Free Republic

Video at link.(CNSNews.com) - When asked to comment Wednesday about the deaths and crimes that have occurred around Occupy protests being held across the country, Rep. Maxine Waters said “that’s life and it happens.” “That’s a distraction from the goals of the protesters,” Waters, who says she supports the Occupy movement, told CNSNews.com after an event at the Capitol sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Let me just say this: Anytime you have a gathering, homeless people are going to show up,” said Waters. “They will find some comfort in having some other people out on the streets with them....

Obama's Half-Billion-Dollar Crony Drug DealThe Solyndra scandal has a parallel in the pharmaceutical industry. What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying, and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama–approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-gate.This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House’s most frequent visitors. They’re among the “1 percent” but with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to...

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

Even if ObamaCare survives Supreme Court scrutiny next spring, its trials will be far from over. That's because the law has a major glitch that threatens its basic functioning. It's so problematic, in fact, that the Obama administration is now brazenly trying to rewrite the law without involving Congress. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act offers "premium assistance"—tax credits and subsidies—to households purchasing coverage through new health-insurance exchanges. This assistance was designed to hide a portion of the law's cost to individuals by reducing the premium hikes that individuals will face after ObamaCare goes into effect in 2014. (If...

The Arizona Daily Star's Tim Stellar is reporting the federal case file against illegal Mexican bandits accused of killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, has disappeared. The case against the alleged killers of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has disappeared from federal court records, apparently sealed by a federal judge. In May, federal prosecutors won an indictment against Manuel Osorio-Arellanes and others, and they announced it with a press release. Only Osorio-Arellanes’ name was visible in the indictment, but there were blacked-out words where other defendants’ names go. Osorio-Arellanes was charged with second-degree murder and was not considered the likely...

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department sought to manipulate reporters’ coverage of Operation Fast and Furious during the days preceding a November 1 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, new emails obtained by The Daily Caller indicate. Emails between senior Justice Department officials and investigators in the office of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley show that congressional staffers leading the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious requested information about Operation Wide Receiver — a Bush administration program – and other similar cases, more than a full month before the DOJ leaked information to selected media outlets on October 31. That Halloween document...

A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.” Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.” Such is the inevitable consequence of large government interventions in private markets. Leaving aside the losses associated with transfers of funds from self-sustaining industries to ones...

Americans “aren’t feeling real good” about Republicans in Congress who have blocked his $447 billion jobs bill, President Obama said late Sunday night. “The American people, at this point, are wondering about congressional leadership in failing to pass the jobs bill — the components of which the majority of Americans, including many Republicans — think are a good idea,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Hawaii at the conclusion of a Pacific summit. He said Republican lawmakers are likely to pay a price at the polls next November for standing in the way of his proposals, which include...

TORONTO — Canada's prime minister says he made it clear in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama that Canada will step up its efforts to sell oil to Asia since the Obama administration delayed a decision on an oil pipeline. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada will continue to push the U.S. to approve the $7-billion Keystone XL project. Last week the U.S. State Department ordered that the pipeline be rerouted and subject to further environmental review, delaying a decision until 2013.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday centered around efforts to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, but Ranking Member Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) used some of his allotted time to criticize Attorney General Eric Holder’s performance at Tuesday’s oversight hearing of the Department of Justice, specifically the botched Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking operation. “On Tuesday, the attorney general finally admitted that the whistleblowers were right all along about gun-walking Fast and Furious,” Grassley said, referring to the committee’s oversight hearing on the DOJ earlier in the week where Holder testified. “While I’m pleased that the attorney general is...

NY: 10/1/2011 — Police Arrest More Than 700 Protesters on Brooklyn BridgeMadison, WI: 10-27-2011 — Madison Occupiers Lose Permit Due to Public MasturbationPhoenix: 10/28/2011 — Flier at Occupy Phoenix Asks, “When Should You Shoot a Cop?”NY: 10/18/2011 — Thieves Preying on Fellow ProtestersNY: 10/9/2011 — Stinking up Wall Street: Protesters Accused of Living in Filth as Shocking Pictures Show One Demonstrator Defecating on a POLICE CARNY: 10/7/2011 — Occupiers Rush Police … MoreCleveland: 10/18/2011 —  ‘Occupy Cleveland’ Protester Alleges She Was RapedNY: 10/10/2011 — ‘Increasingly Debauched’: Are Sex, Drugs & Poor Sanitation Eclipsing Occupy Wall Street?Seattle: 10/18/2011 — Man...

