Free Republic

Yesterday, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz appeared on Ralston Reports - a regional Nevada talk show which discusses politics and news. As is so often the case, she presented herself as America’s number one ObamaCare cheerleader. Unfortunately, though, she had no idea what she was talking about. While talking about the recent DC Circuit Court ruling, host John Ralston suggested that most Americans believe ObamaCare is a “shaky mess.” Wasserman-Schultz, he claimed had “to be worried.” The chairwoman disagreed, so she tried to make a point. She failed. “Just take a state like Nevada,” she said. “Where you have...

If Rupert Murdoch succeeds in acquiring Time Warner, he will almost definitely need to divest CNN. But the deal would make the 21st Century Fox head the proud owner of HBO, home to frequent Fox adversary Bill Maher. On Wednesday, Maher published a guest column in The Hollywood Reporter, imagining what would happen to his long-running HBO show if Murdoch takes over the network. Maher begins by saying he’s “against” the merger but never saw it coming. “So many ways for a guy like me to lose his job, but I never dreamed these two would marry,” he writes. “I...

One time I was speaking at a local South Florida high school and explaining “wealth redistribution.” I used a football analogy, with the example of a team being ahead at halftime 28-7. However, when the team came back after halftime, the scoreboard read 21-14. I explained to the students that officials met in the press booth and decided to have equitable apportionment of touchdowns to make the game fairer. They believed the self-esteem of the other team was being adversely affected. When I asked the high school seniors if they agreed, they vehemently said no. They felt they’d earned their...

(Newser) – Businessman David Perdue has won the GOP nomination for a Senate race the party cannot afford to lose. Perdue, former CEO of Reebok and Dollar General, narrowly beat 11-term Rep. Jack Kingston in a runoff election in Georgia to become the party's Senate nominee, reports the New York Times. He will face Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, in a race seen as key to control of the Senate for the last years of President Obama's term. Democrats see Georgia as their best chance of picking up another Senate seat this fall, while Republicans need...

A retired Border Patrol officer outraged over the influx of illegal aliens entering the country this year has recorded an interview that reveals chilling information about the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border and the long-term hazards it holds for the country as a whole. zacharytaylor0723In the self-produced interview, former Border Patrol Agent Zachary Taylor talks about a variety issues facing the Border Patrol the general public might not expect. He speaks of immigrants with various diseases coming into the U.S., how the Russian mafia is using Mexico as a base of operations and the concept of “asymmetric warfare” as...

I was on One America News Network with Rick Amato, discussing Israel, Hamas, jihad riots and Obama. (8 Minute Video) (BTW One America News is a great alternative to the MSM including Fox...if you have AT&T cable it is available.)

Things got heated very quickly this morning on CNN’s “New Day” on July 23. CNN anchor Chris Cuomo sparred with Russia Today reporter Peter LaVelle over the downing of the MH17 plane. Cuomo started the segment by asking LaVelle why Russian President Vladimir Putin hadn’t condemned how the crime scene was being handled. LaVelle immediately became defensive and called Cuomo’s question “ludicrous,” saying that Russia has conducted an investigation and provided forensic evidence. “We don’t have that coming out of Washington,” LaVelle said. “That’s what you should be asking. Why is the State Department relying upon Twitter and YouTube and...

FULL TITLE: Ted Cruz: The facts suggest President Obama has just used the FAA to launch an ECONOMIC BOYCOTT on Israel…//// Sen. Ted Cruz ripped the president today for using a federal agency, the FAA, to launch an economic boycott on Israel in order to force them to comply with his demands. He pointed out that this economic boycott aids Hamas while simultaneously hurting Israel. What Cruz is calling for is the Obama administration to answer the following questions: Was this decision a political decision driven by the White House? If the FAA’s decision was based on airline safety, why...

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a Republican who said he is mulling a run for president in 2016, is a somewhat ubiquitous presence for politicos on Twitter. The Washington Post documented in July how users who search for terms like "GOP" or even just "politics" on Twitter are greeted with ads from Bolton blasting President Barack Obama's foreign policy. For example, Business Insider just did a Twitter search for "Benghazi" and was presented with ads featuring surverys asking if Israel is justified in its conflict with Hamas and if we agree that "Iran is taking America...

A major Democratic donor who is funding some of the left’s most politically active electioneering groups was subject to bipartisan condemnation this week in the midst of a federal investigation into his hedge fund’s tax avoidance schemes. Senators from both parties blasted efforts by Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund owned by Democratic mega-donor Jim Simons, to shield itself from federal income taxes during a Tuesday hearing. “Two banks and a handful of hedge funds developed a complex financial structure to engage in highly profitable trades while claiming an unjustified lower tax rate and avoiding limits on trading with borrowed money,”...

