Free Republic

This ruling is part of a series of cases in which the Court is scaling back Congress's efforts to control the presidency in the wake of Watergate. An entire structural edifice of government was created to constrain the executive. And the Roberts Court is now dismantling those structures. I was not alive at the time, but I imagine that Watergate felt something like the resistance to the Trump Presidency. I agree with that Trump is completing Nixon’s aborted second term “by attempting to gain control of the executive branch and tame the Administrative State.” But unlike Nixon, Trump is supported...

Because EDVA (Eastern District of Virginia) is such a nest of snakes and the statute on Comey’s lies was about to run out, President Trump had to step in, fire Siebert, and parachute Lindsey in at the last possible moment. What we didn’t know until today is just how completely she was left to fend for herself: she had to take over the entire case file, learn it from scratch, build the presentation, and then personally walk into a grand jury room full of DC-suburb TDS sufferers and convince them to indict Comey. And she did all of that in...

Construction of new battleships ceased almost immediately post World War II—the last launched was HMS Vanguard, completed in 1946. Their heavy armor and guns diminished even further in relevance with the evolution of anti-ship missiles, which have a longer range and hit hard enough to negatively tilt the cost-benefit tradeoffs of heavy armor. Missile defense became a better use of tonnage than steel plates.

Three years ago, RealClearInvestigations reported that the FBI was undercounting the number of armed civilians who had thwarted active shooters by a factor of three. Even though the FBI acknowledged the issue at the time, it never corrected the error involving the politically fraught issue. In the years since, the problem has only gotten worse. Since RCI’s 2022 article, the FBI has acknowledged just three additional incidents of armed good Samaritans stopping active shooters from 2022 to 2024, and none in the last two years. In contrast, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which I head, has documented 78 such...

President Donald Trump has labeled drug cartels operating in the Caribbean as “unlawful combatants” and said the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict,” multiple outlets reported Thursday, following recent strikes targeting alleged drug smuggling boats in the region. The Trump administration said in a confidential notice the U.S. was engaged in an “non-international armed conflict” against the drug cartels, the Associated Press and New York Times reported, citing a person familiar with the matter and a copy of the notice, respectively.

Researchers and filmmakers are exploring the Superior Shoal, an underwater mountain in Lake Superior. (Courtesy of Inspired Planet Productions) ============================================================== * There is an underwater mountain in the middle of Lake Superior * Scientists and filmmakers think it could be a hotbed for aquatic life * They’re using underwater drones to document the volcanic mound * Known to some as the “Freshwater Everest,” if you want to explore this mountain, you don’t go up, you go down. ============================================================= In the middle of Lake Superior, near the boundary between Canadian and US waters, sits the Superior Shoal, a mountain that’s completely...

Randi Weingarten has taken to wearing a paper clip on her lapel as a ­bizarre symbol of her ­crusade against “fascism,” aka Donald Trump. The president of the American Federation of Teachers is on tour to peddle her new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers” — yet another example of prioritizing poisonous politics over education from this Marxist fossil. Not to mention fattening her own wallet. The paper clip, she likes to explain to anyone who will listen — mostly on MSNBC — symbolizes a Norwegian protest against Adolf Hitler in World War II. “Teachers in Norway when there was Nazi...

At midnight on Wednesday, the federal government shut down. Democrats made good on their promise to vote against a continuing resolution if Republicans didn’t extend expiring Obamacare tax credits, and funding expired. Now, both sides are digging in to play the blame game. Democrats argue that Republicans are to blame for refusing to budge on health care, while Republicans blame Democrats for refusing to provide the votes to keep the government open. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is making an unprecedented threat to not just furlough federal workers — normal for a shutdown — but lay them off outright and go...

WASHINGTON — The final order of removal against illegal immigrant and accused MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia will stand after an immigration judge rejected a motion from his attorneys to reopen the case Wednesday. DHS cheered the decision. “With today’s ruling, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s final order of removal stands. This MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, domestic abuser, and child predator will never be loose on American streets,” DHS wrote. “His lawyers tried to fight his removal from the U.S. but one thing is certain, this Salvadoran man is not going to be able to remain in our country. He...

The U.S. government has asked the Oregon federal judge presiding over National Guard case to recuse himself. Following President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Trump administration. The federal judge presiding over the case is Michael Simon, who is married to Oregon Representative Suzanne Bonamici. Bonamici is one of the members of Congress representing the City of Portland. On Saturday, Bonamici was one of the Oregon leaders who spoke out against the deployment of federal troops to Portland. The Department...

