Free Republic

Venezuela's ousted chief prosecutor and her husband — two of President Nicolas Maduro's most outspoken critics — fled the country and landed Friday afternoon in Colombia. Luisa Ortega Diaz and German Ferrer arrived in Bogota aboard a private plane traveling from Aruba, Colombian migration authorities said in a statement. The couple didn't request asylum, according to a senior Colombian official speaking on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to discuss the politically sensitive case. Ortega and Ferrer have long been aligned with Venezuela's ruling socialist party but recently broke with Maduro, publicly denouncing his push to convene a constitutional...

looks like the left is out in full force....some with masks on... Live coverage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTxRr-UtVU8

A CEO who bailed on President Donald Trump’s now-defunct American Manufacturing Council imported workers to take jobs in the United States. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich left Trump’s manufacturing council after he disagreed with the response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. “I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them,’’ Krzanich wrote in a blog post. “We should honor—not attack—those who have stood up for equality and other cherished American values.’’ But, as Trump’s manufacturing council was set up to bring back manufacturing and jobs to the...

The video that appeared more often than any other on my TV screen this past week showed protestors toppling a statue of a confederate soldier in Durham, North Carolina. Then kicking it, stomping on it, spitting at it.The Workers World Party is the group that pulled off this feat and they were also involved in the violent conflict in Charlottesville.So, who are they? You didn’t learn much about them if you watched CNN or even Fox News. The commentators on the regular cable channels were too focused on racists and white nationalists and why Donald Trump wasn’t condemning them enough....

A Missouri lawmaker is under mounting pressure to resign after she said on social media she hopes President Trump is assassinated, following his response to violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Democratic state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal went on her personal Facebook page Thursday morning to vent two days after the president blamed “both sides” for the brutality. “I put up a statement saying, ‘I really hate Trump. He’s causing trauma and nightmares.’ That was my original post,” she told the Kansas City Star. The Facebook post received many responses, Chappelle-Nadal said, and to one she replied, “I hope Trump is assassinated!”

A new White House petition this week is calling on the Trump administration to formally recognize the Antifa movement as a terrorist organization. "AntiFa has earned this title due to its violent actions in multiple cities and their influence in the killings of multiple police officers throughout the United States," the petition, started Thursday, states. Antifa is short for anti-fascists, and the people involved are generally extreme leftists known for their face-offs with right-wing activists, including recently in Berkeley, Calif. Antifa counter-protesters made an appearance in Charlottesville, Va. this past weekend and clashed with white supremacy and neo-Nazi groups protesting...

Wednesday night, CNN’s Jake Tapper highlighted some left-wing violence which hasn’t gotten much media attention. At least two journalists in Charlottesville were assaulted by people protesting the Klan/Nazi/alt-right rally. Taylor is one: https://t.co/haVOw89uTN — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 17, 2017

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon returned as Executive Chairman of Breitbart News Friday afternoon and chaired the company’s evening editorial meeting. Ranked the #63 website in America by Amazon-owned ‪Alexa.com, and with the #13 Facebook page in the world, Breitbart News is considered the most influential populist website in the world. “The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” said Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow. “Breitbart gained an executive chairman with his finger on the pulse of the Trump agenda.” Breitbart News CEO and President Larry Solov agreed. “Breitbart’s pace of global expansion will only accelerate with...

People have had a lot to say on Colin Kaepernick's decision to protest the national anthem, but there is one undeniable fact: It has impacted how we watch football. Now it's being recognized again. Kaepernick is getting his own exhibit in the National Museum of African American History.

Piers Morgan -- a citizen of the country America defeated in two wars to gain and retain our independence -- keeps telling Americans that our constitution is deficient. His usual target is the Second Amendment, but these days, he's going after the First Amendment, as well. In the wake of Charlottesville, Morgan's solution to hate speech is to ban it by amending and limiting free speech protections: Conservative writer Ben Shapiro was having none of it, touching off this Twitter exchange, which predictably ended poorly for the pompous Brit. After Shapiro corrected his bad misrepresentation and ignorance of relevant caselaw,...

