Free Republic

Just days before leaving office Loretta Lynch secretly signed an order to allow any branch of government, including local law enforcement, access to the NSA’s data mine on the American people. She created a mechanism by which the Fourth Amendment can be circumvented by law enforcement agencies of any type and description, foreign and domestic, in the area of digital information.

Recent “protests” against conservative speakers on college campuses have been marred by violence, yet excused and legitimized by mainstream media. Despite the chilling effect this is likely to have on the expression of conservative viewpoints on college campuses – and potentially elsewhere – the media as well as many politicians and public figures have either condoned the violence or publicly supported it.

When I read the first two sentences of Joe Tarica’s column last weekend, I thought he was going to pre-empt this column that I had planned to write. Tarica, unsurprisingly, praised the about 10,000-person-strong Women’s March that occurred the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated. Then, in the next sentence, warned that “next time a huge crowd gathers here, it won’t be peaceful; it will be divisive rather than unifying, and someone may get hurt.” Thankfully, no one got hurt. But, what Tarica failed to mention was that the two crowds he described — the defiant progressives at the Women’s...

I desperately want Donald Trump to be a good President. If he could unravel the harmful policies of the Obama administration, and take a wrecking ball to entrenched bureaucratic and political power in Washington D.C., he could go down as one of our nation's greatest leaders. Or he could become a laughing stock. An embarrassing political footnote. Something akin to Minnesota electing Jesse Ventura to be governor. Sometimes the moment can make the man. I've been waiting for Democrats to rise to the occasion of the Trump presidency by becoming the loyal opposition. Trump would be a better sort of...

Dear FReepublicans, I thought I remembered some time back when I heard about a racket that some H1B heavy contracting firms were carrying out. They would mistreat their (typically India Indian) workers and they would not dare complain because if they did, they'd be fired on some bizarre pretext and back to India they would have to go. Does anyone have any sources about this they can point me to? I think I may be looking at a situation where this is happening. Now yes, I know they took our jerbs, etc. So many may not care. But I have...

WASHINGTON (ABC7) — Ten of the people accused of participating in violent protests on D.C. streets on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration were in court Thursday. They were among the 230 people who were arrested and charged during Inauguration Day incidents involving broken windows, burned vehicles, and fighting with police. The incidents happened in a four-block area around 12th and K Sts. NW in downtown D.C. Thursday at D.C. Superior Court, 10 of the 11 who were indicted by the grand jury on felony riot charges Wednesday were arraigned. Charging documents showed some of the defendants are from as...

Two days ago Yahoo News claimed a 5-Year-Old American citizen was handcuffed at the Dulles Airport for hours.    The Independent in the UK made the same unfounded accusation.  The accusation flew around the Internet. I suspected fake news.  Let us see the pictures of the handcuffed 5 year old. Everyone has phones and cameras today. We have seen plenty of examples of fake accusations. It did not take me long.  It was fake news. Snopes found a picture that was used in this accusation, that was from 2015. http://www.snopes.com/small-child-handcuffed-at-dulles/ A 5-Year-old was detained for four hours at Dulles,...

When people started tweeting at me about this incident, my first instinct was to question whether they could possibly be characterizing the situation accurately. I don't know why: Between this week's disgrace in Berkeley -- replete with atrocious public statements from various Democratic public officials -- and this mind-bending lowlight from last year's unrest at the University of Missouri, nothing should surprise any of us at this point. Scroll ahead to roughly the ten-minute mark and watch an "adult" NYU professor berate NYPD officers for not using physical violence against Trump supporter and Milo-esque 'alt-right' figure Gavin McInnes. Welcome to...

Big Sean’s I Decided. press run took him to a freestyle session on Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 show, and a clip of the rapper’s freestyle was posted online last night. Big Sean used his verses to shoot punchlines from the hip—as you’ll hear, some land, some don’t. (“Young hero in my city / Teen Titan,” is an odd thing for 28-year-old to rap, for example.) But we’re gathered here because of the more politically-aimed bars below. Sean sends some shots at Uber and shouts out Lyft with a rimshot punchline at the 37-second mark. Of course, the former’s CEO was...

