Free Republic

A leading Democratic senator will seek legislation requiring the ability to "pierce" through encryption. The potential bill would allow American law enforcement to read protected communications with a court order. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that she would seek a bill that would give police armed with a warrant based on probable cause the ability “to look into an encrypted Web." "I have concern about a PlayStation that my grandchildren might use," she said, "and a predator getting on the other end, and talking to them, and it's all encrypted. I think there really...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says, “guns on display everywhere” have created a society “that has kind of bought into the kool-aid that the more guns there are, the better protected you are.”

Death of a Salesman's Willy Loman was a guy "out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine." President Obama sees ISIS as Willy's bad mirror image, dismissing the terror group as guys with "conventional weapons and good social media." On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough blasted Obama's dangerous insouciance, calling it "staggering to our allies. It is staggering to people like Frank Bruni, a liberal columnist. It is staggering to Diane Feinstein, liberal Democrats. It is staggering to the world. The president's in a bubble by himself, saying that these are just bad guys with guns...

Leading Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday the United States is not doing enough to fight Islamic State, and the group is gaining strength outside Iraq and Syria. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Secretary of State John Kerry gave the panel a more comprehensive picture last week of the U.S. strategy to combat Islamic State, including talks in Vienna to find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis. However, she said on CBS, "I don't think the approach is sufficient to the job." Feinstein said President Barack Obama's decision to send 50 special forces...

The ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee actually said this in a released statement on Saturday, but Barack Obama doubling down on failure today makes it especially noteworthy now. No one expects John McCain and Lindsey Graham to have anything but criticism over Obama’s ISIS strategy so far, but when it comes from Obama’s own party leadership, it’s a different story. The Hill’s Kristina Wong reports on Dianne Feinstein’s critique in the wake of Obama’s remarks today: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, joined Republicans in saying the U.S. needed to do more.“It...

In a feministic attempt to be hip, the Hillary Clinton campaign decided to do something “fun” and ask Democratic senators – all female of course – to hold up signs with their answers to questions about the Democratic presidential candidate front-runner.  It’s sort of like, remember how Michelle Obama held a sign with the #bringbackourgirls in an effort to “fight back” at the terrorist group Boko Haram that kidnapped hundreds of girls from a Nigerian school? As if that would make any difference at all.  This entire exercise is sort of like that, only much lamer. Besides, what better way...

Senate Democrats on Thursday for a second time blocked a proposal from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington for a Chinese dissident. Cruz, who is running for president, tried to get unanimous consent to pass a resolution that would name the street in front of the embassy "Liu Xiaobo Plaza" after Liu Xiaobo, a human rights activist currently imprisoned in China. It would also change the embassy's address to "1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza." "Standing together with a wrongfully imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate, we should say to the wrongfully imprisoned dissidents...

There’s no question that Ted Cruz is the best candidate in the field to defeat the media. When I first heard about Ted Cruz it was Senator Cruz giving Diane Frankenstien’s bride a civics lesson on the constitution.BLOWOUT! Ted Cruz vs. Dianne Feinstein (video) The biggest take away from that exchange was that Tyrant Feinstein wasn’t going to be schooled on the constitution by Ted Cruz and the mask came off and the ugly inner commie came out and lashed out at Senator Cruz. She was so mad that she let the cat out of the bag and told...

"We're here not only for Kate, to keep her memory alive, but to have something done," a shellshocked James Steinle pronounced at a Tuesday news conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. On July 1, Steinle, his daughter, Kate, and a friend were taking an evening stroll on Pier 14. Kate Steinle, 32, took a selfie. Moments later, a bullet pierced her aorta. She died in a hospital. The San Francisco district attorney charged an immigrant who was here illegally and who had seven felony convictions and five prior deportations with first-degree murder. Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who was...

