Free Republic

Donald Trump said Tuesday that if elected president he will erect a wall along the country’s southern border and said that taxpayers won’t have to pay a dime for it. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall,” Mr. Trump said. He did not provide any details on how he would get Mexico to go along with his plan.

The attack Friday at a Tunisian beach resort killed at least 18 Britons, but officials said Monday the actual number was likely to be 30. That would make it by far the deadliest terrorist attack on Britons since the London transport bombings 10 years ago. Yet it was just one of three terrorist attacks on three continents that followed one another in frightening succession last week. While it is not yet known whether the attacks were linked, they have left officials in numerous countries concerned about how to keep their citizens safe. Not long after that, a bomb ripped through...

British Prime Minister David Cameron has called on the BBC not to use the term "Islamic State" for the extremist group in Iraq and Syria, according to the Daily Mail, arguing that the reference to Islam perpetuates a "perversion of a great religion." "I wish the BBC would stop calling it Islamic State because it's not an Islamic State; what it is is an appalling, barbarous regime," Cameron said, during an interview on a BBC morning show. "It is a perversion of the religion of Islam and many Muslims listening to this program will recoil every time they hear the...

The Supreme Court effectively blocked an attempt by Arizona and Kansas to require voter ID after the high court declined to hear an appeal. By rejecting a joint appeal by the states, the high court left in place a November 2014 ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That appeals court decided that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that oversees changes to state voter registration procedures, was not required to grant the states' request that proof of citizenship be added to registration requirements. The Election Assistance Commission was established in 2002 to support and enforce...

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. announced a proposal last week to remove the statue and grave sites of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife. “These relics, these messages of this despicable period of this great nation, it’s time for those to be moved,” the Democratic mayor, who is black, said in a news conference, a local NBC affiliate reported. Mr. Wharton told The Associated Press that he wants the statue removed from Health Sciences Park and “returned to Forrest Monument Association that had it placed there.” He said the graves of the noted KKK leader and his...

Circulating throughout Conservative sites this week is information about Hillary being fired by her Watergate supervisor, US HOUSE Judiciary Watergate committee counsel Jerry Zeifman. A close analysis of this bold assertion puts the whole flap into real perspective. When asked in an interview why he terminated Hillary’s employment, Zeifman responded, “Because she was a liar. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer; she conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the HOUSE, the rules of the committee and the rules on confidentiality.” A Rush Limbaugh transcript stays very close to this syntax. In an article written after a 2008 campaign...

By June 16, 2014 (NASA) (Source: NASA) In the remote and forested terrain of Juina in western Brazil, an ugly rock with an uglier name surfaced months ago inside a diamond mine. It was a tiny green crystal, all scars and bumps. It “literally look[ed] like [it had] been to hell and back,” one scientist said in March. But despite the provenance, the ringwoodite stone wasn’t scorched — it was, in fact, sopping wet. Providing an unparalleled glimpse into the our planet’s innards, the stone rode a violent volcanic eruption to the surface from 325 miles inside the Earth’s mantle....

The cupboards of the Natural History Museum in London hold spectacular dinosaur fossils, from 10-centimeter, serrated Tyrannosaurus rex teeth to a 4-meter-long hadrosaur tail. Now, researchers are reporting another spectacular find, buried in eight nondescript fossils from the same collection: what appear to be ancient red blood cells and fibers of ancient protein. Using new methods to peer deep inside fossils, the study in this week’s issue of Nature Communications backs up previous, controversial reports of such structures in dinosaur bones. It also suggests that soft tissue preservation may be more common than anyone had guessed. “It’s encouraging,” especially because...

Abstract Exceptionally preserved organic remains are known throughout the vertebrate fossil record, and recently, evidence has emerged that such soft tissue might contain original components. We examined samples from eight Cretaceous dinosaur bones using nano-analytical techniques; the bones are not exceptionally preserved and show no external indication of soft tissue. In one sample, we observe structures consistent with endogenous collagen fibre remains displaying ~67 nm banding, indicating the possible preservation of the original quaternary structure. Using ToF-SIMS, we identify amino-acid fragments typical of collagen fibrils. Furthermore, we observe structures consistent with putative erythrocyte remains that exhibit mass spectra similar to emu...

RIGA, Latvia — In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say. The proposal, if approved, would represent the first time since the end of the Cold War that the United States has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that had once been part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war...

