Free Republic

In many ways Austin, Texas, was the last place Beto O’Rourke should have been with just over a month left until a pivotal U.S. Senate election. The deep-blue city, smack dab in the middle of a deep-red state, likely doesn’t have many of the undecided voters the Democrat, whose aggressive challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz has become somewhat of a national fascination, needs to win this November. So in front of a crowd estimated at 55,000 people, a truly impressive number for a U.S. Senate race, with the Austin skyline behind him, O’Rourke fired up the crowd with an...

Andrej Babiš has said there is ‘no way’ the Czech Republic will agree to Brussels’ demand that the nation accept a quota of migrants from the third world. Speaking in the country’s parliament on Thursday, the recently elected Czech Prime Minister slammed the European Union’s (EU) mandatory quota scheme as “ineffective” and divisive. “It is certain that we will not accept anyone, and we are fundamentally against anyone dictating to us who should live and work in our country,” local media reported him saying. “We consider it absurd that the European Commission sues us for something that is nonsense,” Babiš...

Tom Steyer has had it up to here. Not with us Republicans, it seems, but with his own Democrats, and he now plans to cut off their nose to spite their faces. The leftwing billionaire hedge fund speculator has announced he won't be bankrolling the Democratic National Committee as he has in the past, based on his dissatisfaction with congressional Democrats' refusal to continue the government shutdown and go down with it. He wanted them to just keep it shut, never mind that the public wasn't with him. Get a load of his reasoning as reported by the Washington...

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - US Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt pushed the United States to bomb Iran before the 2015 nuclear deal was struck. Kerry defended the deal during the Ignatius Forum in Washington, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was genuinely agitating towards action, before he struck the accord with Tehran. Kerry said when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he met with Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Netanyahu, who all lobbied for military action. "Each of them said to me, you have to bomb Iran,...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) posted a video Friday marking the anniversary of when the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq and says that “everybody has to be eligible between 18 and a reasonable age” for Selective Service, including women. “We”re now going through the 13th anniversary of the Iraq war,” Rangel says in the video. “Guess what? War has never been declared.” …

LANSING, MI — Actress Melissa Gilbert, best known for her childhood role as Laura Ingalls Wilder on "Little House in the Prairie," is running for the U.S. House out of Michigan. Gilbert, a Democrat who has lived in Livingston County since 2013, announced Monday that she is running for the 8th Congressional District seat currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop of Rochester. "Here in Michigan, I know people are doing their best to make a good life for themselves and their families. When it comes down to it, I think that's what we all really want," Gilbert said...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John F. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, Tuesday "defended" President Bush's choice to serve in the National Guard -- but then, in the same breath, Kerry appeared to equate National Guard service with draft-dodging. In an interview on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show Tuesday night, Sean Hannity asked Kerry if Democrats such as Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe are being fair in criticizing President Bush's National Guard service. Bush learned to fly fighter jets while serving in the National Guard, but he was never called for active duty. McAuliffe infuriated Republicans Sunday when he accused...

Al Capone, America’s “favorite” gangster, went to prison because he failed to pay $215,000 in taxes from his gambling profits. Al Sharpton, on the other hand, is still romping around screaming about racism despite the fact that he owes roughly $4 million to Federal and State revenuers. I guess the IRS is just too busy harassing conservatives to care about some uppity liberal who’s a few million dollars behind on his taxes.The gaffable (is that a word?) Al Sharpton personally faces Federal tax liens for more than $3 million in back taxes. He has over $770,000 in state tax liens. Two...

Macro fund manager John Burbank of Passport Capital joked that Warren Buffett is "basically a tax evader" at the SALT conference and attendees started clapping and laughing. ... "I just hate when he tells you to pay taxes," Burbank added to more cheers and laughs from the crowd. "That's a different concept. If you're asking me if he's become somewhat hypocritical. I don't want to go there. What I'm saying is his returns after tax are phenomenal. And nobody talks about the fact that he's tax efficient. Political views, etc. I don't want to go there," Cooperman said.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there's a singer out there, a Grammy award-winning singer by the name of Lauryn Hill, and she has been given three months in prison for failing to pay about a million dollars in taxes over the last 10 years. She blames slavery for it. She said, "I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them. I had an economic system imposed on me." So she's saying her parents were slaves and she shouldn't have to pay taxes because her parents were slaves. Well, if she's gonna say that she's...

