Free Republic

The average American doesn’t have the bandwidth for devilish details about public policy. Politicians know if they “control the narrative”—make an issue as simple as humanly possible—they can manipulate public opinion. Millionaires and billionaires = oppressors. Iraq = not our problem anymore. The public can handle the truth; they just don’t have time for it. They’ve got money to make, kids to raise, bills to pay, football to watch, spouses to deceive, etc. And that’s why, more than a year after ATF-enabled drug thugs gunned down Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, the ATF Fast and Furious Scandal is still flying...

It’s easy to tell when Attorney General Eric Holder is about to take part in another bout of prevarication before a congressional committee. Just look for a Friday night, White House sponsored, Department of Justice document dump. This time the White House oversaw the release of some 500 redacted emails and other assorted tid-bits, designed as usual to lead House and Senate investigators precisely where the Obama Regime wants them to go in their investigation of the “gunwalking” Operation Fast and Furious. And one of those emails makes it clear that Eric Holder’s DOJ aide, Monty Wilkinson received news of...

Scandal: For incompetence alone, Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of the illegal "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. But fresh news that he knew of it and is covering it up warrants impeachment. In the latest Friday night document dump — news released as to minimize its scandalous impact on the White House — congressional investigators learned that Attorney General Holder knew all along that a gun his Justice Department intentionally let fall into the hands of Mexico's cartels was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010. Holder must have known...

To the great annoyance of congressional investigators, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department has been dragging its feet turning over subpoenaed documents relating to several inquiries – most infamously the “Fast and Furious” gun walking operation, in which American guns were deliberately allowed to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel killers. DOJ has a habit of releasing these subpoenaed documents in massive “dumps” on Friday night, to guarantee minimal media coverage. Last Friday’s dump weighed in at 500 pages, and turned out to contain some very interesting emails sent in the wake of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian...

Philosophers and poets have argued for at least three millennia about who is more valuable. Poets claim they tell tales that inspire men to do things they would otherwise never accomplish. But philosophers argue that this requires the acceptance of obvious fantasies, thus leading men away from the truth. Judging by what Attorney General Eric Holder has been asking Congress and the American people to believe regarding what and when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious, we think he is telling tales that lead away from the truth. Fast and Furious is the Justice Department program that allowed thousands...

It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup, goes the old Washington cliché. In the case of the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, it’s both. As Attorney General Eric Holder gets ready to face more congressional grilling Thursday, something’s clearly rotten at the Justice Department. The stench goes all the way to the top — to Holder. Friday, the feds disclosed documents that show that despite Holder’s claim during congressional testimony that he’d only learned of F&F “a few weeks” earlier (a claim later amended to “a couple of months”), he has known (or should have known) about it all along...

The attorney general's claim regarding when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious conflicts with the released communications.The Department of Justice released hundreds of documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious late Friday afternoon, including a series of emails that strongly suggests that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself in congressional testimony. The crucial email exchange began at 2:31 a.m. on December 15, 2010, with a message from an unidentified DOJ source to “OIOC SIT� and “SITROOM�: On December 14, 2010, BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol Operations 18...

A document the Department of Justice sent to Congress Friday shows that Eric Holder’s deputy chief of staff was made aware on the day of U.S. border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder that a weapon traced back to Operation Fast and Furious killed him. But when asked Sunday, a Justice spokesperson would not would not answer The Daily Caller’s question about whether Attorney General Eric Holder himself was informed of the connection. The documents sent from the DOJ to congressional officials Friday night included a series of emails between former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke and Holder’s then-deputy chief of...

PHOENIX, January 29, 2012―President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, had the Department of Justice dump more documents relating to botched Operation Fast and Furious on congressional officials late Friday night. The documents reveal that Holder learned of the death of Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, on the day it happened. The released emails show a conversation between one official, whose name was redacted, and now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke. “On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when...

ITHACA, NY--The City of Ithaca, Police Chief Ed Vallely, Deputy Chief John Barber, Deputy Chief Pete Tyler and the Tompkins County District Attorney's office discriminated against Ithaca Police Officer Chris Miller and other white male officers, Miller is alleging in a $17 million lawsuit filed in federal court May 20. The lawsuit alleges they increased their discrimination against Miller after he filed human-rights complaints and retaliated with baseless accusations, threats of indictment and termination, harassment, greater scrutiny, and unjustified and unlawful discipline, including a bogus investigation of him in 2009. The suit also names the Ithaca Police Benevolent Association and...

Since the Big Bang story of the origin of the universe has been refuted by a host of external observations and internal contradictions,1 secular science has been forced to postulate additional, exceedingly improbable events to keep it afloat. One of these is “inflation,” which attempts to explain the apparent uniformity of the universe.2 But new observations by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe are forcing cosmologists to revamp inflation, at the cost of inventing yet another miraculous event to prop it up...

EMORY, Texas — A 20-year-old man who helped kill a lovesick girl's family because the two were forbidden to date has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Charlie James Wilkinson was sentenced Tuesday for the March 2008 killings of Penny Caffey and her two sons in their Emory home. His friend, Charles Allan Waid, was also sentenced to life in prison.

President Bush's ex-spokesman invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked in front of a grand jury about the illegal outing of spy Valerie Plame, prosecutors revealed this week. Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought and received immunity from prosecution for unmasking the secret agent. Armed with this immunity, Fleischer is now expected to testify Monday in the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Fleischer is expected to tell the court that Libby, formerly Vice President Cheney's top adviser, told him on July 7, 2003, that "he had some information that was hush-hush," said special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. What was hush-hush...

