Free Republic

hings just got real up in here. You might remember the hubbub surrounding Sen. Tom Cotton’s so-called “47 Traitors” open letter addressed to Iranian officials. You know, the one where Cotton, et al. were proved right? Well earlier today, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (the same dude who thought it would be cute to lecture the Senate about the U.S. Constitution), took a verbal swipe at Sen. Cotton. As U.S. News and World Report writes: The Iranian foreign minister addressed the U.S. domestic political debate regarding the negotiations, referencing a letter sent by 47 Republican senators to leaders of the...

It’s official: The Energy Department’s green energy loan program is expected to lose money despite media reports that such loans would net the government a profit. The Government Accountability Office says the DOE’s oft-touted $28 billion loan program will cost taxpayers $2.21 billion over the lifetime of the loans. Not only that, the costs to taxpayers for green loans has risen about $500 million as “the result of loan guarantee defaults” from companies like Solyndra and Abound Solar. The “credit subsidy cost of the loans and loan guarantees in its portfolio” is expected ”to be $2.21 billion, including $807 million...

Hours after residents of Baltimore, Maryland, set the city aflame, President Barack Obama took to the Rose Garden to explain in professorial style just why America, under his administration, keeps watching young black men loot buildings and attack police officers. "We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals -- primarily African-American, often poor -- in ways that have raised troubling questions. And it comes up, it seems like, once a week now, or once every couple weeks," Obama said, proclaiming that police brutality against blacks amounted to a "slow-rolling crisis." He added,...

The past week was a very good one for Ted Cruz in South Carolina, as he swept the straw polls at four bi-annual Republican county conventions, and one county GOP Executive Committee bi-monthly meeting. The first came as Cruz won the Anderson County GOP convention straw poll as follows: Cruz 27%, Walker 25%, Rubio 15%, Huckabee 9%, Graham and Perry 6% each, Santorum 5%, Bush, Paul and Carson 1% each. But the biggest prizes came for Cruz as he won Greenville, Spartanburg and Aiken GOP convention straw polls all on the same day as follows: Greenville: Cruz 28%, Walker 22%,...

I once had a boss who gave me some great advice, not just for managing people but for judging politicians: You forgive mistakes; you punish patterns. Everybody screws up. But if someone won't learn from his mistakes and try to correct his behavior, then he either doesn't think it was a mistake, he just doesn't care or he thinks you're a fool. The one indisputable takeaway from Peter Schweizer's new book, "Clinton Cash," is that Bill and Hillary Clinton fit one or all of those descriptions. Let us recall Marc Rich, a shady billionaire indicted for tax evasion and defying...

Washington (CNN)—The IRS watchdog investigating the disappearance of Lois Lerner's emails told a Senate committee it has found roughly 6,400 messages that have never before been turned over to Congress. Lerner was the IRS official at the center of allegations that the agency targeted tea party groups applying for nonprofit status. Congress requested Lerner's emails from the IRS and agency officials told lawmakers an unknown number of emails had been lost when Lerner's computer crashed. READ: No contempt charges for Lois Lerner The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is in the process of turning the emails over to the...

RUSH: Okay, now, wait a minute, ladies and gentlemen, the police chief of Baltimore is telling parents to keep their kids at home. The police chief of Baltimore -- let me get this -- I want to get the exact words. What did this guy say? Here it is. I got it. "Take control of your kids." Okay? What do kids have to do with this? Hang on. Now the mayor of Philadelphia has spoken up. And the mayor of Philadelphia says: "Parents are responsible for their kids. Parents need to keep their kids in line," something like that. And...

VPR News has learned from several sources that Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will announce his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday. Sanders will release a short statement on that day and then hold a major campaign kickoff in Vermont in several weeks. Audio from this story will be posted at approximately 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 29. Sanders' entry into the Democratic race ensures that Hillary Clinton will face a challenge to win the support of the liberal wing of the party. Sanders' basic message will be that the middle class in America has been decimated in...

A fiery Joe Scarborough on Tuesday denounced the media's double standard when it comes to investigating the scandal engulfing the Clinton Foundation's financial dealings. An angry Scarborough erupted "The Clintons have made $150 million over the past decade because of contacts they made during public service!" He described the typical journalist reaction as "Let's bow down before Bill and Hillary, because if we ask the same questions of them that we ask of every other politician, then oh, my God! We have crossed a line!" Scarborough's outburst was a result of Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski's skeptical questioning of Clinton...

