Free Republic

We didn’t write much about her but lefty bloggers wrote plenty, and they shall not be pleased to learn that an ardent opponent of Bush’s counterterror apparatus somehow isn’t fit for high-level government work. With Justice Stevens and Stupak owning the weekend headlines, the timing for the White House was finally right: Ms. Johnsen, an Indiana University professor, was a strident critic of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies and the legal theories used to create them. Those views and her past work for a group that supports abortion rights led stiff opposition from Republicans and some Democrats. The opponents made...

The State Department has told Senate investigators it cannot find backup copies of emails sent by Bryan Pagliano, the top Hillary Clinton IT staffer who maintained her email server but has asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions on the matter. State officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a recent closed-door meeting that they could not locate what’s known as a “.pst file” for Pagliano's work during Clinton's tenure, which would have included copies of the tech expert's emails, according to a letter Chairman Chuck Grassley sent to Secretary of State John Kerry that was obtained...

When asked to explain my belief that Obama’s presidency was a construction created from approximately 10 years of pre-thought exquisitely planned detail, many people are puzzled by my reasoning. If you peel back the layers to the Milli Vanilli roadshow – what you will notice is the strategy of putting specific ideologies into the legal affairs offices of all the “non-political” constructs. The Pentagon office of legal counsel, for example, can handcuff the activity of the Pentagon with legal opinion in opposition to the traditional goals of the organization (See Jeh Johnson). Likewise the CIA office of legal counsel, can...

The Obama administration's nominee for a senior legal position at the Pentagon is one of the congressional staffers accused by Republicans and intelligence officials of stealing classified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency, Fox News has learned -- and the controversy could imperil her shot at a major career promotion. Sources on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence community say Alissa Starzak, a majority staffer on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) who has been nominated for the position of general counsel to the U.S. Army, is one of two SSCI employees accused by the panel's Republicans, and by...

The "CRomnibus" government funding bill passed handily last weekend, but not before Senators Lee and Cruz had their say. In a controversial move, the two senators managed to put their colleagues on record voting for or against funding President Obama's latest unconstitutional executive power grab. Many Republican senators, however, protest too much, claiming that Lee and Cruz may have allowed the Democrats to pass a number of executive nominees because of their insistence upon making their point. As the story goes, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had promised to adjourn the Senate after passing the CRomnibus and a couple...

A coalition of largely liberal organizations has written a letter asking the Senate to extend the lame duck to allow as many of President Barack Obama’s nominees to win confirmation before Republicans take control of the chamber. The 33 signatories of the new letter include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the Communications Workers of America, the NAACP, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Public Citizen. The letter, sent Monday to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., calls for prolonging the second session of the 113th Congress to help clear the...

Democrats are ready to propel another one of President Barack Obama’s court picks through the Senate, now that outnumbered Republicans have less power to block the president’s nominees than they used to. The Democratic-led chamber planned Wednesday to consider Obama’s choice of Cornelia “Nina” Pillard to join the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. That debate was allowed after senators voted 56-42 on Tuesday to end GOP delays that had prevented a vote on her confirmation. Her approval was expected in the next day or so. …

President Barack Obama gave the Senate just one day to vet his new nominees to the National Labor Relations Board. The White House presented the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) with vetting documents for former AFL-CIO lawyer Nancy Schiffer and NLRB Democratic lawyer Kent Hirozawa on the eve of their confirmation hearing, according to Senate sources. Federal law mandates that NLRB nominees undergo tax, criminal, and conflict of interest background checks performed by the IRS, FBI, and Office of Government Ethics, respectively. The HELP committee rules require the White House to turn over vetting documents at...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. President Obama's choice to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was approved by the Senate on a vote of 63-34, with thirteen Republicans voting to confirm him. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) created quite a stir with his 13-hour filibuster against the Brennan nomination. Not until he received written assurances from Attorney General Eric Holder that U.S. citizens would not be targeted for killing by drones on U.S. soil would the doughty Kentuckian stand down. Good for him. John Brennan then proceeded to take the Oath of Office, as administered by Vice...

