Free Republic

There is no evidence that the Syrian government ordered the massacre with chemical weapons, but the West will blame it anyway because they want war, investigative journalist Neil Clark told RT. RT: As we can see the US, Britain, France and Turkey are all waiting on options in Syria. How ready are they to move from words to action at this point? Neil Clark: They are really bent on war and whatever the UN inspectors do this week won’t matter because it is a replay of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was bullied into allowing weapons inspection teams into Iraq. They...

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that." If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney who serves on the House...

Barack Obama appointed Tuesday to help lead the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Robert F. Bauer, said during the 2012 election that voter ID laws are a Republican tactic to suppress lawful votes. During the 2012 election, the Obama team tapped Bauer to lead the legal teams for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Among his initiatives: fighting voter ID laws enacted by a number of states in an effort to combat voter fraud. During his time as the team’s organizer, Bauer told the Associated Press that he believes that the GOP is enlisting these new laws to impede...

A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity. Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to 15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012. The letters, such as this one sent to the Ohio Liberty Council on March 16, 2012, informed the groups applying for tax-exempt status that the IRS...

“We have a message for Attorney General Holder over at http://huffingtonpost.com,” read a message from the Huffington Post political Twitter account earlier this evening. The website's home page is one big splash calling for Eric Holder’s exit from the Obama administration, suggesting that the news reported earlier by NBC News was the final straw for liberals who are critical of Obama’s attorney general. NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reported that Holder signed off on the search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator”authorizing seizure of his private emails. The Huffington Post page also highlights Holder’s record...

During friendly questioning from Rep. Hank “I fear that Guam will capsize!” Johnson in Congress last week, Attorney General Eric Holder offered the following statement. In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy. He made that statement before the facts about the sweep on Fox News’ James Rosen were known. Since then, it’s come to light that Holder himself approved the subpoena that, among other things, named Rosen as a criminal co-conspirator.

full title.....Chelsea Clinton puts her religious roots to academic use as she lands new job as 'multifaith' leader at New York University Chelsea Clinton, who is a member of the United Methodist Church, has landed a new job at New York University as co-founder and co-chair of its brand-new 'multifaith initiative,' Of Many Institute. The 33-year-old's role, which is yet to be formerly announced, will aim to develop multifaith dialogue and 'support a new generation of religious and civic leaders who. . . [will] reach across faith boundaries to solve social problems together,' explains the NYU website.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) member and Spring Valley Mayor Noramie Jasmin was arrested yesterday for allegedly accepting bribes from an undercover FBI agent, as part of a wide-ranging federal corruption probe that netted six New York state politicians.

As I noted in the introduction to my book, The Obama Timeline, a jury at a murder trial will often find the accumulated circumstantial evidence so overwhelming that a guilty verdict is obvious—even though there may be no witness to the crime. “The jurors in the Scott Peterson trial believed the collection of evidence more than they believed Scott Peterson. Among other things, the jury thought that being arrested with $15,000 in cash, recently-dyed hair, a newly-grown goatee, four cell phones, camping equipment, a map to a new girlfriend’s house, a gun, and his brother’s driver’s license certainly did not...

LYIN’ HAWAIIAN: Following shocking contradictions discovered by criminal investigators between the contents of the forged digital image of Obama’s alleged 1961 “Certificate of Live Birth” posted on the internet and long-standing federal vital records regulations, the State of Hawaii now refuses to verify that the digital image matches the paper record in their files. The American people were ridiculed and insulted by the liberal media for years for questioning the authority of the State of Hawaii when the current and former directors of the Hawaiian Department of Health, Loretta Fuddy and Chiyome Fukino, publicly stated that they had verified that...

If you thought that a formal censure was the most serious punishment Congress could give one of its own members short of expulsion — guess again. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just proved that, to the folks on Capitol Hill, censure — for all the stern rhetoric involved — is just a joke. Which is why she just endorsed Rep. Charles Rangel for re-election. The same Charlie Rangel whom she publicly rebuked in the well of the House of Representatives back in December 2010 for 11 violations of ethics rules.

