Free Republic

<p>I'm a freelance journalist, currently doing magazine work for Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch" news blog and "Intelligence Report" magazine. My current assignment is to write a half-dozen. 400-word profiles, including one on you, for the IR magazine.</p> <p>Obviously I can find a lot about you on the Internet, but would like to extend this opportunity for you to say something about yourself -- what you represent and what you don't represent, some biographical background, place of birth, military experience, college, work experiences, political-religious philosophy, etc..</p>

On Friday, a Washington Post fact checker gave GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul three "Pinocchios" for claiming the United States is blockading Iran during the NBC debate in Tampa on January 23. During that debate, Paul said: "We're blockading [Iran]. Can you imagine what we would do if somebody blockaded the Gulf of Mexico? That would be an act of war. So the act of war has already been committed and this is a retaliation. But besides, there's no interest whatsoever for Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz. I mean, they need it as much as we do. I...

Another Romney gotcha. The main stream media put this moron as leading the GOP lineup. I say "Ron Paul 2012" and do away with all these idiots in both partys.

Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) - In what appears to be a last ditch attempt to halt Newt Gingrich's late momentum in South Carolina, a fake CNN Breaking News alert was emailed to state Republican activists early Thursday morning claiming that the former House Speaker pressured his ex-wife to have an abortion. CNN did not send out the email alert. It's not clear how many people received the fake email, though at least two members of the South Carolina GOP Executive Committee, who did not want to be named, were among those who found the missive in their inboxes this morning....

- President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress for more power to shrink the federal government, a White House official said Friday. Obama plans to speak at 11:20 a.m. about his plans to make the federal government "leaner, smarter and more consumer-friendly," the official said.

Now seems an unlikely time for handing out bonuses at bankrupt Solyndra LLC, but that’s the plan of company attorneys intending to dole out up to a half-million dollars to persuade key employees to stay put. Nearly two dozen Solyndra employees could receive bonuses ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 each under a proposal filed by Solyndra’s attorneys in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The attorneys say the extra money will add motivation at a time when workers at the solar company have little job security and more responsibilities because so many of their colleagues have been fired. The names of...

Regime Grabs Power to Detain US Citizens January 03, 2012 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Yeah, and I can't believe that nobody's talking about that, either: The thing Obama signed on New Year's Eve, the new Defense Authorization Act.I don't know if people don't know what's in this or if other things take precedence. Well, it is being reported because I saw it. I saw it reported. Obama signed this thing, the new Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve. Folks, you know what this thing does? It allows the United States military to detain anybody for no reason! They don't...

In schools around the country, 2011 was marked by test cheating scandalsBy Associated Press, Published: December 31 ATLANTA — It was the year of the test cheating scandal. From Atlanta to Philadelphia and Washington to Los Angeles, officials have accused hundreds of educators of changing answers on tests or giving answers to students. Just last week, state investigators revealed that dozens of educators in 11 schools in Georgia’s Dougherty County either cheated or failed to prevent cheating on 2009 standardized tests. **SNIP** At President Obama’s invitation, states have begun filing waivers to get relief from the law. Under the 11...

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama's approval rating, a crucial indicator of his reelection chances, is on the rise, according to a new national survey. A CNN/ORC International Poll out Tuesday also indicates that the partisan battle over extending the payroll tax cut may be partially responsible for the jump in the president's numbers. Full results (pdf) According to the survey, 49% of Americans approve of the job Obama's doing in the White House, up five points from last month, with 48% saying they disapprove, down six points from mid-November. The 49% approval rating is the president's highest since May,...

In the post-news environment, media no longer exists to report, it exists to disseminate glib talking points that sound good at first, but don't stand up to examination. Fact checks, one of the latest media gimmicks, have become another vector for disseminating talking points. So have media blogs which began repeating the same ridiculous thing over and over again.

