Free Republic

Silicon Valley significantly escalated its war on white supremacy this week, choking off the ability of hate groups to raise money online, removing them from Internet search engines, and preventing some sites from registering at all. The new moves go beyond censoring individual stories or posts. Tech companies such as Google, GoDaddy and PayPal are now reversing their hands-off approach about content supported by their services and making it much more difficult for “alt-right” organizations to reach mass audiences. But the actions are also heightening concerns over how tech companies are becoming the arbiters of free speech in America. And...

Texas is closer than ever to joining 10 other states that bar private insurance plans and those offered through the Affordable Care Act from covering abortions, except through supplemental plans. The Texas House -- over strong objections from Democrats -- gave preliminary approval to House Bill 214, which prohibits health plans from providing coverage for abortion except in the cases where the life of the mother is in danger. The House voted 95-51 to send the bill to a third and final reading. "This isn't about who can get an abortion," state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, said of his bill....

Donald Trump would resign before Congress is able impeach him, a senior US representative has said, as pressure mounts over his team's alleged links to Russia. Jackie Speier, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said attempts by the President to pardon members of his family or fire the man appointed to investigate Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election could trigger an impeachment vote. “I have always thought that he was never going to fulfil his full term,” she said. “I am more convinced that he will leave before any impeachment would take place.”

Study: Lege's family planning cuts led to an increase in abortionWith the goal of eliminating abortion, Texas Republicans have stripped Planned Parenthood of funding and steadily obstructed patient access to care over the past few years. Turns out, their ideological, anti-choice crusade is having the opposite effect. A new study shows abortion rates have jumped since Planned Parenthood was blocked.While at Texas A&M University, economics professor Analisa Packham found that when the Texas Legislature cut family planning funding by two-thirds, or $76 million, in 2011 and simultaneously defunded Planned Parenthood, teen abortions increased 3.1% in the following three years while...

The media's hypocrisy concerning foreign influence in U.S. elections is staggering. Find me a media commentator who isn’t turning him or herself upside down trying to explain why Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russians could potentially lead to the president’s removal from office, and I’ll show you someone who either isn’t on the air or is just not trying very hard. Nobody seemed to care when the Russians used political influence to buy up U.S. uranium stocks under Obama. Let’s see if they care the Chinese may now be trying to buy up significant quantities of U.S. copper using...

Hillary Clinton sits behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office, pulling out a large blue binder and a jar of hot peppers—her typical snack as the leader of the free world. It’s 9:30 p.m., and madam president spent the day successfully rallying House Republicans and Democrats behind a health care bill that will improve upon her predecessor’s landmark initiative, the Affordable Care Act. The bill passed an hour ago, but she isn’t anywhere near done fulfilling her duties to the American people. “I won’t be taking any more calls,” Clinton tells senior adviser Huma Abedin, who is walking toward...

[snip]Brazen story... ordinarily trigger a front-page news story or an outraged editorial — a bunch of rich individuals asking Congress to write them a law that would give them better negotiating power against other rich individuals. [snip]Bezos, Slim, and Buffett need Congress to help them negotiate with Google.

There’s no denying the first half of 2017 would have been very different had Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In her current St. Louis gallery exhibition, artist Bunny Burson remembers the future that very nearly was, creating an artwork using the iridescent confetti that was primed to go off on election night this past November 8, had the country elected its first woman president. A longtime Clinton devotee, Burson was the executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities under President Bill Clinton’s administration. In the aftermath of the 2016 election,...

Congressman Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) criticized the special counsel investigation of President Trump. GWU Professor Jonathan Turley said the probe, headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, now includes a litigator who has been reprimanded for obstruction in past cases. He and another new member of Mueller's team reportedly also donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates. "This seems more like an effort to prosecute Donald Trump," Duffy said. "What the hell are we investigating?" he asked, saying that ex-FBI chief James Comey testified that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. "Why are we going through with...

I document in my book "Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph," which is an explanation of Americanism, leftism and Islamism, hysteria is a major tactic of the left. If you think about it, there is never an extended period of time -- one year, let's say -- during which society is not engulfed by a hysteria induced by the left. The mother of them all is global warming, or "climate change," as the left has come to call it (because the warming was not quite enough to induce widespread panic). Hysterics like billionaires...

