Free Republic

Election machines in three states were not hacked to give Donald Trump the election. There was never a serious post-election movement of electors to defy their constitutional duties and vote for Hillary Clinton. Nor, once Trump was elected, did transgendered people begin killing themselves in alarming numbers. Nor were there mass resignations at the State Department upon his inauguration. Nor did Donald Trump seek an order to “ban all Muslims” from entering the U.S. Instead, he temporarily sought a suspension in visas for everyone, regardless of religion, from seven Middle Eastern states that the Obama administration had earlier identified as...

It is not just irresponsible but ludicrous that Congress and the president would ignore the need for comprehensive immigration reform even as government agents round up and deport scores of the undocumented who deserve an avenue to legal residency in this country. In a special report titled “The Undocumented,” staff writer Luis Ferré Sadurni shared stories of immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas and are now living in fear that any day might bring their arrest by the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These are men and women living otherwise law-abiding lives...

Ramon Ruiz Ortiz of Moreno Valley went to San Bernardino’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office at 10 a.m. May 11 to interview for a green card giving him permanent residency. By 7 p.m., he’d been deported to Tijuana. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officials said he applied using a false name and that he had been removed previously and then had returned here illegally, making him ineligible for a green card, according to ICE. Now, his family and an attorney representing the Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino are trying to figure out what happened to the man...

On 9 May, 2017, a Houston family underwent a home invasion nightmare. Sometime in the early morning hours, twin 19 year old brothers woke to their parents screaming while being beat and held hostage by four armed home invaders. The stories do not say exactly what the four invaders were armed with. At least one had a pistol, because the father and the twins were "pistol whipped". The mother and 10 year old sister were held hostage.  The robbers demanded jewelry and money. From khou.com: HOUSTON – A man came to the rescue when his relatives next door were...

Top Salvadoran officials are worried about deportations of their compatriots from the U.S., as they think the returnees will cause crime. El Comercio wrote Thursday that El Salvador’s Minister of Defense David Munguia Payes told reporters, “We know that if there are massive deportations from the U.S., it will increase violence in the country.” The worry from Salvadoran officials is due to the Trump administration’s focus on MS 13, a Salvadoran gang whose leadership still remains in the Central American nation. MS 13 gained strength in the 1990s after thousands of gang members were deported from the U.S. The defense...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing telltale signs that he intends to extend his control over Ukraine and perhaps elsewhere in Eastern Europe, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers said Sunday. Beyond assembling military armor and tens of thousands of troops along the Russia-Ukraine border, Putin is moving troops in northern Georgia and planting intelligence officers in Ukraine, the Michigan Republican told “Fox News Sunday.” He said Russian troops in the northern region of Georgia, known as South Ossetia, are on the move, perhaps to go into Armenia or toward the Baltic Sea. “There’s no way I’d take this...

Federal authorities have canceled the temporary deferred status of an illegal immigrant who is the face of so-called “dreamers” in the Atlanta area, opening the door to her possible deportation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stripped Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections from Jessica Colotl, a 28-year-old Mexican national, because she admitted to making a false statement to law enforcement following an arrest in 2010. A government lawyer asked an immigration judge to issue a deportation order on May 3. ICE confirmed Wednesday that Colotl’s case falls within with government policy not to offer protected status to certain categories of...

The refugee crisis worldwide has become the focus of many news reports. While some cover the humanitarian efforts, the underlying story often goes untold. Many areas that are flooded with refugees see a new and emerging crisis tied to an increase in violence and crime. One such event was caught live on the news and broadcast in real time. A news reporter in Rome, Italy was brutally attacked by a group of refugees while covering the need for humanitarian efforts for the group . Correspondent Francesca Parisella was doing a live news spot about the needs of refugees at the...

The International Institute for Strategic Studies has published its annual Armed Conflict Survey, assessing the impact of wars around the world. It is no surprise that the highest level of deadly violence last year was in Syria. However, the second most lethal conflict was recorded in Mexico, where more than 20,000 people were killed in violence fuelled by the nations powerful drug cartels. How has the situation become quite so bad?

Abdulkarim Younes still can't sleep. Despite escaping the war that ravaged his Syrian hometown and surviving years in limbo in Jordan before arriving in Chicago as a refugee in January, he stays awake at all hours, awaiting calls from his family. His mother and siblings, who hope to join him in the U.S., remain in Jordan. The separation and uncertainty weigh on him as he waits for a reunion that might never come. Refugees in Chicago are reporting more stress and fear following President Donald Trump's moves to restrict arrivals, including proposed bans on refugees and a reduction in the...

