Free Republic

With a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Janus v. AFCSME case expected any day, Connecticut’s public sector unions are trying to convince members not to opt-out of membership if the Supreme Court decides in favor of Mark Janus. The Connecticut State Employees Association and the American Federation of Teachers informed their members of a Freedom of Information request for union members’ contact information that originated out of Illinois. Leaders say this information could be used for an opt-out campaign in the wake of a positive Janus decision. ... A decision in favor of Janus would essentially make Connecticut a...

Use of the E-ZPass electronic payment system has grown exponentially across the Washington region in recent years as the network of toll lanes has expanded in the Interstate 95 corridor with new facilities from Stafford County to just north of Baltimore. Both Maryland and Virginia are actively promoting E-ZPass, hoping to reduce cash payment at toll plazas — where the option exists — and to encourage the seamless use of all-electronic toll facilities such as the 495 Express Lanes and 66 Express Lanes in Virginia and the Intercounty Connector in Maryland. In that spirit, Maryland announced last week that it...

Disney is selling the longtime headquarters of ABC News, which occupies a prestigious piece of New York City real estate. ... The sale is raising new questions about the future of Disney’s troubled news operation. Once-vaunted ABC News has struggled for identity in recent years, as the TV news spotlight has shifted to cable and the internet. And ABC News' notable shift away from hard news coverage, perhaps in search of viewers, has reduced its relevance in the news ecosystem ... as Disney executives voice increasing frustration with the high costs and low returns of the news operation. ... ABC...

Renowned psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson took the stage at the sold-out Warner Theater in Washington DC Friday night. The crowd got on its feet and started cheering, ecstatic to hear him speak. Peterson gained fame after opposing a Canadian bill that criminalized using the wrong pronouns for transgender persons. His notoriety only grew from there after a video of his interview with British broadcaster Cathy Newman went viral. Now, he’s got a cult following who call themselves “lobsters” (in reference to an example in the viral interview) and a best-selling book titled “12 Rules for Life.” That night, Peterson worked...

Editors at BuzzFeed were reportedly aware that one of their reporters engaged in a years-long romantic relationship with one of her top sources, the former director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee who was indicted and arrested Thursday night for lying to FBI agents. According to the Daily Caller, Ali Watkins, employed as a national security reporter by BuzzFeed from November 2015 to May 2017, informed her superiors of her relationship with James Wolfe, yet none of her stories ever made note of the serious conflict of interest inherent in her covering the Senate Intelligence Committee.

New York Times reporter Ali Watkins' past tweets are raising eyebrows after revelations she had a three-year romantic relationship with a Senate Intelligence Committee aide now accused by federal prosecutors of leaking sensitive information to journalists, including herself. (Snip) In an April 2013 tweet, Watkins also tweeted about the fictional Netflix television show “House of Cards,” where a young reporter has an affair with an older member of Congress. “I wanted to be Zoe Barnes...until episode 4,” she tweeted. “Sleeping with your source- especially a vindictive congressman? #badlifechoice #HouseofCards”

Federal investigators seized the records of New York Times reporter Ali Watkins in relation to an investigation of leaks out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), the Times reported Thursday night. (snip) Not only did it turn out to be the committee doing the leaking, Watkins knew the person doing the leaking on an intimate level.

A former staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee has been indicted and arrested on charges of making false statements to the FBI during an investigation into the leak of classified information, the Justice Department announced Thursday. As part of the investigation, law enforcement officials seized years worth of phone and email records of a New York Times reporter, Ali Watkins, who had previously been in a romantic relationship with the staffer, the newspaper reported Thursday evening. The Senate staffer, James A. Wolfe, was indicted on three counts of making false statements while he served as the committee’s director of...

Special counsel Robert Mueller filed a superseding indictment Friday against former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, and added Russian citizen Konstantin Kilimnik as a defendant. The superseding indictment lodged by a grand jury sitting in federal court in Washington, DC, came days after Mueller asked the judge in Manafort's case to revoke his bail and jail him because of an alleged effort to tamper with witnesses. This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Saint Melania the Righetous, Feast Day June 8 Saint Melania was a lady of noble birth, most wealthy and renowned, a descendant of Roman consuls, and of Spanish origin. When her husband and two of her children died, she departed for Egypt to visit the monks living at Mount Nitria. She distributed her wealth to those that were in need there, as well as to the confessors of the Faith who were being persecuted by the Arians. In three days alone, she fed some 5,000. Then, when these Orthodox Christians were exiled to Palestine, she also went to Jerusalem. There,...

