Free Republic

Yup, the walls are closing in. In a brilliant move of strategery, Senate Judiciary Chairman, Chuck Grassley, and Senate Judiciary member, Lindsey Graham, send a criminal referral of Christopher Steele to the DOJ for investigation. But things are not what they seem… Today Senators Grassley and Graham sent a letter of criminal referral to the Department of Justice, based on information -provided by the FBI- their investigation has uncovered. However, the actual motive for the criminal referral is not exactly what it appears.

It is, for now, a pipe dream that Giants fans can’t help but smoke: Bill Belichick in a blue hoodie standing on the sidelines at MetLife Stadium, chants of “Dee-Fense” erupting everywhere, reminding him of the way it was at Giants Stadium when Harry Carson owned the point of attack and Lawrence Taylor roared around the edge to terrify quarterbacks, providing cover for Eli Manning or Davis Webb or rookie Josh Rosen. SNIP But if you are the Giants … you damn well should throw it.

Prominent Bridgewater Associates executive Bruce Steinberg and his family were among 10 Americans killed when a charter plane crashed into a mountain in Costa Rica on Sunday........ Ex-FBI Director James Comey was a top executive at Bridgewater.

The embarrassment a federal judge dealt to government prosecutors last month in the Cliven Bundy case could be set to resume Monday, at a hearing to determine whether the cattle rancher who became a folk hero long before he beat the feds can be retried. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro on Dec. 20 declared a mistrial in the high-profile case. It was only the latest, stunning development in the saga of the Nevada rancher, and served as a repudiation of the federal government. Navarro accused prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers, in violation of the federal Brady rule,...

My friends Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, opined on Thursday that the time has come for a new person to serve as attorney general. I disagree with their opinion. I believe Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the right man in the right place at the right time to restore respect in America for the Rule of Law. In fact, I assert that he is already making a positive difference. In measuring Sessions’ performance in office to date, it is important to remember two things: 1) the political climate he faced within the Department of Justice upon accepting...

 In a recent interview, James Martin, S.J., clearly implied (by repeating gay-advocacy talking-points) that language in “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” directly contributes to the high level of teen suicides among LGBT young people. [Interviewer] Well the people who’ve seen your book or know something about you are complaining that you want to rewrite some of the Catechism to differently ordered, can you speak about that. [Martin] Yeah, well part of the Catechism says that homosexual people are objectively disordered; their actions are objectively disordered and they themselves are intrinsically disordered. And so basically what I’m saying in the book is you...

The following comments about President Reagan are enlightening because they are so similar to what is said about Trump today. Maybe journalists could just substitute "Trump" for "Reagan" on old material using Microsoft Word and head to the bar. It would be a lot easier than saying the same things in different ways every day. "Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan's library just burned down. Both books were destroyed. But the real horror: He hadn't finished coloring either one of them." –Gore Vidal "For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For...

1) Devin Nunes January 4th, 2018 Letter to Rod Rosenstein documenting their conversation and agreement. 2) Nunes secured the critical FD-302's and FD-1023's that relate to the Steele Dossier! 3) FD-302 is an FBI form that is used to document interviews/interrogations. It details questions asked and answers given as well as who was present during the interview....

Not too hot, not too cold - but just right. Goldilocks' requirements for the perfect bowl of porridge are similar to the requirements of an attractive economy. Not too hot - growth busting out the lights raising fears about sustainability and rampant inflation. And not too cold - economic slowdowns and recessions pulling down business profitability and weighing on equity valuations. Market investors certainly sense that 2018 will see a continuation of a global "Goldilocks economy". Why?

An escalation in immigration enforcement over the past year has brought a new level of anxiety for the several thousand migrant farm workers living in Vermont. For the first time since 2010, arrests and detentions by the U.S. Border Patrol increased in Vermont, New Hampshire and northeastern New York last year. The workers – many of them undocumented – are critically important to the state’s farm economy. To give you a sense of how important, consider that twice a year the Mexican government comes to a Vermont farm community to help hundreds of its citizens with financial and legal advice,...

