Free Republic

Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) surveyed over 1,000 American adults, finding a shocking lack of knowledge as it pertains to U.S. politics among the general populace.... “Protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution presupposes that we know what they are. The fact that many don’t is worrisome,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, in a press release. “These results emphasize the need for high-quality civics education in the schools and for press reporting that underscores the existence of constitutional protections.”

The Mueller Investigation is Getting Desperate to Find A Crime, Any Crime. As more information comes out about the illegal spying by the Obama Administration, Mueller is under more and more pressure to find or make up a crime related to President Trump.

It’s not just crazy places like the University of California at Berkeley where surprisingly large numbers of U.S. college students believe that violence and shouting are acceptable methods to prevent people from saying things. Fifty-one percent of all U.S. college students believe shouting is an acceptable response to free speech, and one in five (19 percent) believe violence is an acceptable response, according to results from a national survey of 1,500 students in 49 states and DC. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents said colleges should “create a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech or expression of...

Bureaucracies have successfully evaded congressional budget oversight for years by illegally hiring contract labor to take the place of employees, according to a Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) report released Tuesday. Bureaucracies commit thousands of felonies a day, misappropriating funds not approved by Congress and expanding agency influence at a time when government agencies should cut back. Bureaucracies freeze hiring new employees, ideally to stop expansion and cut costs, when under pressure to reform or adapt to budget cuts. Many agencies continue to grow despite budget cutbacks, however, by illegally hiring outside contract labor. “While contracting for these services is contrary...

Daniel Love, a former special agent for the Bureau of Land Management, gives a radio interview during Burning Man in 2015. (Photo: BLM Nevada/Flickr) A federal agent who had a key role in the armed 2014 ‘Battle of Bunkerville’ standoff no longer works for the Bureau of Land Management. Daniel Love had been serving as special agent in charge for BLM in Utah and Nevada in recent years, but is no longer with the agency, according to the Associated Press. Love still worked there on Aug. 24, when the feds released a report that said he’d handed out valuable rocks...

Drivers slogging through Bay Area freeways during the rush-hour commute are spending more time crawling along at speeds of less than 35 miles an hour, with traffic congestion up 80 percent since 2010, a new report released Monday by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) found. Ask MTC spokesman John Goodwin, and it’s a good problem to have. “As I look at the map and as I look at the data, so much of it is tied to the strength of the regional economy,” he said. “If you want meaningful congestion relief, a recession is a great way to do that.”...

The three richest counties in the United States with populations of 65,000 or more, when measured by their 2016 median household incomes, were all suburbs of Washington, D.C., according to data released today by the Census Bureau. Eight of the 20 wealthiest counties with populations of 65,000 or more were also suburbs of Washington, D.C.--as were 10 of the top 25.

Wonder why New York property taxes are sky-high, particularly in the Long Island and Lower Hudson Valley suburbs around the city? The Empire Center’s latest analysis flags one key reason: the astounding pay doled out to government workers in those areas — especially uniformed services, like police and firefighters. For the second year in a row, the center found, 47 of the top 50 highest-paid local-government workers outside New York City were police officers — with five of the top seven on the Town of Ramapo payroll. The No. 1 earner, Ramapo Police Officer Thomas Donnelly, pulled in $441,968 in...

As many as 800 tractor trailers loaded with relief supplies are at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery waiting to be deployed to Florida and Georgia as the areas brace for Hurricane Irma. Col. Eric K. Shafa, Commander of the 42nd Air Base Wing at Maxwell, said the installation is serving as staging area for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Tractor trailers began rolling into Maxwell yesterday and will be deployed, if needed, after the storm. The trucks contain supplies such as water, food, generators and cots.

McClatchyDC:Buried in backlog, Feds give top-secret clearances to murderers, rapistsWASHINGTON Under a crushing backlog in the issuing or renewing of security clearances, federal authorities have given interim clearances to people they later discovered were murderers and pedophiles, a senior government official said Wednesday. “This is very, very dangerous,” said Daniel E. Payne, head of the Defense Security Service, a federal office that oversees the granting of temporary clearances. Payne said roughly 100,000 people hold interim clearances while working for companies with Defense Department contracts or at 13,000 cleared facilities and plants around the country and as they await a...

