Free Republic

Dick Cheney told Fox News that the NSA's PRISM program might have foiled the 9/11 plot. But would it have? Would the NSA's PRISM Have Prevented 9/11? The New American 19 June 2013 Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Fox News Sunday this week that if the National Security Agency's daily collection of private telephone records and Internet messages had been in place before the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the terrorists' plot might have been foiled. Rep. Mike Rogers (R- Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairmen, respectively, of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, are among the...

Right rips Rubio as Republican immigration votes slip away By Alexander Bolton - 06/19/13 08:05 PM ET Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is feeling the heat as potential GOP allies are now turning against his immigration reform bill. Republican colleagues who were previously viewed as possible “yes” votes are keeping their distance from the 1,075-page measure. On Wednesday, conservative activists ripped Rubio and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — both sponsors of the bipartisan immigration measure — at a Capitol Hill rally. The crowd, which was protesting the bill’s effort to put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, booed...

Joan Walsh needs a significant other in her life, or maybe a dog. Whatever she needs, she needs it soon. Her continued, perpetual outrage over former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is producing enough hot air to cause real climate change. Walsh writes for Salon. That sounds like a magazine about hair and manicures, but the name may be a nod to the oh-so-sophisticated gatherings of the 19th century’s idle elites to pose and discuss the deep issues of the day for their own amusement. “Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Bonapartes. But I...

The Emmy-winning star of The Sopranos suffered a possible heart attack while in Italy, where he was attending the Taormina Film Festival, HBO confirmed Wednesday.

The Obama administration has reportedly tried to enlist the NBA in helping it sell Obamacare to the American people. It’s unclear whether a potential marketing partnership would put big-name players at the center of ad campaigns or if it would be as simple as putting the NBA trademark on marketing materials, Politico first reported today. People can begin signing up for Obamacare in October, with the new insurance coverage kicking in next year. Many have speculated that the enrollment campaigns would benefit from a celebrity endorsement or partnership with a major sports league. “You just can’t be a smoker and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The sole Democratic African-American senator cast doubt on the need for a "black agenda'' from the president and on its chances of passage in Congress during a Democratic forum with largely African-American reporters Wednesday. Massachusetts Sen. William "Mo'' Cowan said the issues that black Americans are concerned about are the same as those causing white Americans concern, although to different degrees. "I think he has to stick with the agenda and what he thinks is going to move the country forward,'' Cowan said referring to President Barack Obama. Cowan is temporarily filing the seat vacated by John...

EL-ERIAN: The Fed Better Be Right About The Economy Mohamed El-Erian, ContributorJune 20, 2013REUTERS/Frank Polich Virtually every segment of the fixed income, equity and commodity markets sold off viciously this afternoon on the back of the Fed statement and Chairman Ben Bernanke’s subsequent remarks. In the process, liquidity evaporated in certain places causing even more disorderly price moves. The immediate trigger for this afternoon’s market debacle was heightened concern that the Fed intends to reduce its support of the economy, undermining the markets’ notion of the “central bank put.” And in reacting to signs that the Fed may gradually take...

Video of Beck today 6/19/2013 at the Capital for the Tea Party IRS Protest

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We'd like to welcome to the program for the first time, freshman Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, who wants to weigh in on a number of things, including the Gang of Eight immigration bill. Senator, welcome. It's great to have you here, sir. CRUZ: Rush, it's great to be with you. Thank you for your clarion voice for liberty every single day. RUSH: Thank you, sir. We had a great interview with Senator Cruz in the Limbaugh Letter not long ago so I have spoken to him on a previous occasion and, sir, you're the real deal....

The popularity of Obamacare has crashed to its lowest level in nearly two years, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Kaiser's monthly tracking poll found that just 35 percent have a favorable view of the health reform being put into place Jan. 1 while 43 percent view it unfavorably. The favorability rating of Obamacare has been worse only once, in October 2011, when it fell to 34 percent. Not only is the June poll bad news for the president as his administration struggles to have the health reform program ready for people to begin signing up in October,...

he six teenage boys put on trial for the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl represent a rainbow of Muslim diversity. There are Turks, Arabs and Africans. So naturally after the trial, the judge threw the book at them the way only a Swedish judge can throw the book at Muslim immigrants who are contributing to the country’s rich diversity. Five of the teens were found guilty of aggravated rape by the Solna District Court on Friday, with the sixth guilty of attempted aggravated rape. The attack took place in early March at an apartment in Tensta, where one of...

