Free Republic

Charging that Delaware officials have stopped cooperating with his investigation, Sen. Chuck Grassley on Friday sent a pointed letter to the state's Division of Revenue in which he outlines specific, outstanding questions that still swirl around the handling of former U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell’s tax records. “On multiple occasions, my staff has requested a copy of your records retention policy, the opportunity to speak with [officials at the state's Division of Revenue] and other clarifications related to these matters. To date, you have failed to respond,” the letter from the Iowa Republican reads in part. In a case first...

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard this fall, Bettina Poirier, a Democratic committee aide, told The Hill on Wednesday. The announcement raises the specter that changes to the nearly decade-old biofuel-blending mandate could be in the offing. The planned hearing comes as members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are working on legislation to overhaul the rule. The mandate, approved by Congress in a 2005 energy law and expanded two years later, requires refiners to blend 36 billion gallons of biofuel with conventional petroleum by 2022. Some Democrats on...

WILMINGTON, DE, July 30, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – Three former employees at the now-infamous Planned Parenthood facility in Wilmington, Delaware, told lawmakers in the state Senate today that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) knew about the unsafe conditions at the facility, and did nothing.The Wilmington clinic was briefly closed earlier this year after two of the women, nurses Joyce Vasikonis and Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, went to the media telling a tale of a dangerous “meat-market” style of performing abortions, and describing the clinic as a “nightmare.” At today's hearing, the three former employees testified that PPFA first became aware of...

The University of Delaware said that confidential files containing personal information on 72,000 people were recently hacked. The files include social security numbers, addresses and school ID numbers of past and current employees, including student employees. School officials said the breach occurred when cyber criminals attacked a vulnerability in software provided by a vendor for one of the university’s systems.

Ex-IRS Employee: IRS targeting of Christine O’Donnell “not an aberration.” It wasn’t an accident. And the IRS has used hush money. A former IRS employee — that would be IRS employee-turned-whistle blower Stanley Welli — tells The American Spectator that the IRS targeting of Delaware Republican U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party favorite, was neither “isolated” nor “an aberration.” O’Donnell was recently notified by the IRS that the agency had “received information that your personal federal tax info may have been compromised and may have been misused by an individual…” --snip-- The episode launched Welli on an endless...

When Vice President Joe Biden speaks before a crowd he tries to be as relatable as possible, but Wednesday in India he hinted he might be related to them as well. The veep spoke before the Bombay Stock Exchange in Mumbai and recounted a letter he received when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate back in 1972. “Off script for a second here…one of the first letters I received and I regret I never followed up on it. Maybe some genealogist in audience can follow up for me, but I received a letter from a gentleman named Biden–Biden,...

July 24, 2013 Coons denies knowledge of or involvement with O’Donnell tax breach Ben Wolfgang As unanswered questions swirl around Christine O'Donnell and the breach of her personal tax records, the other key figure in Delaware’s 2010 U.S. Senate race said neither he nor his campaign had anything to do with it. Democratic Sen. Christopher A. Coons, who handily defeated Ms. O'Donnell three years ago in the contest to fill Vice President Joseph R. Biden's Senate seat, says he hasn’t been contacted by congressional investigators or the Treasury Department watchdog responsible for looking into the improper use of Americans’ private...

Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O’Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history. The revelations to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office came Tuesday as the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, the government’s chief watchdog for the Internal Revenue Service, formally reopened its investigation into the matter by re-interviewing Ms. O’Donnell. “It is an active investigation now,” Ms. O’Donnell told The Washington Times after...

Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O'Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history.

Christine O’Donnell, the former Tea Party–backed Senate candidate from Delaware, was interviewed on Sean Hannity’s radio program today about the renewed investigation into whether she was targeted by the IRS during her 2010 campaign. She alleges that the IRS “set up a back door for people working in partisan offices to get into the IRS database” and use confidential tax information to influence elections. On the day she announced her 2010 Senate bid, O’Donnell said, the IRS erroneously issued a tax lien against her on a home she didn’t own anymore, which held that she owed the government $12,000. While

Christine O'Donnell, the former U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware, told the Wilmington News Journal in an interview this weekend that she is considering running again in 2014 to challenge incumbent Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.).

