Free Republic

House Democrats ended their 25-hour sit-in over gun control legislation on Thursday, a protest Speaker Paul D. Ryan labeled a high-profile stunt that undermined the basic institutions of government. Mr. Ryan said he was “not going to allow stunts like this to stop us from carrying out the people’s business.” He added, “This is about a publicity stunt and now a fund-raising scheme.” But on legislative business, it was Mr. Ryan who prevailed. He personally reclaimed control of the House, pounding his gavel and muscling through a major appropriations bill that included funding for combating the Zika virus, without debate.

Federal Judge Throws Out Cleveland’s GOP Convention Security Plan Byron Tau June 23, 2016 1:37 p.m. ET CLEVELAND—A federal judge on Thursday struck down the city of Cleveland’s rules limiting protests during next month’s Republican National Convention, finding the city’s strict security regulations violated the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin ruled the city’s establishment of a large zone around the July convention site within which protesters’ ability to demonstrate would be strictly limited contravened the Constitution’s guarantees of the freedom of speech and assembly. “Under the First Amendment, I do find that the city hasn't sufficiently, narrowly...

Full title: DHS May Ban “Religiously-Charged” Terms Jihad, Sharia to Avert “Us versus Them” in Anti-Terror Programs Four years after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) purged anti-terrorism training material determined to be offensive to Muslims, its umbrella agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), may eliminate divisive Islamic terms like “jihad” and “sharia” in government programs targeting radicalization among youth. It’s political correctness run amok and the Obama administration has played a central role in promoting it by caving in to the demands of various Muslim rights groups. In this latest case a Homeland Security Advisory Council is recommending...

BALTIMORE — The Baltimore police officer who drove the van in which Freddie Gray sustained a fatal spinal injury was acquitted on Thursday of second-degree murder and six lesser charges, leaving prosecutors still without a conviction after three high-profile trials in a case that has shaken this city. In his ruling, Judge Barry G. Williams rejected the prosecution’s claim that the officer, Caesar R. Goodson Jr., had given Mr. Gray a “rough ride” in the van, intentionally putting him at risk for an injury by taking a wide turn while Mr. Gray was not secured with a seatbelt. “The court...

Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton as an anti-American globalist in a major speech in New York Wednesday. "Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people really first," he said. "We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism – focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class – to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy." "This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats,"...

THE BIG IDEA: Paul Ryan calls it “a publicly stunt.” That may be true. But it is proving to be a darn effective one. Republicans, unsure about how to deal with a sit-in that started on the House floor yesterday at 11:30 a.m., tried to talk over Democrats and hold routine votes. Then, around 3:30 a.m., they adjourned the chamber until after July Fourth – two days earlier than planned. In so doing, they’ve guaranteed that the debate about gun control will roil the congressional recess and remain a dominant storyline for the next two weeks. Democrats continue to occupy...

The beginning of the end game has begun as the corrupt elites – politicians, media, and financiers – bring all hands on deck to stop Donald Trump by every means possible starting at the convention in Cleveland. The RNC Committee on Arrangements chaired by Steve King (Cruz’s National Campaign Co-Chairman and a hostile attacker of Donald Trump) has sided with the City of Cleveland in opposing pro-Trump groups from having a peaceful rally during the convention week by filing a Motion to Intervene in a pending lawsuit, along with a huge brief stating their opposition to such an assembly. The...

Donald Rumsfeld, a key architect of the Iraq war, announced Wednesday that he’s supporting Donald Trump, one of its biggest critics. The former defense secretary in the George W. Bush administration said he’s never met Trump, but he’s certainly preferable to Hillary clinton. “I don’t even find it a hard decision,” he said. Rumsfeld pooh-poohed the candidate’s accusations that the Bush administration lied to get the country into war. “I’m 83 years old, I’ve been through a lot of elections, and I’ve never found anyone that I’ve agreed with 100 percent of the time,” Rumsfeld said....

Newly obtained congressional data shows hundreds of terror plots have been stopped in the U.S. since 9/11 – mostly involving foreign-born suspects, including dozens of refugees. The files are sure to inflame the debate over the Obama administration’s push to admit thousands more refugees from Syria and elsewhere, a proposal Donald Trump has vehemently opposed on the 2016 campaign trail. “[T]hese data make clear that the United States not only lacks the ability to properly screen individuals prior to their arrival, but also that our nation has an unprecedented assimilation problem,” Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told...