In coming weeks, Democratic elected officials will question the President’s intentions on the pending war with Iraq. Writers and broadcasters friendly to the Democratic cause have already been provided talking points suggesting the war is about oil, not terrorism. “The talking points were developed before the end of last year and sent out to operatives and friendly media,” one Democratic consultant confided. “No Democratic member of Congress will question the President’s patriotism openly but we will use the media and other surrogates to raise doubts.” Capitol Hill Blue obtained a copy of the talking points when the Democratic National Committee...

As President Bush contemplates his Supreme Court nominee, one fact to keep in mind is that seven of the nine current Justices were appointed by Republican Presidents. If you want to understand why many of Mr. Bush's supporters are worried that he might nominate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, this is the reason. The objection isn't personal, and it isn't even about what Mr. Gonzales thinks; the concern is that virtually no oneknows what he thinks. Mr. Gonzales's brief tenure on the Texas Supreme Court and his behind-closed-doors advice as chief White House counsel shed little light on what his judicial...

WASHINGTON — Three years ago, before today’s white-hot struggle over judicial appointments and the philosophical direction of the federal courts grabbed hold of official Washington, a soft-spoken Virginia conservative and a loquacious New York liberal met at the Library of Congress to bat around some ideas. Brought together by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of Charlottesville and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York carried on a friendly debate over the role of political ideology in shaping legal decisions and influencing congressional evaluations of judicial nominees. It’s unlikely many minds were changed during the...

...Justice O'Connor is being hailed as the Court's "swing" Justice, but her legacy is more complicated. She has been a conservative on property rights and federalism, most recently in her Kelo dissent, where she took vigorous issue with the Court's extension of government's eminent domain power to include the taking of private property for private economic development. Replacing her with a "moderate" could actually mean a more liberal court on those issues. Where she drifted left over the years--and where her written opinions often sowed confusion--was on social issues, notably church-state and racial matters. She focused more on the facts...

“A Supreme Court judgeship is perhaps the closest our country has come to clothing mortals with deistic powers,” wrote James Harvie Wilkinson III in a 1974 book about clerking for Justice Lewis Powell. In anticipation that Chief Justice William Rehnquist may retire, speculation abounds about which mortal President Bush may now offer these “deistic powers.” The rumored “short list” features some stellar federal appellate judges with credible records as strict constructionists: Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit, Edith Jones of the 5th, Samuel Alito of the 3rd, and Michael McConnell of the 10th. Conservatives would be thrilled with any of...

This thread links to a blogpost which in turn excerpts a post-mortem column on the 1993 special primary election for the 2nd District (OH) Congressional seat. On the GOP side, Rob Portman won. Bob McEwen, who had lost in the Sixth District race in November 1992 under the cloud of the House Bank Scandal and extensive (and expensive) travel tastes, moved into the second district when the seat was vacated by the retiring Willis Gradison, and finished a somewhat-distant second.

PHOENIX -- A judge threw out key evidence against a man accused of assaulting a police officer during a drug raid on an alleged Hells Angels clubhouse, noting the raiders waited only a few seconds to move in after an early-morning knock on the door. Judge Michael Wilkinson chastised members of a multiagency crime task force and ruled they illegally entered the building on July 8, 2003, violating search-and-seizure laws. Wilkinson said it was understandable that Michael Wayne Coffelt, 42, came to the door carrying a handgun. The knock on the door came around 4:45 a.m., and officers then waited...

PHOENIX -- A judge threw out key evidence against a man accused of assaulting a police officer during a drug raid on an alleged Hells Angels clubhouse, noting the raiders waited only a few seconds to move in after an early-morning knock on the door. Judge Michael Wilkinson chastised members of a multiagency crime task force and ruled they illegally entered the building on July 8, 2003, violating search-and-seizure laws. Wilkinson said it was understandable that Michael Wayne Coffelt, 42, came to the door carrying a handgun. The knock on the door came around 4:45 a.m., and officers then waited...

President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind. In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.” Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in...

In this article on Capitol Hill Blue, there are the following lines:"The report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings." Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured...

<p>C-J file photos Former Gov. Louie B. Nunn rode in his inaugural parade in Frankfort in 1967.</p> <p>From left, Steven, Jennie Lou and Beula Nunn, Louie B. Nunn's son, daughter and wife, respectively, stayed warm during the governor's inauguration in December. The day started chilly and gray, but thousands gathered for the event.</p>

<p>"If I promise you the Moon and the Stars, Would you believe it?</p> <p>Games people play in the middle of the night" - Alan Parsons Project, "Games People Play"</p> <p>The recent fiasco experienced by the New York Times over the creative writing exploits of Jayson Blair should have served as a warning to journalists to be careful over the information they publish. A news outfit depends upon its credibility, just as surely as our society depends upon news reporting in order for people to make judgments over their own governance. Yet it appears that some lessons are not easily learned, as was recently demonstrated by some events which are to this moment still unfolding.</p>

Damn, I hate it when I've been had and I've been had big time. In 1982, while I was working for Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a man came up to a me during a gathering in Albuquerque and introduced himself as Terrance J. Wilkinson. He said he was a security consultant and gave me a business card with his name and just a Los Angeles phone number. A few weeks later, he called my Washington office and asked to meet for lunch. He seemed to know a lot about the nuclear labs in New Mexico and said he...