Free Republic

A federal court has decided that the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk, warrantless collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal. The decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday represents the second major court victory for opponents of the NSA, after a lower court decision called the program nearly unconstitutional six months ago. The phone records program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized,” Judge Gerard Lynch wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel. The court did not examine the constitutionality of the surveillance program.

When you recognize what, you need to ask why. It’s called situational assessment. What’s going on, and why is it going on? Like right now, in America, with the police. What’s going on, and why is it going on? What’s going on is that there is a concerted effort to defame and denounce local police. The president said this week that, across the country, men of color are treated differently, more harshly, by the police. He offered no data, no balance, no facts. Just the broadside indictment that all American cops are racists. Protest after protest, often with veteran progressive...

Are art museums welcoming enough to minorities? While it’s probably a question that never occurred to you since, if you are so inclined, you simply pay the admission and enter, it it apparently a pressing issue to some people. One of those people to whom this though has occurred is first lady Michelle Obama. At the opening of the new $420 million Whitney Museum in New York City, the first lady spoke of a “feeling of not belonging” in museums when she was a growing up on the south side of Chicago.

The Marxist-founded pressure group gears up to bring the Arab Spring to Baltimore — and the rest of America Cooling down the churning cauldron of mob violence that Baltimore has become is not on the agenda of the ACLU which is now preparing to turn up the heat in cities across America. Following the suspicious death in police custody of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man with a long rap sheet, angry mobs and radical agitators have turned Maryland’s largest city into a Hobbesian jungle. They were already angry at the endlessly sensationalized deaths in recent years of black males...

France has revealed it is considering sinking two brand new state-of-the-art warships if a deal to sell them both to Russia collapses under pressure from America and the EU. The French government is supposed to have received a payment of €1.12 billion from Moscow for the vessels, but the transfer has been postponed amid tensions over the conflict in Ukraine. With questions raised over whether the agreement will ever be rekindled, it has now been claimed that France would rather scuttle the warships rather than pay to keep them operational. As it stands France looks set to lose hundreds of...

Before professors everywhere seize upon the Baltimore riots as a “teachable moment,” we’d like to offer a few simple pieces of recent history to cogitate over. Expect your local professor to echo the president’s claim that Baltimoreans, and some out-of-towners rioted because the federal government has not dumped enough money into the Charm City. As it happens, on May 4, 2015, Elizabeth Harrigan reported in the Washington Free Beacon, “The city of Baltimore received over $1.8 billion from President Barack Obama’s stimulus law, including $467.1 million to invest in education and $26.5 million for crime prevention.” Harrigan and her peers...

On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has been pushing hard to overhaul of the country's broken campaign finance system. "We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccounted money out of it, once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment," Clinton said during one of her first official speeches in Iowa last month. Clinton's campaign finance rhetoric appears to be aimed at super-PACs, the quasi-independent organizations that bolster campaigns by buying ads. But when it comes to the major funders behind her own presidential campaign, the Democratic front-runner has yet to answer questions about how...

American Communist Party's involvement in Soviet espionage Despite the wishful caviling of a few die-hard Marxist professors, the controversy over the American Communist Party’s involvement in Soviet espionage was long ago settled beyond even an unreasonable doubt. For example, a June 7, 1999 Time Magazine review of several new books on the subject found that, “The opening of Soviet archives after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., together with the Venona decryptions…, has made it clear that the fear of Soviet espionage was neither neurotic nor hallucinatory…The Venona traffic demonstrates beyond argument that the Soviet penetration into American government, science, and...

LOS ANGELES — Three people, including one who works for California Attorney General Kamala Harris, were charged after claiming to operate a police department with jurisdiction in 33 states and Mexico and that traces its roots back 3,000 years, authorities said Wednesday. Brandon Kiel, David Henry and Tonette Hayes were taken into custody last week on suspicion of impersonating officers as members of the Masonic Fraternal Police Department, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said. Detectives believe other people may be involved in the operation, sheriff’s spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said. .... The investigation started after various police chiefs in California received...