Former four-star general and CIA chief David Petraeus pleaded guilty to one count of retaining classified information for handing over information in personal notebooks to his biographer girlfriend in 2011. He agreed to pay a $40,000 fine; prosecutors said they would recommend two years' probation instead of prison, although a judge could decide otherwise. It's a sad close to a government career for the man whose counterinsurgency strategy turned around the war in Iraq. He's an American hero who seemed all that much more upright when he resigned in November 2012 after admitting to an affair that compromised his position...

RUSH: Yesterday in Washington, the Christian Science Monitor breakfast -- (interruption) You know what's coming? Senator Trent Lott, former Senator Trent Lott, Republican, Mississippi, was the guest, and he was speaking about immigration reform and told a story about immigration reform and the Republicans' attempt to do it in 2007. LOTT: My phones were jammed for a week or two. Rush Limbaugh gave out my phone number. We lost that vote in 2007 on a procedural vote. I thought we were gonna be able to win that. But over the weekend Rush Limbaugh labeled it amnesty, and labor got a...

Recently California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in an apparent attempt to defend Hillary Clinton over the ongoing scandal involving her private e-mail and her mishandling of highly classified information, has suggested that the former secretary of state “did not send” any of the classified e-mails that were found on her private server. I presume that the California senator is trying to make some kind of point that if Hillary Clinton only ‘received’ classified e-mails, then she’s guilt-free. While I can appreciate the Democratic senator’s loyalty, and trying her best to put a good face on Hillary’s troubles, I have but...

In a court filing Tuesday, Chow’s legal team alleged that this time around, he was being “selectively prosecuted” by federal authorities ... FBI reports and wiretap evidence that suggest San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and others participated in public corruption schemes but were spared prosecution “due to their political affiliations.”

Current state of play Yes or leaning yes (34 needed to uphold veto, keep the deal): 24 No or leaning no (67 needed to override veto, kill the deal): 48 Unknown/unclear: 28 And now, the 100 senators ... Yes (1) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Clearly leaning yes, reserving final judgment (12) Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) Leaning...

Dictionary.com defines shallowness as: lacking depth, superficial. San Francisco has had an alleged murder by an individual living in the United States illegally despite having committed five felonies. The alleged murderer had been released by San Francisco authorities rather than turning him over to ICE. Enter the politicians. San Francisco is dealing with the tragedy of an alleged murder of an innocent where the alleged murderer was in the United States illegally. This individual had been convicted of five felonies in the United States and was recently released into the general public by San Francisco authorities because, well, apparently just...

TTAG reader MK contacted U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein to ask her support for national concealed carry reciprocity. (I know, right?) The email he received from the California Democrat – who never met a gun control law she didn’t like – was less than enthusiastic . . .

The FBI asked for the public’s help Monday in identifying people who have severed underground fiber-optic cables throughout the Bay Area. Over the past year, vandals have used tools to intentionally cut the cables in Berkeley, Fremont, Alamo, Walnut Creek and San Jose in 10 separate incidents, most of which happened in the middle of the night, said FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich. The cost of the damage was not discosed. The FBI is coordinating the investigation, which involves several local law enforcement agencies, Wuthrich said. The cases are not related to a mysterious rifle attack on a Pacific Gas...

The Senate on Tuesday reaffirmed a ban against torturing detainees and moved ahead on a more than $600 billion defense policy bill that is entangled in a broader fight in Congress about caps on Pentagon and non-military spending. The Senate overwhelmingly voted 78 to 21 to approve an amendment that bolsters current law and makes the U.S. Army Field Manual on interrogations the standard for all interrogations conducted by the U.S. government. It also gives the International Committee of the Red Cross access to every detainee held by the U.S. The vote comes just months after the Senate intelligence committee...

Two 2016 presidential competitors have joined forces to get a ban on the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens included in an annual defense policy bill. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), both of whom are running for president, have joined up with other senators to introduce an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), currently before the Senate, that would ban indefinite detention of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, without being charged or given a trial, unless authorized by Congress.Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) also put their names on the...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...