Free Republic

President Trump, Today, December 23, is the anniversary of the reading of Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis, Number 1, to Washington’s troops as they prepared their minds, bodies, and spirits for the critical battle of Trenton, which turned the tide of the war. General Washington had suffered defeat after defeat, and both he and his men were worn down. Many of his men were demoralized. He needed a victory, and to get one, he needed to go on the offensive. And he did. He ordered Thomas Paine’s immortal words read aloud to his men, to get their minds right, and...

Mexico’s president on Friday urged the United States to shed light on a gun-running sting that caused bilateral friction under the Obama presidency, questioning the behavior of past U.S. administrations for the third time this week.

Hat tip to Motzilla at The Conservatice Treehouse:

The Internet is full of information, some of it not well researched or considered, but every now and then a star appears on the horizon. To my mind the new star is Yaacov Apelbaum, who, using his considerable technical skills, has produced a masterpiece of well-documented analysis underscoring the nonsensical and partisan nature of the Mueller operation. He compares this effort by the anti-Trumpers to the plot line of the Dreyfus affair, where falsified evidence and suppressed evidence led to Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s conviction for treason.

Apparently the firings were done according to two criteria: Cost of contract and support for Trump. People whose contracts were expensive were almost all fired. People whose contracts were less expensive were either kept or fired depending on how pro- or anti-Trump they were.

Former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson says he wants his old job back. Patterson, who served three terms as land commissioner before running fourth in a four-way Republican primary contest for lieutenant governor in 2014, said Friday he will challenge one-term Land Commissioner George P. Bush in the March GOP primary.

Saudi Arabia has arrested dozens of senior figures including princes, ministers and a top business tycoon, in what authorities hailed Sunday as a "decisive" anti-corruption sweep as the kingdom's crown prince consolidates power. Prominent billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal was among the 11 princes arrested late Saturday, reports said, immediately after a new anti-corruption commission headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was established by royal decree.

Without their top enemy, who will Texas conservatives fight now? Thomas Jefferson once asked if man had “found angels in the form of kings to govern him.” You wouldn’t know the question was rhetorical if you went by the mournful stories in the Texas media Wednesday about Joe Straus, the Republican speaker of the state House, announcing he won’t run for reelection. “This is a sad day for TX,” tweeted Wendy Davis, the Democratic ex-gubernatorial candidate and abortion enthusiast. Straus “is the definition of public servant – always people above party.”

In a stunning announcement with huge repercussions for the future of the Texas House and Republican Party politics in Texas, House speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, announced Wednesday morning that he won’t run for re-election.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., was the father of the noted Supreme Court justice of the same name. Among other things, he was a poet whose most prominent work might be Old Ironsides, the poem credited with helping save the USS Constitution from being scrapped. Another of his poems was an interpretation of his grandmother's eye-witness account of the Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on the 17th of June in 1775. My grandmother had this committed to memory and used to recite it to me as a child. This is that poem. Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle as She Saw...

This week, Monckton — former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — pushed for Texas independence in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. In short, Monckton views Texas as a lifeboat. He believes that America is on the verge of being overrun with Islamic invaders which will be accompanied by “imminent” financial destruction.

The great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in two previous articles in the London Review of Books ("Whose Sarin?" and "The Red Line and the Rat Line") has reported that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria; and Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia,...

For the first big speech of her 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton turned a little-known strip of New York into a serene summertime autocracy, pleasant and creepy at the same time.

Brian Howard, 36, of Naperville has been charged with one felony count of Destruction of Aircraft or Aircraft Facilities after he allegedly set a fire in the basement of an Aurora FAA facility, cut the feeds to the radar and damaged the communications system, forcing a ground stop at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway international airports, the FBI says. Investigators say Howard managed to do extensive damage to the host computer, as well as the lines to radar in the facility. The Air Route Control Center monitors high altitude aircraft before landing in Chicago or flying through the area.

... As 'Domestic Extremists' In FOIA'ed Emails An activist is a terrorist, at least according to Senior Police Officer Justin Berry of the Austin Police Dept. While the terms aren't mutually exclusive, a person can be one without being the other. In Berry's mind, they're both, and he feeds off the FBI's paranoia to reach his conclusion.

Back in 2005, when President Obama was a mere freshman senator, his wife, Michelle, found herself overwhelmed with the stress of being a full-time working mother, largely alone in her Chicago home, with two daughters who got sick a little too often. Sluggish and above her fighting weight, she wondered if her family’s diet — lots of prepared food and a few too many Cheetos — might need an adjustment.

AUSTIN, Texas -- In light of the malicious prosecution of Governor Rick Perry, Republican lawmakers are rushing to jump on the bandwagon opposing the Democrats politically motivated action. But several House Republicans loyal to liberal House Speaker, Joe Straus, bear responsibility for setting the stage leading to the indictments.

... If Joe's own words do not inspire some to vote for him, they should certainly make us all think about the direction we are taking our nation: "It's not enough to be a Republican. I'm a conservative and a Constitutionalist. ... We are not at the eleventh hour; we are at the midnight hour[.] ... I'm going up there [Washington, D.C.] to start a fight. We [our leaders in Congress/the executive] have trampled on the legacy of 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence."

I hope you might consider donating to Chris McDaniel to help his campaign investigate the possibility that the election was stolen. There appear to be documented irregularities of, for example, Democrats who voted in the Democratic primary voting in the Republican runoff. That’s against the rules. Photographic evidence of the ballot books suggest it happened. We need to help Chris. We know the GOP Establishment pushed Democrats to vote. It was an open primary and they were allowed to. But Democrats who voted in their own Democratic primary cannot vote in the Republican runoff. We need to help Chris investigate...

The FBI investigates the use of politiqueras in Valley elections. In the deeply Democratic Rio Grande Valley, the primary is the election that matters. And in local races like county commissioner and district attorney a sliver of votes can make a difference between winning and losing the election. Many times, paid campaign workers called “politiqueras” deliver the votes that put a candidate over the top. Politiqueras—who are paid to turn out voters, especially in low-income neighborhoods and colonias—have been part of elections in the Rio Grande Valley for decades. But the recent suicide of a school board president in the...