Free Republic

The NBA opened the first training academy of a professional US basketball league in Cuba on Thursday, made possible by the diplomatic thaw between Washington and Havana, reported dpa.

The Supreme Court will decide Friday whether to grant review on a case relating to the infamous Wisconsin “John Doe” investigation of conservative groups that supported Governor Scott Walker and his reform of public sector union collective bargaining.The case, O’Keefe v. Chisholm, was filed by Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth after they each received John Doe subpoenas in October 2013, demanding that they turn over all Club records and communications–including all emails, financial materials and donor lists–to prosecutors. Consistent with Wisconsin’s John Doe law, the subpoenas gagged O’Keefe and the Club, prohibiting them from speaking to anyone...

I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to my article about Wisconsin prosecutors’ efforts to criminalize conservative activism,complete with terrifying dawn and pre-dawn raids. Without the courage of the raids’ targets who were willing to speak with me–on and off the record–there would have been no story. Ironically enough,on the very weekend that my story hit National Review,the Huffington Post published yet another screed against so-called “dark money” relying on the very existence of the unlawful John Doe investigations to cast a cloud of suspicion on conservative activists. The language is instructive: The Wisconsin Supreme Court is slated to take up...

The Obama administration snuck in two new climate change-related programs when it rolled out a major new study on the nation's challenged energy system. The first installment of a major four-part energy analysis, dubbed the Quadrennial Energy Review, was issued Tuesday morning after several months of persistent delays. Included with the 350-page review, which focused on the nation's energy infrastructure hurdles, were two new executive actions: one addressing climate change resilience, and another for clean energy improvements in rural America. The administration hinted that the new initiatives may be part of a speech the president plans to deliver Wednesday in...

John Doe laws dating back to the 19th century in Wisconsin allow DAs to hold secret panels, compel people to give testimony and turn over documents. To take advantage of the loopholes was Prosecutor John Chisholm, a partisan hack who had a vendetta against Scott Walker. The corruption extends to judges, police officers, lawyers and to at least one newspaper, the Journal Sentinel. In a September 9, 2014 article, former Milwaukee police officer Michael Lutz, who for several months served as an unpaid special prosecutor in Chisholm’s office, said that Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm, a Democrat, told him in...

President Obama’s Task Force on New Americans has issued its much-anticipated plan to facilitate life in the U.S. for immigrants and refugees by enhancing pathways to naturalization, building welcoming communities and providing “mobile immigration services in underserved communities.” The government-wide initiative aims to “strengthen federal immigrant and refugee integration infrastructure.” This includes multilingual media campaigns promoting immigrant rights and other free tools to make life easier in the U.S. and up to $10 million for “citizenship preparation” programs. The goal is to “strengthen civic, economic and linguistic integration and to build strong and welcoming communities,” according to the report issued...

...Cuomo speaks at the beginning of a Business Rountable with Cuban and American business leaders held at the Hotel Parque Central in Havana, Cuba....

The successful shutting down (or at least shutting up) of non-groupthink-compliant wedding cake and floral businesses has given gay-marriage agitators and their backers a taste of the vast power of ideological extortion in 2015 America. I’m optimistic that the law will eventually come to its senses and give wide berth to Christians in the wedding trades, or even to non-Christian libertarians who simply don’t want to be told who they have to do business with. Perhaps James O’Keefe will covertly record owners of a black-owned florist shop being asked to create an arrangement for a “KKK” event, or a Muslim-owned...

Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) issues these plates to police departments for officers in unmarked cars involved in sensitive investigations such as narcotics, organized crime or terrorism. Confidential tags cannot be traced back to any specific person or organization if a criminal has a source run the plates through conventional databases. But all three police sources also expressed bewilderment about why the Edmonston Police Department would need any confidential tags. Each pointed out that Edmonston is a very small town, and that any major narcotics, terrorism or organized crime investigation would be outsourced... The Town denies any allegation that this...