Well, I sat through this liberal piece of crap on HBO. It was nice to see Reagan in his own words, though. But even as hard as liberals try to tear down Ronald Reagan, it's surprising how, as time goes by, that less and less of their lies strand the test of time. I don't recommed you waste your time on this movie, unless you were alive during the 60s and can remember the rise of Ronald Reagen. Do not pollute your mind with the lies from liberals, rather read Ronald Reagan in his own words. Ronald Reagen was a...

Stand against "zeroing out" aid to Israel Republican candidates for president Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel—and every other country—to zero. Stand up to this extreme isolationism and join the call to reject the Romney-Perry-Gingrich plan.

Investigator 95% Accurate Speech Analysis:"There is no doubt,Cain is innocent." - YouTube

President Obama and his team are quite optimistic they will win reelection in 2012, notwithstanding the bad poll numbers he is facing and the absolute collapse of confidence with Washington and indeed the American economy. There are a number of reasons why the president and his advisers are so optimistic. First, it is his judgment that with the horse race now tied for president, he has managed to weather the storm of a declining economy and declining confidence much better than he, or frankly most observers, would have expected. (SNIP) But what heartens the president's advisers is they believe they...

In a chilling appraisal of President Obama’s Republican opposition, First Lady Michelle Obama Thursday suggested a Republican victory in the 2012 presidential election would result in curbs on freedom of speech and religion. Speaking at a fundraiser at a private residence in Tampa, Mrs. Obama noted the power of the president to appoint members of the Supreme Court. She clearly indicated that a Republican would select justices who would attack basic First Amendment rights, saying, “that’s what’s at stake” in the election. From the White House transcript: Let’s not forget about what it meant when my husband appointed those two...

Justice Dept. Proposes Lying, Hiding Existence Of Records Under New FOIA Rule By C.J. CiaramellaArchive | Email C.J. Ciaramella A classified folder rests President Barack Obama’s desk during a morning meeting in the Oval Office, June 8, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the...

The real political defect of the Cain plan is that it imposes a new national sales tax while maintaining the income tax. Mr. Cain's rates are seductively low, but the current income tax was introduced in 1913 with a top rate of 7% amid promises that it would never exceed 10%. By 1918 the top rate was 77%. Part of Mr. Cain's appeal is his willingness to challenge political convention, and he certainly has with his tax proposal. Voters like that he isn't a lifetime politician but a successful business owner who has met a payroll and created jobs. But...

I've been seeing this Internet lie sweep across the Internet in the last 24 hours or so, claiming that St. Louis Swat is keeping people from getting their money from the bank, and threatening the Occupy St. Louis group. ACTUALLY, the video is from an August 12th Protest Rally called "Midwest Rising", featuring all of the useful idiot suspects of the Radical Left. From the Rally Website: "Who: 400 people from 50 different organizations, including a cross-section of labor, community and climate organizations. Organizations represented include: Missourians Organizing Reform and Empowerment, Rising Tide, Climate Action STL, St. Louis Instead of...

President Obama spun a work of creative nonfiction yesterday in his latest pitch for his jobs plan, fudging the facts of a Boston schoolteacher’s White House visit as he cast the man as a poster boy for the hot-button bill. “I had a chance to meet a young man named Robert Baroz,” the president said at a midday news conference. “He’s got two decades of teaching experience. He’s got a master’s degree. He’s got an outstanding track record of helping his students make huge gains in reading and writing. In the last few years, he’s received three pink slips because...

BOSTON (CBS) – President Obama used the story of a Boston teacher to push his jobs bill Tuesday, even though the teacher has a job. At the beginning of his White House news conference, Mister Obama told a story of how he recently met Robert Baroz of Wellesley, an English teacher in the city. (Snip) But, Baroz is working in the Boston Public Schools this year as a middle school English teacher. He’s employed through a U.S. Department of Education teaching fellowship. On the D.O.E.’s web site he writes that he’s also employed part-time as an English instructor at Mass...

