Free Republic

Mexican drug cartels continue to fascinate the minds of Americans who tend to idolize outlaw gunmen with fast cash, fancy cars, guns and women. However, few realize that Mexican drug cartels are as ruthless and sadistic as Middle Eastern terror groups like ISIS with whom they actually have many tactics in common. For most in America, the closest they have come to a drug cartel is the small-time drug peddler in the street corner, the glamorous TV shows, or the Mexican narco-ballads. However, taking a step back and looking at their entire structure, and how those drugs got from...

Hillary Clinton today defended her daughter's attacks against her Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders’ single-payer health care plan, despite criticism the remark was inaccurate. "You know, I adore my daughter and I know what she was saying," Clinton told "Good Morning America" about Chelsea Clinton. "Because if you look at Senator Sanders' proposals going back nine times in the Congress, that’s exactly what he’s proposed. To take everything we currently know as health care, Medicare, Medicaid, the CHIP Program, private insurance, now of the Affordable Care Act, and roll it together." Chelsea Clinton Tuesday joined in on her mother's jabs against...

New tracking poll information from Reuters confirms Donald Trump as the frontrunner, but also breathes new life into the Jeb Bush campaign. As on Tuesday, Jeb Bush had moved into third place nationally, with 10.6 percent support. Bush edges Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) by almost 4 points as Rubio has dropped into 5th place nationally. Since the first regular day of the New Year, January 4th, Bush has climbed more than 3 points while Rubio has lost 1 point. Donald Trump continues to lead the GOP field with 39 percent support, down slightly for the week, but still far ahead...

At an event to accept the endorsement of Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire on Sunday, Hillary Clinton called for unlimited taxpayer-funding of elective abortions for Medicaid recipients. "I believe we need to protect access to safe and legal abortion, not just in principle, but in practice. Any right that requires you to take extraordinary measures to access it is no right at all," Clinton said. "Not as long as we have laws on the book like the Hyde amendment, making it harder for low income women to exercise their full rights," -SNIP- The Hyde amendment prevents federal funding of abortion...

Republicans give different State of the Union responses in English and Spanish - with Latinos hearing about a 'legislative solution' to fix immigration Spanish speakers were treated to a slightly different Republican State of the Union response last night as Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart suggested that immigration needed a 'legislative solution.' South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's response in English lacked that line, the Miami Herald pointed out. The paper called Diaz-Balart's thoughts on the topic 'decidedly softer.' The point wouldn't be so glaring if the two speeches weren't so similar to begin with. In Haley's speech she said, 'No one who...

Humanity's burning of fossil fuels is postponing the next global ice age for at least 100,000 years, according to new research that has discovered the tipping point which plunges the planet into deep freezes. Showing that human activity, via climate change, can alter global processes like ice ages is compelling evidence that the planet has entered a new geological epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene, according to the scientists. Other recent research listed evidence from plastic pollution to the mass extinction of wildlife to show that the Earth has entered the Anthropocene. The new research also shows that a major ice age...

BREAKING: FBI on the Verge of Prosecuting Hillary – It’s Happening… It doesn’t look good at all for Hillary Clinton these days and things may be about to go nuclear on her. With Bernie Sanders tying her and in some polls beating her now, this is the last thing she needs. But oh… she’s earned it. The FBI has been looking into Hillary Clinton’s Foundation and corruption, even before the email scandal erupted. They have so much on her I have to wonder if they will actually nail her this time. I keep hoping. Some say it doesn’t matter… regardless...

As part of a recently announced legal settlement with representatives of the Muslim community, the NYPD has agreed to purge materials critical to understanding the threat to New York City from domestic Islamic terrorism. The plaintiffs in Raza v. City of New York and Handschu v. Special Services Division charged that the NYPD had targeted Muslims for surveillance solely because of their religious affiliation. Among other things the settlement stipulates that the NYPD must remove from its website a comprehensive 2007 report authored by senior analysts Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt. Radicalization in the West identified homegrown Islamic terrorism...

