Free Republic

Sending Italian naval units to help Libya's coast guard could prove to be a "turning point" in efforts to stop traffickers from sending hundreds of thousands of migrants toward Italy's southern shores, Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday. With the foundering of a European Union plan to redistribute thousands of migrants rescued at sea and brought to Italy, Gentiloni said his center-left government would brief lawmakers next week about Libya's request for Italian navy vessels to patrol its Mediterranean shores. Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, who leads a U.N.-backed unity government based in Tripoli, met in Rome with the Italian leader...

The final indignity: Priebus is abandoned by White House staffers who make hasty exit from his SUV when Trump tweets from Air Force One that he is out of a job Former official Reince Priebus was publicly kicked out of the presidential motorcade on Friday afternoon Trump announced via Twitter that Priebus was being replaced as his chief of staff by John Kelly While Trump was tweeting, other White House officials were seen making a hasty exit from Priebus' vehicle After being isolated, Priebus was driven away from the tarmac alone while Trump continued to tweet The president had waited...

Forty-five senators, including one Republican, are urging Defense Secretary James Mattis to advise President Trump against implementing a ban on transgender troops he announced this week on Twitter. “We strongly oppose this policy change and urge you to advise the president against it,” the senators wrote in a letter to Mattis on Friday. “This announcement contradicts existing Defense Department policies, undermines our military readiness and puts our transgender service members as well as their commanders in an impossible situation.” The letter was organized by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who has promised to introduce legislation blocking the president from implementing the...

This week, Imran Awan, one of a trio of brothers hired by the Democratic National Committee to handle the computers and other devices used by key Democrats on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was arrested trying to flee the country. News of the arrest prompted former DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Fla) to fire Awan, but she warned investigators there would be "consequences" if the laptop seized from him by police was not promptly returned to her. "The lap top is mine. I am a member of congress. I have immunity from...

Cruise ship security personnel who found a man in his cabin near his wife's bloodied body said he told witnesses, "She would not stop laughing at me," court documents reveal. A federal criminal complaint released Thursday charges Kenneth Manzanares with murder in the killing aboard the Emerald Princess in U.S. waters off Alaska Tuesday night. Princess Cruises says Kristy Manzanares, a 39-year-old Utah woman, died in the attack that's believed to have resulted from a domestic dispute. ... Kristy Manzanares was found in the cabin dead with a severe head wound, and "blood was spread throughout the room on multiple...

Holy cartoon cash, Batman! The Charleston County Sheriff's Office is auctioning off more than 400 comic books seized in a drug investigation. "It’s entirely possible there may be some treasures in there, and the hunt could be fun," said Mike Campbell, owner of Captain's Comics & Toys in West Ashley. The online auction, on govdeals.com, runs until Tuesday morning and already has attracted nearly two dozen bids. Campbell is not among the bidders. He said it sounds like most of the titles are from the 1990s and "most likely, fun books worth $1 to $5." He said the 1990s were...

Donald Trump has finally returned the U.S. military to sound service policy when it comes to the gender-confused. For nearly the whole history of the U.S. military, and for almost as long as the idea of a “transgendered” person has existed, and for reasons that sounded-minded people have long understood and accepted, individuals who imagined themselves “trapped in the wrong body” (or some version of such perversion) have been barred from serving in any branch of the U.S. armed forces. The only thing that should be up for debate here is why this took so long. Perhaps it was just...

For Republicans and our country, turnabout is not fair play. Senator John McCain waited two years to get his revenge against Donald Trump for saying that McCain is not a war hero. But with a giant middle finger — or more precisely a thumb — McCain, perhaps assuming that he’ll never run for election again, showed Donald Trump that repealing and replacing Obamacare would not be the “so easy” venture that the great “deal-maker” promised. I understand that these two men don’t like each other. I understand that revenge is a dish best served cold. But by looking to hurt...

If you want to drain a swamp, you don't hire someone who once flew over a swamp and wants to be an alligator. You hire someone who has experience draining swamps, can deal with the regulatory agencies and can hire a competent contractor to do the necessary construction work. If your company is struggling with internal management issues, you don't hire individuals who kiss up and kick down. You don't hire someone who on day one threatens to fire every employee in the building. If you want to protect the castle, you don't hire three individuals to coordinate and...

A Thursday report in Circa cites three officials claiming that FBI General Counsel James A. Baker is the “top suspect” in an investigation into leaks of classified Department of Justice information to the media. The report claims the investigation is “criminal” in nature. It is unclear exactly what information Baker is suspected of leaking and to which new outlets he did so. Baker is reportedly a “close ally” of ousted FBI Director James Comey, who, in 2014, appointed him to his current post as the top attorney representing the bureau. According to a June report in Vox, Baker was...

