orthographic composition of my own future posts, but alas; so be it. Aid = help vs. Aide=assistant (as in “an aide to Congressman Frank”) Anointed (NOT “annointed”) Border (as in the line between U.S. and Mexico) (NOT “boarder” as in the guy who gets a...

<p>Sanford police said a teenager was seriously injured in a shooting early Monday.</p>

I'm a REAL CONSERVATIVE. I took a test once, and it showed I was 92 percent nuts! I'm such a conservative that I kept coming back to FR and spamming the state boards and freepmail until I was blocked from doing such. Now all I can do is sign up and make posts that will never see the light of day as the moderators just discard them. It isn't FAIR! I have a RIGHT to be an IDIOT on FR! It's in the CONSTITUTION! I have been neutered, gelded! My life no longer has any meaning! Everyone one here is...

Meet Shepard Fairey. The famed street artist who created the Barack Obama “Hope” poster is pictured here in a United States Marshals Service mug shot... (snip)

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is moving ahead with education reform--but it isn't without controversy. Later this week, on Wednesday and Thursday, education committees in both houses of the state legislature will be considering the governor's proposed package. The reforms include moving toward a voucher program, eliminating teacher tenure programs, and changes in teachers' pay. And so, in response to these reforms even being considered, "at least three school districts are canceling classes and telling children to stay home to allow school employees the chance to lobby the legislature," according to Aaron Baer, the governor's deputy communications director.

In a memo to reporters, Romney Political Director Rich Beeson laid out his camp's view that neither Santorum nor any of the other candidates in the race has any chance of securing enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination...... "Super Tuesday dramatically reduced the likelihood that any of Governor Romney's opponents can obtain the Republican nomination," Beeson wrote. "As Governor Romney's opponents attempt to ignore the basic principles of math, the only person's odds of winning they are increasing are President Obama's." Beeson cited Romney's current lead in delegates and a tough upcoming primary and caucus calendar as examples of...

“When you look that closely at someone, you almost always develop sympathy for them,” Rockwell says. “It's like sitting next to someone for a long bus ride. … I want to think about who these people are and why they made the choices they did. I want to share the results of my thoughts, which are my paintings, with other people.” She was particularly inspired to paint bin Laden. “We take for granted who he was and what he did and why, and stop thinking of him as a human being with profoundly human motivations. The war on terror is...

Now this… Kyle Lawrence, a Colorado Springs Occupier, remains in a Denver Hospital burn unit with second degree burns that he received when he was caught on fire during the arson that leveled the Historic Green Mountain Falls Town Hall.

Please DO NOT VOTE for LeBlanc for judge !!! When asked at the Ascension GOP meeting about the MARTELLO case, LeBlanc professed ignorance on the first circuit court of appeals decision. This infamous case should be well known to all those who practice child support law as LeBlanc does. In MARTELLO, Judge Chutz ruled that Mr. Martello made $9,000/month in gross income. He then ordered Mr. Martello to pay $5,600/month in temporary spousal support and to pay another $2,600/month in child support. This left Mr. Ned Martello with about $860 dollars to live and pay taxes on according to the...

WASHINGTON - Two Air Force F-16 fighters intercepted a privately owned Cessna airplane that entered the same Los Angeles airspace as Marine One on Thursday as the helicopter was ferrying President Barack Obama. Police discovered about 40 pounds of marijuana inside the plane after it landed at Long Beach Airport, a law enforcement official said.

Via BuzzFeed. As expected, they’re going hard after his fiscal heresies. I’m giving you Santorum’s new ad here too, which is noteworthy first because he touts his tea-party cred (ironic) and second because he’s now making electability a core component of his pitch. No other Not Romney has been in that position before — but the numbers do back him up, for now: One thing that has remained constant in the ever changing GOP Presidential race is that Mitt Romney is the strongest candidate against Barack Obama…at least until now. PPP’s newest national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7...

Yesterday, the Maine Republican Party declared Mitt Romney the winner of Maine's caucuses, which were conducted over multiple days. Romney got 39% (2,190 votes) and Ron Paul got 36% (1,996). Rick Santorum finished third and Newt Gingrich fourth. Yet in a message to supporters last night, the Ron Paul campaign suggested at chicanery over Maine's decision to declare Mitt Romney the winner before all the votes were counted. Campaign Manager John Tate called the Washington County GOP decision to postpone the caucus for snow an "excuse." Tate even mocked the decision after the predicted three to four inches of snow...

Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin stole the show at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference where she delivered the event’s keynote speech Saturday. After slamming the President, shutting up some protesters, and saying that the drawn out Republican primary promotes competition and a better nominee, the former Alaska governor took a few questions as she headed for the door following the rousing remarks. When asked by Anneke Green of the Washington Times if she thought a surging Sen. Santorum was a threat to front-runner Mitt Romney; “Palin answered that she wouldn‘t consider him a threat but was still ’a...