Christine O’Donnell is considering a new bid for the Senate. The conservative activist who rode a tea party wave to victory in a Delaware special election primary four years ago is interested in challenging Sen. Chris Coons (D) in 2014, the Wilmington News Journal reports. O’Donnell would have difficulty winning over skeptics in the Delaware GOP, many of whom see her as a liability. After beating moderate Republican Rep. Mike Castle in the 2010 primary, O’Donnell lost in a landslide to Coons amid a series of missteps and damaging revelations about her past.

The director of Delaware’s tax-collection office said Friday that his agency accessed the federal tax records in 2010 of an unnamed taxpayer, believed to be former GOP Senate candidate Christine O´Donnell. Patrick Carter, director of the state’s division of revenue, would not identify Ms. O´Donnell as the taxpayer but said he approved the inquiry “for routine purposes.” “A state Division of Revenue investigator accessed records on or after March 20, 2010 following information that came to the attention of the division,” Mr. Carter said in a statement. “The record access led the state revenue investigator

More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O'Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records may have been breached. The phone message earlier this year shocked the battled-scarred candidate, a tea party favorite who knocked off Republican mainstay Michael Castle in the primary before losing in a bid to win Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s former seat. “Ms. O'Donnell, this is Dennis Martel, special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury in Baltimore, Md. … We received information that your personal federal tax...

It may turn out that within the IRS abuse of Tea Party, conservative, Jewish and other groups was another layer of abuse: women. Catherine Engelbrecht so far has the most harrowing story to tell, of abuse by multiple executive branch agencies after she founded the grassroots election security watchdog True the Vote. Now former Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell is naming names, saying that her tax information was compromised the very day she announced her Senate candidacy. That same day, the IRS slapped a lien on a house that it believed she owned, only to withdraw that lien when...

More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O'Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records may have been breached. The phone message earlier this year shocked the battled-scarred candidate, a tea party favorite who knocked off Republican mainstay Michael Castle in the primary before losing in a bid to win Vice President Joseph R. Biden's former seat. "Ms. O'Donnell, this is Dennis Martel, special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury in Baltimore, Md. ... We received information that your personal federal tax...

State officials can access IRS computer systems through a “back door� intended to allow for better communication in investigations, but with so little accountability that the process can easily be abused for political purposes. That appears to have happened already — and the target was a Tea Party candidate for Senate. According to the Washington Times, an official in state government illegally accessed Christine O’Donnell’s tax records on the day she announced her candidacy — and the same day the IRS slapped an erroneous tax lien on a property O’Donnell no longer owned: On March 9, 2010, the day she...

More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O’Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records may have been breached. The phone message earlier this year shocked the battled-scarred candidate, a tea party favorite who knocked off Republican mainstay Michael Castle in the primary before losing in a bid to win Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s former seat. “Ms. O’Donnell, this is Dennis Martel, special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury in Baltimore, Md. … We received information that your personal federal tax...

Overpasses for Obama's impeachment. As the name implies they are organizing protest against Obama and promoting his impeachment. They just got their website going. Overpassesforobamasimpeachme nt.org

On a blistering July 4 morning, nearly 1,500 people jammed Rehoboth Beach for a Freedom Rally celebration featuring music, veterans and prayer. A portion of the beach at Rehoboth Avenue had been sectioned off, but the crowd quickly overwhelmed the area as people lined the dune-crossing and the Boardwalk in front of a small stage. "We were just hoping for a peaceful service," said event organizer Christian Hudson. But the event far exceeded his expectations. Hudson organized the rally after the Rev. Robert Dekker, senior pastor of New Covenant Presbyterian Church, was denied a permit to hold eight Sunday services...