President Obama insists his policies are driven by a "common sense" approach. He also speaks in terms of "we the people" and "the government is us." Such declarations are reminiscent of old Soviet posters displayed for all to see: "ALL POWER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE" and "PEOPLE AND COMMUNIST PARTY ARE ONE." But the real power in the USSR was in the hands of Communist Party leaders. They, in the name of the people, defined foes of centralized government as "enemies of the people." Similarly, Obama's Department of Homeland Security has defined right-wing extremists as "those that are mainly anti-government,...

Vince Flynn was calling his next book The Survivor. He got the idea for this title while on a trip to Cabo in February. A friend, Roberto, made him a cake (with the aid of his minions) that looked like a book. “Survivor Man” was written along the bottom on edible paper. He took a look at that dessert and said, “Wow, that would be a great title for my novel!” That vacation was the last time Vinnie felt well enough to walk around much. In fact, he even made it to a beach located a few resorts away to...

Via the pool report: He thanked families like Chrysler, Hershey, Heinz, Einstein, Steinway, Steinbeck, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig for prosperity and inspiration. He said young Americans "will always be grateful for Levi Strauss for their blue jeans." "Americans will also be grateful especially for some very important German immigrants Anheuser Busch." Obama said he was "thankful to Angela" who he said had yearned for the freedom in her youth, and said she had pointed out during their lunch the train tracks where the Berlin Wall used to run. He said she had helped her dreams become true for millions in...

For the first time in its 27-year history, a prestigious award for enhancing the global food supply has gone to a creator of genetically modified crops, a top scientist at Monsanto. The choice is likely to add more heat to an intense debate about the role biotechnology can play in combating world hunger. Robert T. Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, will share the $250,000 World Food Prize with two other scientists who helped devise how to insert foreign genes into plants: Marc Van Montagu of Belgium and Mary-Dell Chilton of the United States. The announcement was...

President Obama's honeymoon with the world is over. What was it, exactly, about Obama's controversy-marred trip to Germany and the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland that fell so flat? Ummm, how about … everything? There were the snarky words from Vladimir Putin, who expressed an almost Soviet-esque distance from Washington in his views about Syria. "Of course our opinions do not coincide," the Russian leader said bluntly. There was the coded warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel about spying on friends, and her and Obama's continuing frostiness over the issue of economic stimulus versus austerity. Above all, there was Obama's vague...

I guess freedom of assembly is not in style anymore… This was left on the voice mail of the organizer of today’s Audit the IRS Tea Party rally. The Capitol Police left this message attacking the Tea Party folks in Washington DC. “There are members of your group that are moving into other areas of the Capital grounds joining other groups on the east front of the Capitol. That activity is not authorized.” They didn’t want the Tea Party protesters to join the immigration rally on the other side of the Capitol building. They said it was not authorized.

NEW YORK (AP) — Los Angeles' school system, the second largest in the United States, is ordering iPads for all its students, handing Apple a major success in its quest to make the tablet computer a replacement for textbooks. The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved the purchase of $30 million worth of iPads as the first part of a multi-year commitment. It found that the iPad was the least expensive option that met its specifications.

You know the deal. Every amendment that adds significant border security to the Gang of Eight bill threatens to scare Democratic votes away, and Rubio, McCain, Graham, and Flake have decided that they’d rather have the bad bill they wrote pass than no bill at all. Four votes against the fence, just as Conn Carroll predicted this morning: Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senate saying they didn’t want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built. The...

When Barack Obama gave a speech in Berlin in 2008, he drew a crowd of 200,000. Wednesday's speech at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate was a little less popular. White House pool reporter Elmar Jakobs estimated the crowd at only 4,500.