Two conflicting court decisions on tax credits for Obamacare have millions of consumers worried, along with some Republican governors who opted to let the federal government run their state programs. A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit determined that only those enrolled in state-operated Obamacare exchanges are eligible for the tax subsidies that put the "affordable" in the Affordable Care Act, The Wall Street Journal reported. Should the ruling stand, Bloomberg News reports, customers in those 36 states could see their subsidies vanish, boosting their healthcare premiums by 76 percent, dealing a serious blow both to Obamacare...

(VIDEO) Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Wednesday slammed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen for failing to help answer questions about Congress’s investigation into the IRS targeting scandal, and instead arguing that he can’t do anything while the Inspector General’s investigation into the IRS is ongoing. Koskinen appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he said several times that he was unable to help answer some of Congress’s questions because of the IG investigation. But Gowdy said there are no rules prohibiting Koskinen from helping more. “I find this confounding,” Gowdy said. “I find it vexing, that once the...

Art Hackney has more than three decades of strategising for Republican election campaigns in Alaska under his belt. And he’s rarely been so frustrated. From an office lined with awards for punchy political campaigns on behalf of senators, congressmen and governors, Hackney has watched the prospects for the man he picked to take Alaska's seat in the US Senate for the GOP ebb, something he blames on Republican strategists "back east", who, he says, have got the state all wrong. "It's a little worse than frustrating. It's immensely perplexing, because it's beyond belief what happened," he said. The national Republican...

(VIDEO) Critics of a bipartisan immigration bill proposed by two Texans claim it does not include any new border fence proposals, won't end the president's deportation deferral program, and doesn't go far enough to evict illegal children streaming over the border. And, they tell Secrets, the compromise hammered out by Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar amounts to "amnesty" because it opens the door to letting those already facing removal orders have another chance to make their case to stay. “This gives those who have been issued a final order or removal another bite at the apple,...

Last week, a bankruptcy judge ordered the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to come up with answers for helping residents pay their overdue water bills, in light of the thousands of shut-off notices the agency has issued across the city. While the water authority must present its alternatives in court today, two resourceful women have already come up with one solution.Turn on Detroit's Water is a website that matches donors with Detroiters who are struggling to pay their water bills. The site invites residents with overdue bills to submit their information. From there, the site—which is the work of Tiffani Ashley Bell and Kristy Tillman—matches...

Whether it’s Obama sneering “Sue me” to critics of his abuses of power or Putin shrugging at yet another atrocity, we are no longer in the civilized urbane precincts of law and government. What both men have in common is a hard left background which has taught them that the only defining principle in politics is Lenin’s “Kto-Kovo”. Kto-Kovo or Who-Whom reduced all interactions to warfare. The Bolsheviks ushered in the end of rules, decency or honor. All that mattered was who would be able to destroy whom. It didn’t matter whether you had justice on your side, but what...

While the Environmental Protection Agency appears to be backing off its push to pre-emptively kill a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska’s bush country, the agency is pitching an array of conditions that could stifle the project. Friday’s proposed list of restrictions, subject of a public comment period through Sept. 19, could severely limit development of the proposed Pebble Mine project, an operation that developers say would create 1,000 direct jobs, and thousands more indirectly, and as much as $180 million in state revenue for Alaska. Dennis McLerran, regional administrator for the EPA’s Region 10, said while the agency...

Barack Obama is trying his best to stand in between Israel and the destruction of one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations. The president has made it clear since the conflict in Gaza began heating up a few weeks ago, that his support of Israel begins and ends at the podium, as his actions outside of his famously scripted and egocentric speeches demonstrates a hidden hostility toward the Israelis. President Obama warned Israeli leaders to use “restraint” in dealing with terrorists who were bombing their country, doing untold amounts of damage and putting people’s lives in danger. After a...

The weird story of the Florida police station with two Klansmen officers just took a weirder-er turn: the ex-wife of one of the officers accused of joining the Ku Klux Klan has turned around, saying his former boss actually told him to go undercover in the first place. Ann Hunnewell, the ex-wife of Officer George Hunnewell, was working as a secretary at the Fruitland Park Police Department when her boss approached her and her husband with an unusual assignment: as she told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, he wanted the two of them to infiltrate the local Klan to...

On Sunday's Media Buzz, Senator John McCain brushed off Jon Stewart's latest blast at him over the Iraq War. Host Howard Kurtz wondered, "Is Jon Stewart fair to Republicans?" McCain bluntly answered, "No, but it doesn't matter really. He's a comedian." When Kurtz brought up Stewart's "sizable following among young people," the Republican contended that "he's a very entertaining and funny guy, but...when he says things...that are absolutely wrong, he gets away with it." Earlier in the interview, the Fox News Channel host raised the conservative critique about the liberal media's deferential treatment of President Obama. Kurtz wondered if that...