Free Republic

Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy had “selfish political and ideological motives” when he made secret overtures to the Soviet Union’s spy agency during the Cold War to thwart then-President Ronald Reagan’s re-election, a Reagan biographer said in an interview with The Daily Signal. When they came to light years later, Kennedy’s secret contacts with the Russians through their KGB spy agency in the early 1980s didn’t cause nearly the tizzy that Russia’s alleged interference with this year’s election has for President-elect Donald Trump among liberal activists and reporters. Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Trump has said he hopes to “get...

The Trump administration is asking Congress to give the federal government sweeping powers to track, hack and destroy any type of drone over domestic soil with a new exception to laws governing surveillance, computer privacy and aircraft protection, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The draft bill’s language would authorize the government to summarily track, seize control of and use force to destroy any unmanned aircraft it determines may pose a security threat to an area designated for special protection. The government would have to respect “privacy, civil rights and civil liberties” when exercising that power,...

Following Sean Hannity’s embarrassing buckling on coverage of the Seth Rich case, sources at Fox News told Big League Politics that he was pressured to relent by one of the Murdochs.“One of the Murdoch sons was all up his ass over this,” another insider told Big League Politics.Prior to airtime, Hannity had tweeted, “huge announcement tonight about Seth Rich, Trump/Russian Collusion corrupt media, the liberal effort to silence me. And my future at Fox!” But as we reported, it turned out that his “huge announcement” was that he was caving into pressure and would no longer be covering the story...

I know that Seth Rich was involved in the DNC leak. I know this because in late 2014 a person contacted me about helping me to start a branch of the Internet Party in the United States. He called himself Panda. I now know that Panda was Seth Rich.Panda advised me that he was working on voter analytics tools and other technologies that the Internet Party may find helpful.I communicated with Panda on a number of topics including corruption and the influence of corporate money in politics. “He wanted to change that from the inside.” I was referring to what...

A major liberal group is targeting advertisers for Sean Hannity's Fox News show as they look to push back against his promotion of a conspiracy theory surrounding a killed Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer. Media watchdog group Media Matters For America on Tuesday published a list of Hannity's advertisers — a long list that includes major companies such as Allstate, Angie's List, Bayer, Capitol One, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mercedes-Benz and Publishers Clearing House While the list was published with little context, it comes as Media Matters continues to blast Hannity for claiming, without evidence, that Seth Rich leaked DNC emails...

The Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom claimed on Tuesday that he has firsthand knowledge that murdered Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was involved in the leak of emails. Dotcom, whose birth name is Kim Schmitz, posted a statement to his website claiming, “I know that Setch [sic] Rich was involved in the DNC leak.” He went on to write that in 2014, a person using the pseudonym “Panda” contacted him about starting a U.S. branch of the Internet Party. “I now know that Panda was Seth Rich,” Dotcom wrote. Rich’s family has maintained that there is no proof connecting...

Making these claims is none other than Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer – the author of “Clinton Cash.” Speaking on Fox & Friends this morning, Schweizer said the following: In 2011, John Podesta joins the board of this very small energy company called Joule Energy based out of Massachusetts. About two months after he joins the board of a Russian entity called Rusnano, puts a billion rubles which is about 35-million-dollars into John Podesta’s company. Now, what is Rusnano? It’s not a private company. It is directly funded by the Kremlin. In fact, the Russian science minister called Rusnano Putin’s child....

ROGER STONE (HOST): You have a number of interesting factors here. First of all, there’s the change in the story of Seth Rich’s parents. Initially they themselves denied that this was a robbery. Now suddenly they’re being represented by a crisis communications consultant paid for by the Democratic National Committee. To say the least that is suspicious. You have the private detective who has come forward and said that his sources in the D.C. Metropolitan Police tell him that the laptop which was utilized by Mr. Rich shows multiple contacts with WikiLeaks. You have Fox now reporting that over 40,000...

Joe Biden has been out of office for four months, but the former vice president hasn't left the public eye. Instead, Biden has kept a robust schedule that fuels speculation about 2020 presidential run. Some Democrats looking to bounce back from 2016 defeats are still looking to Biden to reorient their messaging in a way that could win back the working class voters who fled the party to vote for President Trump. Biden, who passed on running for president last year after a lengthy period of indecision, has promised to remain involved in rebuilding the party. When it comes to...

Black folks are, by and large, understanding when it’s time to get that paper. Whether it’s Barack Obama getting $400,000 to give a few speeches, athletes trying to sell $500 shoes—heck, even strippers on the pole—when it comes to jobs, most black people won’t bat an eye as long as it’s legal, profitable and isn’t a violation of core principles of decency. In fact, there are only about three jobs in existence that, if announced at the cookout, would lead to significant side eye: 1. Working in Donald Trump’s White House; 2. Working for the Milwaukee Wi, Ferguson, Mo., or...

