Free Republic

He has said that the wall would be built from precast concrete and steel and that it could be 50 feet tall, if not higher. After calling for it to extend across the entire 2,000-mile southern border, he more recently said half that length could be sufficient because of natural barriers. He has pegged the cost at $4 billion to $12 billion, most recently settling on around $10b. Some see that as low. “There’s a lot of logistics involved in this, and I don’t know how thoroughly they’ve thought it out,” said Todd Sternfeld, chief executive of Superior Concrete, a...

Truth involves Obama, 'nude pictures of passengers' and fed-up workers. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warns air travelers to prepare for much longer than usual airport security lines, but a Transportation Security Administration watchdog says this mess is simply a matter of the government failing to manage its resources responsibly. On Monday, Johnson stood at Ronald Reagan National Airport just outside Washington and told passengers to expect longer than expected wait times as the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, expedites hundreds of new personnel into service to speed up the security process. In Chicago, passengers were told to arrive three...

TSA's Union Power Grab: Thousands Slowing Down Airports Michelle Malkin All you travelers stuck in mile-long TSA security lines are pawns. Convenient political pawns. Big Labor bosses want more power and more money. Stranded travelers are just the latest victims in this age-old game of D.C. extortion. Union leaders want you to think the fault lies with a stingy Congress unwilling to fork over enough money to fill screener shortages. White House spokesman Josh Earnest poured more partisan fuel on the fire last week by blaming the nationwide slowdowns on "the inability of Republicans in Congress to govern the country."...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said after a meeting with a group of conservatives Wednesday that he values their point of view and that people on the right are important to the social network. […] Daily Signal Editor-in-Chief Rob Bluey was among the group who met with Zuckerberg and told Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” that the meeting was a “positive step.” But Matt Schlapp, chairman of American Conservative Union, declined the invitation, saying that Facebook had no interest in talking to him when he asked them how he could best use the platform in conjunction...

In a bid aimed at "stopping a confusing patchwork of divergent rules," President Obama issued an executive order mandating that every public school in the United States make all previously sexually-segregated restrooms and locker rooms open to persons of both sexes. Instead of relying on biological differences to determine which toilets, which showers, or which athletic teams students should have access to, schools must now use psychological differences. Biological males who think of themselves as female must be allowed to use facilities previously restricted to biological females, and vice versa. Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court has barred state officials from reporting the immigration status of people seeking state services, striking down the last piece of a voter-approved law meant to deter people who are in the U.S. illegally from living and working in Montana. The court's unanimous decision on Tuesday upholds a Helena judge's 2014 ruling in a lawsuit that the law denying unemployment benefits, university enrollment and other services to people who arrived in the country illegally was unconstitutional. The Montana Legislature sent the anti-immigrant measure to the 2012 ballot, where it was approved by 80...

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Hidden microphones that are part of a clandestine government surveillance program that has been operating around the Bay Area has been exposed. Imagine standing at a bus stop, talking to your friend and having your conversation recorded without you knowing. It happens all the time, and the FBI doesn’t even need a warrant to do it. Federal agents are planting microphones to secretly record conversations. Jeff Harp, a KPIX 5 security analyst and former FBI special agent said, “They put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in trees, they plant microphones in equipment. I mean, there’s...

Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer's ruling that the Obama Administration has been illegally subsidizing health insurance companies failed to faze the President or his minions. Presidential Press Secretary Josh Earnest mocked "the impotence of the President's political opponents. These court cases are an act of desperation. The GOP has lost this battle in the public arena. Voters reelected President Obama. That gives him all the mandate he needs to govern this country. Complaining that Congress never appropriated the money for the subsidies seeks to elevate a constitutional technicality above the will of voters." The "constitutional technicality" that Judge Collyer found persuasive...

I have been reading about the periodical votes the Texas legislature makes about secession and pondered on it a while and thought a bit about it and came up with a few things. 1. We have a set of procedures for adding a state to the union in the Constitution. 2. We don't have any set of procedures if a majority of a state's population want to no longer be part of a union. 3. If the formation of the country was the voluntary gathering of states to form the union in the first place, then wouldn't forcing a state...