They are the schools Mayor de Blasio doesn’t mention. At 32 city elementary and middle schools, the average English-math proficiency rate on state exams has not exceeded 10 percent of students for four years in a row. Seventeen of these schools — which enroll nearly 10,000 kids — have been part of the mayor’s signature Renewal program, which has spent $582 million on teacher training, social services and an extra hour a day of instruction. Four did so poorly that the city Department of Education closed them in June. ... Families for Excellent Schools, a pro-charter-school group that analyzed the test...

President Trump announced a decision on DACA will be Tuesday. Will this finally begin the “Big Ugly” confrontation? Possibly, but one thing is certain, right now he’s probing. CTH is not a seer of Donald Trump, and anyone who would claim they are should be necessarily dismissed. President Donald Trump is the only entity who knows specifically what he’s going to do in the moments leading up to what he’s going to do; no-one else. However, that said, CTH does have a pretty good sense of what evaluation processes Trump takes prior to action. There are indications Tuesday might be...

Society is society. Government is government. They are two entirely distinct, and completely separate things. Not in the land of Progressivism, however. For progressives, society is government and government is society. They are equally the same and there is no possible distinction. You can routinely see the rotting husk of this when someone proceeds to inform you that "they believe society should do x or y" but when talking of x or y they are instead referring to government action. "I believe that we as a society should take care of the poor, and that's why I support {insert name...

0 The disgraced former leader of state-owned power company Santee Cooper – an entity which just wasted billions of dollars on an abandoned nuclear power plant – will receive a whopping $16 million payout from South Carolina taxpayers. You read that right … the former CEO of this colossally mismanaged public utility is being rewarded to the tune of $16 million for his role in perhaps the biggest command economic debacle in the history of the Palmetto State.

The open border position of the crony-capitalistic U.S. Chamber of Commerce is only one of the issues that showcases the hidden agenda of their heavily lobbied influence upon Republicans in Congress. The CoC spends hundreds of millions writing legislation and paying off the UniParty to deliver on their multinational corporate agenda. In an interview today the Chamber admits their immigration agenda has no common ground with the President Trump administration. CTH has pointed out this issue for many years, however more people are awake now.

John Kasich threw out a line during Meet The Press that apparently required a response from a leading Democrat: Now I wasn't familiar with Ronald Klain, so here's his quickie self-bio (also from twitter). Klain left off several things from their playbook, but due to the 140 character limit, I'll both give him some deference and help him out. Omitted were... • Gun control... ultimately no guns in hands of citizenry and the elimination of the 2nd amendment. • Unfettered immigration • Right to vote for anyone... and a later tweet made it clear that he wants the Federal Government...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued grand jury subpoenas for public relations firms that worked on an international campaign organized by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, according to NBC News. The Podesta Group was one of the firms highlighted, but you would have to read NINE paragraphs into the article to learn this. Instead of the story having its own headline, it was buried.

This is an interesting and popular currency concept, and it is taking the world by storm. However, are there any dangers ahead for bitcoin users? How do banks feel about bitcoin? For that matter, how does the government feel about bitcoin? https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/15/bitcoin-companies-and-entrepreneurs-cant-get-bank-accounts/#a0b6197260d8 In the first week of July, Jay Shore got bad news. U.S. Bank and Chase informed him they were closing the accounts for his company, Coinabul, a San Diego-based precious metals buyer that sells silver and gold for Bitcoin. They didn’t want to house his half-million dollars. Chase was mum on the reason but Shore says a U.S....

My Grandfather watched as his friends died in WWI .. My Father watched as his friends died in WWII and Korea ... I watched (1st hand) as my friends fought and died in Vietnam ... I watched as our friends and children fought and died in Desert Storm... I watched and waited while our friends and children fought and died in Iraq... None of them fought for or died for the Mexican Flag or any other foreign flag... Everyone fought for and died for the U.S. Flag! In Texas, a student raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole;...

Apparently, protecting the President of the United States and his family is a massive burden on the government budget, and according to USA Today, it’s because President Trump makes so many trips. But where was this concern for overspending when the nation was racking up over Twenty Trillion Dollars of Debt? Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles is saying that 1000 secret service people have already hit their federally mandated pay caps, and that “The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,” Alles said. “I can’t change that. I have no flexibility.” Apparently the problem...