Free Republic

In retrospect, the Democratic Convention highlighted a liar, Elizabeth Warren. She was hired by Harvard law school because she lied about her ethnicity to gain affirmative action benefits, exaggerated her scholarship which was shoddy, practiced law for years in Massachusetts out of her law school office without being a member of that state's bar -- and possibly at the time a member of no bar at all. She gummed on before the crowd about working for the middle class hiding from the audience that she had made hundreds of thousands of dollars representing big corporations in disputes against steel workers...

The federal government is making another big bet on solar panel manufacturing with taxpayer money, hoping the third time will be the charm. SoloPower held its grand opening Thursday in Portland, Ore., with speeches from local politicians and a ribbon-cutting. "It really revolutionizes rooftop applications, and it makes solar both easy and cost effective for nearly any commercial and industrial building worldwide," CEO Tim Harris said. SoloPower closed on a guaranteed government loan of $197 million last August, about the time another solar panel manufacturer, Solyndra, filed for bankruptcy. The failure of Solyndra cost U.S. taxpayers more than a half-billion...

<p>A government watchdog says Amtrak's train operators are testing positive for drugs and alcohol more and more frequently over the last six years.</p>

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The White House on Friday told government contractors worried about fiscal cliff spending cuts to hold off on warning employees about possible layoffs. The government said it would cover legal costs if contractors are forced to slash their payrolls because of the looming $109 billion in automatic cuts next year and are alleged to have violated the WARN Act. .... Defense contractors in particular have warned for months that the upcoming sequester would cost jobs in their industry. And Lockheed Martin's CEO has said publicly he may be forced to issue notice this fall of possible...

CHICAGO — Battling mental illness and personal financial troubles, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is a heavy favorite for reelection Nov. 6 despite a surreal campaign from which he has been absent for almost four months. Jackson, 47, who disclosed this summer that he has bipolar depression and has undergone weeks of hospitalization, is convalescing in Washington and meeting occasionally with aides. He has been absent from the House of Representatives since June 8. Whether he will campaign at all is in question. His reelection bid is being led by his wife, Sandi Jackson, who turned down interview requests....

Attorney General Eric Holder was awarded the Congressional Black Caucus’s Chair Award last Saturday at the Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, DC. In her keynote speech for the event, First Lady Michelle Obama gushed over Mr. Holder’s “outstanding contributions to our nation.” Contributions? Does that include Operation Fast & Furious, the government gun walking scheme that allowed 2,000 guns to land into the hands of already dangerous Mexican drug cartels? These guns are linked to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens. Hundreds are still missing and have recently been found in Colombia. Mr....

For over forty years now, the Watergate scandal — the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the subsequent cover-up by the Nixon administration — has been the sine qua non of American political malfeasance. It has been followed by myriad other “gates” affecting both parties but has never been superseded. Until now. Benghazi or Benghazigate, as some call it, is worse. Far worse. Incomparably worse. Watergate caught numerous public officials lying, including the president of the United States, but Benghazigate has all that and more. It involves the terrorist murder (not an electorally irrelevant burglary) of...

For the first time in his presidency, Barack Obama can call himself a job creator. There are now more U.S. jobs than when he took office. Not by much, but they've moved out of negative territory, according to a Labor Department revision.

Americans are fast turning to mobile devices to get their news, resulting in stunning viewership declines for CNN and existence-threatening readership drops for newspapers, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The winners: social network sites, online news and websites like the Drudge Report and Yahoo. In Pew's latest look at trends in news consumption, Americans said that they have turned away from CNN. In just four years, the percentage of those who say they watch CNN has dropped from 24 percent to 16 percent. Viewership of the competing cable giants, Fox and MSNBC, has remained fairly stable with...

When gunmen struck the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year, the response from American officials was almost simultaneous: They immediately set about collecting information about the attackers, some of whom were quickly identified as foreigners, and tracing links from them to known extremist groups, a knowledgeable source has told Yahoo News. The source's description came as fresh news accounts cast doubt on the White House's insistence that it has been forthright all along about what it knew about the attack. (I tweeted on Sept. 21 that this same source informed Yahoo News that the administration...