New evidence reveals the Obama administration’s version of the events that took place in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 was based on a tissue of lies. The Weekly Standard’s Steven Hayes has obtained a timeline and a series of emails revealing the self-serving efforts made by administration officials, who heavily edited CIA talking points about the attack that cost four Americans, including ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, their lives. Also revealed is who made the changes and why they made them. The revelations are part of a report published by the five Republican Committee chairmen that has been largely dismissed...

Former Republican Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel may no longer be President Obama’s favored pick to run the Defense Department, sources told the Free Beacon. Hagel immediately drew a frosty reception from observers who criticized him for advocating in favor of direct unconditional talks with Iran and for backing sizable cuts to the defense budget.

Once again, we have Newt Gingrich show why we need this year’s primary season to continue into the Republican Convention. While some of the others are trying to jump into Newt’s shoes, and go after the media for their lies and twisting of the facts we all know, Newt not only points out the medias misrepresentations, he also demolishes the policies of this failed, (from an American’s point of view), president. Newt realizes who the real target is. He, from the inside of the electoral process, and Sarah Palin from the outside, is more interested in bringing down Obama than...

The 2012 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards was announced this morning in Hollywood. The winners will be presented on January 29, 2012 on TNT/TBS. Here’s the list of this year’s nominees: 18th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® NOMINATIONS THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role DEMIÁN BICHIR / Carlos Galindo – “A BETTER LIFE” (Summit Entertainment) GEORGE CLOONEY / Matt King – “THE DESCENDANTS” (Fox Searchlight Pictures) LEONARDO DiCAPRIO / J. Edgar Hoover – “J. EDGAR” (Warner Bros. Pictures) JEAN DUJARDIN / George – “THE ARTIST” (The Weinstein Company) BRAD PITT / Billy Beane...

GOP watchdogs on Capitol Hill continue to chip away at White House stonewalls. When last we visited the LightSquared scandal, one of the shady company’s partners was going under here in Colorado despite a $267 million fed loan and officials at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration were playing disclosure-ducking games. The FCC is engaging in hide-the-docs, too. Sen. Charles Grassley has vowed to block Obama’s FCC nominees until the panel coughs up requested info: The controversy over satellite-LTE carrier LightSquared could prevent the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from filling two vacant seats if a U.S. senator follows through on...

Demonstrating allegiance to the pro-abortion agenda, Stephen Six successfully captured the attention of President Obama and recently received a judicial nomination to the Federal Appeals Court. That’s bad news for America and here’s why: Mr. Six is notorious for using political powers to protect the abortion industry. As Kansas Attorney General, he personally thwarted the investigation and prosecution of crimes committed by Planned Parenthood. The state’s abortion centers knowingly took advantage of more than 160 minors, covering for rapists and turning a profit off of pain. In addition, Planned Parenthood blatantly conducted at least 39 illegal late-term abortions. A shocking...

No, it was not a headline from the satirical newspaper, The Onion. It was just the latest scorn by President Obama toward conservatives everywhere, and conservative women in particular. The President has seriously nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Stephen Six, whose prints are all over the obstruction of justice in an investigation of an alleged systematic statutory rape cover-up at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas. The people of Kansas know Steven Six well. Radical pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Sebelius, former Kansas Governor and now Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services ,...

President Obama has triggered a new fight with Republicans by re-nominating two controversial officials to key administration posts. Obama on Wednesday re-nominated former labor lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, and Donald Berwick to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Yeah, skrew the traditional process, I is the president, so take that!! “The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disprove of my nominees,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.”

Frustrated with such pesky nuisances as the Constitution, Obama now says he intends to circumvent the entire Senate confirmation process to railroad through 177 radical left-wing nominees--many of whom are opposed by both parties--while Congress is still in recess...

A US Senator has taken the extraordinary step of blocking more than 70 of US President Barack Obama's nominees amid a dispute over a lucrative US Air Force tanker deal, senate aides said Friday. Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, placed a blanket "hold" in part because of the feud pitting Airbus parent EADS and its partner Northrop Grumman against Boeing, his office said. "Senator Shelby is holding all of the president's nominees pending on the Executive Calendar," a total of "70-plus" people, said a spokeswoman for Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Regan Lachapelle....