Two years ago, almost to the day, Senator Coons led a dozen of his colleagues in an It Gets Better video to tell LGBTQ youth that they were working to make it better. After the Supreme Court's decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act today, Chris released a new video to celebrate the decision:

On a background call with reporters Monday, a senior administration officials declined to say what if any meetings Biden has had with senators involved in the gun control push. “This is something that continues to be at the top of the agenda for the president and the vice president,” one senior administration official said. “We’re not in a position to confirm that those individual conversations, but we’re definitely in a position to confirm that those conversations are ongoing because that is a legislative priority of ours.” And asked why the administration didn’t complete all 23 executive actions, officials said it...

Vice President Joe Biden insisted to a subdued audience Tuesday that he and President Barack Obama “haven’t given up” on gun control. But his remarks came at the first White House event since the Senate’s failed April 17 background checks vote. And all that he had to show gun control supporters by way of progress was a list of completed or mostly completed executive actions — and a set of new guidebooks for churches and schools on how to deal with a mass shooting situation. Over the past two months, the White House has dramatically dialed back its gun push....

Fisker Automotive hasn't built a car in nearly a year. It fired most of its workforce, hired bankruptcy advisers and is seeking a buyer. Co-founder Henrik Fisker resigned in mid-March in a dispute with some of the directors. And despite raising $1.4 billion in private and public funds since its founding in 2007, the company is out of cash. For months, key investors have been footing the car maker's day-to-day expenses to keep it alive in diminished form. The Energy Department has repeatedly defended its handling of the Fisker loan. Nicholas Whitcombe, who previously led the DOE loan program, told...

Watch then-Senator Joe Biden from 2006 as he directly refutes each point made by his boss, President Obama, about the NSA surveillance program at his news conference last week.

After he stands with the White House on guns and immigration, McCain gets the big Biden shoutout. Sen. John McCain can be one of the White House’s toughest critics. But after backing President Obama on gun control and comprehensive immigration reform, McCain got a big shoutout from the White House Friday. In the latest installment of “Being Biden” — the White House audio series featuring the Vice President describing moments in his week — Biden describes his recent trip to the McCain Institute in Sedona, Arizona where he appeared with the Republican Senator at a policy summit. Biden heaps praise...

Last year Vice President Joe Biden saw the wedding of his daughter Ashley to Philadelphia doctor Howard Krein. He also saw the bill.

DELAWARE: Markell Signs Gun Bill (Link only--no excerpt allowed)

Stop the presses! Another one of President Obama’s brilliant clean-energy ventures has collapsed after taking tens of millions of dollars from American taxpayers, in this case to develop a special wheelchair-accessible “green” van. The news comes just weeks after a separate company that got nearly $200 million from the government to develop hybrid vehicles folded. That fly-by-night company, Fisker Automotive, had been heavily touted by the administration as an innovator that would develop two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that could run up to 300 miles on a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. Before doling out the cash, Obama’s Energy Secretary...

The bill requires mental health providers, including licensed school counselors, to call police if they believe a person poses a danger to himself or others. Police would investigate and would refer the case to the attorney general’s office if they believe the person shouldn’t have access to a gun. The attorney general’s office could then ask a judge to prohibit the person from owning or possessing a gun. The judge also could order the seizure of any guns that the person owns. In the case of a troubled child, authorities could seize any guns owned by a parent or guardian...

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, proposed Tuesday using text messages to remind people who are inside the U.S. on visas when their visas are scheduled to run out. “You’ve got a month to go on your visa. You got two weeks to go. You got a week to go. You got a day to go, and the idea that people know that we know that they’re here, we know that their time is running out, and we’re watching them,” Carper said, describing ways the possible text messages that can be used to remind people...

A divided state Senate voted Tuesday to make Delaware the 11th state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage, after hearing hours of passionate testimony from supporters and opponents. Less than an hour after the Senate's 12-9 vote, Democratic Gov. Jack Markell signed the measure into law. "I do not intend to make any of you wait one moment longer," a smiling Markell told about 200 jubilant supporters who erupted in cheers and applause following the Senate vote. "I am elated," said Scott Forrest, 50, of Newark, who entered into a same-sex civil union last year with his partner of...