California public health officials have tested 100 workers at Yosemite National Park to determine whether they were exposed to the deadly mouse-borne hantavirus. Nine people who spent time at the park this year have been infected with the rare virus, the majority after staying at the “Signature” cabins in Curry Village. Three of them died. KTVU-TV Oakland said 100 park workers submitted to voluntary testing on Wednesday and they have been ordered not to discuss the testing.

Jake Tapper By Jake Tapper @jaketapper Find on FacebookFollow on Twitter Sep 27, 2012 6:13pm Some Administration Officials Were Concerned About Initial White House Push Blaming Benghazi Attack on Mob, Video Email 25 Smaller Font Text Larger Text | Print Even before Defense Secretary Leon Panetta contradicted the initial story about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, today, Obama administration officials told ABC News they were concerned after the White House began pushing the line that the attack was spontaneous and not the work of terrorists. Events were too uncertain, and suspicions had been aroused, officials said....

Hold on to your butts. The Samuel L. Jackson political ad has been released and he’s asking Americans to “wake the f— up.” In perhaps the most anticipated political ad of the election season from either side of the aisle was released today from the Jewish Council on Research and Education, featuring an impassioned Jackson urging voters leaning toward GOP candidate Mitt Romney instead of President Barack Obama to reconsider their choice come November. Flanked by a young girl, Jackson and the girl attempt to convince the girl’s family to step up and reelect the president. The video is vintage...

Advanced Voting Systems of Frisco, Texas, clearly didn’t give software security a thought when it designed its electronic voting machines.The AVS WinVote system is vulnerable to wireless computer sabotage, but because of a lack of funding to replace them, those machines are still in use in more than a third of the polling localities in Virginia, a swing state that could determine the outcome of this year’s U.S. presidential election. A new Virginia law bans wireless capabilities in voting machines, but allows the use of those machines election officials already purchased. Jeremy Epstein, a computer researcher who helped draft the...

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door. [snip] The two officers, 25-year-old Kyle Shedran and 24-year-old Greg Day, were placed on administrative leave with pay. “We did the best surveillance we could do, and a mistake was made,” Lebanon Police Chief Billy Weeks said. “It’s a very severe mistake, a costly mistake. It makes...

Anger is beginning to erupt nationwide over what many perceive to be media bias against Mitt Romney and other Republican or conservative-oriented candidates. The Media Research Center has consistently provided examples of bias against the Republican challenger to President Obama. The bias extends beyond actual news reporting and includes the well-known proclivity of Hollywood to back leftist candidates, exemplified by the recent disclosures that funds would be provided to “push” a pro-Obama message on purely entertainment television shows. The incentive may well be a redundancy. Indeed, some broadcasts, David Letterman being a prime example, already sound like humorous infomercials on...

Great video. It appears that Obama's best friend and roommate, Sohale Siddiqi was more than a friend. Perhaps this explains the wedding ring he wore for years before he married Michelle.

Iran President Ahmadinejad At UN Quotes Hitler: New World Order NeededBy Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyNew York, New York --- September 26, 2012 ... Speaking at the UN on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised Allah and spoke of a better life for nations, representing human values, peace, harmony and humanity by attacking global democracy. Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel stated that the Israeli government was a "fake government" responsible for the "genocide" of the Palestinian people. Ahmadinejad did not mention Israel's unilateral peace moves such as leaving...

(VIDEO AT LINK) The Congressional Black Caucus used National Voter Registration Day to launch a new voter protection initiative. On Tuesday members of the CBC partnered with community leaders as well as local and state elected officials in a series of events throughout the country to unveil “For the People“. The initiative draws attention to voter suppression efforts, like restrictive voter ID laws, that could prevent many minorities from voting in November. The goal of “For the People” is to provide information on what documents and procedures are needed to vote so that no eligible voter is turned away from...