A Kansas judge ordered some of the 107 charges filed against Planned Parenthood for engaging in illegal abortions and covering up those cases thanks to the destruction of records that took place during the Sebelius administration.The case with 107 charges against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri came about when former state attorney general Phill Kline brought the charges after obtaining evidence in patient records showing Planned Parenthood committed illegal late-term abortions and then manufactured documents to cover up their crimes. The charges allege the abortion business potentially engaged in illegal abortions and violated state record-keeping laws. Kline, as the...

The lynching of Herman Cain has reached heights comparable with the oak tree that liberals wish they could hang minority conservatives from. In the great tradition of Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin, the left has decided to add Herman Cain to the list of those who need to be set on fire and hung from a tree simply for existing and breathing while being a minority conservative. Anonymous women have accused Herman Cain of bad behavior of an inappropriate sexual nature. Now a woman has finally decided to come forward. To make the situation even more highly charged and explosive,...

In his press conference on Nov. 8, Tuesday afternoon, Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain​ defiantly addressed the claims against him, rejecting them in full. “The machine to keep a businessman out of the White House is going to be relentless,” Cain robustly affirmed. But the machine Cain referred to is overly concerned with his business acumen. Rather, the leftist media hit squad, personified by celebrity sleaze lawyer Gloria Allred, has mobilized for the primary objective of destroying the most prominent African-American conservative on the scene today. This is not coincidental. The Left reserves a special destructive zeal for Republican minorities...

Occupy Boston has been encouraging protesters to take showers, hot meals and shelter meant for the homeless, prompting a St. Francis House manager to ask the downtown campers to remove directions from their Internet newspaper. The online publication that calls itself “Occupy Boston Globe” posts meal times and shower hours at St. Francis House on Boylston Street, which runs on private donations and state and federal funding.

The Daily, the tablet newspaper, named one of the women who filed a sexual harassment claim against Republican front-runner Herman Cain while he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association. The woman, identified by the paper as Karen Kraushaar, now works as communications director at the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General.Cain has sought to downplay the charge — calling it frivolous — saying she overreacted to a gesture comparing her height to his wife's.But the paper spoke to friends and family members of Kraushaar who vouch for her honesty — saying she is not the type to bring false allegations.“She wouldn’t...

All the ingredients are here. We have a potentially powerful politician, a hopelessly flimsy accusation of sexual misconduct and a predictable media, desperate to fill broadcast hours. Was there really ever any doubt that alleged civil rights attorney Gloria Allred would get involved? After all, whether she’s demonstrating anal sex using a baseball bat, buddying up to bereft pornstars or inserting herself into the life of Chaz Bono, she’s proven that her proper place is in front of a camera,

If ever there is an example of hyper-partisanship, the recent personal attacks challenging the honesty and competence of Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the ATF’s errors in its “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking program should be Exhibit A. Fast and Furious was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) program in which guns were allowed to be illegally purchased so that they could be tracked to gun traffickers and Mexican drug cartel leaders. But the ATF, which now is supervised by the Justice Department, lost track of the guns — which were “allowed to walk,” as the parlance goes....

<p>Occupy DC Protesters assaulted conservatives as they exited an Americans For Prosperity “Tribute to Ronald Reagan” dinner.</p>

Lee Stranahan and Brandon Darby have released the latest video clip from their visit to Occupy Wall Street. In the video, an activist named Channing, who has been at the Occupy Wall Street protests from the beginning, volunteers the information that the former ACORN organization–through its new front group, New York Communities for Change–is paying $10 per hour and $100 per day to homeless people to attend the demonstrations. She suggests that ACORN’s involvement is unwelcome, alleging that its homeless employees are “being paid to come here and mess things up.” Channing’s information corroborates reporting by Big Government on ACORN’s...