Free Republic

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly defended the uptick in immigration arrests by his agents with colorful language in an interview with FOX News Friday morning. "Seventy-five percent of the people that the great men and women of ICE have taken into custody, 75% are criminals. The other 25% are not innocent; they are multiple deportees, they are people who have been fleeing from the law, they are fugitives. But they are not necessarily convicted criminals," Kelly said. Seventy-five percent are indeed criminals. The other 25% are not the valedictorians of their high school class." Kelly's phrasing aside,...

Dr. Jordan Peterson visits Harvard University, where he used to teach, for a civil discussion about neo-marxism and postmodernism, among other topics. 6 minutes of Jordan Peterson addressing the Harvard students directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGkQil14LPQ Full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urd0IK0WEWU&t=1916s

McLEAN, Va. — A federal judge on Friday tossed out two life sentences for one of Virginia's most notorious criminals, sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, and ordered Virginia courts to hold new sentencing hearings. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson in Norfolk said Malvo is entitled to new sentencing hearings after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional. Malvo was 17 when he was arrested in 2002 for a series of shootings that killed 10 people and wounded three over a three-week span in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, causing widespread...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued her “sore loser” tour on Friday, telling Wellesley seniors that they were graduating “at a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason,” and likening the Trump administration to “authoritarian regimes throughout history.” History, evidently, is not Clinton’s best subject. She likened President Donald Trump to Richard Nixon, whom she said had been impeached. In fact, Nixon resigned.

Despite heavy lobbying from G7 leaders, President Donald Trump declined to endorse the Paris Climate Agreement in a joint pledge of support for one of former President Barack Obama’s signature achievements in office. Trump’s decision upset world leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, desperate to convince the president of the agreement’s merits. “The Paris deal isn’t just any other deal. It is a key agreement that shapes today’s globalization,” Merkel said, describing discussions with Trump about climate change “very unsatisfying.” For opponents of the agreement, the decision is a welcome development after the president’s economic adviser, Gary Cohn, told reporters...

On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a resolution co-sponsored by Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) calling on the Trump administration to withdraw from the agreement. Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) introduced companion legislation in the House. “We are being asked to place more regulatory burdens on American businesses and our economy,” said Paul. “Despite the high cost, the agreement will do little to solve environmental challenges. I support a path forward that protects both our jobs and our environment instead of sacrificing one for the other.” On Wednesday,...

New revelations have surfaced that the Obama administration abused intelligence during the election by launching a massive domestic-spy campaign that included snooping on Trump officials. The irony is mind-boggling: Targeting political opposition is long a technique of police states like Russia, which Team Obama has loudly condemned for allegedly using its own intelligence agencies to hack into our election. The revelations, as well as testimony this week from former Obama intel officials, show the extent to which the Obama administration politicized and weaponized intelligence against Americans. Thanks to Circa News, we now know the National Security Agency under President Barack...

When the FBI knew the Russians were trying to interfere in our election, and they could—from time to time—peer into their networks and see what was taken. This is what they found, which reportedly influenced former FBI Director James Comey to hold a press conference on July 5, 2016 and issue that strongly-worded rebuke of Hillary Clinton and her team concerning how they handled classified information. A memo reportedly from Democratic operative reportedly made assurances that the FBI’s email probe would not go too far, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch would ensure that. If the investigation ended with no charges and...

The Telgraph reported: Salman Abedi is understood to have received thousands of pounds in state funding in the run up to Monday’s atrocity even while he was overseas receiving bomb-making training. Police are investigating Abedi’s finances, including how he paid for frequent trips to Libya where he is thought to have been taught to make bombs at a jihadist training camp. […] One former detective said jihadists were enrolling on university courses to collect the student loans “often with no intention of turning up”. Abedi was given at least £7,000 from the taxpayer-funded Student Loans Company after beginning a business...

On May 25, Rick Moran detailed the plight of California-located Duarte Nursery, being sued by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) for ploughing a small portion of a recently-purchased 450-acre farm for the purpose of planting wheat. Mr. Duarte purchased the land in recognition that significant portions were to remain fallow because they were wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act (CWA). But, after planting wheat for harvest in 2013 on a portion determined by a paid consultant not to be such protected wetlands, Mr. Duarte was sued by the Corps for “…not obtaining a permit to discharge dredged or...