Delaware lawmakers will take up a gay marriage bill on Tuesday in a bid to make the state the 11th to allow same-sex couples to wed. The scheduled vote in the state's Democrat-controlled Senate follows the General Assembly's passage of the bill several weeks ago. Governor Jack Markell, an outspoken supporter of gay marriage, has vowed to sign the bill into law if it clears the Senate. The vote follows a string of victories for advocates of same sex marriage. Last Friday, lawmakers in Rhode Island gave final approval to a marriage bill, which Gov. Lincoln Chafee quickly signed into...

Here's the link.

Planned Parenthood of Delaware has temporarily halted surgical abortion services. This action makes Delaware the first state to be free from surgical abortions for any significant period of time since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision decriminalized abortion. The Planned Parenthood clinic in Dover has temporarily suspended surgical abortions while the Wilmington affiliate has closed completely for cleaning and re-staffing, according to Planned Parenthood statements to the media and on their website. At least three employees, one thought to be troubled abortionist Eric Schaff, have quit or been fired since dangerous conditions at the facilities were exposed. In recent weeks...

The second lady exemplifies a bloated class of people with irrelevant, unimpressive titles. Doctor Biden has joined Twitter as @DrBiden. The account is “run by Dr. Jill Biden’s Office,” and it tells us absorbing things about Dr. Biden — things such as “Yesterday, Dr. Biden hosted an education roundtable” and “Yesterday, Dr. Biden honored the nation’s top teachers.” It retweets praise, too: “Thank you Dr. Biden for your work as an educator and as a voice for all educators in our nation,” reads one tribute. If a tweet is signed “Jill,” the doctoral bio informs us, this indicates that it...

Stop me if you've heard this before. An administration walks into Congress and insists on billions of dollars to "invest" in green-tech startups, then loses its shirt on bad bets — even while knowing the bets were bad. If that sounds like Solyndra, well, you're right — but it's also part of a pattern in which Barack Obama and the White House have treated taxpayer funds like Monopoly money. CBS and the AP unveil the latest example of this pattern, Fisker Automotive, which continued to get millions in taxpayer funds even while failing to meet the conditions of its loan:...

On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight. On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to conduct the first test launch of its Antares rocket under a NASA program in which private companies deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned rocket's practice payload will be vaulted into orbit from Wallops Island before burning up in the atmosphere on its return to Earth several months later.... A successful launch would pave the way for Dulles-based Orbital to...

Now it’s time for journalists to report on the “meat-market style” abortions at a Delaware clinic. If there were an award for Most Constructive Shaming of the News Media, the clear winner would be Kirsten Powers, the brave Fox News pundit and Daily Beast columnist. Last Thursday, she called out the mainstream media for failing to adequately report on the ongoing trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who is charged with murdering seven newborn infants and a patient seeking an abortion. Powers’s USA Today piece provoked an instant response from many sheepish journalists.Megan McArdle of the Daily Beast...

As the media enters day 257,685 openly pushing for gun control, the almost total national-media blackout on the murder trial of Dr. Gosnell, an abortion doctor accused of murdering seven babies, marches on. Wednesday, in the state of Delaware, a very similar story surfaced in local media, naturally: A series of emergency calls made from the Planned Parenthood of Delaware this year are raising concerns about what's happening behind the closed doors. … Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, former employee said, "It was just unsafe. I couldn't tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was." SNIP Werbrich said "It's not washed down, it's not...

Vice President Joe Biden blasted the NRA for engaging in a "disinformation" campaign meant to "scare people" from supporting background checks. “Kinda scary man, the black helicopter crowd is really upset,” Biden said about the NRA´s concern with the creation of a federal government gun registry. Biden was speaking at the White House with Attorney General Eric Holder on reducing gun violence and was joined by law enforcement officials

Biden is trying to bolster his gun-control argument by citing much larger numbers to evoke a more emotional response. Today’s number is 3,300 and where he gets it from I’m not sure, however I’ve seen a few blogs just citing it without a source: At the hands of a gun? How about at the hands of another person? And how many of those deaths could have been prevented if the victim had been able to carry a gun? We don’t know because Biden isn’t interested in actual facts, he’s trying to wow the crowd with a big number in order...

