Free Republic

Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent more than $732,000 on outside contractors, including private investigators and researchers, records show, but his office refuses to say who they were. While it’s not unusual for special government offices to outsource for services such as computer support, Mueller also hired contractors to compile “investigative reports” and other “information.” The arrangement has led congressional investigators, government watchdog groups and others to speculate that the private investigators and researchers who worked for the special counsel’s office might have included Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, the private research firm that hired Steele to produce the Russia collusion...

San Francisco officials voted Tuesday to require brick-and-mortar retailers to take cash as payment, joining Philadelphia and New Jersey in banning a growing paperless practice that critics say discriminates against low-income people who may not have access to credit cards. The vote by the Board of Supervisors was unanimous.

A police chief scolded California lawmakers while honoring an officer whose slaying entered the national immigration debate last year.

Terrorists need their guns more than their victims need surgeries. In 2002, Shmuel Waldman, an American from New Jersey, was shot while boarding a bus in Israel. The terrorist attack killed 2 people and left 40 injured. Among that 40 was Shmuel whose leg was blown apart, forcing him to undergo multiple surgical procedures, and leaving him suffering from PTSD. The terrorist who shot him was Said Ramadan, a “police officer” working for the terrorists who run the Palestinian Authority. The attack had been planned by senior Palestinian Authority officials and the Palestinian Authority viewed Ramadan as a hero. Waldman...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said in a recent appearance that he does not think religious beliefs interfere with a judge’s job, and criticized attempts by Democrats to impose “religious tests” on judicial nominees. Thomas, in remarks last week that were first reported by The Daily Caller, was asked about the 2017 confirmation hearing of Amy Coney Barrett where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the Catholic: “The dogma lives loudly within you and that’s a concern.” He was asked if religious convictions should be taken into consideration when lawmakers were considering a judicial pick. “I thought we got away from...

A former IT aide to New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan mounted an “extraordinarily extensive data-theft scheme” against the office, the culprit’s plea agreement states. The plot included the installation of tiny “keylogging” devices that picked up every keystroke. Between July and October 2018, former IT aide Jackson Cosko worked with an unnamed accomplice, a then-current Hassan employee, who repeatedly lent him a key that he used to enter the office at night and who allegedly tried to destroy evidence for him. Cosko accepted responsibility for the events revealed by federal prosecutors in court Friday. A statement of facts that...

A new bombshell report reveals that a George Soros-backed group paid nearly $4 million dollars to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the author of the debunked Trump-Russia dossier. The rumors and stories of Soros funding the discredited hit on Trump have been circulating for sometime and are now confirmed. Back in 2018, Washington Post reported that George Soros had indirectly funded Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the infamous Steele dossier, a spokesman for the billionaire financier has acknowledged. Michael Vachon, the Soros aide, told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Soros provided a grant to a nonprofit group...

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) is set on Tuesday to unveil a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and allow for the election of presidents by popular vote, The Daily Beast has learned. The amendment is supported by other Democrats in the chamber, an aide said, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee: Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

What do New York, San Francisco and Chicago all have in common? They’re all willing victims of socialism. The far-left political ideologies that have consumed these cities are now driving them deep into financial ruin — and citizens are fleeing in greater numbers every year. Whether it’s a lack of job opportunity, exorbitantly expensive housing costs, or high taxes, there’s no shortage of bones to pick with socialist policies. While liberals may herald socialism as the progressive dream, its ideologies don’t hold up very well in the real world.

The Senate is poised this week to consider two more conservative nominees selected by President Trump to sit on the left-leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals -- and the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee isn't happy about it. That's because the nominees, Ken Lee and Dan Collins, were picked without any input from either Dianne Feinstein or Kamala Harris, California's two Democrat senators. Traditionally, the White House seeks to obtain a so-called "blue slip," or approval, from a judicial nominee's two home-state senators before pressing on with their nominations. But the Trump administration, which has successfully nominated several conservative...

The end of the Robert Mueller investigation has demolished Democrats' mythology about the 2016 election. That should force them to confront some unpleasant truths about what has happened to their party since President Trump's election — and, more to the point for 2020, it should force enough introspection to prevent a repeat performance. The idea that Trump colluded with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton was appealing to many Democrats in the same way any conspiracy theory appeals to the confused: It seemed to explain the inexplicable, with paranoia providing enough elasticity to gloss over any plot holes. The theory's most...