There’s more than bank fraud going on here. In Washington, it’s never about what they tell you it’s about. So take this to the bank: The case of Imran Awan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s mysterious Pakistani IT guy, is not about bank fraud. Yet bank fraud was the stated charge on which Awan was arrested at Dulles Airport this week, just as he was trying to flee the United States for Pakistan, via Qatar. That is the same route taken by Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi, in March, when she suddenly fled the country, with three young daughters she yanked out of...

Wolf Blizer admits CNN needs better sources, and lectures reporter Gloria Borger because her anonymous sources keep getting everything wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqLU9FUXNZQ  

Cicero cop shooting tied to gun Chicago P.D. should have destroyed The Watchdogs 07/28/2017, 12:31pm This is the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, serial number J515268, that Cook County Judge William Stewart Boyd turned in to the Chicago Police Department to be destroyed. Instead, years later, it ended up at the scene of a police shooting in Cicero involving a cop with a troubled disciplinary record. | Court files Casey Toner | Better Government Association Sign-Up for our News & Politics Newsletter Sign-Up Thirteen years ago, William Stewart Boyd, a Cook County judge, drove to a South Side church to...

To assist me at the event, I hired a temporary worker. I’ll call her Jane. She was a typical progressive who had moved to Portland from another state. But Jane, who is white, complained the city was a little too “white bread” for her, and she longed for a place with more racial diversity. Needless to say, the crowds attending this event were ethnically diverse. But as the days went by, I noticed something interesting. Whenever any African-Americans entered the booth to look at my products, I treated them like any other visitors (polite, friendly, professional). But Jane would go...

US Army Seeks Internet-of-Battlefield-Things, Distributed Bot Swarms After nearly two decades of war against technologically unsophisticated foes, the Army Research Lab is reorienting to counter China and Russia. The Army Research Lab is turning more of its attention to fighting land wars against far more technologically sophisticated adversaries than it has in the past several decades. In the coming months, the Lab will fund new programs related to highly (but not fully) autonomous drones and robots that can withstand adversary electronic warfare operations. The Lab will also fund new efforts to develop battlefield communications and sensing networks that perform well...

In self-reliant/conservative media circles, we know that Rush is the king of Radio monologues and Hannity owns Television interviews.  But now there’s a fast-growing new guy on the block who I think is the odds-on favorite to lead the Internet TV and podcast expert dialogue format. His name is Bill Mitchell, and the political operatives he’s in on-line conversation with (one-hour shows Monday-to Saturday) are the sharpest minds in the political business – and that fits quite well with the content FReepers love. It’s no surprise that the Left-leaning Wikipedia has ignored Bill Mitchell altogether.  For the longest time,...

“The present is getting better. The future, not at all.” So begins a recent New York Times article about a Pew study that shows the public adopting a rather dim outlook. “Even as more Americans say the economy is improving, a clear majority remain fearful about their children’s financial prospects,” it continues. The Pew study isn’t exactly bucking a trend, though. Other surveys indicate a similar level of pessimism, and not just about the economy. You have to wonder what happened to the optimism that once helped define the United States. We were settled, after all, by the ultimate optimists....

Fox News co-host Dana Perino on Friday night suggested former Homeland Security head John Kelly was named new White House chief of staff to clear a path for President Trump to remove Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has been in disfavor with President Trump for some time, with the president's criticism rapidly escalating over the past week. “I think that this was all set up for a few weeks because the president has been so upset about Jeff Sessions and his recusal in the Russia investigation,” Perino suggested on her show "The Five." Perino added that removing Sessions from his...

U.S. coal exports have jumped more than 60 percent this year due to soaring demand from Europe and Asia, according to a Reuters review of government data, allowing President Donald Trump’s administration to claim that efforts to revive the battered industry are working. The increased shipments came as the European Union and other U.S. allies heaped criticism on the Trump administration for its rejection of the Paris Climate Accord, a deal agreed by nearly 200 countries to cut carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal.

The closest thing to earthly eternal life, President Ronald Reagan used to say, is a government program. Those who benefit from a program actively and vocally defend it, often giving millions in campaign cash to politicians who help perpetuate it, while those who oppose the program or are harmed by it are usually disorganized and distracted by daily life. Legislative inertia and obstruction of the kind so graphically on display in the Senate over the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) also help to perpetuate program life. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), created under the 2005 Energy Policy Act and expanded by...