Free Republic

Step one: Find an expert with an impressive-sounding academic title to legitimize shoddy advocacy propaganda. Meet Brian Levin. He's the one-man band behind something called the "Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism" at California State University, San Bernardino. The "center" (that is: Levin) claims to be "nonpartisan" and "objective." But he is a former top staffer of the militant, conservative-smearing Southern Poverty Law Center, which was forced to apologize earlier this year after including famed black neurosurgeon and GOP 2016 candidate Ben Carson on its "extremist watch list" of hate groups. At SPLC, Levin infamously posited that the...

CLEVELAND — The Latest on the Republican National Convention (all times EDT): 7:45 p.m. The head of the socially conservative Family Research Council is promising to vote for Donald Trump. Tony Perkins is the first speaker on Thursday night's program at the Republican National Convention. Perkins — who's also a Louisiana delegate — says Trump has demonstrated his commitment to religious conservative values through his promise to appoint conservative judges, his support for the GOP platform and the selection of running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

A letter sent by a Federal Communications Commission commissioner suggests that taxpayers are footing the bill for half a billion dollars in fraudulent "Obamaphone" subsidies. Ajit Pai, the senior Republican commissioner at the FCC, says there may be as many as 4.2 million duplicate recipients of Lifeline Assistance subsidies, also known as the “Obamaphone” program. In a letter to chief executive of Universal Services Administrative Company (USAC), Pai requests an audit of how carrier sub-contractors vet the applications for new subsidies. In the letter, first published by The Hill, Pai says that cell phone carriers may have bypassed a safeguard...

Perkins: Cruz is exactly the leader America needs to lead this nation to greatness againHOUSTON, Texas - Today, the Cruz for President campaign announced the endorsement of Tony Perkins. Perkins is the Family Research Council's (FRC) fourth and longest serving president, joining the organization in August of 2003. He is one of the nation's leading voices on pro-life and pro-family issues and has been a crucial leader in promoting policies that support conservative values. Perkins hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio show, Washington Watch with Tony Perkins and is the author of No Fear: Real Stories of a Courageous New...

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and dozens of other prominent conservatives are expected to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for president, a move that aims to coalesce conservative support around one candidate, a National Review article claimed Tuesday. The article states that a coalition of as many as 50 influential conservative activists gathered on Dec. 7 at the Sheraton Hotel in Tysons Corner, Virginia for a meeting that was spearheaded by Perkins for the purpose of hashing out which candidate the conservative activists will unite their support behind. After a long day of discussion and debate, it took five...

National Review's Tim Alberta has given us all a peek behind the veil of a much-rumored process in which a cabal of conservative leaders — with especially heavy representation from old-line Christian-right groups, and informally headed up by the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins — has worked to unify around a single Republican presidential candidates. Turns out the group — which in fact referred to itself as "the GROUP" — has been struggling to reach a self-imposed 75 percent supermajority threshold for agreement on a single candidate. Coincidentally or not, Ted Cruz finally achieved that threshold in a meeting during...

Ted Cruz has successfully courted Bob Vander Platts, Iowa's main Christian powerbroker, winning his endorsement Thursday that was sought feverishly by about half the Republican field. Now, Cruz in closing in on winning the backing of another top social conservative networker: Tony Perkins."There's clearly movement going toward Ted, and I think he's making all the right moves," Perkins told CNN Thursday. "But from a timing standpoint, I'm still watching, waiting."Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council, sits at the top of a pair of sprawling social conservative networks, the Conservative Action Project and the Council for National Policy, that are...

Gary Bauer gave a great speech at the Values Voters summit on the threats to religious freedom in America and around the world. Check it out: http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/

The Duggar family sowed the seeds for their own downfall nearly a year ago when they sent out a hate-filled robocall to their entire town, Daily Mail Online can reveal The sequence of events which ended with son Josh being revealed as a child abuser began last August when they sent out the message to all the residents of Tontitown, Arkansas. The call urged them to vote against new laws preventing anti-gay discrimination laws and among those who heard it was Tandra Barnfield, a lesbian whose family know the Duggars. In protest Barnfield posed outside the Duggar home kissing her...

Megyn Kelly is having a very good month. And we’re not talking from a ratings perspective, either. Comparing Kelly to her competition at 9:00 PM is now a pointless exercise. The May numbers show her beating CNN’s taped programming (Bourdain, Rowe, etc.) and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow many nights by a 3-to-1 ratio or more. It’s actually been that way for some time and Kelly’s dominance appears to only be getting stronger. All of that said, what this column will focus on is all the headlines/buzz the program is generating long after the 44-year-old Albany Law grad signs off at 10:00...