Who knew that Obamacare provides for a “Regular Corps” and a “Ready-Reserve Corps” of officers and individuals who are appointed by the president? Commissioned officers are subject to active duty at the call of the surgeon general. The new law provides $17.5 million in each of the first four years to recruit and train these reserves. During his campaign, Obama said: “We cannot continue to rely only on our military. … We’ve got to have a civilian security force just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to...

Federal employees worried that President Donald Trump will gut their agencies are creating new email addresses, signing up for encrypted messaging apps and looking for other, protected ways to push back against the new administration’s agenda. Whether inside the Environmental Protection Agency, within the Foreign Service, on the edges of the Labor Department or beyond, employees are using new technology as well as more old-fashioned approaches — such as private face-to-face meetings — to organize letters, talk strategy, or contact media outlets and other groups to express their dissent. The goal is to get their message across while not violating...

Concerned that protests might be too easy to ignore, activists are now calling for a nationwide strike in order to demonstrate just how many people disapprove of President Donald Trump. First proposed in a column for The Guardian on Monday, American writer Francine Prose called for a "nonviolent national general strike" that can't be "easily ignored and forgotten by those who wish to ignore and forget them." "Let’s designate a day on which no one (that is, anyone who can do so without being fired) goes to work, a day when no one shops or spends money, a day on...

Last Friday, Yale students, staff and faculty held their first weekly workshop on organized opposition to President Donald Trump’s administration. These Fired Up Fridays sessions provide opportunities for Yale community members to learn how to be effective activists. Organized by participants of the post-election Law School gathering in November, these sessions are part of a continued effort to organize and act in response to the political situation brought about by Trump’s presidency. The series of workshops, the first of which was held in the Dwight Hall common room, will bring together people at Yale with long-standing experience in community organizing...

The recent National Intelligence Council report assessing the involvement of Russia in last year’s U.S. presidential elections spurred a flurry of media reports suggesting that Russia is heavily involved in anti-fracking campaigning. Some authors interpreted this involvement as a “propaganda effort”, while others claimed the Kremlin was financially backing anti-fracking groups in the U.S., without, however, providing any evidence for this claim. The basis for all these reports is part of the report, in which the authors discuss the agenda of RT, a state-funded TV channel and website that is widely seen as the Kremlin’s chief megaphone abroad. They quote...

SMYRNA, Del. (AP) -- Inmates at a Delaware prison took five corrections department workers hostage Wednesday, a move the inmates told a local newspaper was due to concerns about their treatment and the leadership of the United States. The hostage situation drew dozens of officers and law enforcement vehicles to the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna and prompted a statewide lockdown of all prisons. One hostage was released Wednesday afternoon, but four remained in custody and negotiations were ongoing as the evening stretched on, authorities said. A preliminary investigation suggests the incident began around 10:30 a.m. when a...

This is long but worth the read: "Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I (Phillip Haney), was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to "connect dots." Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns." This may be the smoking...

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic Representative from Hawaii, recently visited Syria in secret for four days and returned to the U.S. with a message based on what she saw. “[The Syrian people] expressed happiness and joy at seeing an American walking through their streets. But they also asked why the U.S. and its allies are providing support and arms to terrorist groups like al-Nusra, al-Qaida or al-Sham, ISIS who are on the ground there, raping, kidnapping, torturing and killing the Syrian people.”

U.S. President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the aftermath of the Quebec City mosque attack on Monday, promising to support Canadian police “in any way necessary,” the White House said. Trump passed along condolences for the attack, which killed at least six at the Centre culturel islamique de Quebec on Sunday night. While Trudeau was “extremely appreciative,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, he also careful about drawing conclusions on motives behind the shooting. “The president shared those thoughts,” Spicer said....

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about “vetting” people coming in from the Middle East. In fact, however, it’s a much broader issue than that: it’s a need to vet people who come into the USA from anywhere. While any risk can theoretically originate anywhere, statistically, each region has different primary risks. From some countries, it’s a human trafficking and prostitution risk; from others, it’s a drug trade and organized crime risk. But of course the one most in the news is the terrorism risk, which originates primarily in muslim-majority countries (like the middle east) and...

A Donald Trump-supporting preacher was knocked out at the Portland, Oregon, airport on Sunday, with video capturing the dramatic attack during protests....