Biden insisted that there would be no central registry for background checks allowing government to keep records on gun owners. “No way that Uncle Sam can go find out whether you own a gun because we’re about to really take away all your rights and you’re not going to be able to defend yourself and we’re going to swoop down with Special Forces folks and gather up every gun in America,” Biden added mockingly. “It’s bizarre. But that’s what’s being sold out there.”

The Warmist conspiracy has reached a critical point, with doubters in the establishment speaking out. One of Sweden's top climatologists now admit global temperatures have barely changed (translated from Swedish): "The Earth appears to have cooling properties that exceeds the previous thought ones, and that computer models are inadequate to try to foretell a chaotic object like the climate, where actual observation is the only way to go." In March, a scientific study "Orbital forcing of tree-ring data" found that global warming is caused by that big yellow thing in the sky. Earth's orbit varies over the centuries. Changing distance...

Steven Spriggs was stopped in a traffic jam near downtown Fresno and thought nothing of whipping out his iPhone 4 and clicking on the map feature to see if there was an alternate route around the construction mess. He was startled when he looked up and saw a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer ordering him to pull over. He showed the officer that he was looking at a map and not texting or talking. “Pull over,” Spriggs recalled the officer as saying. “It’s in your hand.” A little more than a year later, Spriggs is at the heart of a...

Senate votes on climate change and the Keystone XL oil pipeline laid bare divisions among Democrats — and underscored why the White House, not Congress, will be where the critical climate decisions reside in President Obama’s second term.Several votes during the freewheeling debate over a nonbinding budget plan provided a political barometer of where the chamber, including vulnerable Democrats, stand on the topics. Advocates of the proposed pipeline scored a symbolic victory Friday when 62 lawmakers voted for an amendment backing the project to bring oil from Canadian tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. Seventeen Democrats supported Sen....

News is breaking out all over: global warming stopped 20 years ago. A political earthquake has resulted from a feature story in the Economist magazine because the Economist used to be a consistent cheerleader for global warming activism. Doubts about global warming used to be censored by its London editors, one reporter confided to Stephen Hayward. So what will voters do to Democrat candidates in 2014 and 2016 when the former realize that the Democratic Party was lying to them? Is it time to run away from the issue for Democrats, journalists, and Hollywood personalities? While our economy is struggling...

And so, after a solid week of me picking Carper every day in the gay-marriage pool as the next Democrat to flip, only to be disappointed every time, he finally flips --- the day after I switch my pick to Bill Nelson.Congrats to JohnGalt23 for scooping up Carper after I dropped him. See why I don't bother filling out NCAA Tournament brackets anymore? As our society has changed and evolved, so too has the public’s opinion on gay marriage – and so has mine. I pray every day for God to grant me the wisdom to do what is right....

What was the Earth's temperature yesterday? Nobody knows. In fact, it's a ridiculous question. Almost every place on Earth today has a different temperature from that of any other location. So, is our planet's temperature rising? Do we even know? However, it is officially admitted: Global warming stopped 15-20 years ago. The mainstream media is struggling very hard to explain this away. They admit that the Earth stopped warming 15 to 20 years ago. But just you wait -- disaster is coming unless we vote liberals into office. They cannot explain the pause. Yet they "know" global warming will kill...

DOVER, Del. — The state Senate on Tuesday narrowly approved a bill repealing Delaware's death penalty after removing a provision that would have spared the lives of 17 inmates currently awaiting execution. The measure passed by a vote of 11-10, with five Democrats and five Republicans voting against it. Three Republicans sided with majority Democrats in voting for the bill after a lengthy and sometimes emotional debate. The measure, opposed by Attorney General Beau Biden and several leaders of the law enforcement community, now goes to the state House for consideration. Democratic Gov. Jack Markell has refused to say whether...