Constitutional conservatives don't like it. Trade unions abhor it. Obama critics hate it. Environmentalists despise it. Outside the Beltway bubble, a broad coalition of voters from the left, right and center opposes the mega-trade deal getting rammed through Congress this week by the Republican establishment on behalf of the White House. Here's why. The Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out American sovereignty. Their so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission will have sweeping authority over trade, immigration, environmental, labor and commerce regulations. As alert watchdogs U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the...

Why America Hates the GOP-Obamatrade Deal by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2015 Constitutional conservatives don’t like it. Trade unions abhor it. Obama critics hate it. Environmentalists despise it. Outside the Beltway bubble, a broad coalition of voters from the left, right and center opposes the mega-trade deal getting rammed through Congress this week by the Republican establishment on behalf of the White House. Here’s why. The Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out American sovereignty. Their so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission will have sweeping authority over trade, immigration, environmental, labor and...

One of last week's top stories was an alleged incident aboard a United Airlines flight where a Muslim chaplain from Northwestern University named Tahera Ahmad claimed she was denied an unopened can of soda because the flight attendant told her it could be used as a weapon. Ahmad further alleged a fellow passenger made anti-Muslim statements to her. However, her claims appear not to be true. SNIP Why would CNN, ABC News, The Washington Post or, for that matter, Jon Stewart care about verifying Ahmad's story? Ahmad has an agenda and liberal media outlets are only too happy to take...

Jeb Bush will enter 2016 with plenty of advantages, but the first-in-the-West nominating contest likely won’t be one of them. Nevada lawmakers this week opted against changing the state’s presidential caucus to a primary, a decision that runs counter to the wishes of Bush, Marco Rubio, and other GOP establishment-types who had hoped a switch would give them a better chance at posting a momentum-building victory there. Caucuses require a good deal more effort and patience from voters than primaries, and as a result the contests tend to favor candidates that have built a network of highly motivated activists. That...

The National Security Agency and its closest allies planned to hijack data links to Google and Samsung app stores to infect smartphones with spyware, a top-secret document reveals. The surveillance project was launched by a joint electronic eavesdropping unit called the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team, which includes spies from each of the countries in the “Five Eyes” alliance — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. The top-secret document, obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was published Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept. The document outlines a series of tactics that the NSA...

It was an unlikely display of protesters: nuns cloaked in white, a black-clad priest clutching a golden scepter and dozens of Arab schoolchildren picketing outside the hulking headquarters of Israel’s Education Ministry. Their message, raised high on large banners: “Take your hands off our schools.” Private Christian schools are among Israel’s highest ranked educational institutions, established by churches in the Holy Land hundreds of years ago—long before Israel’s own creation. But school administrators are accusing Israel of slashing their funding as a pressure tactic to get them join the Israeli public school system—a move they say would interfere with the...

From the first sudden, and quite dramatic, appearance of the fanatical Islamic group known as ISIS which was largely unheard of until a year ago, on the world's stage and which promptly replaced the worn out and tired al Qaeda as the world's terrorist bogeyman, we suggested that the "straight to beheading YouTube clip" purpose behind the Saudi Arabia-funded Islamic State was a simple one: use the Jihadists as the vehicle of choice to achieve a political goal: depose of Syria's president Assad, who for years has stood in the way of a critical Qatari natural gas pipeline, one which...

Since its creation in 2001, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has raised close to $2 billion from a vast global network that includes corporate titans, political donors, foreign governments and other wealthy interests, according to a Washington Post review of public records and newly released contribution data. The total, representing cash and pledges reported in tax filings, includes $262 million that was raised in 2013 — the year Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped down as secretary of state and began to devote her energies to the foundation and to a likely second run for president. The financial success of...

There were subscriptions to dating websites, meals at Hooters and purchases at Victoria’s Secret — not to mention jet ski joy rides and couples’ cruises to the Caribbean. All of it was paid for with the nearly $200 million donated to cancer charities, and was enjoyed by the healthy friends and family members of those running the groups, in what government officials said Tuesday was one of the largest charity fraud cases ever. At the center of the operation was James T. Reynolds Sr., who opened the Cancer Fund of America in 1987. Over the decades, according to a complaint...

Iraqi state television is reporting the country's prime minister has ordered security forces not to abandon their positions in Anbar province to the Islamic State group. The order Sunday by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came as some Iraqi forces retreated from Ramadi, the provincial capital. It wasn't clear whether Iraq still maintained any control of the city, which the Islamic State group seized much of in recent days. Already Sunday, coordinated suicide bomb attacks targeted Iraqi forces in Ramadi. Some Iraqi forces apparently left behind their weapons and vehicles. Earlier, al-Abadi ordered Shiite militias to prepare for going into the...