"The idea of a mentally ill vice president who suffers in complete isolation was obviously sparked by the behaviors I witnessed by Sarah Palin," Wallace tells Time. "What if somebody who was ill-equipped for the office were to ascend to the presidency or vice presidency? What would they do? How long would it take for people to figure it out? I became consumed by this question." It's not surprising that Wallace would choose a public forum to portray Palin in such a negative light. Wallace's name was near the center of post-campaign speculation about unhappiness with Palin within the McCain...

It seems the public's interest in Sarah Palin has reached an all-time low. The latest film to put the potential presidential candidate in the spotlight has bombed at the box office. ...... With Palin, the darling of the Tea Party, still deciding if she will try for the Republican Party nomination the lack of interest from the viewing public could finally persuade her not to run.

Chuck Heath, Jr., brother of Gov. Sarah Palin, has provided the statement below to Big Government and Big Journalism: "The McGinniss book is filled with one lie after another. The final straw for me was when I learned that he used me as a source for his lies about my sister and brother-in-law’s marriage. He included in his book comments falsely attributed to me by one of his unnamed sources. Neither McGinniss nor Crown/Random House reached out to me to verify, or even comment on, this alleged hearsay from an unnamed source. They just ran with it, and as a...

NOAA said that maximum average wind speeds at landfall were 85 MPH, hurricane winds stretching outwards for 90 miles. In fact, only two locations even had gusts over 85 MPH.

On July 3, 1999, The New York Times exposed Al Gore for lying about his family in a national convention speech as vice president of the United States. In 1996, Gore had moved the Democrats to tears by claiming that when his sister Nancy died of cancer in 1984, he vowed then and there to oppose the tobacco industry. How courageous – and completely untrue. The Times found Gore campaigned in 1988 boasting of his tobacco-farming prowess. So he lied through his teeth. Network coverage from ABC, CBS, or NBC on this whopper, even as Gore prepared a presidential run?...

Tea party activists confronted Barack Obama in Decorah, Iowa tonight during one of his stops on his Magical Mysery Tour. The tea party activists asked Obama about Joe Biden’s comments that tea partiers were “terrorists.” Obama refused to answer the question.

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina received a ton of flak for shouting “you lie” in the middle of President Obama’s rally-for-Obamacare in a joint session of Congress. The issue was whether Obamacare would cover illegal aliens. PolitiFact called it one of the greatest distortions in that debate and bragged about calling it a half truth in a post on January 20, 2011: No new benefits for illegal immigrants. If they make a highlight reel of the health debate, they will surely include the moment when Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted ” You lie!” at President...

(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the Obamacare health reform law. Of that $28.8 million, "approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers," Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com. HRSA is a part of HHS. Andrews said that grant recipients will not check the immigration status of people seeking services. “Health centers do not, as a matter of routine practice, ask...

Really funny stuff. At the link...

Lieutenant General John Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Afghanistan decision President Obama announced last week was not among the range of options the military provided to the commander in chief. Allen’s testimony directly contradicts claims from senior Obama administration officials from a background briefing before the president’s announcement. In response to questioning from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Allen testified that Obama’s decision on the pace and size of Afghanistan withdrawals was “a more aggressive option than that which was presented.” Graham pressed him. “My question is: Was that a option?” Allen: “It was not.” Allen's...

On Tuesday, Glenn Beck told his radio and TV audiences how he and his family were harassed during an outing to an outdoor movie in New York City’s Bryant Park. You can listen to Glenn describe what happened here. The account involves people shouting nasty things and even a cup of wine being kicked onto Glenn’s wife. “These people were some of the most hateful people I have ever seen,” Beck said. “All I wanted to do is go out on a blanket with my family and have dinner in the afternoon sun and sit around Americans, not like-minded Americans,...

Weblog dissecting B. Hussein Obama II's speech last night lie by lie.