Former President Barack Obama formally endorsed centrist Emmanuel Macron to be France’s next president in a video released Thursday, days before voters choose between him and far-right rival Marine Le Pen in a high-stakes weekend contest. “I want all of my friends in France to know how much I am rooting for your success. Because of how important this election is, I also want you to know that I am supporting Emmanuel Macron to lead you forward,” Obama said in English, before adding “En marche! Vive la France!” in French. En Marche (roughly “On the Move!” or “Let’s Go!”) is...

The United States is plotting an ambitious attempt to shore up Central America, with the administration of President Donald Trump pressing Mexico to do more to stem the flow of migrants fleeing violence and poverty in the region, U.S. and Mexican officials say. Kelly, who knows Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador well from his time as chief of the U.S. Southern Command, helped the administration of former President Barack Obama design his Alliance for Prosperity. That $750-million initiative sought to curtail Central American migration through development projects as well as law-and-order funding to crack down on the region's dominant gangs....

Homeland Security John Kelly slammed Democrats and the media for "rejoicing" in the fact that money for President Trump's wall along the border with Mexico isn't in the omnibus spending bill. Kelly said the spending bill, which if passed before Friday will fund the government until the end of September, represents the biggest investment in border security in a decade. However, Kelly's ire was piqued by Democrats, though he didn't mention the opposition party by name, who celebrated that funding for the wall was not a part of that investment. "Frankly, I am shocked at the behavior of some individuals...

Democrats at the state level are getting increasingly elaborate in their efforts to oppose President Trump at every turn. You might even say they're trolling him. And nowhere is that more evident than in several blue-state efforts to hinder or outright block the president's long-promised southern border wall. In California, for example, state lawmakers are debating whether to blacklist contractors who help build the president's proposed border wall. "If you're a business that wants to do work with Trump's proposed wall, then quite frankly, California doesn't want to do business with you," said Democratic state Sen. Ricardo Lara, who represents...

Of the 406,000 Syrian refugees given protection in Europe in 2016, almost 300,000 were offered sanctuary in Germany, new figures show. The figures released by Eurostat on Wednesday display in clear terms how a few countries have shared the majority of the burden in taking in refugees from war-torn Syria. While Germany took in 295,000 of the 406,000 Syrians who were granted asylum in the EU during 2016, major economies such as France and and Great Britain failed to offer protection to more than a few thousand. The UK offered protection to 1,850 Syrians, 160 times less than Germany. Sweden...

It was hard to not sense something was gravely wrong when Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez announced he would put his Caribbean oil headquarters in Havana, Cuba, a city of absolutely no economic significance, in fact, of no actual economy. Havana's only significance is political, as the seat of U.S.'s leading enemy in the hemisphere, Fidel Castro. Chavez seemed to be trying to put the oil squeeze on the small Caribbean states, who have many votes in the United Nations and the Organization of American States, to extort those votes. It wasn't about oil, but oil as a strategic weapon. But...

Another day passes as radical Islam continues its aggressive expansion across the globe. Now OUR country is in serious trouble.A video has appeared that shows Muslim enclaves ruled by Sharia law in nine different states: Alaska, California, New York, Texas, Michigan, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. Americans are forbidden to enter these communities. (via Twitter)Dear Obama: please admit you have failed the American people. It is because of your “open border” policies that we now are losing valuable real estate in our own country. This is unacceptable.After eight years of Obama, we have literally lost American soil to terrorists....

A new study by the Paris Region Planning and Development Agency (IAU) has found that 56 per cent of women are afraid to use public transport due to concerns over sex attacks and theft. Le Parisien reports respondents’ insecurity as a “legitimate fear”, noting that 37-per-cent of robberies without violence and 39-per-cent of sexual assaults against women are carried out on public transport and at train stations. “Amongst female respondents, the fear of being attacked or robbed is so strong it prevents them from using public transport,” the IAU said. “Women are four times more likely (6.2 per cent) to...

Turkish tanks on their way to Syria as part of the Euphrates Shield Operation launched in August 2016. Turkey is planning three cross-border military operations into Iraq and Syria as a follow-up to the Euphrates Shield Operation, a pro-government newspaper has claimed.The headline of the Yeni Safak daily on Thursday read, “Turkey to hit button” and said the Turkish government was going to initiate an operation into Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in the Zap-Avashin and Shingal areas of the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq.According to the pro-government paper, another operation will be launched into the Karakozak area in northern Syria, where the Suleyman Shah...