Sweden's prime minister has said he feels "a great anger" over reports of a string of sex assaults at a teenage music festival, widely likened to similar attacks blamed on male refugees in Germany. A 15-year-old boy has been charged with assault and sexual assault at the We Are Stockholm festival after police were accused of withholding information about a number of attacks. It has emerged that a total of 38 reports of rape and sexual assault were filed after the festival in 2014 and 2015. The prime minister, Stefan Lofven, told Swedish lawmakers on Wednesday that girls and women...

It's no secret that PC sales are shrinking, as everybody and their mothers turn to smartphones and tablets. That has led to miserable holiday PC sales, with worldwide PC shipments down 10.6% year-over-year in the final three months of 2015, research firm IDC announced on Tuesday. Sales of PCs for all of 2015 came in at the lowest level since 2008, IDC said in a press release. By the second half of 2016, IDC says, things should stabilize a little bit in the PC market: Enterprises and consumers alike will turn to Microsoft Windows 10, the latest version of the...

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama used the words of Pope Francis during his visit last fall to strengthen his call for further openness, specifically toward Muslims in the United States, and as a challenge, particularly to GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

Full title: Judicial Watch Uncovers 2004 State Department Records Confirming Arab Smuggling "Cells," Al Qaeda Leader in Mexico. For more than a decade the U.S. government has known that "Arab extremists" are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network "cells," according to State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch that reveal among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in...

The pro-Jeb Bush super PAC Vamos for Jeb 2016 is shuttering its doors. The group, which was formed by political website Elephant News founder Claire Hardwick, sent a letter to the Federal Election Commission Tuesday announcing its decision to disband. "The committee has not raised nor dispersed any funds and would like to accordingly terminate and be discontinued," wrote Andrea Wong, the treasurer for the super PAC. "Up to this point the only activity done were social media pages on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook which have been deactivated." Hardwick said that she launched the group in March with Wong, who...

3 minute video aired on Iran TV showing capture of 10 American sailors. Dramatic music plays in background during video.

One of the Discovery Channel's most successful of many forays into the Alaskan way of life has been the polarizing Alaskan Bush People, which chronicles the Brown family's desire to live off the grid. The show has a huge following and scored big ratings for the cable network. The family has drawn its share of controversy over its run on TV also. Now, after news surfaced a couple years ago that some family members were indicted on fraud charges when applying for Alaska's oil fund payments, two of the Browns face some jail time. The oil wealth fund, established in...

If you went and bought a smartwatch in the last year, there's a really good chance it was an Apple Watch.In all there were 17.1 million smartwatches shipped globally in 2015, according to new data out from Juniper Research on Tuesday. More than 50 percent of those shipments were Apple Watches, or roughly 8.9 million in all. That's even more impressive when you realize that the device was only released at the end of April. Android Wear shipments, on the other hand, made up less than 10 percent of sales for the year.The dominance of Apple surely has something to...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday he doesn't need the kind of boots his Republican primary challenger Marco Rubio is wearing. -snip- "I've got my cowboy boots on, big Joe," Bush responded. "Do they make you three inches taller or are they just normal cowboy boots," Scarborough asked the 6'3" former governor. Some have argued that Rubio's boots were a ploy for the 5'10" senator to get a leg up. "I don't have a height issue," Bush replied.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic challenger Russ Feingold agree on very little. But one thing is likely to be true of both by the time their rematch race reaches its election day finish in November: Neither guy is going to be very popular with voters. "Historically, rematches between candidates are often pretty negative affairs," said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School poll. The Johnson-Feingold race is shaping up as one of the more important Senate contests in the country and outside groups are already spending millions of dollars on the campaign. What does that mean? Expect...

Iran has released 10 US sailors after holding them overnight, bringing a swift end to an incident that had rattled nerves days ahead of the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had freed the sailors on Wednesday after determining they had entered Iranian territorial waters by mistake. The sailors had been detained aboard two US Navy patrol boats in the Gulf on Tuesday. "Our technical investigations showed the two US Navy boats entered Iranian territorial waters inadvertently," the IRGC said in a statement carried by state...