The BBC reported this evening (Thursday) that mediators Qatar and Egypt contacted the head of Hamas' military wing in Gaza, Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, who made it clear that he opposes US President Donald Trump's 21-point plan. According to the report, al-Haddad believes that the US plan is intended to bring about the end of Hamas's rule - whether the terrorist organization agrees to it or not - and therefore, from his perspective, there is no point in accepting it, and Hamas must continue fighting. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump told reporters that Hamas has three to four days to...

Explanation: Galaxies like colorful pieces of candy fill the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014. The dimmest galaxies are more than 10 billion times fainter than stars visible to the unaided eye and represent the Universe in the extreme past, a few 100 million years after the Big Bang. The image itself was made with the significant addition of ultraviolet data to the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, an update of Hubble's famous most distant gaze toward the southern constellation of Fornax. It now covers the entire range of wavelengths available to Hubble's cameras, from ultraviolet through visible to near-infrared. Ultraviolet data...

Fool's Ball, Week Five Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

The Democrats have shut down the government because they’re putting illegal immigrants ahead of American citizens.Do not listen to Chuck Schumer or any of his allies in the corporate media when they spin about this critical point. As Vice President JD Vance correctly points out: “It’s not something that we made up. It’s not a talking point. It is in the text of the bill that they initially gave to us to reopen the government.”The Dems nuked a near-term CR budget fix because they insisted on taxpayer-funded healthcare for foreign migrants who do not even belong in America, and no...

NATIONAL FRIED SCALLOPS DAY Right at the beginning of National Seafood Month, National Fried Scallops Day serves up a seafood dish enjoyed across the country. October 2nd each year brings scallop fans together to celebrate their favorite dishes. #FriedScallopsDay The word scallop refers to the common name applied to many species of marine bivalve mollusks in the family Pectinidae. Every ocean in the world provides habitat for these mollusks, too. In fact, many areas of the world prize scallops as a food source. The name scallop applies to the meat of the scallops when it is used as seafood. The...

A biologist has filed a federal lawsuit challenging her firing by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission because of a post on a personal social media account after the murder of conservative leader Charlie Kirk. Brittney Brown, who worked for the commission studying shorebirds and seabirds in the area of Tyndall Air Force Base in the Panhandle, alleges in the lawsuit that her firing on Sept. 15—five days after Kirk was shot during an appearance at a Utah university—violated her First Amendment rights.(snip) The lawsuit said Brown was fired after reposting on her Instagram account a post from an...

[Catholic Caucus] The Brew: Pope Leo Smothers Pro-Lifers in the ‘Seamless Garment.’Well, the mystery man has taken off his disguise. Like traumatized children who hope that their mama’s new boyfriend won’t beat them as much as the last one, Catholics greeted the new man called “Il Papa” with hope. And indeed Leo XIV is a big improvement in some ways over Pope Francis. Leo doesn’t seem to be a sociopath, and is probably even a theist.But as we reported yesterday, Leo’s latest public statement has given away that he embraces one of the most detestable heresies in Church history since...

The federal government shutdown that began at the stroke of midnight on October 1 wasn’t an accident, a matter of miscommunication, or the result of congressional leaders getting behind on their paperwork. Both major parties went into it with eyes open, having for their own reasons spurned the negotiations that usually head off these destructive events at the last minute. It would be naive, then, to expect the shutdown to end quickly or simply. Democrats have a fairly elaborate list of demands they want met before voting en masse to reopen the government. Republicans simply want it to reopen so...

TRUMANN, Ark. (KAIT) - Police arrested a woman after they say she tried to lure two children to the home of a registered sex offender. According to a community safety alert, Trumann police received a complaint from a resident about a suspicious incident involving her children on Sept. 30. The complainant told police that her two children were playing outside when a woman came up to them. “The female reportedly attempted to lure the children to a residence a few houses away that is occupied by a registered sex offender,” the release said. Police say the interaction was recorded by...

During an EU summit Wednesday, leaders discussed the plan, with the idea winning support from bloc heavyweights France and Germany, according to officials involved in the discussion. However Belgium, whose approval is critical because it hosts Euroclear, reiterated concerns about the plan and sought assurances that its financial interests would be protected. Earlier, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who hosted the summit, told reporters that the bloc sees financial support to Ukraine as critical. “And I think that the idea from the Commission is actually quite a good way forward,” she said. The European plan seeks to resolve several problems...