Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - at 12:15pm today President Trump disclosed that he has reached an agreement with Enrique Pena Nieto, President of Mexico, which provides for the sale of substantially all of the State of California to the country of Mexico. President Trump noted that this deal, which he claims "is his largest real estate deal ever" is a win-win for everyone involved. One of the benefits he says he will highlight during a prime time address from the oval office later this evening, will include using the proceeds received by the US from Mexico to 1) pay for the Wall...

Multitaskers who need to watch video while crunching numbers in a spreadsheet will be delighted to know Windows 10 soon will be able to accommodate miniature video players better. A test version of Windows 10 released Wednesday comes with a feature called "compact overlay window" that will always float atop your other windows. That could be handy for holding Skype video chats, keeping an eye on political hearings and yes, watching Netflix or the big game when you're supposed to be at work.

The bugs could crash some popular games, but from Microsoft's perspective, it's all part of the beta-testing journey. The gaming-focused Windows 10 Insider build that Microsoft promised earlier this week, with Game Mode, Beam livestreaming and other features, is rolling out—but with some game-breaking bugs, unfortunately. What’s officially known as Build 15019 for the Insider Fast Ring also includes a number of more general improvements, including a version of Edge that will read your ebooks aloud and a better out-of-box experience, complete with voice actors to guide you through the process. If you’re hoping to try out the new PC-centric...

Today Clinton Receives Her First Classified Intelligence Briefing:Today Hillary Clinton Will Receive Her First Classified National Security Briefing At An FBI Facility In White Plains, New York. “Hillary Clinton arrived Saturday morning at the FBI's satellite office in suburban New York City for her first national security briefing as the Democratic nominee for president. Clinton arrived at the office in White Plains, New York, which is roughly 20 minutes from her Chappaqua home, about 9 a.m. Her campaign has not said who is attending the meeting with her..” (Josh Haskell, “Hillary Clinton Arrives at FBI Office for 1st Classified Briefing as...

Microsoft has released Insider Preview Build 14361 for Windows 10 on PC and Mobile with a huge boost for building microservices and cloud. You can now run Docker natively on Windows 10 with Hyper-V containers, to build, ship and run containers using nano server in technical preview five of Windows Sever 2016, that’s due in the third quarter. Nano Server is a remotely administered server operating system for cloud and data centre lacking local log-on and that only works for 64-bit. A new version of the Docker engine for Windows has been built, too, which improves DockerFile syntax. Elsewhere, the...

While Trump's new mercenary Republican Insider hireling, Paul Manafort, has been comparing Cruz's campaign to the Gestapo, never mind how deeply entrenched he was in Ukraine promoting a former Soviet apparatchik who was eventually tossed out of the presidential office leaving behind a political catastrophe. The truth of the matter is that Nazi slurs and metaphors against Cruz should be trumped by actual Soviet associations as Red as they can possibly be ....

Mitt Romney took his willingness to support Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz one step further by recording robocalls for the Texas senator. In the calls, first reported by The Daily Caller, Romney encourages voters in Arizona and Utah to support Cruz. A call targeting Arizona voters was released today and another call will begin ringing in Utah homes tomorrow. Both Utah and Arizona will hold nominating contests tomorrow. “I’m calling to ask you to join me in supporting Ted Cruz for president this Tuesday in the Utah Republican caucuses. This is the time for Republicans across the spectrum to unite...

Now that the presidential race is down to the 'brass tacks phase', and with the glaring reality of Team Jeb Bush, Team Mitt Romney endorsement, Team Lindsey Graham endorsement, Team Carly Fiorina endorsement, and the entire DC professional political class aligning themselves with Ted Cruz, it's a good opportunity to highlight the uncomfortable truth for those new to the awakening. A freshman, two-year Senator/Presidential Candidate, Ted Cruz was presented, by intentional Wall Street conduct, as an outsider; as "a fallacy of false dilemma". If you don't know what "false choice" really means, click on the link ↑ to read the...

The headlines recently have been full of suggestions that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is solidifying his lead while the other real outsider in the race, Ben Carson, is firmly in second place — and that the political class’s favorites, including Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio, can’t gain traction. I don’t buy it. Republicans should not overcommit to the notion that Trump, much less Carson, are serious candidates for the Republican nomination for 2016. I’ll admit to being a little perplexed by the polls right now. When Trump entered the race, I said he would max out somewhere...