Pelosi: 'I Don't Want To Pay For It...Surcharge' The Rich For Doctors Visits and Unemployment Benefits http://www.breitbart.tv/pelosi-on-unemployment-benefits-extension-id-rather-not-pay-for-it/

No source yet. Several dead as egyptians storm soccer field after game. Police do nothing, stock market collapses.

[snip]...Jablonski remained true to his word -- neither he nor Obama showed up for the January 26 hearing. I noted last week that Obama was not scheduled to be anywhere near Atlanta on the date of the hearing, although I had wondered if still, perhaps, Georgia might be on his mind. According to reports in the blogosphere, the president's schedule on the morning of the 26th was open, and according to an unnamed source, Obama watched the live feed of the hearings. Perhaps Obama, as well as the several mainstream media news outlets I spotted at the hearing, were merely...

FORT LAUDERDALE— Tania Ouaknine is convinced the police are watching her. She's not paranoid — it says as much on the red sign painted along the side on the hulking armored truck that's been parked in front of her eight-room Parisian Motel for several days. "Warning: You are under video surveillance," reads the bold message on the side of the truck. From the front bumper of the menacing vehicle, another sign taunts: "Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?"

There is a phone at the top of youtube to "ask president Obama" I don't know if this is just for the state of the union, but google/youtube should have to bill Obama's campaign for the value of the advertising. Anyway, this mistake I found is really funny. Go to the link and mouse over the phone. Leave your cursor there until the tool tip to comes up.

As Mitt Romney puts the South Carolina primary in his rear-view mirror and hits the accelerator in a bid to win Florida, he may discover himself crashing headlong into the bitter legacy of Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor who defected from the GOP and was soundly defeated for the U.S. Senate by Marco Rubio. Romney’s “Charlie Crist” problem is this: Romney’s chief campaign strategist and several of his most senior campaign staff were Crist’s top political advisers — the same ones who crafted Crist’s moderate, ignore-the-tea-party strategy epitomized in Crist’s famous “hug” of President Barack Obama. That strategy led...

Sen. Mark Kirk undergoes surgery after suffering stroke 9:31 a.m. CST, January 23, 2012 U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk underwent surgery today at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after suffering a stroke, his office said. "On Saturday, Senator Kirk checked himself into Lake Forest Hospital, where doctors discovered a carotid artery dissection in the right side of his neck," his office said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iowa Republican Party will certify this month's presidential caucuses as a split decision between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, citing missing data from eight precincts, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday.

The Obama administration is expected to reject the controversial Keystone Pipeline this afternoon, according to Fox News. The State Department is expected to vote against the pipeline this afternoon. Transcanada will however be allowed to reapply with an alternate route going through Nebraska. The administration will be unlikely to approve the pipeline under the timeline for the payroll tax cut extension law which requires a decision by February 21 The project has been extremely controversial for two main reasons. Those in favor of the pipeline point to the 8.5% unemployment rate, and point out that the pipeline could create much-needed...

The GOP Debate on FOX News will pit favorite Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich against each other for the first time since New Hampshire. As you know Jon Huntsman bowed out of the race earlier today. Bret Baier will moderate the debate.

(CNN) -- A federal judge disclosed Friday that former presidential candidate John Edwards has a life-threatening heart condition, a court source confirmed to CNN. Edwards had sought a delay in his criminal corruption trial, scheduled to begin this month. Attorneys and the federal judge met in a North Carolina courtroom Friday afternoon for a status hearing regarding the pending trial of Edwards, a former U.S. senator. Edwards appeared at Friday's hearing. His lawyers had made the motion for a delay under seal, but some of its details were publicly revealed by the judge in the open hearing.

Gingrich, Santorum, and Huntsman failed to qualify for the ballot too, you’ll recall, so Perry’s loss is also their loss. Which means, unless this gets turned around on appeal, the Virginia primary ballot will consist of Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and … that’s it. Huge news considering that, er, Romney and Paul will almost certainly be the only two candidates left in the race on March 6 anyway.I said last month that I thought Perry had a real shot at success on the merits. The court actually agreed. There was just one problem: In his opinion, Gibney says Perry, and...

Mitt Romney is the only 2012 candidate whom a majority of Republicans — including conservatives — consider an “acceptable” GOP nominee for president, according to a Gallup Poll Tuesday. In the new survey, 59 percent of all Republicans said Romney would be an acceptable presidential nominee for the Republican Party. Just 46 percent said the same for Newt Gingrich and 45 percent for Rick Santorum, who were trailed by Rick Perry at 37 percent, Ron Paul at 29 percent and Jon Huntsman at 21 percent. Romney is also the only candidate whom the majority of both conservative and moderate/liberal Republicans...