Mike Huckabee doesn’t have a lot of prominent defenders, and I am not volunteering for the job. Huckabee has always struck me as a right-wing populist-progressive. A deeply religious — and by all accounts decent — man, Huckabee nonetheless has a view of the state that would have jibed almost perfectly with such forgotten titans of the Progressive Era as Richard Ely, Josephus Daniels, and even William Jennings Bryan. Ely, a mentor to Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt and the founder of the “Wisconsin school” of progressivism, believed that “God works through the state in carrying out His purposes more...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz — who lives in Houston and has his presidential campaign headquarters there — will join Gov. Greg Abbott this afternoon for a briefing on storm damage, a Cruz aide said.They’ll hear from emergency officials and law enforcement, and attend a news conference at 4pm CT at the Houston Office Of Emergency Management.Abbott announced earlier that he would survey flood damage and meet with local leaders to discuss state recovery resources. He spoke a few hours ago with President Barack Obama, and a federal emergency declaration of some sort seems likely.

Actress Rose McGowan offered an apology — of sorts — this week after sharing what appeared to be an inflammatory quote from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Josh Duggar’s departure from the Family Research Council last Friday. Duggar’s resignation followed his acknowledgement of reports that he sexually molested younger children as a teenager, including his own sisters. Story Continued Below “While there may have been an age difference, Josh Duggar’s transgressions are far less an affront to God than what gays do with each other - Ted Cruz, 5/22/15,” read the text next to the photo of Duggar and Cruz...

Josh Duggar is from Arkansas ... so it's totally cool if he dates his siblings. Back in 2008 -- long before Duggar's molestation past came to light -- he made a quip during an episode of what was then called "17 Kids and Counting." Josh describes a double date scenario with his then-fiancée Anna ... he ended up going with 2 of his siblings. Josh explains, "We chose Jana and John David. We thought why not, have a double date ... We are from Arkansas!" He then broke out in laughter. Not so funny now ...

Eight years ago, Alice gave a thorough and detailed account of events that are nearly identical to those outlined in the police report that became public this week: "In January, the whole family went to Chicago and taped Oprah Winfrey show... As you may have noticed, that show never aired and it never will," Alice posted before delivering the bombshell that The Oprah Winfrey Show staffers had been told that Josh had molested five minor girls. Alice then wrote, "Yes, this is the truth ... They have been investigated to some length..." On the subject of Josh's parents Jim Bob,...

The Talk Shows May 24th, 2015 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.; John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Pre-empted by coverage of the Monaco Grand Prix.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.THIS WEEK (ABC): Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio; Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro; Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii; Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

FULL TITLE: 19 Kids and Counting taken off the air by TLC in wake of revelation that son Josh molested young girls and his parents Jim Bob and Michelle covered it up 19 Kids and Counting has been taken off the air. The show has not been officially cancelled at this time, but has been removed from the network's lineup. The move comes one day after Josh Duggar, the oldest son of the family featured on the program, admitted that he molested young girls when he was a teenager. Making matters worse, it was also revealed that his parents worked...

[caption id="attachment_1211" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Image credit: Washington Post[/caption] Many people have been hoping for this day for years.  The day when the Duggars fell.  Today they got their wish. By “the Duggars” I mean any member of the Duggar extended family—the ones “as seen on TV” in their hit show “19 Kids and Counting.”  And by “fell” I mean not just dipping below the sainted status conveyed by their television persona, but really falling in a public, humiliating and tragic way. Josh Duggar publicly confessed that accusations of his being investigated for child abuse 12 years ago are true. "Twelve...

In the wake of a tabloid report alleging that he molested several underage girls while he was a teenager, reality-television star Josh Duggar said Thursday that he “acted inexcusably” and was “deeply sorry” for what he called “my wrongdoing.” The 27-year-old Duggar, a high-profile member of the evangelical Christian family that stars on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” also resigned his post with the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying organization. “Twelve years ago, as a young teenager, I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret,” Duggar said in a statement posted on Facebook on Thursday....

Josh Duggar, one of the members of the family that stars in TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" ... was the subject of a police investigation for allegedly sexually molesting 5 girls, some of whom are his sisters. The story was broken by In Touch Weekly, but TMZ has confirmed with law enforcement that Josh Duggar -- who was around 14 at the time -- was the alleged molester against 5 girls starting in 2002. According to the police report, Josh fondled the genitals and breasts of the girls, some of whom were sleeping, but sometimes they were interacting with him...