Free Republic

George Stephanopoulos got aggressive yesterday in challenging author Peter Schweizer on his book Clinton Cash.  But in relying on the principal talking point proffered by the Clinton campaign, he indicted himself on charges of bias. Ramesh Ponnuru and Scott Johnson both picked up on the irony. From the ABC News transcript: STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, the Democrats have said this is -- this is an indication of your partisan interest. They say... SCHWEIZER: Well... STEPHANOPOULOS: -- you used to work for President -- President Bush as a speechwriter. You're funded by the Koch brothers. How do you respond to...

News Man accused of killing cop and ex-CHA officer to stand trial Posted: 04/26/2015, 12:25pm | Rummana Hussain Opening statements are expected Monday in the trial of a South Side man accused of killing a Chicago Police officer and a former Chicago Housing Authority cop. Timothy Herring, a 19-year-old parolee at the time of the double murder Nov. 26, 2010, allegedly told his friends that he killed “two polices” because he didn’t want to go back to jail. Authorities said Herring, fitted with an ankle bracelet, opened fire when he returned to the scene of a burglary he’d committed hours...

By his own logic, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should lead the court’s majority in upholding individual states’ laws against same-sex marriage. In the four conjoined cases on the subject set for oral argument April 28, the high court is asked not whether same-sex marriage is good policy. It is instead asked if such marriage is a national, constitutionally protected right, one so fundamentally interwoven in our nation’s fabric of protections that no state law can refuse to recognize it. Kennedy’s most recent decision regarding marriage, the 2013 case of U.S. v. Windsor, contained two notions seemingly in tension with...

Imagine a glass window that's tough like armor, a camera lens that doesn't get scratched in a sand storm, or a smart phone that doesn't break when dropped. Except it's not glass, it's a special ceramic called spinel {spin-ELL} that the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been researching over the last 10 years. "Spinel is actually a mineral, it's magnesium aluminate," says Dr. Jas Sanghera, who leads the research. "The advantage is it's so much tougher, stronger, harder than glass. It provides better protection in more hostile environments—so it can withstand sand and rain erosion." As a more durable...

While Kevin Drum is focused on getting better, we've invited some of the remarkable writers and thinkers who have traded links and ideas with him from Blogosphere 1.0 to this day to contribute posts and keep the conversation going. Today we're honored to present a post from New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, whose writing on politics has been published by the New Republic, the American Prospect, and the Los Angeles Times.Barack Obama was raised by a financially struggling single mother, and Mitt Romney was the son of an auto executive turned governor who grew up to be a gazillionaire in...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a dubious record: she’s gone longer than any presidential candidate in modern history without appearing on a national television news network or conducting a sit down interview with national media. Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, announced she would run for president via a recorded two-minute video message on Twitter Sunday April 12th. Following the announcement, Clinton dashed off to Iowa in her “Scooby” van without giving any time to the national press, and very little time – if any – to local reporters.

It’s a mistake for the Clinton campaign to write off conservative author Peter Schweizer as a right-wing hack. It won’t work, and it’s not true. If he were as off-base as the campaign and its allies portray him, would a high-quality publication like The New York Times risk its reputation by partnering with him?

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the forthcoming book rocking Washington right now is the number of stunning facts liberal media outlets have already confirmed and verified are accurate. Here, then, are 11 facts that mainstream media say are true, verified, and facts from the upcoming blockbuster, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. CONFIRMED: Hillary’s Foundation Hid a $2.35 Million Foreign Donation from the Head of the Russian Govt’s Uranium Company that Had Business Before Hillary Clinton’s State Dept.—a Clear Violation of the Memorandum of Understanding with...

Naloxone isn’t magic, but its power to rescue a heroin user from the brink of death can certainly seem miraculous. The anti-overdose drug, also known by the brand name Narcan, is easy to administer and has saved thousands of lives. First responders are often awestruck at how swiftly it can revive a dying addict."It's just incredible," the deputy fire chief of Revere, Mass., marveled in a public-radio interview last year. "There's somebody who's on the ground who's literally dead. They have no pulse. Sometimes they're blue, sometimes they're black. And you administer this stuff and sometimes in a minute or...

The conservative movement’s leading media icons lined up to back Scott Walker after the media attempted to lynch him for talking tough on immigration.After being attacked...Walker stayed the course...“A couple years ago, when the unemployment rate was at incredibly high levels and labor participation was low, why would we want to flood the market with more workers?” he said. “So that would be a time when you would have arguably less. As the unemployment rate goes down and labor participation rates go up, the two have to go hand in hand. Then it could be conceivably more than we have...

