Free Republic

After an extensive investigation lasting well over a year, NPR's ombudsman has concluded the network's series on South Dakota's efforts to put Native American in foster care was fundamentally flawed. The network and the ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, who is paid to critique NPR's news coverage, have split sharply over his findings. The series, which appeared in October 2011 on All Things Considered, alleged that the state of South Dakota took Native American children and separated them from their families and tribes at an alarming rate. The series won national awards and helped inspire federal and state reviews of such policies....

The American Legislative Exchange Council released today a letter signed by nearly 300 state legislators from 39 states that expresses dismay over Senator Durbin’s letter inquiring into businesses and organizations’ participation in the American Legislative Exchange Council. The letter follows a statement released Friday by the American Legislative Exchange Council expressing concern over Senator Durbin’s inquiries. The letter, sent to all members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, can be accessed here.

common attack upon conservatives and republicans by the ultra left is to engage in what has come to be known as "playing the race card" but is more accurately described as racial McCarthyism. Hardly a day goes by without a member of the far left wing falsely accusing conservatives of racism, bigotry, and a wide array of similar nasty things. They are not only dishonest, but they often border on the absurd, as in NAACP leader and hyper bigot Julian Bond's recent implication to his organization that Bush administration officials supported confederate slavery. Amazingly, Bond's statements went without condemnation from...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Obama illegally changes Obamacare to benefit members of Congress and their staff In 2010, Obamacare was passed by the House and Senate, and signed by President Obama.Three years later, members of Congress and their staff complained that Obamacare was going to cost them a lot of money, and said that this would likely cause a brain drain among their staff. In response to this, Obama made changes to Obamacare so that these things would not happen.Obama’s actions here are illegal, because he made these changes without Congress voting on them first.In addition, it shows that the...

Saying he was "ashamed and disgusted" with himself, Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper apologized repeatedly for making a racial slur at a Kenny Chesney concert that was caught on video and led to him getting fined. The video of Cooper using the N-word surfaced Wednesday on the Internet. Cooper issued a statement of apology then met with reporters outside the team's practice facility. "This is the lowest of lows," Cooper said. "This is not the type of person I want to be portrayed as. This isn't the type of person I am. I'm extremely sorry."

It's good to be the king ... of class warfare hypocrisy. While he lectures his political opponents about their neglect of middle-class America, President Obama is headed to Martha's Vineyard. Again. Because nothing spells populist like a $7.6 million, 9.5-acre estate owned by one of Chicago's wealthiest corporate financiers. The sprawling summer manse of David Schulte is actually a downgrade from the Obama family's previous summer digs. The $21 million, 28.5-acre Blue Heron Farm that had hosted Obama and his massive entourage since 2009 isn't available for rental anymore because a British mogul snapped it up. But don't be bumming....

IRS employees have a prominent role in Obamacare, but their union wants no part of the law. National Treasury Employees Union officials are urging members to write their congressional representatives in opposition to receiving coverage through President Obama’s health care law. The union leaders are providing members with a form letter to send to the congressmen that says “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”

President Obama spent part of his surprise appearance at last Friday’s White House press briefing urging that the Stand Your Ground laws that exist in 31 states be reexamined. But only nine years ago, in the Illinois state senate, he co-sponsored a bill that strengthened his state’s 1961 Stand Your Ground law.

Joe Scarborough might want to reflect on people in glass houses, casting the first stone, beam in your eye—all the adages counseling people against hypocrisy, against condemning others for sins without considering their own wrongs. In a Politico piece brimming with self-righteousness, Scarborough bemoans the "vulgar state" of American politics and condemns "hyperbolic political pronouncements" about the case. Hyperbolic? We got your hyperbole right here. Does Joe not remember that in 2012, long before all the facts of the case were available, he eagerly condemned George Zimmerman as a "murderer"? More here.

Self-proclaimed civil libertarians are up in arms over the National Security Agency's massive database containing information about whom we call and what we do on the Web. Defenders of the program say, "So what?" Unless you're a terrorist, no one in the government will ever bother to access that information. That's not good enough, say civil libertarians. "At least 850,000 people have security clearances that give them access to this information," Tiffiniy Cheng of Fight for the Future recently wrote on The Huffington Post. "That's the size of Boston. Imagine if they leak information about a