Just one day after the G8 Summit ended in the failure of Western leaders to overcome Russian resistance to a resolution mandating President Bashar Assad’s ouster, Moscow announced Wednesday June 19, the dispatch to Syria of two warships carrying 600 Russian marines. They were coming, said the official statement, "to protect the Russian citizens there." Russian Deputy Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Gradusov added that an air force umbrella would be provided the Russian expeditionary force if needed. debkafile's military sources report that the pretext offered by Moscow for sending the force thinly disguised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intent to flex...

Vince Flynn was a wonderful writer and an always welcome, entertaining, intelligent, funny and informative guest. On the occasion he came and spent three hours in studio there followed a long and funny dinner with his friends and mine at a local eatery where he held forth with all the style and story-telling one would expect from the creator of Mitch Rapp. During that first, long interview, in February of 2009, Vince talked about his deeply Catholic roots, about his wonderful parents and their faith, about love for his high school St Thomas, and about his faith. The full transcript...

I’ve learned that actor James Gandolfini died suddenly in Italy after a suspected heart attack. He was 51. Gandolfini will be forever known for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on the seminal HBO series The Sopranos, which won him three Emmy Awards. MORE

Mexican Latinos make up more than two thirds of all Latinos in the United States, according to a new Pew Hispanic report. Of the 51.9 million Latinos living in the United States in 2011, more than 33.5 million trace their family back to Mexico. The report also found Mexican-Americans to be of the lowest average age (25), while Cuban Americans were the oldest, at 40. Argentineans had the highest average household income in 2011, at $55,000 and Hondurans the lowest at $31,000 also giving Hondurans the highest poverty rate among U.S. Hispanics, at 33 percent. Mexicans averaged $38,000, with a...

A Facebook page has been recently created by fanatical Obama supporters to attack Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Cold Case Posse lead investigator Lt. Mike Zullo. Lt. Mike Zullo and members of the Cold Case Posse have done diligent investigative work over the past 21 months and it has paid off. Mike Zullo has proven that Barack Obama on August 27, 2011 displayed a 100% fraudulent birth certificate in PDF form to the United States public. Mike Zullo had his evidence backed by a Hawaiian professional court certified document expert who specializes in computer generated handwriting. With Reed Hayes aboard and...

Four Jewish Israelis were detained by police during a visit to the Temple Mount for praying at the site. The four, identified as teenagers, were arrested Wednesday and taken for questioning. Police told the Times of Israel that the four prostrated themselves on the mount. A rabbi also visiting the site told Israel National News that the four did not bow down while on the Temple Mount. Jews generally are not permitted to pray or bring any ritual objects to the Temple Mount, which is considered Judaism's holiest site, in order to avoid confrontation with Muslim worshipers at the Al-Aksa...

Embattled breast cancer awareness group Komen for the Cure has announced the selection of a new CEO, Judith A. Salerno. Salerno currently serves as executive director and chief operating officer of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a chief adviser to the Obama Administration regarding the implementation of Obamacare. Under Salerno’s leadership, the IOM told the Obama Administration that insurance companies should be forced to pay for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-causing drugs for all women, without co-pays. That recommendation became the controversial HHS contraceptive mandate, which requires employers to provide such insurance plans for their female employees or face heavy fines,...

<p>Small business owners' fear of the effect of the new health-care reform law on their bottom line is prompting many to hold off on hiring and even to shed jobs in some cases, a recent poll found.</p> <p>"We were startled because we know that employers were concerned about the Affordable Care Act and the effects it would have on their business, but we didn't realize the extent they were concerned, or that the businesses were being proactive to make sure the effects of the ACA actually were minimized," said attorney Steven Friedman of Littler Mendelson. His firm, which specializes in employment law, commissioned the Gallup poll.</p>

On Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh revisited his earlier remark about the Republican Party being embarrassed of its base. In an argument pegged off the immigration reform debate, Limbaugh said the GOP is “hanging by a thread,” willing to sacrifice a few more elections due to losing its base. “People have said the country is hanging by a thread,” Limbaugh noted. “Well so is the party. The Republican Party is hanging by a thread.” Some do realize it, he added, pointing to the idea that “they’re embarrassed of their base and wouldn’t mind at all if the base left the Republican Party,...

