Free Republic

Less than a quarter of all Americans – 24 percent – believe that the news media try to report without bias, according to The Newseum Institute’s annual national survey on public attitudes about the First Amendment. The survey asked if respondents agreed with this statement: "Overall, the news media tries to report the news without bias." Twenty-four percents said they agreed with this and 70 percent said they disagreed. “The 24% who now say the media try to report news without bias is the lowest since we began asking this question in 2004,” the institute reports in its 2015 State...

The Senate on Tuesday voted to advance President Obama’s trade agenda, approving a measure to end debate on fast-track authority. The 60-37 motion sets up a vote on final passage on Wednesday. If the Senate approves fast-track or trade promotion authority (TPA), it would then be sent to Obama’s desk to become law. Fast-track authority would allow Obama to send trade deals to Congress for up-or-down votes. The White House wants the authority to conclude negotiations on a sweeping trans-Pacific trade deal. Thirteen Democrats backed fast-track in Tuesday’s vote, handing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a major legislative victory....

Embattled Clinton Foundation and Clinton Health Access Initiative its major health-related offshoot received over $7 million from the US government in recent years, according to an analysis of public records conducted by the Washington Free Beacon. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), chaired by Bill Clinton and run by the former president’s long-time associate Ira Magaziner, has received $6,010,898 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since 2010. CHAI, the biggest arm of the Clinton family’s charitable efforts, accounting for 60 percent of all spending, received $3,193,500 in fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012, according to federal contracts,...

Gee, I wonder why? After all, many of them haven’t yet been identified. Ken Vogel explains that the publicity surrounding the influence-peddling schemes at chez Clinton has potential donors looking elsewhere, but … does that apply to those who still want to buy influence? Hmmm. Actually, the fact that so little goes to charity — and that the rate (6.4% in 2013) has become so public — is what has them rethinking their commitments:

I know there are many angered by the title of this post, but the truth hurts. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been to political events where a politician kisses babies and talks Jesus so the pro-lifers in the crowd get thigh sweats and send the politician to Washington. When the politician takes up with his mistress or pays for an abortion or, as Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) did, undermines the pro-life cause, they are just horrified. But still they return predictable to the GOP for more abuse and disappointment. Maybe it is time for a...

Bill Clinton pictured posing with two PROSTITUTES at star-studded charity event in his honor • Former President Clinton was pictured with two prostitutes who work at a legal brothel in Nevada • They were captured chatting at a charity event in Los Angeles on Thursday where Clinton gave the keynote address • The prostitutes- named Barbie Girl and Ava Adora- work at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch and were in California for the unite4:Humanity event Bill Clinton's controversial couplings has reached a new level after he was pictured spending time with prostitutes at a recent charity event. The former President was...

She quickly seduced French officialdom after arriving from Ukraine, winning political asylum within a year of her application. Her visage, framed in blond hair crowned with flowers, helped inspire France's latest postage stamp. Few French people knew back then that they were dealing with a radical soldier for the feminist cause, in town to organize the ranks of women for a radical insurgency with bare breasts as weapons. The sweet start for 23-year-old Inna Shevchenko is souring. The defiant chief of the Ukraine-born Femen movement now risks up to five years in prison and a 75,000-euro ($103,000) fine for bashing...

As millions of people around the world celebrate the Chinese New Year, something appears to have been lost in translation at the BBC. Instead of welcoming in the year of the horse, a subtitle error saw the BBC usher in the ‘year of the whores’. One eagle-eyed viewer took a screen grab of yesterday’s gaffe before it was picked up on social media. ‘So it’s Chinese New Year, but the BBC subtitles got a bit confused about the year,’ said one. Another added: ‘Happy Chinese New Year, according to BBC Subtitles it should be an interesting one!’

The Democratic party has found a new consequence of climate change: prostitution. Rep. Barbara Lee and twelve other House Democrats issued a resolution stating that climate change can cause food and water shortages, which could lead impoverished women to turn to prostitution as a means of income: “[I]nsecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health,” it says. More broadly, the resolution says climate change will hurt “marginalized” women, such as refugees, sexual minorities, adolescent...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said late Tuesday that he supports securing the United States border with Mexico with a double-tiered fence but voted against an amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would have required exactly that. Rubio and his fellow Gang of Eight Republicans helped the Democrats kill an amendment from Sen. John Thune (R-SD) that would have required the double-tiered fence be built, as current law requires, before amnesty was granted to America’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants. The only other Republican to vote against the amendment was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). “I support Senator...

