Free Republic

Imagine one of your kids freezing to death in your home. Eleven-year-old Cristian Pineda's mother found her son dead during the Texas blackout in February 2021. Or you have a power outage for three days, losing a couple of hundred dollars worth of food because your refrigerator didn’t work, as Michelle Jones did last summer. The food she had just bought to feed herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter spoiled without electricity. This is likely to become all too common in the future. What do they all have in common? Increasing their reliance on solar and wind and closing coal...

Former Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Cullors is bringing more of her activism to the entertainment industry with projects advocating for racialized reparations in a book and new television projects for Warner Bros. Early last year, Cullors, who has identified herself as a “trained Marxist,” became a target for becoming a multi-millionaire while claiming to represent the downtrodden and poor minorities who she claimed faced violence at the hands of the police. Cullors resigned from BLM in May of last year, though she claimed that the attacks on her personal wealth did not lead to her stepping down. But she...

Every election cycle there's some sort of "October surprise." It's when campaigns release the dirt they have on their opponent, in hopes of flipping some voters. But not every election surprise has to come from a campaign. In fact, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said the State Department is getting closer to releasing emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server. You know, the ones that contained classified information that should have been safeguarded? “We’ve got the emails, we’re getting them out. We’ll get all of this information out so the American people can see...

At this juncture, I simply must take a moment to acknowledge the unswerving loyalty of an unsung group of stalwarts among us. I mean, who would have suspected that nearly three months after the fact, thousands of George Floyd's closest friends would still be sufficiently enraged over his tragic death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer that they would persist in carrying on violent demonstrations all over the country? Sarcasm aside, of course it's clear that these demonstrations are being organized and incited by the unabashedly Marxist Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other radicals. My take is that...

"Mostly peaceful." Those are the two words we've heard ad nauseam from the media and politicians about the Black Lives Matter protests that have swept the nation in the wake of George Floyd's May 25 death after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest. By the way, that description is entirely accurate. And, to the extent that there are issues with certain violent protesters, those aren't reasons to stop the demonstrations or condemn them in toto; taking to the streets in order to demand redress for political or social grievances is a God-given...

All the gun control zealots out in full force last week have apparently gone to the beach. An alarming shooting took place at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in San Antonio on Tuesday. Local media reported that “multiple shots were fired on two floors targeting ICE officials.” But the Second Amendment saboteurs were AWOL. Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Federal government workers are under literal fire for enforcing our immigration laws and protecting America. But the left-wing Moms Demand Action ignored the story. So did the anti-gun Brady Campaign agitators. And the usual stampede of camera-hogging Democratic presidential candidates...

Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee released a $9 trillion plan to fight global warming Thursday, upping the ante on Democratic presidential candidates. “You think of the Green New Deal as saying ‘we should go to the moon,’ but in my plan is how to build the rocket ship,” Inslee told The Guardian. “They both have their values.” Inslee’s plan aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions, ramp up renewable energy and infrastructure and create 8 million jobs over 10 years. The plan calls for $300 billion a year in federal spending to leverage an additional $600 billion a year — for...

Townhall received the following statement from Department of Homeland Security Spokeswoman Katie Waldman: Once again we have had a violent mob of migrants attempt to enter the United States illegally by attacking our agents with projectiles. As has happened before - in this and previous administrations - our personnel used the minimum force necessary to defend themselves, defend our border, and restore order. The agents involved should be applauded for handling the situation with no reported injuries to the attackers.

Criminality invariably increases in frequency and severity when it goes unpunished. The best example is no longer street thugs or gang members, but Democratic congressmen. Democrat Adam Schiff seems to be the star leaker on the House Intelligence Committee. He specializes in open communication with big-media anti-Trump propagandists, who are expert at publishing only the bits damaging to the president. Now Mr. Schiff and his fellow crime syndicate colleagues have changed their tune. The committee has been sitting on a document for months, without one single “share” to its credit. Even Mr. Schiff, the serial leaker, hasn’t passed it on...

I missed this when it was announced roughly two weeks ago but it’s worth pointing out even now. Two activists confessed to multiple acts of sabotage against the Dakota Access Pipeline using cutting torches and other tools. The two women, who are part of an Iowa’s Catholic Worker social justice movement, made the announcement before a small group of journalists and then started prying letters off a sign for the Iowa Utilities Board, which got them arrested. From the Des Moines Register:

When Donald Trump said he would not pursue legal action against Hillary Clinton after he won the election, the majority of his supporters were not happy. After all, what Hillary, her family. and the Clinton Foundation actually did, or were accused of doing through credible evidence, was obviously criminal. Fast forward to today and the onslaught of false Russian collusion accusations against President Trump and it is obvious why not going after Hillary was a huge mistake. After the election, as there always seems to be, there is a kind of political vacuum period. It is usually called a honeymoon...

