Free Republic

“You’re an awful person and now you get what you deserve,” according to law enforcement sources Tuesday.[snip] The substance turned out to be cornstarch.

Michael Flynn spoke with Russian Ambassador Kislyak on December 29, 2016. You will remember that the conversation Michael Flynn had with Kislyak was leaked to WaPo last January 12 : According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was...

The GOP tax bill is providing a $1.5 trillion windfall, which will mostly be enjoyed by the rich and corporations. But what if there were another way to spend that money that could benefit more middle-income Americans while eliminating some of the country's inequalities? Look no further than getting rid of America's student debt, argue researchers at Bard College's Levy Economics Institute. They examined the potential impact of canceling the $1.4 trillion in student debt that 44 million Americans are carrying. Erasing it would be a "radical" solution to the student debt crisis, but it would pay off in bountiful...

It's technically infrastructure week in Washington, but immigration is front and center in the Senate, as Mitch McConnell follows through on his post-'Schumer shutdown' pledge to permit the legislative process to move forward on DACA-related bills.  A group of conservative Senators rolled out their proposal on Sunday, which we'll briefly explore below -- but first, here's a so-called 'DREAMer' (an illegal immigrant brought to America as a child) voicing a distinctly different view of the ongoing negotiations than is typically raised by the hardline activists typically featured in the press. The Left spotlights DACA-eligible illegal immigrants who insist that any...

A Chicago TV station apologized for using “P.F. Chang” in a graphic about the Winter Olympics, instead of PyeongChang, the name of the South Korean county hosting the Games. P.F. Chang’s is the name of an “Asian restaurant concept” chain with more than 200 locations in the United States, including several in the Chicago area.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra quit on Tuesday after admitting that he had fabricated a story about attending a meeting in 2006 at which he said Russian President Vladimir Putin had outlined a strategy for building a greater Russia. The incident has embarrassed Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition government, which has a parliamentary majority of just one, and further strained difficult ties with Russia. Zijlstra, visibly emotional as he took the floor during a parliamentary debate convened to discuss his behavior, said he had decided to tender his resignation to the king because the situation risked harming...

By Brian McVeigh, Calhoun County District Attorney and president of the Alabama District Attorneys Association; and Dave Sutton, Sheriff of Coffee County and president of the Alabama Sheriffs AssociationThe Alabama Legislature is considering legislation that would change the way civil asset forfeitures are handled in Alabama. While well-meaning, some of the proposed changes would essentially gut what is an effective crime-fighting tool while making it easier for drug dealers and other criminals to hang on to their ill-gotten gains. The result would be more crime. Unfortunately, several special interest groups have pushed a narrative that law enforcement - police, sheriffs...

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA—The massive Toba volcanic eruption on the island of Sumatra about 74,000 years ago did not cause a six-year-long "volcanic winter" in East Africa and thereby cause the human population in the region to plummet, according to new University of Arizona-led research. The new findings disagree with the Toba catastrophe hypothesis, which says the eruption and its aftermath caused drastic, multi-year cooling and severe ecological disruption in East Africa. "This is the first research that provides direct evidence for the effects of the Toba eruption on vegetation just before and just after the eruption," said lead author Chad...

Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite research shows. At the current rate, the world's oceans on average will be at least 2 feet - - 61 centimeters - - higher by the end of the century compared to today, according to researchers who published in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. The research, based on 25 years of satellite data, shows that pace has quickened, mainly from the melting of massive ice sheets. It confirms scientists' computer simulations and is in line with predictions...

Tiny gap between private trade confirmations and public data feed can be exploited to detect market moves, critics say Five years ago, the world’s largest exchange operator vowed to fix a flaw in its systems that allowed high-speed traders to infer the direction of the futures market a fraction of a second before everyone else. Now, the defect is back at CME Group Inc.,traders say. And some allege it is yielding rich profits for ultrafast firms at the expense of ordinary investors. The problem arises from the two ways that CME distributes information about a trade. One is the private...