Related: David J Vitale: http://www.muckety.com/David-J-Vitale/5794.muckety "Urban Partnership Bank Chairman David Vitale on ShoreBank, Federal Aid for Banks, and Detroit’s Troubles" http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/April-2011/Urban-Partnership-Bank-Chairman-David-Vitale-on-ShoreBank-Federal-Aid-for-Banks-and-Detroits-Troubles/ UPB link: https://www.upbnk.com/faith-based Board: "Urban Partnership Bank names board" By Becky Yerak Posted Aug. 27, 2010 Urban Partnership Bank, the newly formed group that last week bought failed Chicago-based ShoreBank, has named five-people to its board of directors. It includes three former First Chicago executives who had joined ShoreBank in recent months during its last-ditch and ultimately unsuccessful effort to raise capital so state and federal regulators wouldn’t seize it. Those are David Vitale, who, as previously reported, will...

While it's true that President Obama began his political career in the living room of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, his first political sponsor and major fundraiser was Antoin "Tony" Rezko. The pair go back to the 1990s and Obama's state Senate years, but they are best known for the still-not-completely-explained 2005 real estate deal that allowed the Obamas to buy their Chicago South Side mansion, while Rezko's wife bought a narrow strip of the home's lot on the same day. At that time, Rezko was under federal investigation for influence peddling and fraud while serving...

1. Alabama is a wonderfully free "right-to-work" state, which simply means it prevents unions from extracting dues from workers who do not wish to join. 2. General Electric's CEO Jeff Immelt is the poster-boy for crony capitalism, having backed Obama's rush to socialized medicine and green energy to benefit various of its business units. 3. It turns out that GE's Aviation division is breaking ground on a new factory in Alabama. And, unlike Boeing, which tried to build a factory in a right-to-work-state, the National Labor Relations Board hasn't uttered a peep. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Remember...

The Occupation Cookbook The Occupation Cookbook is a “manual” that describes the organization of the student occupation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences that took place in the spring of 2009 and lasted for 35 days. It was written for two reasons: to record what happened, and to present the particular organization of this action in such a way that it may be of use to other activists and members of various collectives if they decide to undertake a similar action.The Cookbook is currently being translated into several languages. At the moment, all but the final few...

... What worries me more than anything else about President Obama is the fact that he has sixteen months left in which to inflict as much damage on the economy and the nation’s future as possible.I have little doubt that is his intent. ExecutiveOrder as an end-run around the illegal alien amnesty He just issued an ExecutiveOrder as an end-run around the illegal alien amnesty issue that Americans have defeated a half dozen times when Congress tried to get it passed. The new fuel economy standards his administration has announced will add an average of $11,000 to the cost of...

Drip. Drip. Drip. Whether it is Solyndra, Obamacare, or Fast and Furious, President Obama’s push for his “American Jobs Act” has been drowned out this week by the failure of his past policies. Every night it seems there is a new angle on the Energy Department’s failed loan to the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Not only was there a headline-grabbing hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday (at which Obama officials tried to blame Bush) , but the Treasury Department separately announced that their Inspector General (IG) would join the FBI and Energy Department IG in their...

Start rattling the chains. Start ratcheting up the hue and cry. Fire up the masses. It's long past time to force mass resignations at, and possible prosecutions of members of, the Obama Justice Department --and, more broadly, of the West Wing itself. Forgive all the links, but the scope of the corruption is so large as to defy adequate descriptions, in a single column, of each abomination. The reality is that these Obama/Holder minions at DoJ are dangerous to the very heart of constitutional, republican (small 'r') government.

AUGUST 15, 2011 Immigration Audits Drive Illegal Workers Underground BY MIRIAM JORDAN MINNEAPOLIS—In 2009, Alba and Eugenio were making almost twice the federal minimum wage, plus benefits, cleaning a skyscraper for a national janitorial company. With two toddlers, the Mexican couple enjoyed relative prosperity in a tidy one-bedroom duplex in a working-class neighborhood here. Late that year, federal agents audited employee records of ABM Industries Inc., forcing it to shed all the illegal workers on its payrolls in the Twin Cities. Among them was the couple, undocumented immigrants who had worked at ABM for more than a decade.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV Friday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Barack Obama’s decision not to fully enforce the Defense of Marriage law has sparked a constitutional crisis as he has directly violated his constitutional duties by arbitrarily suspending a law. Gingrich for the first time raised the specter of Obama’s removal from office, noting that, if a “President Sarah Palin” had taken a similar action, there would have been immediate calls for her impeachment. Obama Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the administration will not defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act...