MSNBC host Chris Matthews and MSNBC contributor David Corn believe they know why Republicans have a problem with President Barack Obama’s former National Security Advisor Susan Rice – her gender and her skin color. In discussing how Republicans reacted to Rice, who it was revealed this week asked for names of Trump campaign officials to be unmasked in intelligence reports, telling conflicting stories in the past few weeks, Matthews observed, “Notice it’s always a female? Just a thought.” “By the way,” Matthews, whose wife Kathleen is interim Chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, declared, “this is all after the election....

The head of the EPA’s environmental justice program resigned Thursday over concerns President Donald Trump might slash funding for the 24-year-old project. Mustafa Ali, a former senior to the administrator responsible for directing the agency’s actions protecting minority communities, stepped down in a letter to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. He also voiced concern the Pruitt plans on gutting the project. “I wonder if our new leadership has had the opportunity to converse with those who need our help the most,” Ali wrote in the memo. “I strongly encourage you and your team to continue promoting agency efforts to validate these...

Donald Trump has blasted Hillary Clinton for accepting money from Saudi Arabia through her foundation, but a Daily News investigation reveals he has padded his bank account with cash from the same country. Trump sold the 45th floor of Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $4.5 million in June 2001, according to a city Finance Department spokeswoman. In 2008, the apartments became part of the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, records show. The five apartments included 10 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms at the time of the sale, and had yearly common charges of $85,585 for...

Hillary Clinton would have us believe that Trump is a scary member of the white supremacist radical fringe. Democrats are happy to believe her, even though Trump has zero relationship with hate groups. None, nada, zilch. Their only evidence is gotcha questions from liberal reporters asking Trump to repudiate David Duke over and over, tarring him by association. But there is no association, except in liberal minds that see Republicans, that is, the majority of whites in this country, as hate-filled kooks. In contrast, Hillary actually does support BLM, a racist organization that promotes murder of whites. She repeats the...

A liberal journalist who has moderated forums hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative offered a brutal takedown of the organization, describing it as “creepy,” “disgusting” and “gross.” Adam Davidson, who hosts a show for NPR and has written for New York Magazine, also said during an appearance on Slate’s “Political Gabfest” podcast this week, that the Bill and Hillary Clinton-controlled group’s events are “all about buying access.” [dcquiz] And later in the podcast, he said that the Clinton Foundation has made the Clintons “beholden to scumbags.” Davidson’s harsh critique comes as Hillary Clinton faces accusations that her family charities are...

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) demolished FBI director James Comey’s claim Thursday that the government lacked sufficient evidence of criminal intent to prosecute former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mis-handling classified information.

Ranchers in the West are engaged in 21st-century range wars, but their adversaries are not the rustlers and cattle barons of lore. Federal land management agencies, overzealous officers, and self-righteous judges are the foes western ranchers fear the most. On October 7, father and son ranchers from Oregon, Dwight, 73, and Steven Hammond, 46, were labeled as terrorists and sentenced to five years in federal prison under anti-terrorism laws. In 2001, a fire set by the Hammonds to eliminate overgrown sagebrush on their own property inadvertently spread to adjacent BLM land. The two were convicted of arson when the Bureau...

You may be a criminal without even knowing it. Centuries ago, there were only nine felonies under English Common Law. The common law dealt with behavior that is widely understood to be culpable — murder, theft, rape, etc. — but in today's state legislatures and in Congress, innocuous behavior is too often criminalized. In Michigan, a person can be convicted of a crime for betting in an office March Madness pool, or mocking a person who refuses to duel. Accompanying this over-criminalization is the failure of legislatures to define the intent necessary for a prosecutor to prove a crime has...

LANSING — There are thousands of federal laws and many more coming from the states. So many, that at the national level the government doesn't even try to add them up anymore. And while historically the state has had to show that a person knowingly committed a crime, many criminal statutes have abandoned this approach. In recent decades, the government has criminalized an ever-increasing amount of activity, including many things not thought to be harming anyone. What can be done to turn that tide while keeping society safe was the topic of an "Issues and Ideas" event put on by...