Most filers who received government subsidies to buy Obamacare plans had to pay money back to the IRS this year, according to an H&R Block analysis released Monday that looks at the health law’s first full tax season. The tax-prep giant studied its own massive customer base and concluded that two-thirds of its filers who got subsidies from Obamacare were overpaid during the course of the year, and owed money back to the IRS on the April 15 deadline. They repaid $729 on average, cutting the average refund by about a third.

During his press conference today, President Obama addressed the violence in Baltimore, claiming his political agenda would help solve some of the problems found in impoverished urban communities, such as the one where the violence occurred. “There’s a bunch of my agenda that would make difference right now in that,” he said, calling for more funding for early education, criminal justice reform and job training. Obama criticized members of Congress for blocking his agenda items, but encouraged Americans to do some “soul searching” during his joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this afternoon. “I’m under no illusion...

That is quite the rap sheet. Here are some things that you should know about Freddy Gray. Heavy – Freddie Gray, who died a week after suffering injuries while in Baltimore police custody, had a lengthy criminal record, mainly for drug-related offenses, according to state court records. Police claim he was “involved in criminal activity,” prior to his arrest. Gray, 25, died after spending seven days in a coma as a result of injuries he suffered while in the custody of city police, the Baltimore Sun reports. […] Gray had a lengthy arrest record with convictions dating back until at...

The controversy over scholar Christina Hoff Sommers' lecture at Georgetown University last week is not over. Lauren Gagliardi, the school's assistant director for the center for student engagement, emailed two members of the College Republicans to request they edit the video to remove students who did not agree to be videotaped. In the email, provided to the Washington Examiner, Gagliardi tells the students that the "edited version needs to be released without students who did not give permission to be taped." She also says that if the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, which sponsored the event, is "unwilling or unresponsive...

ormer Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is readying himself for a White House run. His recent rhetoric on economics shows that he will run to the left of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. After two terms of an unpopular left-wing president, that is surely the last thing the country needs. The good news is that O’Malley has a record we can examine, so voters will have more to go on than promises of “hope and change.” For fiscal policy, Cato grades the governors from “A” to “F” every two years in its “report cards.” One thing stands out about O’Malley’s record: his...

Things have gotten way out of control in Baltimore County following the death of Freddie Gray, but at least one mother is doing her best to make sure her son doesn’t get caught up in the rioting. Look what one CNN news crew caught live on camera:

A challenge to Texas voter identification law will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday. A three judge panel that includes two Democratic appointees will hear the case. One of the judges is a federal district court judge from the Eastern District of Texas who is sitting by designation. The case is Marc Veasey, et al., Texas Association of Hispanic County Judges and County Commissioners v. Greg Abbott et al. (cause no. 14-41127). Breitbart Texas reported that on October 11, 2014, U. S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos, a President Obama...

On April 22, a customer at a Kroger in Little Rock, Arkansas, saw an elderly man surrounded by “seven people,” so he drew his gun and intervened to protect the gentleman. The group surrounding the elderly man then turned their attention toward the armed customer and implored him to look the way. ” According to Fox 16, the group kept yelling, “[This] isn’t your fight, you need to walk away and you need to put the gun down.” The armed citizen refused to comply, and instead kept his gun trained on the group as they fled the scene. The armed...

In recent days, revelations from the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash” have revealed controversial Clinton Foundation financial deals, some including with the federal government. The revelations have led to a campaign by Clinton allies to downplay the notion of wrongdoing. However, as a video montage shows in 2009, it was then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who championed this new “controversial” expansion of public and private sector mergers, which left the Obama administration free to pick so-called “winners and losers” from a pool of Clinton foundation donors. Announcing the new “Global Partnership Initiative,” in 2009 at the Global Philanthropy Forum Conference, then-Secretary...

BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) -- The family of the convicted marathon bomber is in America, on your tax dollars, and survivors are outraged after learning the news. As of Thursday, family members of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been staying at the Hampton Inn in Revere under very tight security, just one of the things tax dollars are paying for. FOX25's Sharman Sacchetti investigated how much this trip is costing you. Sources say these family members are being called as witnesses and not only that, at least three agencies are working around the clock to protect and transport them. This is all part of...

With the advent of modern communication and means of travel, it seems unlikely there is any area of the world left unclaimed by one nation or another. But such land does, or in fact did exist within Europe, and one man has just made his claim to it and created a brand new European nation. The man in question is former Czech Vit Jedlicka. He is now the president of the Free Republic of Liberland, which is a 7km2 stretch of land on the west bank of the Dunube river between Serbia and Croatia. It is actually disputed land by...