Based on Wolff’s reporting, it can now be said that the Trump administration mishandled the ridiculous Russian collusion canard in the crucial early days at least in part because its chief strategist believed it. Heckuva job, Stevey.

Last year, students at UC San Diego were protesting the election of Trump and marched out onto a nearby highway. One of the students was hit by a car. Now she is suing the school for not stopping the protest. You couldn’t make this up. The College Fix reported: Student protester hit by car as she blocked freeway sues UC San Diego The University of California-San Diego is now embroiled in a personal injury lawsuit after an election protest gone wrong. Mariana Flores, a sophomore at UCSD, was demonstrating against Donald Trump’s victory on a busy San Diego freeway when...

President Trump started the New Year by tweeting about the Country of Pakistan. Donald J. Trump? Verified account @realDonaldTrump Jan 1 More “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more! “ President Trump has gone where no President has ever gone. He is a ground breaker, and he is true to his doctrine: “the accurate assignment of...

Pope Francis has not accepted the resignation of controversial Tegucigalpa Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga according to the Honduran Radio América (January 3). Rodríguez has been accused of financial embezzlement and of homosexual scandals in his archdiocese. He is a close partisan of Pope Francis who shares his liberal ideology. Picture: Rodríguez Maradiag

A civil lawsuit charging Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis with raping a publicist has prompted three additional women to come forward with their own sexual misconduct accusations. One of the new accusers says Haggis forced her to perform X, then raped her. And another of the new women speaking out told the Associated Press that before she managed to run away, Haggis told her, “I need to be inside you.”

Neofita Valerio-Silva de Bernal, a former Grover Beach resident and mother of three American-born children, including a 16-year-old daughter, was detained by immigration officials after a Wednesday hearing and deported to Mexico on Thursday evening. Valerio-Silva’s advocates have argued for compassion, noting she is a homeowner who has committed no crimes other than residing in the U.S. without documentation. She lived in the U.S. for more than two decades and had a U.S. work permit. She was working as a local hotel maid while caring for her youngest daughter, a 16-year-old cheerleader at Arroyo Grande High School. Valerio-Silva was denied...

Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House flew off bookshelves early Friday morning despite efforts by President Donald Trump’s legal team to stop the publication and distribution of the book. The book soared to #1 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list just hours after the UK Guardian scooped the world by publishing details from a print version of the book that had been delivered to a book store in New England. The book purports to quote Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon, a senior White House adviser at the time, who allegedly criticized a meeting that Donald...

RUSH: Well, it may be sunny, but it is 60 degrees here, and I’m telling you, for us… (laughing) I shouldn’t even mention it, not with people sitting there a minus-zero wind chill. It’s cold to us. It’s relative. It is very cold to us. I mean, there are people that are gonna laugh. Like tomorrow the weather forecast here has a high of 64, which will happen about two or three in the afternoon, but the wind is gonna be out of the north-northwest at about 15 to 20. It’s gonna make it feel like 55 or less. There...

WEIGHT LOSS can be aided by having an apple cider vinegar drink every day, scientists have found. Just how much do you have to drink to lose weight, and how do you take the drink?Apple cider vinegar benefits include weight loss - but just how much do you need to drink in order to lose weight? One scientific study carried out in Japan showed that drinking more of the vinegar can help you lose more weight. The nutrition experts at the Central Research Institute in Aichi asked two groups to drink different amounts of apple cider vinegar once a day,...

Why do some children start lying at an earlier age than others? What separates them from their more honest peers? The short answer is that they are smarter. You can speed up the process. Training children in executive functioning and theory of mind using a variety interactive games and role-playing exercises can turn truth-tellers into liars within weeks, Professor Lee has found. And teaching kids to lie improves their scores on tests of executive functioning and theory of mind. Lying, in other words, is good for your brain.