Newly obtained documents raise the question of whether Elizabeth Warren, a top aide to President Obama and liberal darling, lied to Congress in downplaying her role in ongoing settlement negotiations over a major legal dispute. Warren, who has said she is “advising” the President on establishing the nascent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB] – a new federal agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that does not obtain any legal authority until July 21 – is actually leading the organization as if it already existed, documents show. Her aggressive push of “CFPB’s view,” as one email puts it, is...

For the second time President Obama has falsely claimed that General Motors repaid the bailout they received from the American taxpayers. The first time Obama lied to the American people about GM repaying its loan was in April 2010. This past Saturday the president was at it again telling a crowd in Ohio “Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency.” Glenn Kessler does an outstanding job ripping the president apart at his blog the Fact Checker but the key to Obama’s argument are the words “during my presidency.”...

Detroit — General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson wants the federal gas tax boosted as much as $1 a gallon to nudge consumers toward more fuel-efficient cars, and he's confident the government will soon shed its remaining 26 percent stake in the once-bankrupt automaker. "I actually think the government will be out this year — within the next 12 months, hopefully within the next six months," Akerson said in a two-hour interview with The Detroit News last week. He is grateful for the government's rescue of GM — "I have nothing but good things to say about them" — but...

Rep. Anthony Weiner encouraged a porn star to lie about their on-line relationship and offered her the help of his public relations team, according to a report on Tuesday. Weiner sent emails to former X-rated performer Ginger Lee – to whom he’d previously acknowledged sending innocuous messages via Twitter – coaching her to deny that they had been communicating, reported TMZ, which obtained the messages and says the two had exchanged “scores of sexual emails over a long period of time.” “The key is to have a short, thought out statement that tackles the top line questions and then refer...

Jim Tressel, who guided Ohio State to its first national title in 34 years, resigned Monday amid NCAA violations from a tattoo-parlor scandal that sullied the image of one of the country's top football programs.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan More Involved in Defense of Obamacare Then She Let On Wednesday, May 18, 2011 Here are some emails that were discovered by Judicial Watch which show evidence of Elena Kagan's involvement in the defense of Obamacare. From Judicial Watch: According to a January 8, 2010, email from Neal Katyal, former Deputy Solicitor General (and current Acting Solicitor General) to Brian Hauck, Senior Counsel to Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, Kagan was involved in the strategy to defend Obamacare from the very beginning: Subject: Re: Health Care Defense: Brian, Elena would definitely like OSG [Office of...

U.S. forces have killed Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, President Obama told the nation...Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea, a U.S. official says.

Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member and Fatah party member Fuad Kokali put the lie to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' claims he will negotiate with Israel Thursday. In an interview with the pro-'Palestinian' Alternative Information Center, Kokali said "it is a must to have this reconciliation because we need the world to recognize a... Palestinian state and without Gaza ... this weakens our position." "And now they are building a new policy to stop the Palestinian state in September," Kokali said about opposition to unilateral PA efforts outside the Oslo framework that circumvent peace negotiations with Israel, to gain a declaration...

In the words of Lewis Carroll, it gets curioser and curiouser. According to this report, back when Lou Dobbs (then a CNN host) began to raise questions about Obama's birth, CNN president Jon Klein had his researchers contact the Hawaii Department of Health to inquire as to the records. TV Newser reproduced the letter in a post dated July 24, 2009: From: Klein, Jon (CNN) Sent: Thu Jul 23 19:00:44 2009 Subject: Important re birth certificate I asked the political researchers to dig into the question "why couldn't Obama produce the ORIGINAL birth certificate?"

Let us take a trip in to the way-back machine, through the fires of the Mainstream Media Memory Hole. On this very date in 2008, when gas prices were 10% LOWER than they are today, Obama visited Indianapolis, and gave a speech PROMISING to lower gas prices, if Elected, and blaming Bush and Cheney for Americans paying $3.55 a gallon, the price on the sign behind him, for it. Gas prices are running 10% HIGHER now, than they were in 2008. WHICH OBAMA LIE ARE WE TO BELIEVE? The one in which he said “Under my plan energy prices must...