*snip* “She feels as if our rudder isn’t set right,” Mr. Obama confided, according to aides. Rahm Emanuel, then chief of staff, repeated the first lady’s criticisms to colleagues with indignation, according to three of them. Mr. Emanuel, in a brief interview, denied that he had grown frustrated with Mrs. Obama, but other advisers described a grim situation: a president whose agenda had hit the rocks, a first lady who disapproved of the turn the White House had taken, and a chief of staff who chafed against her influence.

Michelle Obama was privately fuming, not only at the president’s team, but also at her husband. In the days after the Democrats lost Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in January 2010, Barack Obama was even-keeled as usual in meetings, refusing to dwell on the failure or lash out at his staff. The first lady, however, could not fathom how the White House had allowed the crucial seat, needed to help pass the president’s health care legislation and the rest of his agenda, to slip away, several current and former aides said.

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, in a book to be published Tuesday, portrays a White House where tensions developed between Mrs. Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs. Among the book's most provocative anecdotes, Kantor recounts a scene in which Gibbs, frustrated after tamping down a potential public relations crisis involving the first lady, exploded when presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett told him the first lady had concerns about the White House response to the flap. The initial commotion had been over an alleged remark by Michelle Obama...

Hours after Mitt Romney eked out a win in the Iowa caucuses over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Gov. Deval Patrick called the victory for the former Bay State governor a win for the Tea Party. Appearing on the CBS Early Show on Wednesday, Patrick defended President Barack Obama and called the Republican cast of challengers “interchangeable.” “It’s a win last night for the Tea Party agenda. That was really the big winner. I mean the candidates in many respects are interchangeable because they’re all offering exactly the same plan, and that’s a plan that says that everybody in America...

First lady Michelle Obama tells Barbara Walters in a 20/20 special that it is "practical" for her to put her self highest on her priority list. Obama says she found her self slipping "pretty low" on her own priority list because she was "so busy caring for everyone else." Michelle Obama says she spends time with girlfriends and going out in her attempt to put herself higher on her priority list. Transcript below. Barbara Walters, ABC News: "Mrs. Obama, you've recently said something that I thought was very interesting for other women to hear. You said 'you put your own...

One of the most widely photographed acts of President Obama's first year in office was his symbolic pre-dawn salute to the caskets of U.S. soldiers returning to Dover Air Force Base. In the case of a terrorist named Ali Musa Daqduq, who was released yesterday from U.S. custody in Iraq, the President is letting down those fallen soldiers and their families. Daqduq is a Lebanese national and top Hezbollah operative who in January 2007 masterminded the ambush, kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers in the Iraqi city of Karbala. Arrested by U.S. forces in Basra two months later, Daqduq...

OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau caused uproar in the House of Commons today after he called Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent a “piece of s---” during a heated question time debate over the Kyoto Protocol. The Liberal MP for Papineau immediately apologized, admitting he “lost his cool” after Kent questioned why NDP environment critic Megan Leslie had not attended last week’s climate change summit in South Africa. Canada officially withdrew from the Kyoto accord on Monday, drawing pointed criticism from overseas signatories to the pact. Trudeau became incensed after Kent suggested that Leslie should have been in Durban for the UN...

Canada quits Kyoto climate protocol Environment minister says global accord intended to tackle global warming "does not represent a way forward for Canada". Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the country's minister of the environment has said, making it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty. The protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and would have forced it to take "radical and irresponsible choices", Peter Kent said in Toronto on Monday. He added that it was a mistake for Canada to have signed up for Kyoto: "As we've said,...

Simply said: when one truly digs in, MF Global exposes the 2011 equivalent of the 2008 AIG: virtually unlimited leverage via the shadow banking system, in which there are practically no hard assets backing the infinite layers of debt created above, and which when finally unwound, will create a cataclysmic collapse of all financial institutions, where every bank is daisy-chained to each other courtesy of multiple layers of "hypothecation, and re-hypothecation."

An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport. Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes. “I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.” TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the...

Former pizza magnate Herman Cain dropped out of the presidential race on Saturday after accusations of sexual misconduct overwhelmed his bid to win the Republican nomination as an anti-Washington tax reformer. Cain's departure set off a competition among other candidates to win over his conservative supporters with voting to start next month in the race to determine the Republicans' presidential pick for 2012 to oppose President Barack Obama. Cain, a former Godfather's Pizza chief executive, told followers in his hometown of Atlanta that "false and unproved" sexual accusations had forced him to suspend his White House bid. He said he...

Col Gaddafi's fugitive spy chief Abdullah al-Sanussi has been captured, Libya's interim government says. He was seized by fighters in the south of the country, officials say. Mr Sanussi, who has not yet been seen in custody, was one of the last senior figures from the Gaddafi regime still on the run. Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam was seized on Saturday. Both he and Mr Sanussi are wanted for alleged war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Mr Sanussi, a brother-in-law of Col Gaddafi, is said to have been arrested at his sister's home in the southern town of Sabha...