Microsoft's latest preview release of Windows 10, build 10565, adds several features and refinements as the company works towards a major update for all users. The new build is available to anyone signed up for the Windows Insider preview scheme. Microsoft is now bundling three communications apps with Windows 10: Skype Video, Phone, and Messaging. Three apps seems overkill, but these are universal apps and their simplicity is well suited to mobile devices. This build integrates the Skype apps with the Action Center, so that if you miss a call, for example, you can call back or send a message...

Bexar County Republicans who support U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president turned out in force Tuesday to hear his wife, Heidi, plead for financial support in a race she described as winnable. The crowd of more than 200 loyalists at Bexar GOP headquarters was already on the Cruz bandwagon in terms of policy. They applauded Heidi Cruz’s denunciations of President Barack Obama’s executive orders, the Affordable Care Act he championed, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, the Iran nuclear deal, gay marriage and Planned Parenthood. So the candidate’s wife — whose professional financial savvy has made her an integral part of...

Government insiders who flagged security issues prior to the launch of HealthCare.gov were right to be concerned. That’s according to a new audit by the Government Accountability Office, which concluded that security weaknesses are putting “the sensitive personal information” contained by HealthCare.gov and its related systems at risk. As the Obama administration prepared to launch the website last fall, one of those insiders voiced concern about the vulnerabilities and complained about “cover ups” masking the severity of the problems.

A performer who pays for good reviews from critics usually isn't any good, and that would seem to be the case for Obamacare, too. Except that it is the taxpayers, not the performer laying out the bribe money, and the magnitude of the bribe dwarfs even the most lavish junkets offered by Hollywood. The Washington Times has a blockbuster exclusive story: Two months before enrollment began in the Obamacare exchanges, the administration's top health care official heaped praise on WebMD for launching an online resource to help Americans navigate the complex law. The consumer health care site had the occasional...

An email sent through a Marine's personal email account warning of a threat may end his 13-year career.

For the record: Valerie’ Jarrett’s daughter Laura’s father-in-law Canadian Liberal politician Bas Balkissoon is not (thank God!) Canada’s Prime Minister. Nor, as some news outlets are indicating, is he a MP. (Member of Parliament). Balkissoon—one of many Canadian Liberals with deep ties to the Obama administration—is a minor player MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament ) at Ontario’s Queen’s Park, irreverently known to the plebes as the ‘Pink Palace’. Before landing at the Pink Palace as a ready-made Liberal MPP, Balkissoon was a City of Toronto councillor involved in a computer leasing scandal. Wow, what a coincidence! Just as key Barack...

Insider selling in Yelp (YELP) was identified as a concern in a recent SeekingAlpha.com article. In the comment section it was put forward by an apparent Yelp skeptic that these executives could stop the automatic selling in their 10b5-1 trading plans if they really felt the stock is undervalued. In reply, a Yelp defender pointed out that it is "very typical, insider selling at this point... People sell for all kinds of reasons, buying a house, sending kids to college, taking deserved profit to diversify holdings." Indeed one can say there has been significant selling in Yelp but only by...

If you're considering going to Wall Street, you should really know what you're getting into. Yes, you will get paid better than average people all over the world. Yes, you will get to learn new things constantly, and yes, you will be involved in important transactions (well, hopefully) and meet interesting clients. However, there is a downside, and it's generally all in your head. A Wall Street veteran, who will remain anonymous, gave us a laundry list of ways working on the Street can actually ruin your life. Wall Streeters have to deal with a distorted sense of money, questions...

There’s a tiny priest living in Rick Santorum’s trim, toned body, struggling to get out. The rogue priest escaped Sunday and said foolish things. The candidate most admired for plain speech made it plain and clear that he doesn’t believe in the wall between church and state and doesn’t think much of John F. Kennedy for saying he did. “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” he told ABC News. “The idea that church can have no influence or involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives...

The STOCK Act to ban insider trading by members of Congress has sailed through the Senate, 96-3, and many members of the U.S. Senate were no doubt kicking and screaming as they voted for it. Heck, some of the most prominent cosponsors were people that I identified in my book, Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison, as having stock-trading activities that correlated nicely with their legislative work.

In a State of the Union speech devoid of clarity or specifics, President Barack Obama offered but one shining exception: a direct call for members of Congress to send him a bill to ban congressional insider trading.