Former Justice Department prosecutor Larry Klayman amended an existing lawsuit against Verizon and a slew of Obama administration officials Monday to make it the first class-action lawsuit in response to the publication of a secret court order instructing Verizon to hand over the phone records of millions of American customers on an "ongoing, daily basis." Klayman told U.S. News he will file a second class-action lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia targeting government officials and each of the nine companies listed in a leaked National Security Agency slideshow as participants in the government's PRISM...

The office of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., issued a statement Wednesday denying allegations a Florida doctor who is a friend lined up prostitutes for him. The FBI Tuesday raided the office Dr. Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor practicing in West Palm Beach, Fla., who is the target of an Internal Revenue Service lien for more than $11 million, The Miami Herald reported. The newspaper said federal investigators were believed to be looking into Melgen's finances as well as the allegations about prostitutes. "Dr. Melgen has been a friend and political supporter of Senator Menendez for many years," the statement...

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 GoLocalProv News Team A prominent Rhode Island lobbyist and Democratic fundraiser gave a $300,000 personal loan to the twin sister of Jill Kelley, the woman tied to the love affair that ended CIA Director David Petraeus’ career, court documents show. Bankruptcy records filed by Natalie Khawam last April list Gerald Harrington, the founder of the Capitol City Group, as an unsecured creditor on the loan. Khawam owes nearly $4 million in total. The loan was first reported by the New York Post. A message left at Harrington’s Providence law firm was not immediately returned. The Post...

While losing your job may be a devastating blow to your career aspirations, it may be an even bigger blow to your personal life, according to new research conducted by a dating service. A significant majority of women said they would not date a man who was unemployed. Just one-third of men said they would date an unemployed woman. Overall, 75 percent of women said they would be unlikely to date an unemployed man, with 33 percent saying no outright. Another 42 percent of women answered maybe when asked about the possibility of dating an unemployed man. That answer, however,...

George W. Bush-era energy policy wonks are finding a new home with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor can count on support from a who’s who of former Bush officials willing to raise money, brainstorm policy ideas and generally help spread the word among the ranks of like-minded GOP energy experts. Already on board the Romney train are Jim Connaughton, who ran Bush’s White House Council on Environmental Quality for all eight years; former Assistant Energy Secretary Andy Karsner; former EPA air chief Jeff Holmstead; and former EPA congressional affairs liaison Edward Krenik. The former Bush officials all told POLITICO...

Prostitute crime victims.

A 9.4 percent unemployment rate? Pish posh! In Dallas-Fort Worth exotic club managers across the city are desperately seeking strippers for Super Bowl weekend. These adult clubs currently are estimated to be experiencing a total shortage of 10,000 exotic dancers as they attempt to meet a tourist to stripper ratio of 30:1. Dallas strip joint Showtime Cabaret is advertising like crazy to bring in the chicas. The gentlemen’s club is currently in need of 140 more gams (or, for those who failed math and/or never mastered 1930s colloquialisms, 70 additional girls) to bring their total number of dancers to 120....

One local authority is using its budget to pay for the services of a prostitute in Amsterdam, while others have said visits to lap dancing clubs are permissible under new policies which transfer funds directly to those who receive care from social services. Holidays abroad, subscriptions for internet dating and driving lessons have all been funded by the taxpayer under a national initiative introduced by the last Government. New homes to be part-funded by GovernmentThe £520 million scheme promised to give elderly people and those with disabilities more control over the care they received, by passing on cash so individuals...

In the catalogue of life-altering surprises, few compare to the query I received a few weeks ago from CNN/US President Jon Klein: "How would you like to co-anchor a prime time show?" Surely neither drum roll nor punch line is necessary at this point. My co-anchor would be Eliot Spitzer, former governor and attorney general of New York, variously known as the sheriff of Wall Street and the "disgraced" politician who resigned after it was revealed that he had consorted with prostitutes.

SEX workers have rallied in Sydney to demand an end to "whore-phobic" attitudes and greater protection under anti-discrimination laws. Chanting "sex worker rights are human rights" and "no bad whores, just bad laws", dozens of protesters marched from the Opera House today in a bid to have their rights recognised. Many carried red umbrellas, a symbol of the global movement, while others made statements with T-shirts reading "whore power" and "sluts unite". "We are human beings, we are people, we do a job and we are continually vilified for that job," sex worker Julie Bates said, noting that little had...