Free Republic

Birthdays are important to celebrate – yes, as milestones, but also as markers of significance. And consequence. One hundred and twelve years ago Monday, on February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. He is remembered and celebrated all these years later – not because he is gone – but because of how he lived. The legacy he left behind both inspires and, in part, mystifies us still. He has been analyzed and scrutinized from every angle, yet the magical formula or "secret recipe" of Ronald Reagan all these years later seems as elusive as ever. What...

Ukraine is braced for a major new offensive that could begin within weeks. One of President Zelensky’s key insiders told The Daily Beast that they expect a looming Russian move to encircle the country with a simultaneous attack on three fronts.Rustem Umerov, a member of the team negotiating with Russia, said the Kremlin was preparing for a fresh advance which could begin as soon as February. The assault would come from the north, over the Belarusian border, from the Russian strongholds in the east of Ukraine, and from the south, where the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea was seized by...

President Joe Biden’s stash of classified documents at the Biden Penn Center included materials reportedly marked top secret. About ten documents were unearthed at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, on Tuesday by Biden’s personal attorneys. Among those, some were marked top secret, according to CBS News. Between the classified documents retrieved from the Biden Penn Center and the documents retrieved from Biden’s residence in Delaware on Thursday, the total number of classified Biden stashed is about 20. No top secret documents were reported to be at Biden’s residence.

House Democrats vetoed a resolution demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland turn over records related to the FBI's usage of previously secret forms that waived away the gun rights of Americans. In October, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and over a dozen GOP members of Congress urged Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide evidence that the FBI has stopped stripping people's gun rights with the forms. However, a further attempt to obtain evidence by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) was quashed on Wednesday afternoon by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. The resolution states that Garland would be asked to...

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to interview former Secret Service agent Tony Ornato on Tuesday. Lawmakers on the panel sought Ornato’s testimony to corroborate information about former President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6. When he meets with the committee Tuesday, Ornato, who was Trump’s deputy chief of staff on Jan. 6, will be speaking with the House panel for the third time. Ornato was at the center of explosive testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified during the House committee’s series of public hearings on Jan....

California researchers with a non-profit organization sued President Joe Biden and the National Archives Wednesday, claiming that the federal government has illegally withheld the disclosure of documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF), a Massachusetts-based corporation whose researchers live in California, aims “to bring accessible and interactive history to a new generation of critical thinkers.” As part of the foundation’s work, it maintains large digital archives of the Watergate scandal, and Kennedy’s assassination. The foundation’s namesake, Mary Ferrell, was a renowned historical researcher who specialized in the Kennedy assassination. In the...

A former member of the far-right Oath Keepers organization testified on Thursday that the founder of the group was in contact with the Trump administration’s Secret Service in the months leading up to the November 2020 presidential election. John Zimmerman, who appeared before a jury at the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers, including the organization’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, said he witnessed a phone call between the group’s leader and someone he thought belonged to the Secret Service in September 2020. Zimmerman also said that Rhodes told him he had been in contact with the agency.

Senior leaders at the Secret Service reportedly confiscated the cellphones of 24 agents who were involved with the Jan. 6, 2021, response and delivered the phones to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general. A source familiar confirmed to The Hill that the phones were handed to Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office after a July 19 letter was sent to the agency from DHS investigators indicating he had begun a criminal probe. NBC News first reported the development.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The prosecution rested Thursday, Aug. 18 in the trial of two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The prosecution rested after testimony from an undercover FBI agent with supposed access to explosives. Barry Croft Jr., 46, of Bear, Delaware, and Adam Fox, 38 of Wyoming, Michigan, are on trial in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. Special agent Tim Bates, known as “Red,” said he joined alleged conspirators – in three vehicles - in a night-time reconnaissance mission in September 2020 to the governor’s place in Elk Rapids. He said Fox took photos...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top congressional Democrats are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general hand over information on deleted Secret Service text messages related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, accusing him of using delay tactics to stonewall their investigation. In a letter released Tuesday, the leaders of the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees signaled they are willing to subpoena Inspector General Joseph Cuffari if he does not comply with their requests. The lawmakers are pressing for Cuffari to provide records and testimony about alleged efforts to cover up the erasure of Secret Service...