Vice President Mike Pence compared President Donald Trump to former President Teddy Roosevelt, who believed white people were “the forward race.” Speaking on Tuesday, just days after violence at a white supremacist rally left one person dead, Pence made the unfortunate comparison between the U.S.’ 26th president and Trump. “In President Donald Trump, the United States once again has a president whose vision, energy and can-do spirit is reminiscent of President Teddy Roosevelt,” Pence said in comments reported by Guardian correspondent Ben Jacobs.

Former Speaker of the House and longtime Trump supporter Newt Gingrich is seriously worried about the future of Donald Trump’s presidency. Gingrich, who has consistently been one of Trump’s most optimistic supporters, said Friday morning that Trump is more isolated than he realizes and needs to make “serious changes” if he’s going to have a stable presidency. “I think he’s in a position right now where he’s much more isolated than he realizes,” Gingrich said in an interview with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer. “On the Hill, he has far more people willing to sit to one side and not help...

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted two former information technology (IT) aides of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — Pakistani-born Imran Awan and his wife Hina Alvi — on four counts of conspiracy in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The FBI arrested Awan at Dulles International Airport July 24 as he was preparing to board a flight to Pakistan. When his wife Alvi left the U.S. for Pakistan in March, federal authorities found more than $12,000 in cash hidden in a suitcase. She had withdrawn the couple’s three children from local schools and does not intend...

Only those who are so-called “woke” (I just threw up in my mouth) are deserving of statues in American history. That’s what CNN commentator Angela Rye said during a panel discussion with CNN’s Kate Bolduan. As the nation descends into chaos concerning political commentary over the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia that left scores of people injured and one woman dead, we’re on the discussion of statues. White nationalists descended into the city last Saturday to supposedly protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Far left counter protesters arrived and skirmishes broke out. It culminated when a...

CNN posted a map on August 17 showing the location of approximately 1,500 Confederate monuments and/or official symbols in the U.S. The map will, no-doubt, serve as a hit-list for the frenzied Workers World Party members and others seeking the removal and destruction of Confederate statues in city after city across America. CNN reports, “Roughly 1,500 Confederate symbols still exist on public land more than 150 years after the conclusion of the Civil War.” It explains that 718 of the Confederate symbols are “monuments and statutes.”

Almost everything about the Charlottesville riot was disgraceful except the conduct of the president. The move to take down the statue of General Robert E. Lee was nonsense. Lee has few rivals as the greatest general in American history (Grant, Sherman, MacArthur, and Eisenhower perhaps). He opposed the secession of Virginia from the Union but, as was common in the South then (and has not entirely died out in any region of the United States today),believed he owed his first loyalty to his state over the United States. He was less dedicated to the virtues of slavery than was Charlottesville’s...

Officials at the Gettysburg National Military Park said Wednesday that the monuments at the expansive Pennsylvania battlefield will stay despite unrest over Confederate memorials. "These memorials, erected predominantly in the early and mid-20th Century, are an important part of the cultural landscape," battlefield spokeswoman Katie Lawhon told the Hanover Evening Sun.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in which a van plowed into crowds in the Spanish city of Barcelona on Thursday, the group's Amaq news agency said.

A Facebook post for a protest dubbed “Destroy the Confederacy” at Sam Houston Park in Houston on Saturday warns “*Do NOT bring children.” A group “committed to protecting Texas and Texas History,” “This Is Texas Freedom Force” (TITFF), says demonstrators plan to tear down a Confederate statue. They also warn there will be violence. The promoters of the protest tell potential attendees: “We will meet at Sam Houston Park (right in front of Houston City hall) to demand that the City of Houston ERASE THE CONFEDERACY! It is a STAIN IN THE FABRIC of our history that needs to be...

Pelosi wants Confederate statues out of Capitol By Mike Lillis - 08/17/17 12:25 PM EDT House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday joined the growing chorus of Democrats calling for the removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol. Calling the monuments a “reprehensible” symbol of a racist era, Pelosi urged Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other GOP leaders to support an effort to purge the statues from the building. “There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across...