National Public Radio political correspondent Mara Liasson praised Donald Trump’s speech on Wednesday for its effective attacks on Hillary Clinton, calling it “the speech Republicans have been waiting 20 years to hear.” The presumptive Republican presidential nominee delivered a 41-minute address from his skyscraper in New York, attacking his Democratic rival for corrupt deals while at the State Department, and responding to her own sharp attack on his economic policies the day before. Liasson writes that while the Clinton campaign was already disputing the particulars of Trump’s argument, he had made the case against Clinton in a way Republicans have

Clinton IT specialist invokes 5th more than 125 times in deposition | Fox News Catherine Herridge, Hillary Clinton IT specialist Bryan Pagliano invoked the Fifth more than 125 times during a 90-minute, closed-door deposition Wednesday with the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, a source with the group told Fox News. The official said Pagliano was working off an index card and read the same crafted statement each time. “It was a sad day for government transparency,” the Judicial Watch official said, adding they asked all their questions and Pagliano invoked the Fifth Amendment right not to answer them. Pagliano was a...

More than two dozen House Democrats staged a "sit-in" on the House floor Wednesday in protest of GOP leadership's refusal to allow a vote on a gun control measure following the Orlando massacre. Led by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon, and more than 40 Democrats walked into the chamber just before noon and pledged to “occupy” the House floor until GOP leadership allowed a vote. Democrats have tried numerous times over the past week to force a vote on a so-called "no fly, no buy" bill, which would bar terror suspects on the “no-fly" list from purchasing...

In his speech ripping into Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, Donald Trump accused the former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic nominee of being a "world-class liar" who "may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency."(snip)Pointing to her past debunked claims about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia in the 1990s and her "pathetic email and server statements," Trump invited Bernie Sanders' supporters to join his effort against Clinton, who he says has corrupted America's economy, foreign policy and national security."When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to...

<p>There are shocking new allegations against the gunman behind the nightclub massacre in Orlando.</p>

Today, the Donald J. Trump campaign announced a new executive board convened to provide advisory support to Mr. Trump on those issues important to Evangelicals and other people of faith in America. The executive board will also lead a much larger Faith and Cultural Advisory Committee to be announced later this month. The leaders on the executive board were not asked to endorse Mr. Trump as a prerequisite for participating on the board. Rather, the formation of the board represents Donald J. Trump’s endorsement of those diverse issues important to Evangelicals and other Christians, and his desire to have access...

Whether it's Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, the next president will need to deal with setting aside defense cuts as part of sequestration, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday, though he gave an indication as to which gender he expects the 45th commander in chief to be. “The next president, whoever he or she — most likely she — is going to be, needs to get these defense cuts set aside," Graham remarked during a discussion at the Center for a New American Security's conference. Graham also took a shot at Trump, his former presidential primary rival, in discussing the...

Following the terror attack in Orlando, the dominant media/political narrative turned to gun control and now-discredited claims of the suspect's mental illness (claims which included gay-baiting).Now, one controversial former FBI agent -- and current consultant to the Obama administration on "countering violent extremism" (CVE) -- is suggesting a national gun registry be created. Such a registry would target millions of law-abiding American citizens. Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, born in Cairo, immigrated to the U.S. in 1990. He recently retired from the FBI after 22 turbulent years at the bureau. Following the Orlando attack, Abdel-Hafiz explained his rationale for creating a national...

Authorities placed the Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, also known as Camp Parks, on lockdown Thursday morning while authorities investigated a threat received by the U.S. Army training facility.

Truncated title. Full title: Report: Released Criminal Aliens Committed Nearly 10 Times More Crimes Than Obama Admin. Told Congress The Obama Administration “grossly misrepresented” the number of crimes the criminal aliens it released from custody in FY 2014 subsequently committed by nearly tenfold, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) charges. According to FAIR, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FIOA) request on FAIR’s behalf reveal that the 30,558 criminal aliens ICE released in FY 2014 committed 13,288 additional crimes.

I am a Christian woman who was born into a Muslim family in Iran...When I started to go to school, we were taught all Islamic principles, sharia law and Muhammad’s biography. Almost every day, I could hear these words in the school: Islam is the best religion, Islam is the religion of peace, infidels are unclean, Muslims should kill infidels, or Muhammad was sinless. However, I used to find a lot of contradictions between what I learned in the school and what Islam really is and who Muhammad really was. The contradiction is even obvious in the sentences above: “Religion...