White House Explains Obama's Flip-Flop on Signing Statements Monday, April 18, 2011 By Fred Lucas (CNSNews.com) – The White House defended President Barack Obama’s use of a so-called "signing statement" for the fiscal year 2011 budget compromise even though candidate Obama said in 2008: “We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that back in 2008 Obama, meant the president should not abuse signing statements--not that he was against ever using signing statements. “He never said he was opposed to all signing statements,” Carney told...

On April 13th, President Barack Obama abandoned all pretense of being presidential. Not only was his response to Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposal not reasonable, it was dishonest and childish. Agree or disagree with his ideas, Ryan (R-WI) has done the heavy lifting on the 2012 budget and he did so knowing that it would immediately make him a target for those on the left. This alone should bring to him some well-deserved respect. The President, rather than give a nod to Ryan’s work and then list where he disagrees simply attacked the character of Congressman Ryan and other Republicans...

If you’re right about something, why would you lie about it? That’s a question someone needs to ask Harry Reid. It’s no secret that Reid (D-NV) dislikes the TEA Party and accuses them of being dangerous to the country because they want to curtail federal spending, but Reid is going out of his way to misrepresent polls regarding the TEA Party. Harry Reid is the symbol of everything that’s wrong with Washington. Reid cares more about maintaining power for the sake of maintaining power than he cares about his country. I say this because our federal government’s financial situation is...

Dear fellow Patriots-- Knowing that there is an election coming up, there is one simple question that people on the Right, Bachmann, Palin, all the folks that are thinking of running for office should ask. The question is: Why Mr. Obamao, are you paying millions of dollars to keep all of your records secret. It is public knowledge that he is paying law firms to keep all his records secret. Let's start asking why he is doing this. I know why but most of America doesn't know.

“A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on” – like a false statistic recently disseminated by supporters of Wisconsin’s government-employee unions. Despite being debunked by PolitiFact, it has since been widely repeated in multiple letters to the editor, and it remains uncorrected on the web sites of publications like The Economist. On Wednesday, PolitiFact debunked the claim by Wisconsin union supporters that Virginia, which bans collective bargaining in state agencies, ranks 44th in the nation in ACT/SAT scores, compared to Wisconsin ranking 2nd. For example, it noted that...

What happens if the image carefully crafted for Obama of the community leader who began his public career dedicated to the poor turns out to crumble, revealing the reality that Obama is just another ambitious Chicago-style politician willing to use any edge, including lying, to get ahead? The reader could never know that Rev. Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ championed Muslims like Louis Farrakhan and welcomed into its ranks homosexuals such as choirmaster David Young. Equally toxic was the mystery that Young was one of three Trinity United Church openly professed homosexuals brutally killed in yet-unsolved murders that...

Madison — Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's administration on Friday told Republican Governor-elect Scott Walker that he would have to cope with a $2.2 billion deficit in the state's upcoming two-year budget, but this brighter-than-expected forecast contained more than $1 billion in hidden pain. To arrive at the favorable estimate, the Doyle administration's estimate assumed that Walker and lawmakers would make spending cuts that have yet to actually happen - two more years of state employee furloughs, no pay raises, a virtual hiring freeze and belt tightening in state health programs. Without that $1.1 billion in savings, the state's projected shortfall...

It's hard to know where to begin in dismantling the Republican canard that Democrats control the media. Fox News is the most popular 24-hour news network by a whoosh and a cachung. Rush Limbaugh is the most powerful radio host, and lots of little Limbaughs line up behind him. Sarah Palin is the biggest media-political crossover star. And in an increasingly fragmented Internet, the Drudge Report continues to drives more political traffic than any other website. In italics and bold, to boot. I don't begrudge conservatives this success. It speaks to message discipline and to feeding tasty food to a...