Free Republic

While much of the country’s attention was focused on the astonishing acquittal of Kate Steinle’s killer in San Francisco, another illegal immigrant accused of horrendous crimes was being held accountable for them farther up the coast in Portland, Oregon. According to the New York Post, a Mexican national with a criminal record and series of prior deportations and re-entries named Sergio Jose Martinez was sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts including assault, burglary, kidnapping, sexual abuse, sodomy, and rape. He remained incredibly defiant and showed no remorse while receiving his sentence. During the sentencing...

Administrative employees are nominally subject to the control of those appointed by politicians who have won elections, but Democrats embedded in the federal bureaucracy have proclaimed themselves part of the “resistance” to President Trump, and are using their positions to undermine his administration. Bureaucrats thus frustrate the will of the voters. President Trump has been in office for nearly a year, and has yet to take control over the federal bureaucracy that nominally reports to him. I agree with Professor Barnett that this is a constitutional crisis. The most powerful branch of today’s government is the Fourth: the permanent federal...

No matter how many times the leftist ACLU wants to compare LGBT activism to the blood-bought civil rights of black Americans, there is no comparison. Gay is not the new black.Jack Phillips, a Christian cake artist who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, has run his business for years according to his religious convictions. He is a gentle, kind and loving soul. He serves everyone, just not every event. In 2012, Jack politely declined to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding for Charlie Craig and David Mullins. They claimed “humiliation” and “discrimination”; the ACLU was on it like icing on…uhhhh…cake.Thankfully, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) came...

President Donald Trump’s base of supporters wants the federal government to shut down unless a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is constructed as promised. A new Morning Consult/Politico poll shows that roughly 43 percent of Republican voters say they would like to see the GOP-led Congress stand firm on the border wall by shutting down the government unless the project is fully funded so that it can be quickly constructed. Americans were promised at Trump’s swearing-in that a border wall would be constructed on the southern border to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking by a number of Mexican cartels....

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who called for Senator Al Franken (D-MN) to resign, stated she would “love it” if President Trump and Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore stepped down. Hirono said, “I would love it if both of them stepped aside. Because I have said publicly that President Trump has admitted to being a sexual predator. And as for Roy Moore, the credible allegations of him being a child molester basically should cause both of them to look at themselves and step down. I would love it. But at the same time, you...

A criminal justice system that operates in the dark is arbitrary, unjust and criminal. In Oklahoma this year, a Kafkaesque set of sealed motions, secret orders and closed-door hearings completely shut out a criminal defendant, his public defenders and the public. A trial judge served as handmaiden for the prosecutors, even failing to notify the defendant and his lawyers of the kangaroo court proceedings until after they had occurred. The defendant, who is appealing his convictions and maintains his complete and actual innocence, was denied an opportunity to challenge the state's legal arguments for hiding information about a crime lab...

At Tuesday’s oral argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission—which will decide whether baker Jack Phillips can be forced by the state to design and create a cake celebrating a same sex wedding—it became apparent quite early on that the Court was grappling not merely with Jack’s case, but with a number of potential conflicts between religious freedom and same-sex marriage on its hands.Recognizing that the issues Jack faces in this case are sure to arise again, the justices struggled with where to draw the line for a constitutional rule which will protect First Amendment rights in light...

The U.S. Supreme Court appears somewhat irritated with federal courts that have repeatedly barred the Trump administration from enforcing immigration policies halting the entry of certain classes of migrants and refugees. The high court’s latest orders sent three clear signals to lower courts, all of which are positive signs for President Donald Trump. First, the Supreme Court is quite clearly expressing its view that the government will prevail on the merits of this dispute. The Court would not grant an application with these facts if a majority of the justices did not believe the administration will ultimately be vindicated. As...

TITLE SHOULD BE: DEMS READY TO SHUT DOWN US GOVT UNLESS DREAMERS ARE LEGALIZED. The threat of a government shutdown has put Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) in a tricky political situation. Schumer has kept his caucus unified against President Trump’s major legislative drives on ObamaCare and tax reform, but he faces a more divided group of Democrats when it comes to protecting young immigrants who could face deportation next year. The internal debate has more to do with legislative strategy than the underlining issue. Democrats generally back a legislative fix that would allow so-called Dreamers brought to the...

Six Republican members of Congress held a press conference today and called for an investigation of the FBI's policies in applying "special" treatment to some of its investigations, including that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her use of a personal computer server and her deletion of thousands of government emails. The congressmen, in a statement, noted former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe's remarks that the bureau's investigation of Clinton's misuse of a personal email server was "referred to as 'special'" and that "the decision was made to investigate it at HQ with a small team." At the...

Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill ... The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was inserted in the bill, which passed on a partisan vote. All the Democrats voted for it. ... The power invested in the director of the CFPB was, and still is, unencumbered by any limiting authority of those elected to govern. He is a person who under Dodd-Frank answers to no-one. His agency receives its funding without any limitation or congressional oversight, as it has a “put” to the unlimited resources of the Federal Reserve rather than the congressionally-appropriated budget. The director of the bureau is essentially an unelected,...

Late Wednesday, the Alabama Secretary of State’s office issued a statement claiming what it described as a “misleading” ad from the Birmingham-based pro-Doug Jones super PAC Highway 31 was removed by Google at its behest. According to the release, the office headed by John Merrill required “several intense discussions,” but resulted in Google removing the ad. “Secretary Merrill’s team contacted the Media and Advertising team at Google (YouTube’s parent company) and through several intense discussions and many references to Alabama State Law the team at Google felt the ad should be “disapproved” and that it was in violation of the...

The State Department has issued a warning for U.S. citizens traveling anywhere in the world after the Trump administration announced its decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing it as the capital of Israel. The alert, posted on December 6, is a “worldwide caution” that asks U.S. citizens to be on high-alert when traveling. “As terrorist attacks, political upheaval, and violence often take place without any warning, U.S. citizens are strongly encouraged to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness when traveling,” it reads. “In addition to concerns...

New documents obtained by government watchdog Judicial Watch show a top DOJ prosecutor, who is now working as a deputy on Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation, cheered the decision by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to defy orders and refusal to enforce President Trump's first travel ban in January. Yates was the acting attorney general at the time and was promptly fired for her defiance. Emails show Andrew Weissmann, who served as chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section under President Obama, loved Yates' refusal to implement the ban. “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you...

ADRIAN, Mich. (AP) — Cyber shenanigans for 200? A former “Jeopardy!” winner has been charged with illegally accessing co-workers’ email accounts at a small Michigan college. Stephanie Jass is a former history professor at Adrian College. She appeared in Lenawee County court on Tuesday, charged with unauthorized access to a computer and using a computer to commit a crime.

Outraged Washington, D.C.-area commuters and politicians took to social media Tuesday to blast a new tolling scheme on a busy interstate heading from Virginia into the nation’s capital, as fees along the route peaked to an eye-popping $40 during the morning rush hour. The Interstate-66 tolling plan, which launched Monday, opens up express lanes on the highway in northern Virginia to single drivers, as opposed to just carpoolers. But the sticker shock prices being posted on electronic signs along the roadway led some commuters and residents to give the roadway a new nickname. “This is #highwayrobbery. People are just trying...

Alarmist scientists have been caught red-handed tampering with raw data in order to exaggerate sea level rise.The raw (unadjusted) data from three Indian Ocean gauges – Aden, Karachi and Mumbai – showed that local sea level trends in the last 140 years had been very gently rising, neutral or negative (ie sea levels had fallen). But after the evidence had been adjusted by tidal records gatekeepers at the global databank Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) it suddenly showed a sharp and dramatic rise.The whistle was blown by two Australian scientists Dr. Albert Parker and Dr. Clifford Ollier in a paper for Earth Systems and Environment.

In case you were keeping score, the number of women accusing Al Franken(swine) of sexual misconduct is now seven. Seven women have accused Franken of either groping them, or trying to kiss them, with the latest one – a former Congressional aide – claiming Franken(swine) asserted that sticking his tongue down her throat was his “right as an entertainer.” “He was between me and the door and he was coming at me to kiss me,” the woman told Politico. “It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’...

A year after the election and the Democrats, the media, establishment Republicans are still apoplectic over the inauguration of President Donald Trump. It’s obvious they hate him. When did the media stop looking at Donald Trump as an entertainment figure and begin to loathe him? True, bat-guano, off-the-charts loathing. The answer, of course, is when Donald Trump challenged President Obama to produce a birth certificate. Even today, few things get a liberal Democrat or the media more riled up than questioning President Obama’s qualifications to be president. It’s almost (but not quite) the same level of hate and disgust as...

What is going on at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? It’s a clown show, or it’s rapidly becoming one. Richard Cordray, the former director of the agency, resigned at the end of November. There’s speculation that he’s mulling a gubernatorial bid in Ohio. Alas, comes the showdown. President Trump tapped Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to run the agency, whereas Cordray had selected Leandra English, his deputy, to take the reins. The fact is the president has the power to appoint a new director, but as Guy noted, liberals saw the CFPB, the temple of of Liz...