The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. A letter to school districts will go out Friday, adding to a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin prosecutors have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a state Supreme Court decision that shut down an investigation of alleged coordination between Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and conservative groups. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the Wisconsin State Journal that he, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Iowa County District Attorney Larry Nelson filed the appeal Thursday. (snip) Chisholm launched the probe in 2012 under the John Doe law, which allowed prosecutors to compel testimony and bar people from talking about the investigation. The probe examined whether there was illegal coordination between...

“The cause is in my will.”—Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II We ought to have known it would come to this. Still, the latest assertion of presidential authority assumes a new and ominous form: the power not merely to assert authority outside the law—which can at least masquerade under the banner of Lockean prerogative—but rather to redefine words and, with them, the institution of law itself. Such is what happened when Vanita Gupta, the head of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, issued a menacing letter to Republican Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina, ordering him...

Progressive state attorneys general are emerging as the new lieutenants in a nationwide war on political dissent, which includes using government power and even the threat of criminal prosecution to silence opponents of progressive theories. Across the country, state attorneys general and some other officials are trying to use courts to pry loose information on donors to center-right nonprofits, and threatening to bring criminal charges. While these nonprofits and climate change dissenters are the current targets, one attorney warns the tactic represents a danger to political free speech that is protected by the First Amendment. A group of attorneys general...

The persecution of Christians is escalating worldwide. A recent survey found that in just the past year, more than 7,100 believers were killed for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In many countries, they are being systematically tortured and slaughtered by Islamic radicals hellbent on eradicating any vestige of Christianity. Churches are burned, looted, and bulldozed. Pastors are frequently targeted and martyred. In dozens of other countries, Christians are severely oppressed by government authorities and routinely denied any chance at an education and jobs. They live as second-class citizens, shunned and mocked by their neighbors who despise Christ. And...

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

Gov. Jerry Brown is ordering California to permanently follow some conservation measures taken during the state's drought. Brown's order on Monday came as water officials consider whether to ease a 20 percent conservation order for cities and towns. The order does not set a mandatory percentage for saving water. The latest call for changes came after El Nino storms left a healthy snowpack and brimming water reservoirs in Northern California. Brown's executive order requires cities and towns to continue monthly reporting of water use. In addition, bans on overwatering lawns will become lasting. Brown's executive order also requires better drought...

Councils across the UK are set to consider banning people who already own homes from buying holiday cottages after a historic vote yesterday. More than 80 per cent of voters in St Ives, Cornwall, backed proposals that will mean new housing developments will only get planning permission if homes there are reserved for full-time residents. And now councils in the Lake District, Derbyshire Dales, north Devon and the Isle of Wight are all looking at schemes to prevent outsiders buying holiday homes. But ministers are poised to oppose the ban, saying it could be regarded as unfair and discriminatory. Tory...

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) said the federal government gave the state an "unrealistic" deadline to respond to a letter informing him that the state's bathroom law violates the Civil Rights Act. "They gave the ninth-largest state in the United States ... three working days to respond to a pretty complex letter and to a pretty big threat," McCrory said on "Fox News Sunday." "We don't think three working days is enough to respond to such a threat." McCrory said he asked for an extension on Friday. The Justice Department sent a letter to the governor that says the...

Insurers -- who might not be allowed the huge rate increases they need to stay solvent --- are looking to save money by eliminating so-called Bronze-level plans. Fierce Health Player reports on an Inside Health Policy (subscription only) warning from earlier this week: One problem, according to the article, is risk adjustment--as CMS data indicate bronze is the only metal level for which insurers of all sizes in the individual and group markets had to pay into the program. Federal officials are considering some changes to the risk adjustment program, which some say unfairly penalizes smaller insurers. Already, filings show...

The FBI is reportedly coordinating with Hillary Clinton’s campaign schedule in order to find a time to interview the presidential candidate about her private email server, CNN reports. Investigators have already interviewed several of Clinton’s top State Department aides, including Huma Abedin, the network reported on Thursday. Some of those aides have been interviewed several times. The next step in the investigation — which is looking into whether any classified information was mishandled on Clinton’s server — will be to interview Clinton herself. But that poses a problem because she is in the heat of a presidential campaign. And with...