In politics, scale matters. If government spent 1 percent of GDP annually, we’d probably still have waste, fraud, abuse, self-dealing, and all the rest of it, but it would matter less to people. From a moral point of view, a little misuse of public resources is no different from a lot of it, but adults know that the world is not a perfect place and that we’d be lucky to have problems that bug us symbolically or as a matter of principle while causing us very little trouble in fact. That is the inadequately appreciated background to the current dispute...

Washington Examiner‘s Conn Carroll compares the text of Cornyn’s amendment with the language it replaces–and it turns out that the amendment isn’t as bad as feared. It’s worse! Specifically: 1) It keeps the basic “legalization first” structure of the Gang of 8. That is, illegal immigrants are near-immediately given “provisional” legal status. Only then do promised enforcement improvements kick in. If Cornyn conditioned legalization on enforcement, he might actually come close–as close as he could come–to a “guarantee” that the enforcement measures would in fact be carried out. Instead, it’s “Give us legalization and we’ll give you enforcement in the...

The Cornyn amendment does not substantially change the border control metrics in the Gang of 8’s bill—in fact, it uses the same 90% apprehension-rate measure that is easily manipulated. The Gang of 8 bill requires “persistent surveillance” of the entire border and a 90% “effectiveness rate” (defined as deterring or apprehending 90% of illegal crossings). Cornyn’s amendment requires “situational awareness” (meaning having surveillance in place) and a 90% “apprehension rate.” There is no meaningful distinction between these metrics...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is planning a major push using executive powers to tackle the pollution blamed for global warming in an effort to make good on promises he made at the start of his second term. "We know we have to do more — and we will do more," Obama said Wednesday in Berlin. Obama's senior energy and climate adviser, Heather Zichal, said the plan would boost energy efficiency of appliances and buildings, expand renewable energy and use the Environmental Protection Agency's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate heat-trapping pollution from coal-fired power plants. Zichal,...

President Barack Obama's job approval rating slipped slightly to 49 percent in June despite controversies over NSA surveillance and the IRS targeting of conservative groups, according to a new poll from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Oh, and fewer Americans are using the word "socialist" now than in early 2009 as a one-word description for Obama, Pew found. Pew has kept track of one-word descriptions for the president. In April 2009, the top five were, in descending order: "Intelligent," "good," "socialist," "liberal," "great." In September 2012, they were "good/good man," "trying/tried/tries," "president," "failed/failure" and "incompetent," with "socialist" in the 11th...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would win Florida against both Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential election, a new poll finds. If the election were held today, Clinton would top Bush 50 percent to 43 percent, and she would best Rubio 53 percent to 41 percent, according to Wednesday’s survey from Quinnipiac. Vice President Joe Biden would trail both of Florida’s Republican favorites. If he were the Democratic candidate, Bush would win 47 percent to 43 percent, and Rubio would narrowly defeat Biden 45 percent to 43 percent. (PHOTOS: Who’s talking about Hillary...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters of far-reaching immigration legislation rejected a challenge Wednesday from Senate conservatives demanding evidence that the nation's borders are secure before millions living in the United States unlawfully can gain legal status. The vote came as lawmakers on both sides of the issue digested a startling Congressional Budget Office forecast that the bill would fail to prevent a steady increase in illegal residents in the future, even though it would grant legal status to millions already in the country without the necessary papers. "Illegality will not be stopped, but it will only be reduced by 25 percent,"...