The West Memphis NAACP has legitimized and inflamed the war on cops by urging blacks to arm up against them. “Law enforcement has to understand, you cannot do what you please when you see us,” Crittenden County NAACP head Shabaka Afrika said in a news conference. The deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown had really roiled angry black activists and street thugs who make up their army. But the killing of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD and the shooting of Walter Scott in South Carolina have pushed them over the edge. Nation of Islam leader Louis...

‘They came with a battering ram.” Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full...

President Barack Obama said on Friday that the deal he and the leaders of five other major powers are trying to cut with the Iranian regime headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is a “political agreement” and “not a formal treaty.”As such, he said, Congress should not ordinarily have authority to sign off on this kind of deal.Obama made the statement when discussing legislation sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee and approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that would give Congress 60 days to review an Iran nuclear deal made by the administration. During that 60 days,...

The Z-Ro Retinal Obfuscation weapon mounted to a handgun. Last summer’s riots in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted much talk by President Obama and certain members of Congress about the need to demilitarize local police forces. Nearly a year later, the opposite is happening. New and more powerful weapons are flowing into local police departments daily, and still others are new to the marketplace. One weapon about to make its debut is the “Z-Ro Retinal Obfuscation” gun. When fired, the gun allows an officer to temporarily blind his targeted subject for up to 15 minutes. The new “compliance weapon” made a...

Yesterday, TalkingPointsMemo reported that Texas Senator Ted Cruz sent an email to supporters urging them to send him money to make him president so that he could, as president, protect their right to violently overthrow the president. As the email read: The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution isn’t for just protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty Cruz’s assertion was so absurd...

Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that he will take legal action against President Obama’s federal healthcare agency for stopping Low Income Pool (LIP) healthcare funds to Florida in order to force the state to take Legislative action to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. Governor Rick Scott said, “It is appalling that President Obama would cut off federal healthcare dollars to Florida in an effort to force our state further into Obamacare. The President’s healthcare agency sent us a letter this week saying the ‘the future of LIP’ and ‘Medicaid expansion are linked.’ But, the Supreme Court has already ruled in NFIB...

Nearly all politicians who support longstanding hardline U.S. policy toward Cuba tend to be Cuban-American, Republican or both. With one big exception: Weston U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz who happens to be the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. On Wednesday, after President Obama announced an historic deal to thaw the Cold War-era hostilities with Cuba, Wasserman Schultz was eerily quiet. Then, when Wasserman Schultz spoke, she was clearly out of step with the DNC. Consider the statements each issued and their timing: At 7:14 p.m., Wasserman Schultz's congressonal office released the most-tepid of statements that stopped well short of...

A group of 10 undocumented women will start a partial hunger strike this Tuesday to protest against their detention at a center that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has in Karnes City, Texas, according to a non-profit organization which provides legal representation to some of the facility's detainees. During a conference call held this morning, Mohammad Abdollahi, member and one of the spokespersons of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), said the women, who have their children with them, "are gonna have one meal a day each evening (during a week), however they are gonna...

Overview of project documenting deaths and disappearances resulting from the Cuban Revolution. See www.CubaArchive.org.

"On May 27, [1966,] 166 Cubans -- civilians and members of the military -- were executed and submitted to medical procedures of blood extraction of an average of seven pints per person. This blood is sold to Communist Vietnam at a rate of $50 per pint... "A pint of blood is equivalent to half a liter. Extracting this amount of blood from a person sentenced to death produces cerebral anemia and a state of unconsciousness and paralysis. Once the blood is extracted, the person is taken by two militiamen on a stretcher to the location where the execution takes place."...

(CNSNews.com) - There was a bit of show and tell Tuesday on Capitol Hill, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana told the House Judiciary Committee about her department’s efforts to enforce immigration law while also following the more lenient policies outlined by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson last November. "We have actually put out real substantial training on this, sir," Saldana told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "And every officer uses one of these cards, which clearly outlines those priorities." Saldana held up one of the cards. "And quite frankly, I carry it myself -- and try to make...