"If absolute power corrupts absolutely," the actor Harry Shearer once asked, "does absolute powerlessness make you pure?" The answer, according to a lot of people, is yes. Upon receiving the George Polk Career Award last month, Gary Trudeau, the creator of the satirical comic strip Doonesbury, attacked the staff of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo: "By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voilà -- the 7 million copies...

Doctrine matters—it matters in life and in death. Our doctrine determines our destiny. It not only affects our view about God but our view about everything. We are doctrinal beings by nature. Everyone holds to some sort of doctrine; the question is whether or not our doctrine is biblical. Consequently, we dare not be indifferent about doctrine. Indeed, there is a reason we’ve never heard of a Christian martyr who was indifferent about doctrine. Indifference about doctrine is the mother of every heresy in all of history, and in our day indifference about doctrine is spreading like wildfire in the...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm Psalms 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.      

Cruz demands vote on amendment from Senate floor. Wants a requirement for a majority vote in Congress to approve any Iran deal, rather than a "resolution of disapproval" which can be vetoed by the President that Democrats put into bill.

While the investigation focuses on the actions of two employees, locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski, the report also concludes that Tom Brady "was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots game balls." This is a pretty damning accusation against one of the NFL's biggest stars. The league's evidence against Brady centers on three main points: 1) his reaction to the condition of game balls used in a Week 7 game against the New York Jets in October, 2) how he interacted with McNally...

Drivers who’ve had their licenses suspended could soon get a reprieve. State Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, has introduced legislation that would reduce outstanding penalties and fines for drivers with a suspended license. In addition to reducing penalties, Senate Bill 405 would provide a method for drivers with a suspended license from a nonviolent offense to regain their driving privileges. Hertzberg says that legislation is needed to help low-income residents who are caught in a Catch-22: They can’t pay their fines because they are unable to find or keep a job without a driver’s license. “We are criminalizing the poor...

Former President Bill Clinton stated that Hillary Clinton “didn’t know about a lot of” the foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation in an interview with CNN International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. Clinton said, in response to a question about whether the foundation’s foreign donations influenced Secretary Clinton’s policy, “No. She didn’t know about a lot of them. And we had a policy, when she was secretary of state that we would only continue accepting money from people that were already giving us money. And I’ve tried to re-create that policy as nearly as I can now during the campaign....

A US F-15E Strike Eagle carrying a GBU-12 and a GBU-28 bomb during a training run in Utah in 2010. (photo credit: US Air Force) Amid American efforts to allay Sunni Arab concerns over the nuclear deal with Iran, officials are reportedly considering selling Saudi Arabia bunker buster bombs, which are currently only offered to Israel. American officials said privately this week that the Obama administration is considering selling GBU-28 bunker buster bombs to the Gulf monarchy, the Washington Times reported this week. Talks for the sale are taking place in secret, since according to a 2008 congressional mandate, the...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin lawmakers advanced a set of bills Wednesday that would require food stamp users to buy healthy food and mandate drug screening for state job training program applicants and some unemployment benefit claimants. An Assembly committee on public benefit reform approved the bills almost on party lines Wednesday, with Republicans voting in favor and Democrats against. Rep. Adam Neylon, a Pewaukee Republican, also voted against the measures. The approval clears the way for the full Assembly to vote on the measures next week. But prospects for the bill that would restrict food options for food stamp...

These incredible photos show the damage caused by a bird strike to a passenger plane. The Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Nevehir in Turkey was on approach to land when it was involved in a severe hit with a unlucky bird. There were 125 passengers on board the Boeing 737-800, and there were not believed to be any injuries suffered on the landing on Tuesday.

Would endanger Middle East, America Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned a delegation of U.S. lawmakers this week that a nuclear deal with Iran “would be a historic mistake,” according to a readout of the meeting between the leaders. The lawmakers met with Netanyahu as part of congressional mission to the Middle East ahead of a June 30 deadline for Iran and Western nations to strike a final deal meant to reign in the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program. Netanyahu slammed the nuclear deal currently under consideration and said it would endanger the Middle East and America. “The Prime...