Likening religious schools to segregation--a racist system that forced blacks to attend different schools and use different facilities than whites in the American South--President Barack Obama told a town hall meeting for youth in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Monday that there should not be Catholic and Protestant schools because such schools cause division. "Because issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity--symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others--these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it,"

Several thousand protesters poured onto the West Lawn of the Capitol Wednesday afternoon to join a tea party rally called “Audit the IRS". Many of the protesters came from a press conference on immigration on the other side of the Capitol, carrying signs that railed against immigration reform on one side and against the IRS on the other. Among the slogans were “1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual,” “IRS is our KGB,” and “Waterboard the IRS.” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R., Texas) told protesters that “a majority of people are saying, ‘We don’t trust the government now,’” and...

Should Scott Walker have pulled the nomination of a UW student Regent after learning that the student had signed a recall petition against Walker?

Subbing for Biggirl & Fudd Fan...

DENVER– Senate President John Morse issued a national plea for help to out-of-state supporters from Boston to San Francisco as Colorado Democrats went on the offensive Tuesday to save him from a recall vote. A spokeswoman for A Whole Lot of People for John Morse announced Tuesday that a protest had been filed to nullify the recall petitions within hours after the Colorado Secretary of State’s office declared that the petitions were sufficient to force a recall election. Meanwhile, Morse urged out-of-state supporters to help him keep his Colorado Springs legislative seat by donating their money and time. “[A]ny help...

At an “Audit the IRS” rally on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, ForAmerica President Brent Bozell spoke passionately about not having honest government and hot getting answers from that same government. In doing so, he culminated his speech stating that it was time for Attorney General Eric Holder to go. He then led the crowd, changing, “Fire Eric Holder!” Bozell is not only the President of For America, but he is also President of the Media Research Center which is the parent company of CNS News, where you can find video of Bozell’s comments at the eventbozell-featured. The rally was sponsored...

Democrats fell far short of winning the House in 2012, an otherwise banner year for the party, and many are privately glum about taking back the chamber in 2014. But that grim immediate outlook raises a far more troubling longer-term prospect for Democrats: that the newly drawn congressional lines have tilted the electoral playing field so decisively in the GOP’s favor that the party could control the House through 2020.

Feds: Suspect promised to build "Hiroshima on a light switch"An industrial mechanic with General Electric Co., who is also allegedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, designed a deadly mobile radiation device that he intended to sell to Jewish groups or a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday in Albany. The device was intended to be a truck-mounted radiation particle weapon that could be remotely controlled and capable of silently aiming a lethal beam of radioactivity at its human targets. The concept was that victims would eventually die from radiation sickness....

The American shale gas revolution has led to a strong and growing interest in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports as a result of domestic supply far outstripping domestic demand, coupled with strong international demand. Current U.S. policy requires Department of Energy (DOE) approval for exports to countries with which the US does not have free trade agreements, based on the sole criteria of whether a requested permit to export would be in the public interest. This week, the process by which the Department evaluates permits to export LNG was analyzed in earnest by the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee...

President Barack Obama gives his weekly address, May 5, 2012. Credit: White House. Washington D.C., Jun 18, 2013 / 05:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite passing the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy faces an uncertain future as President Obama's administration has suggested that he will veto it. “(S)cience is on our side,� Representative Marsha Blackburn, (R- Tenn.) told MSNBC in an interview. Blackburn joined other pro-life representatives, including Michelle Bachmann (R- Minn.) and Virginia Foxx (R- N.C.) in defending the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions 20 weeks...

More than a dozen FBI agents are assigned to a criminal probe into Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of conservative political groups, FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Wednesday. Mueller spoke as Tea Party conservatives rallied outside the U.S. Capitol in the sixth week of a controversy that prompted President Barack Obama to fire acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller. At least 1,000 protesters gathered at an "Audit the IRS" event organized by the Tea Party Patriots, an umbrella group of the anti-Washington movement whose members favor lower taxes and less government spending.

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

A budget shortfall has forced a Pentagon security unit to sharply cut back on regular investigations used to update security clearances for defense contractor employees. In a little-noticed announcement posted on its website on June 7, the Defense Security Service said that "due to a funding shortfall," it has been obliged to suspend "most" routine re-investigations of defense contractor employers cleared at the "Top Secret" level, at least through the end of September.