"Now, I want to emphasize, this is not simply an issue of redistributing wealth. That's what you’ll hear from those who object to a tax plan that is fair. This is not just about fairness. This is also about growth. This is also about being able to make the investments we need to succeed. And it’s about we as a country being willing to pay for those investments and closing our deficits. That’s what this is about."- Barack Obama, Remarks on the Buffett Rule, April 11, 2012 Well, it isn't quite like making the oceans recede -- miraculous powers Barack...

Kerry: Yacht story 'our fault' By: Andy Barr July 30, 2010 07:50 AM EDT Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said Thursday that he and his office mishandled the politics surrounding tax questions on his new $7 million yacht. “I don’t think I dealt with it fast enough, effectively enough. There’s nobody to blame but myself for that,” Kerry said Thursday in an interview with the Boston Globe. Throughout the weeklong story, Kerry has insisted that he will pay whatever state taxes are owed – estimated to be $500,000 – on the yacht. Kerry has so far not had to pay Massachusetts’...

SOLD: Sen. Nelson’s Bribeby Publius We’ll be blunt. The ‘health care reform’ legislation under consideration in the Senate is the most corrupt piece of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten to radically and forever change the live’s of every American.Exhibit A is the outright bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen. Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will...

With the spotlight this week on House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY), we have prepared this timeline of his current problems. Rangel has been involved in so much controversy that it is difficult to keep it all straight. I hope this helps.July 11, 2008- New York Times’ David Kocieniewski reports that Rangel occupies three rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury building, and uses a fourth as a campaign office.July 14, 2008- NLPC files Complaint with the Federal Election commission alleging use of a rent-stabilized apartment for a campaign office comprises an illegal corporate contribution from the landlord. Rangel...

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has renewed his call for Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to resign as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “When it comes to the relationship between the American people and those they elect to serve them, trust is everything,” Boehner wrote in a letter to Rangel sent Friday. “This is especially true at a difficult time such as this for our nation, when Americans are looking to their government for leadership and solutions, and finding both in short supply. “For this reason, I am writing to again respectfully urge that you step aside as...

Mel Gibson has parked another almost $10 million in his Holy Family Catholic Church up in Malibu, California. According to federal tax filings just made available online at guidestar.org, Mel now has a church with tax free assets of $42 million. That’s a lot of worth for a congregation of less than 100 people. Among the church’s assets: art work listed at almost $500,000. Gibson lists three major expenses for 2007 including an architect and landscaper to help him keep building in and around the church. He also paid a law firm $69,000 for its services. Holy Family is not...

CONCORD – One of four men accused of helping convicted tax evaders Edward and Elaine Brown avoid arrest allegedly had a "gun in every room" when agents arrested him in Vermont Wednesday, and another recently enlisted in the U.S. Army and had a pipe bomb and other weapons in his New York home when authorities searched it yesterday, officials said. "We've said from the very beginning ... that people who may be aiding and abetting the Browns are subject to investigation, arrest and prosecution," U.S. Marshal for New Hampshire Stephen R. Monier told reporters after the U.S. District Court hearings.

Dukakis granted pardon to Brown By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI New Hampshire Union Leader Staff 9 hours, 57 minutes ago BOSTON – The convicted New Hampshire tax evader now at the center of a standoff for his refusal to surrender and serve a 63-month federal prison term won a pardon in 1976 from then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis for an earlier criminal conviction. Edward L. Brown, 64, who remains holed up in his Plainfield, N.H., compound with his wife, Elaine, was found guilty in 1960 of assault and armed robbery in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge and later sentenced to state prison,...

GOP senators say keep Nelson's name off Texas 130 in their districts By Ben Wear AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, April 07, 2005 Willie Nelson Turnpike? Not so fast. Legislation to name the Texas 130 turnpike from Georgetown to Creedmoor after the man who put Austin music on the map cleared its first committee Wednesday. But it lost more than 18 miles in the process, and there were signs that some Republicans might not be so comfortable honoring the well-known Democrat. Even with a toll road. Texas 130, under construction now and scheduled to open in 2007, will be 49 miles long....

Brit Hume The Kerrys paid 12.8% on their taxes last year The Bushes paid over 30%!!