While Hunter Biden is considered as “national security threat” and while the members of Biden family including Joe Biden has received millions of dollars from dubious business deals with Ukraine and other foreign nations, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is unwilling to sincerely push-forward investigation into the matter. According to credible reports, Joe Biden, during his vice presidency had met Hunter Biden’s business partners and foreign businessmen more than 14 times while Hunter’s business partner Tony Bobulinski has stated he is “1,000 percent” certain that the “big guy” who was to receive 10 percent equity in a multi-million deal with...

The Secret Service may have violated federal records laws by failing to preserve data - including information related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack - after it had been requested by investigators, the House committee investigating the riot said Wednesday. The condemnation came after the panel subpoenaed the agency following an allegation from the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Secret Service, that it had “erased” the texts during a device replacement program. “We have concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone...

John Kerry continued to run from questions about his under-the-radar climate office Wednesday on the same day another Biden administration bigwig opted for transparency. U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh responded to a Herald Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request within six days - Kerry has said to expect his office details by October of 2024. **SNIP** But Walsh gave the Herald what was asked for in a similar FOIA Kerry was sent more than a year ago. Kerry, without explanation, has said he will respond to the records request by the fall of 2024 just a month before the November...

WASHINGTON - The Secret Service has no new text messages related to the Jan. 6 attack to hand over to the special House committee investigating the Capitol riot, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News on Tuesday. The news comes in the wake of an inspector general informing the committee that the Secret Service had deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021. The committee issued a subpoena for those records last week. The Secret Service plans to do a “forensic examination” of agents’ phones identified in the inspector general’s report, the source said, but added that...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a secret visit to the war torn country’s capitol city, footage released Sunday shows. Zelensky shared the footage showing him joined by an armed escort coming to meet Pelosi at the steps of a building in Kyiv as Ukrainian forces continue to resist bombardment from invading Russian forces. “Nice to meet you, thank you for coming,” Zelensky tells Pelosi in English. Pelosi, the highest-ranking US government official to visit Ukraine, was joined at the meeting by Rep. Adam Schiff and other congress members, the video showed. Later, Pelosi and...

President Joe Biden has revamped his administration’s near-midnight flights filled with border crossers to American communities, a new report details. Footage obtained by the New York Post shows border crossers, many of whom are presumably Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs), being flown from El Paso International Airport in Texas to Westchester County Airport near White Plains, New York, at almost 9:30 p.m. this week.

While most joints proclaim there's just salt and pepper in their rubs, there is a key ingredient that even Aaron Franklin fesses up to using.Texas barbecue’s reputation is built on beef, wood smoke, and salt-and-pepper seasoning. And while kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper are the backbone of briskest at most joints in the state, there are often more ingredients added. Inside the prep rooms of several top-ranked pitmasters, there’s also commercially produced seasoned salt. Last June, Jonny White released a video on his Jirby BBQ YouTube channel describing his method for brisket seasoning. He’s the pitmaster and co-owner...

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail. The two men – Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 – were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Insider, the General Services Administration has identified three more former White House aides who earned taxpayer-funded paychecks while working for former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence in the months after they left office. The agency identified the post-White House transition-team staff members as the Trump aides Margo Martin and Madison Porter and the Pence aide Hannah MacInnis. Porter served as the communications director for former first lady Melania Trump, according to the agency's records, and Martin worked as a press assistant. MacInnis served as Pence's digital...

But we know some of the later ones! The James Webb Space Telescope has a packed schedule for its first year of observations. (Image credit: ESA) In the first year of its scientific operations, the James Webb Space Telescope will study small galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, look for the oldest stars in the universe or peer inside mysterious remnants of an exploded star. Its very first science targets, however, remain top secret. The mighty James Webb Space Telescope recently aligned its mirrors and showed off the sharpness of its eyes on a random underwhelming star. But the world's science...