Please keep those donations coming in, folks. Let's keep FR alive!! The Trump presidency is off to a great start and 2018 will bring great strides: Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all!! End sanctuary cities!! End anchor babies!! Continue cutting regulations, cutting government, cutting spending and cutting taxes!! Continue bringing back capital, manufacturing, jobs and the economy!! Continue appointing constitutional conservative judges and restoring the constitution and our religious freedom!! Continue rebuilding and strengthening our military!! Prepare for a great election in November, sweeping in even more conservatives to the congress so we can accomplish all of...

HARTFORD, Conn. — Leaders of the Whiffenpoofs, Yale University's world-famous glee club, say their sound isn't changing, but they are ending their more than century-old tradition of being a male only a cappella ensemble. The Whiffs, as they are known, and Yale's senior women's a cappella group, Whim 'n Rhythm, issued a joint announcement Feb. 1 that tryouts for both groups will now be open to all rising seniors, including transgender students. The move, they say, is designed to give more people access to what can be life-changing travel opportunities and music industry contacts that come with being a member...

Last month, with mass protests underway on the streets of Tehran and other cities, one of Iran’s most senior clerics inadvertently sparked an altogether different sort of international incident. On January 8, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, one of the country’s most powerful officials and a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, traveled to Germany to receive medical treatment amid rumors of failing health. The visit prompted outrage from human-rights activists, and German authorities contemplated charging Shahroudi for “crimes against humanity” for his role in directing the imprisonment and torture of numerous opponents of the Iranian regime. The sixty-nine-year-old jurist ultimately...

The U.S. government's system of security clearances for top officials is "broken" and must be completely overhauled, the Trump administration's intelligence chief told The Associated Press.

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - - Dog meat restaurants are cooking up their traditional specialties despite government pressure and financial incentives aimed at curbing sales during the PyeongChang Olympics. Consuming dog is largely unpopular in modern South Korea and has become increasingly taboo. But "bosingtang" - literally “invigorating stew” made with dog meat - still appears on some menus. But the South Korean government has long known that eating dog is frowned upon by many foreigners. Before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the government restricted the sale of dog meat in parts of the city. Preparing for an influx of overseas visitors...

It’s a story you would expect to have heard during the Obama administration.Coal plants are closing across the country, largely because of market conditions and federal policies aimed at ending the use of coal in our country. One of these policies, the Clean Power Plan, proposed by President Obama as the United States’ principle initiative to meet the emissions targets of the Paris Climate Accords, had made it too expensive to keep coal plants open.Wind, natural gas and, increasingly, solar energy are cleaner and becoming cheaper and more reliable. The Department of Energy, led by the administration’s token Texan, proposes...

NO.....NBC...it does not takes a village...it takes a pro-active, loving, American, Dad & family, of Korean legal immigrants to birth the "American Dream". I watched this magnificent youngster perform her two "Stove Pipe" runs...just simply awesome. She already had the Gold Medal won, before she performed her last run...but, she uttered these words into her I-Pod, before going down the "Stove Pipe"...."Grannie, this one's for you"!!! POTUS, Trump....this is a family that should be celebrated in the White House in the near future. Congratulations, Young Champion....America loves you and your entire "patriot" American Dream, family!!! NBC...take a hike, deadbeat, low...

Democrats blocked a vote Tuesday on cracking down on sanctuary cities as the first day of the immigration debate began with a whimper. Sen. Charles E. Schumer said debating sanctuary cities would be getting off “on the wrong foot,” insisting this week’s floor fight should only be about illegal immigrant “Dreamers” and border security. The early jockeying underscored the problems the Senate is about to face. Democrats had begged for a “fair” process to debate immigration, but are now worried about just how wide-ranging that debate will be, and are trying to shape the amendments that will be offered.

People are fleeing the socialism forced on them in Venezuela by the hundreds of thousands. Starving, and facing violence over crumbs of food, many have no choice but to flee the wasteland which used the authority of government to destroy the lives of its citizens. Thousands of Venezuelans are attempting to flee the socialist dystopia their nation has become. They are attempting to make it to Colombia. In a desperate bid to escape the hunger and soaring crime rate caused by the spiraling economic crisis, fueled by socialist policies, incredible pictures have surfaced showing the mass exodus of refugees crossing...

I filed this under "announcements" because he was at the meeting that didn't happen.