Linwood Kaine, youngest son of vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, was arrested at the Minnesota State Capitol in March after disrupting a pro-Trump rally. The Antifa mob was hurling punches and spraying Trump supporters with pepper spray. Booking photo of Linwood Kaine. (Ramsey County sheriff’s office)

Police arrested a prominent Democratic leader and staff member for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on child pornography charges, according to the New York Post. On Friday, the Post said that court documents stated that Jacob Schwartz allegedly kept thousands of photos and nearly one hundred videos on a laptop depicting horrifying acts with “young nude females between the approximate ages of 6 months and 16, engaging in sexual conduct… on an adult male.” Schwartz, 29, faces charges of “possession of a sexual performance by a child and promoting a sexual performance by a child,” according to the...

One of my recent articles predicted that the Fish & Wildlife Service’s endangered species designation for the rusty patched bumblebee would lead to its being used to delay or block construction projects and pesticide use on hundreds of millions of acres of US farmland. The abuses have already begun. Projects in Minnesota and elsewhere have been delayed, while people tried to ascertain that no bees were actually nesting in the areas. Now a federal district court judge has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency failed to consult with the FWS before approving 59 products containing neonicotinoid pesticides that are used...

BEIRUT // Dozens of relatives of ISIL fighters were killed on Friday in the latest US-led strikes on Syria, hours after the United Nations urged states striking the extremist group to protect civilians. Bombing raids by the US-led coalition have hit ISIL positions across Iraq and Syria since the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a concert in Manchester, England, on Monday. Scores of civilians, many of them families of ISIL members, have been killed in bombing raids in recent days on the eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen, held by ISIL since 2014.

CHICAGO — A day after new Census data showed a shrinking Chicago population, the moving company U-Haul had some news that seemed to cheer up Mayor Rahm Emanuel: People still move here. U-Haul announced Friday that Chicago is the second most "moved to" city in the nation, which excited Emanuel's office after U.S. Census numbers revealed that Chicago lost 8,638 in population last year, more than any other city. Though U-Haul only tracks its own customers and did not provide numbers that can be compared to comprehensive Census data, Emanuel said the company's announcement was telling. “This report is further...

A federal prosecutor’s body was discovered on a Hollywood, Florida beach with potential head trauma. Brandon J. Whisenant, Jr.’s body was found Wednesday by a random individual. The police are attempting to determine if Whisenant’s death was a “homicide, suicide, or something else.” The AP reports: Hollywood police spokeswoman Miranda Grossman said Thursday that the body of 37-year-old Beranton J. Whisenant Jr. was found early Wednesday by a passerby on the city’s beach. She said detectives are trying to determine if the death was a homicide, suicide or something else.Whisenant worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami in its...

Despite the fact that a report released Wednesday unearthed how the National Security Agency under President Barack Obama routinely violated the privacy rights of Americans, the three major left-leaning broadcast news networks neglected to shed light on the issue during their evening broadcasts. According to a Circa News report, previously top-secret documents have revealed that Obama's NSA engaged in "some of the most serious constitutional abuses to date by the U.S. intelligence community."Circa reports that the documents show that over 5 percent of searches seeking upstream internet data on the NSA's section 702 database "violated the safeguards Obama and his intelligence...

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish strategic theorist who was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the tumultuous years of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, died on Friday at a hospital in Virginia. He was 89. His death, at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, was announced on Friday by his daughter, Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.” Like his predecessor Henry A. Kissinger, Mr. Brzezinski was a foreign-born scholar (he in Poland, Mr. Kissinger in Germany) with considerable influence in global affairs, both before and long...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will break a long bipartisan tradition by declining to hold a Ramadan event at the State Department this year, Reuters reported Friday.Tillerson reportedly turned down a request from the State Department's Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host a reception at the State Department for Eid-al-Fitr. Secretaries of State from both parties have hosted Ramadan events at the State Department since Madeleine Albright began the tradition in 1999.A State Department spokesman told Reuters that the agency is still looking at the possibility of holding events in the future."We are still exploring possible options for...

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin interviewed two liberal sycophants on Friday morning before Hillary’s commencement speech at Wellesley. They immediately started to talk about her role in the Democrat party and of course brought up Hillary going for her third run for president in 2020. The Democrats are officially desperate when all they have is two-time loser, Hillary Clinton to look to as their ‘savior’.