CNN Refuses to Show This Hillary Video. Click Here to Watch Health Sciences Institute Ads by Revcontent Lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday aimed at resolving the long-running tension between states that legalized medical and recreational marijuana sales and the federal government, which still deems all use a federal crime. The bill, offered by Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., comes after President Trump's April assurance to Gardner that he would support reform. Gardner told reporters at a morning press conference that "I have spoken to the president today and that certainly was part of the conversation."

A jury acquitted accused Trump inauguration rioter Casey Webber on all charges Monday, dealing another blow to federal prosecutors struggling to convict participants of a window-smashing anti-capitalism march. Webber was accused of knowing about plans for mayhem before joining the march on Jan. 20, 2017, but prosecutors offered no evidence that he personally destroyed property. The chaotic march ended in heavy use of pepper spray and batons by police, who mass-arrested more than 230 people. ... One officer who testified at the trial roamed the D.C. courthouse last week, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Police Brutality… or doing what their...

Robinson was sentenced to 13 months imprisonment for “contempt of court” after attempting to livestream outside a trial that had been restricted from media reporting. Ten months was attributable to the livestream, and an additional three came from a re-activated suspended sentence from a previous attempt to film a child rape case. British reporters were temporarily banned from reporting on Robinson’s case, but the ban was later lifted. Flowers Left at British Embassy The American activists left flowers on the British flag “for the innocent girls, the victims of these brutal gangs that are rolling rampant through the UK and...

As preparations are underway for a US-North Korea summit, US officials are trying to solve the logistical issue of who will pay for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's housing, according to a new report. A week after abruptly scrapping the summit with Kim, President Donald Trump announced Friday that the historic talks were back on for June 12 in Singapore. With its economy weakened from tough sanctions, Pyongyang is requiring that another country pay for Kim and his delegation's hotel bill, The Washington Post reported Friday. According to the Post, Kim is demanding to stay at the luxury, five-star...

Google was set to rent out its D.C. headquarters to a progressive group running a fundraiser for top Senate Democrats, but canceled it Friday just days before. The group “Run For Something” cultivates up-and-coming Democrats for all levels of government. Its event, “Party For Something,” was supposed to occur June 6 at a location only disclosed if tickets ($100 to $1,000) were purchased. “June 6th: Games, drinks and building the bench with Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand & Cory Booker!!” the invite states at the top. “Why? Because Run For Something set a goal of recruiting 50,000 new voices this...

#FREETOMMY RALLY! WASHINGTON, DC. BRITISH EMBASSY 3100 Massachusetts Avenue,W Sunday, JUNE 3RD @ 1 PM SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Jack Posobiec - Will Chamberlain - Casandra Fairbanks - Kyle Prescott

For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages. The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies -- which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves -- have been silent on the issue until now. In a March 26 letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acknowledged that last year it identified...

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security detected potential surveillance activity near “sensitive facilities” in Washington, including the White House, according to a study conducted last year.Officials disclosed the activity, associated with devices commonly known as “Stingrays,” in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), which was first reported by The Washington Post this week. The revelation boosts long-held suspicions that foreign actors are using the technology to conduct spying in the nation’s capital. Christopher Krebs, the acting head of the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit, explained in the May 22 letter that the department...

A federal study found signs that surveillance devices for intercepting cellphone calls and texts were operating near the White House and other sensitive locations in the Washington area last year. A Department of Homeland Security program discovered evidence of the surveillance devices, called IMSI catchers, as part of federal testing last year, according to a letter from DHS to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, on May 22. The letter didn’t specify what entity operated the devices and left open the possibility that there could be alternative explanations for the suspicious cellular signals collected by the federal testing program last year. The...

A top North Korean official will visit Washington on Friday, in a dramatic move that underscores the intense diplomacy between the US and Pyongyang ahead of the planned June 12 summit in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Speaking before boarding Air Force One, Mr Trump said Kim Yong Chol, a close adviser to Kim Jong Un who has spent the past two days in New York meeting Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, would carry a letter from the North Korean leader. “A letter is going to be delivered to me from Kim Jong Un. So I look...