Free Republic

SANTA FE – An editorial cartoon published in the Journal came under fire Wednesday from elected officials – including both of New Mexico’s U.S. senators – and others for being “misguided” and “bigoted.” The syndicated cartoon showed an apparently frightened white couple being accosted at gunpoint by members of MS-13, an international criminal gang targeted by President Donald Trump whose members are primarily from Central America. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat who is running for re-election this year, lambasted the cartoon on social media, while state Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, described it as an example of “ignorance, racism and...

Let's face it, nobody but my mother-in-law likes phone solicitors. She'll talk to them for hours and the Jehovah's Witnesses that knock on her door every Saturday morning. She once hung up on my wife because the Jehovah's witnesses were knocking on the door. But this is mostly about handling phone solicitors. The phone rings. You know immediately it's a solicitor. Homeowner: This is Chief Inspector Flanagan from Homicide. You've called in the middle of a crime scene investigation. The homeowner was found dead a short while ago. But while you're on the phone, let me ask you some questions...

A Michigan dog owner was surprised to find out that the state approved his German shepherd for weekly unemployment benefits. The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency sent a letter to lawyer Michael Haddock saying that a Michael Ryder was approved to receive $360 a week in unemployment, reports ABC News. The only problem is that Ryder is Haddock’s German shepherd. The letter claimed that Michael Ryder worked at a restaurant chain in Detroit, Michigan. “I’m not sure what he’s going to do with the money,” Haddock said.

Democrats, media, and the aggregate DOJ/FBI intelligence community are finally seeing accountability. With the HPSCI memo now in the rear-view mirror, and the content in the bloodstream of the U.S. electorate, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is next. Toward the end of December, the FBI provided the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, with FBI investigative documents (likely FD-302’s) from their contacts with Christopher Steele. According to most reasonable timing we can discover Steele met with FBI officials sometime around October 1st, 2016. From the U.K. lawsuit against Christopher Steele (pdf here), Steele admits to having shopped the Clinton-Steele dossier to...

A Republican lawmaker trying to unseat Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is standing by a campaign ad that’s being blasted as racist, homophobic and “repulsive.” State Rep. Jeanne Ives, a social and fiscal conservative, says the ad that began airing this weekend illustrates the GOP governor’s “chosen constituents based on the policy choices he made.” The ad features actors portraying people including a transgender woman and a Chicago Teachers Union member, all thanking Rauner. The deep-voiced transgender woman, wearing a dress that reveals a hairy chest, says “Thank you for signing legislation that lets me use the girl’s bathroom.” …

Authorities say a grenade launcher, loaded with a live grenade, was left with other donated items at a Florida Goodwill store. The Bradenton Herald reports that employees at a Goodwill store near Tampa reported the weapon on Sunday. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office says the store manager told deputies that the grenade launcher had come in a shipment from another store several days earlier. The employees at the other location said they sent it along because they didn't know what it was.

Formula 1 has banned Grid Girls from the sport. The women, now unemployed, are taking one final stand on social media. A five-time F1 grid girl says the ban is, "political correctness gone mad"...

Pat Sajak : What a great prank! Somebody put glue on half of the seats at State of the Union Address!

Live at 10:00 p.m. Easter on BET, maybe picked up elsewhere? Maxine Waters’ provides her live rebuttal (24 hours later)to President Trump’s fantastic State of the Union (SOTU) speech given Tuesday, January 31, 2018. should be entertaining. Can she one-up Drooling Joey?

When even Chris Cuomo mocks your moue . . . On CNN this morning, commenting on Nancy Pelosi’s sour expression during President Trump’s State of the Union speech, Cuomo said: “I’ve never seen Nancy Pelosi’s face look like that.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Departing Gov. Sam Brownback wants Kansas residents to observe his final full day in office with prayer and fasting, but some critics are opting for pizza and beer. The governor's office issued its last proclamation, designating Tuesday as a "Day of Prayer and Fasting." He's resigning at 3 p.m. Wednesday to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Critics posted plans on Facebook for a 24-hour "Bye Brownback" pizza and beer party starting at 3 p.m.

Senator wanted questions about his family and 'political gossip' to be off-limits Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) backed out of an interview after the news outlet refused to make questions about his family off-limits, according to a Burlington, Vermont-based paper. Sanders spokesman Daniel McLean called Seven Days on Sunday to offer a Monday morning interview with the senator. McLean said the paper would not be allowed to ask questions about his family or "political gossip," but did not expand on either condition. The alternative newspaper refused, noting it has never accepted any preconditions to political interviews. The paper pointed out...

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) on Monday hesitated to call out Hillary Clinton for ignoring recommendations to fire a top adviser accused of sexual harassment moments before saying "no one is above criticism" when it comes to sexual misconduct as she castigated President Donald Trump and former Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) for alleged misconduct. Gillibrand, whose named has been floated as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, appeared on ABC's "The View" to discuss her efforts "leading the charge to take on sexual misconduct in Washington, D.C." The senator first called on national Republicans to return any campaign donations they...

Link to YouTube video and all the usual leftist comments.

With illegal immigration being in the news, as it usually is, we thought it important to explain why it is wrong by using an analogy that even Liberals could relate to. Thankfully, Reality Always Wins created a cartoon that does this for us. Keep in mind, the animation is not the greatest, and the voices do not exactly match the lips of the characters that are speaking, but it still makes a great point towards making the argument that illegal immigration is wrong. What if breaking into someone's house was treated like breaking into the country? This cartoon examines that...

President Trump just announced his tenth wave of judicial nominees -- who are they? Last week, I posted a roundup of the status of judicial nominations, for both circuit and district courts, for circuits up through and including the Fifth Circuit. Today I turn my attention to the Sixth through Eleventh Circuits. But after my earlier roundup, some news happened: this past Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced his tenth wave of judicial nominees, twelve nominees in all. There’s one circuit-court nominee among them — John Nalbandian, whom I’ll discuss below in my section on the Sixth Circuit — plus eight...

...the Justice Department has improperly assigned a prosecutor in the absence of grounds to believe a crime has been committed. “Collusion with Russia” is not a crime, and there are presently no grounds to believe the president conspired with Putin’s regime to violate any American law. And again, it is not criminal obstruction for a president to weigh in on whether a subordinate...should be investigated, or to fire a subordinate....Whether we think these are foolish things for the president to have done is beside the point. We are talking here about whether they are criminal actions, and they are not.......

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The Iranian military has halted the routine harassment by its armed “fast boats” of U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. military said, a turnabout that officials welcomed but were at a loss to explain. The boats for at least two years would dart toward the U.S. vessels as they passed through the Persian Gulf, risking miscalculation, but haven’t done so for five months, U.S. military officials said.