Free Republic

Texas governor Rick Perry, who is embarking on a hard push to recapture the buzz that surrounded him when he first entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, is doubling down on the "birther" issue and also deeming his rival Mitt Romney a "fat cat." In an interview with John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times on Tuesday, Perry was asked why he was keeping the "birther" issue alive. During an interview with Parade Magazine published Sunday, Perry suggested he doesn't "have a definitive answer" to whether President Obama was born in the United States. Mr. Obama...

More than 60,000 police have been deployed to guard polling stations as Kenya votes on Wednesday for the first time since violence after the 2007 presidential election left 1,300 people dead. Supporters of the Kenya's draft constitution hold a rally Kenyans will vote in a referendum on a new constitution, which would curb presidential powers, overhaul the corrupt judiciary and devolve responsibility and resources to the country's regions. But the draft, which 60 per cent of voters support according to opinion polls, has drawn criticism for clauses seen as easing policy on abortion and Muslim-only courts, emotive issues in majority-Christian...

Last week, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department released passport records of Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother – but those records for the years surrounding Obama's 1961 birth are missing. The State Department claims that a 1980s General Services Administration directive had resulted in the destruction of many passport applications and other "non-vital" passport records, including Dunham's 1965 passport application and any other passports she may have applied for or held prior to 1965. Destroyed, then, would also be any records shedding light on whether Dunham did or did not travel out of...