... Gingrich, who also appeared on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” pointed to the early hires special counsel Robert Mueller has made. “Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair,” he tweeted. “Look who he is hiring.check fec [sic] reports. Time to rethink.” He's not wrong about the donations. Four top lawyers hired by Mueller have contributed tens of thousands of dollars over the years to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates, including former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump's 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. One of the hires, Jeannie Rhee, also worked as a...

ormer FBI Director James Comey who was fired by President Donald Trump earlier this month apparently has asked to postpone his scheduled meeting Wednesday with Congress so he can first speak with Special Counsel. NeverTrumper Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the Oversight & Government Reform Committee, tweeted out yesterday: Spoke with Comey. He wants to speak with Special Counsel prior to public testimony. Hearing Wed postponed. @GOPoversight” Drudge Report noted “Comey testimony postponed so he can meet with Mueller”.

In name and in aim, it's a bill for our political moment. Ladies and gentlemen, Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois presents: the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement, or COVFEFE Act. As Congress has taught us time and again, any legislative priority can be pretzeled into an acronym if you simply toss away the conventions of standard American English. But like the best legislative acronyms, the Covfefe Act's title points to its content. If you've forgotten, or you called in sick to the national conversation on May 31, President Trump tweeted simply, "Despite the constant negative press covfefe", which...

The Associated Press will no longer employ Melanie Plenda, a leftist activist exposed by Breitbart News, after she was caught violating the news wire service’s editorial standards. Plenda announced that the AP has terminated her effective immediately in an interview with the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple. Her termination comes as a Nov. 10, 2016, Facebook post she wrote—in which she pledged resistance to then-incoming President Donald J. Trump—was found to be in direct violation of the AP’s editorial standards. Plenda, in her interview with Wemple, confirmed she wrote the leftist activist post on her Facebook page—a post she has since...

The healthcare industry is beginning to shift blame for Obamacare’s 2018 rate hikes and an unstable individual insurance market to Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress. An alliance of health insurers, doctors and employers are urging the Trump administration and Congress to fund cost-sharing subsidies for millions of Americans under the Affordable Care Act. Politico reported Friday that Trump is telling “advisers he wants to end key Obamacare subsidies.” If cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) aren’t funded through 2018, Trump and Republicans will be responsible for more insurers leaving public exchanges and a rate hike of nearly 20% on average, reports indicate....

George Nathaniel Stang, 26, stands accused of a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief, after confessing that it was he who spray painted homophobic, pro-Nazi and pro-Trump graffiti last November, including a swastika, on the church where he was the organist. When confronted by police, Stang — who is gay — reportedly admitted to staging the vandalism and wrote in a handwritten statement to police that he did it to “mobilize a movement” ....

Just tuned in to ABC This Morning. Basically it repeats as a lead story the Washington comPost garbage. Very very little balance. For instance, while stating the DOJ says Comey did NOT ask for additional money for Russia investigation, a giant graphic on the screen says COMEY ASKED FOR ADDITIONAL MONEY. And they EXCITEDLY reported the boos rained upon Betsy DeVos by some bigots at a university in Florida AND how a New Jersey Republican was screamed at by a snowflake at a town hall. By the way, diversity at ABC This Morning has yet to include a white male....

FBI Director James B. Comey overstated key findings involving the Hillary Clinton email investigation during testimony to Congress last week, according to people close to the inquiry. In defending the probe, Comey offered seemingly new details to underscore the seriousness of the situation FBI agents faced last fall when they discovered thousands of Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s emails on the computer of her husband, Anthony Weiner. “Somehow, her emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information,” Comey said, adding later, “His then-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him...

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is speaking out about coming out. Smith, managing editor of the conservative network, revealed last month that while he always knew he was "different" than his peers growing up in Mississippi, he feels he never had the need to out himself - because he was never in. "Someone asked me if Roger Ailes had been abusive to me, and I said, 'No. He was always good to me," and that was the truth," Smith said during a talk at the University of Mississppi's Meek School of Journalism, where he was once a student. "And when...

Pepe the Frog is dead, killed off by his own creator after he watched Pepe turn from a wholesome meme into a symbol co-opted by neo-Nazis for the alt-right. Pepe was created by cartoonist Matt Furie back in 2006 for his comic Boy's Club, but after everything that has happened to Pepe in the last year (including its official recognition as a symbol of hate by the Anti-Defamation League), Furie put Pepe in a coffin in a page-long strip published today, Comic Book Resources reported. In an essay published by Time in October, Furie wrote about how Pepe was never...