One of the firmest rules in modern American politics these days is that candidates need to get out there and define themselves before somebody else gets a chance to do it for them. That seems to be a lesson that hasn’t been lost on California Senator and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris (D). Her greatest fear clearly appears to be the risk of being seen as part of the old Democratic establishment in an era of aggressive young socialists influencing their party. She made that point clear when she showed up for church services in Atlanta this weekend, talking about the...

Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared as the featured fundraiser for the CAIR Los Angeles chapter in Woodland Hills last night. CAIR is of course the fake civil rights organization and Muslim Brotherhood front/Hamas affiliate. Omar did not disappoint. She CAIRied on in her accustomed fashion. Omar, incidentally, told a mythical CAIR founding story in her remarks last night. I have posted the video below. Toward the end of her remarks last night (at about 18:00), Omar alluded to her criticism of Saudi Arabia in connection with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Omar presented herself as a neutral critic...

New research from psychologist and search engine expert Dr. Robert Epstein shows that biased Google searches had a measurable impact on the 2018 midterm elections, pushing tens of thousands of votes towards the Democrat candidates in three key congressional races, and potentially millions more in races across the country. The study, from Epstein and a team at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), analyzed Google searches related to three highly competitive congressional races in Southern California. In all three races, the Democrat won — and Epstein’s research suggests that Google search bias may have tipped them over...

Key Democratic operatives and private investigators who tried to derail Donald Trump’s campaign by claiming he was a tool of the Kremlin have rebooted their operation since his election with a multimillion-dollar stealth campaign to persuade major media outlets and lawmakers that the president should be impeached. The effort has successfully placed a series of questionable stories alleging secret back channels and meetings between Trump associates and Russian spies, while influencing related investigations and reports from Congress. The operation’s nerve center is a Washington-based nonprofit called The Democracy Integrity Project, or TDIP. Among other activities, it pumps out daily “research”...

Charlotte Riley, who teaches history at the University of Southampton, penned an interesting op-ed in the New Statesmen last month where she literally suggested standing in the way of busy males on their morning commute to help resist perceived patriarchy in society. According to Riley, such tactics are necessary because males have naturally been raised to believe they have a “right to occupy space.” “The point is that men have been socialised, for their entire lives, to take up space. Men who would never express these thoughts out loud have nevertheless been brought up to believe that their right to...

Might we finally get to the bottom of the dark forces that used the state in their relentless attempt to dislodge newly elected President Trump? Based on a new report about dark money rolling into Fusion GPS coffers, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican, seems to think so.  Here is his tweet: This is actually important as we wait for the March 14 Steele and Cramer depositions to made public.  https://t.co/Srz7SusezS    Coming from him, it says something. Here is what the Daily Caller found: A dark money group based in California contributed $2 million to The Democracy Integrity Project, the organization...

Peddlers of the Green New Deal know that the only way for their radical agenda to become reality is if Americans buy into the wildest claims of climate extremists. It’s clear that some of the most enthusiastic supporters of this radical agenda are young people. This was on full display in the now viral video of a meeting between Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and a group of children from the Sunrise Movement.

A dark money group based in California contributed $2 million to The Democracy Integrity Project, the organization that has contracted with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to investigate President Donald Trump. The Democracy Integrity Project’s founder, a former staffer for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has acknowledged to the FBI that the group provides information to the press, lawmakers and investigators. Fund for a Better Future is the second Democracy Integrity Project donor to have been identified. George Soros gave $1 million to the group. A dark money group with links to several high-profile liberal activists contributed $2 million to The Democracy...

It’s a bit premature, but I’d like to be the first to welcome to the Republican Party those Sunrise Movement kids who confronted Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) about the Green New Deal... And please do continue to make that 12-year deadline as famous as you can. Thank you, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)! Thank you, lunatic Sunrise Movement! Thank you for doing your part to create more and more climate skeptics, more and more Republicans, more and more reasonable people who will soon see through your tired-ass lies. Not every one of the kids in the video below will see the...