OK, gang, time to move along – other stuff is more important. That's the logical strategy for the Democratic Party leadership to signal the base that the Russia conspiracy narrative has served its purpose and belongs in the Memory Hole. You don't want to go farther out on the limb of an unfounded charge dreamed up to explain away the failure of Hillary and her campaign henchpeople to pull off the expected victory. But such a judicious approach is not the métier of rabble-rouser Thomas Perez, the party chairman. Into the breach leaped Representative Keith Ellison, the consolation prize-holder of...

Holy congressional probe, Robin! Former FBI chief Robert Mueller is the hero America needs to investigate Russia’s meddling into the 2016 presidential election, his former second-in-charge said Sunday. “A line in New York would be Batman’s back to save Gotham, but I think in this case, Batman is back to save America,” Timothy Murphy told John Catsimatidis during an interview on “The Cats Roundtable.” Murphy served as the agency’s deputy director under Mueller, who was named as a special counsel in the investigation this week, following James Comey’s ouster as FBI director. Murphy insisted any investigation headed by his old...

Investigators into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections are now also probing whether White House officials have engaged in a cover-up, according to members of Congress who were briefed Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. That avenue of investigation was added in recent weeks after assertions by former FBI Director James Comey that President Donald Trump had tried to dissuade him from pressing an investigation into the actions of Trump’s first national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, members of Congress said, though it was not clear whom that part of the probe might target. Even...

The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter. The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official. The revelation comes as the investigation also appears to be entering a more overtly active phase, with investigators shifting from work that has remained largely hidden from the public...

The possible existence of a subversive American “deep state” has captivated the attention of political observers and supporters of President Trump for months, and for the first time, evidence has allegedly surfaced that casts a light on the shadowy operations of a group many claim is working to bring down the Presidency. This information comes as President Trump is battling his worst week in Washington so far. In the past seven days, a constant stream of leaks and unsourced stories have sent the Trump White House into a tail-spin, and calls for his impeachment have grown. On Wednesday night, just...

n 2004, billions upon billions of shrimp-size insects took to the skies in the mid-Atlantic United States, covering entire houses, blaring extremely loud noises, and littering forests with their exoskeletons. When the swarm was finally over, the insects — cicadas — laid their eggs in the ground. Residents were told these creatures wouldn’t emerge again for another 17 years. The cicadas had other plans. Reports in Baltimore and the Washington, DC, metro area indicate that a small group of the cicadas — a group called Brood X — are emerging from the ground to molt, mate, and make noise. They...

Camille Paglia is much more worried about the media than about the steady string of Trump-related scandals they claim to be uncovering. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Paglia excoriated the press for its coverage of Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey and his alleged sharing of classified information with Russian officials. Fresh off a spirited panel with Christina Hoff Sommers hosted by the Independent Women's Forum, the iconic feminist dissident, who serves as a professor of media studies at the University of the Arts, accused journalists of colluding with the Democratic Party in an effort to...

As we enter yet another day of unhinged, unsupported attacks on our president, it is a good time to take a moment to analyze where the motivations on both sides are. Those on the left, with their core of true believers in the legacy media, see themselves as fighting a heroic resistance battle. After all, Donald Trump is Darth Vader and the Republicans constitute the Empire, right? Trump and Trumpkins constitute the institutional embodiment of the dark side, the willing and/or unknowing advocates of evil on Earth. Leftist icon Noam Chomsky made this explicit in a May 11 interview with...

Bill Kristol and Ross Douthat have respectively gone public with their scheming to remove President Donald Trump from office. Douthat wrote a New York Times column published Tuesday night that called for Trump to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution Kristol wrote on Twitter Tuesday that his and his allies goal is to “dispose of Trump” and “Trumpism” but that it will take time, “Several of you have asked, What IS path forward? Well, we’re working on it. Disposing of Trump & overcoming Trumpism can’t be done in a day.” Kristol was writing about the...

The DOJ appointed former FBI former FBI Director, Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate the allegations of Russian interference and rumors of a collusion with the Trump campaign. Wikileaks posted a cable from 2009 showing that then FBI Director, Robert Mueller delivered highly enriched stolen Uranium to Russia. Background to the story via Wikileaks cable: “ Background: Over two years ago Russia requested a ten-gram sample of highly enriched uranium (HEU) seized in early 2006 in Georgia during a nuclear smuggling sting operation involving one Russian national and several Georgian accomplices. The seized HEU was transferred to U.S. custody...