The GOP seems determined to reinforce its reputation as “the stupid party.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other prominent Republicans plan to co-sponsor a piece of legislation introduced by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson that, as he recently admitted in the Wall Street Journal, would allow Obamacare subsidies issued through federal exchanges to continue for two more years—even if the Supreme Court declares them illegal. This will not only mask the negative consequences of the sloppily-written law, it will antagonize the voters who reinstated the GOP congressional majority last November and provide yet more time for Obamacare to metastasize. Senator...

Is Jonathan Gruber — the MIT economist who seemingly dropped out of public view after he was caught on camera bragging about how he and other Obamacare architects misled the American public — now advising the Department of Labor? No evidence indicates that he is, but the authors of DOL’s sweeping new seven-part group of regulations that would sharply curtail choices of assets and investment strategies in 401(k)s, IRAs, and other savings plans appear to share Gruber’s mindset on the “stupidity of the American voter” (a revelation that Rich Lowry aptly described as “an unvarnished look into the progressive mind,...

Sen. Ted Cruz has been gunning to abolish the Internal Revenue Service since coming to Washington two years ago. To critics, it sounds like bluster. The fiery rhetoric garners hearty applause from conservative audiences, particularly since revelations in 2013 that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny. But some federal agency is going to have to collect taxes, so Cruz's vow to shutter the IRS smacks of a politically motivated campaign promise rather than serious policy — at least to some. In an interview with the Washington Examiner on Friday, the 2016 presidential candidate began to put some...

"In a Hillary Clinton campaign—not to mention a Hillary Clinton administration—her husband is a tremendous asset, someone who could help make the difference in a close election, or give valuable advice to a first-term president.....But there’s a cost to flying with Bill Clinton; you also have to carry his baggage........It was his fame,reputation,and powers of persuasion that drove the effort,which has raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on charitable activities around the world....but while Clinton and his foundation have done tremendous good, they have also had a questionable relationship with donors and contributors.........(NYT) published its first take on...

Christians and followers of other religions in China suffered the worst abuses in a decade last year as part of a state-sponsored crackdown on dissent, according to a Christian human rights group.The organization China Aid said the persecution of religious practitioners and human rights advocates in China increased by more than 150 percent last year.According to its annual report released on Tuesday, 17,884 individuals were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Authorities detained nearly 3,000 dissidents and sentenced 1,274 people, compared to just 12 in 2013.President Xi Jinping of China, widely viewed as the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) most authoritarian leader...

But when you take a look at the organizations these religious leaders represent, you’ll see that these religious types are political progressives who’re using the cover of religion for their political activism. The websites of these organizations who oppose Walker’s drug-testing legislation all, in some form or another, uses words or phrases immediately identifiable with progressive- rather than religious- causes. Such terms and phrases found were “social” and “economic” justice, “peacemaking,” “solidarity,” and “human community”; “restorative justice,” “united for justice.” One website even had a “living wage campaign” and “resources for justice seekers.” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently proposed a...

But when you take a look at the organizations these religious leaders represent, you’ll see that these religious types are political progressives who’re using the cover of religion for their political activism. The websites of these organizations who oppose Walker’s drug-testing legislation all, in some form or another, uses words or phrases immediately identifiable with progressive- rather than religious- causes. Such terms and phrases found were “social” and “economic” justice, “peacemaking,” “solidarity,” and “human community”; “restorative justice,” “united for justice.” One website even had a “living wage campaign” and “resources for justice seekers.” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently proposed a...

The agency that manages the Golden Gate Bridge is asking Sen. Dianne Feinstein for help in restricting the rising number of remote-controlled drones that have been buzzing the famous span. Golden Gate Transportation District General manager Denis Mulligan tells the Marin Independent Journal that the unmanned aerial devices pose safety and security threats to the bridge

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s conviction for grabbing and bruising his wife’s arm, which nearly cost him his job and made him the first sheriff in San Francisco history to be legally barred from carrying a gun, was expunged from his record Monday. Mirkarimi had petitioned to clear his record, a common request in misdemeanor cases but one that held symbolic impact for a politician whose career was marred by the highly-publicized scandal. Mirkarimi was absent from Monday’s hearing at the Hall of Justice, where San Francisco Superior Court Judge Tracie Brown granted the petition. The sheriff’s attorney, Betsy Wolkin, had argued...

In a closed-door meeting with Jewish Donors Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against his successor on foreign policy, saying that President Barack Obama is being naïve about Iran and the pending nuclear deal and losing the war against the Islamic State. One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance, transcribed large portions of Bush's remarks. The former president, who rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was...