Free Republic

Exactly half a century ago - July 29th 1967 - this song hit Number One on the Billboard Hot One Hundred. This essay is adapted from Mark's book A Song For The Season: It was 50 years ago today-ish that Sgt Pepper was going on about how it was 20 years ago today. That's to say, the "Summer of Love" is half a century old: It's longer ago today than the summer of flappers and charlestons and bootleg gin was back in 1967. But, boomers being the most self-absorbed generation in history, we're going to be living with boomer pop...

"It might have been" are not always the saddest words. Sometimes, they're the most horrifying. Hillary Clinton in September will come out with a new book called "What Happened," about her loss to Donald Trump. That got me thinking: What would have happened had she won? For instance, what if Clinton became president, Chuck Schumer assumed leadership of the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi once again wielded a gavel in the House of Representatives? Sooner than you can say "political payback to Planned Parenthood," the United States would have had taxpayer-funded abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy. Don't...

PHOENIX - Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt of court by a judge on Monday. The criminal charges stem from the profiling case that Arpaio lost three years ago that morphed into a contempt case after the sheriff was accused of defying a 2011 court order to stop his signature immigration patrols. Arpaio has acknowledged violating U.S. District Judge Murray Snow's order but insists his disobedience was not intentional. Snow disagreed, concluding Arpaio knowingly continued the patrols because he believed his immigration enforcement efforts would help his 2012 re-election campaign.

Thousands of undocumented immigrants in Merced County don’t have health coverage, but advocates supporting the #Health4All campaign say there are ways Merced County could help that could possibly benefit everyone. This week, Building Healthy Communities Merced, or BHC, a nonprofit group funded by the California Endowment, released a report outlining ways the county could potentially provide services for undocumented immigrants. BHS has estimated there are about 25,000 undocumented residents living in Merced County. Last year in California, undocumented children under age 19 became eligible for full-scope health benefits under Medi-Cal, that was able to give thousands of children insurance. Elizabeth...

<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Republican U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, a crusader against illegal immigration, is telling GOP officials and activists that he's decided to run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Bob Casey.</p> <p>A person familiar with the discussions tells The Associated Press that Barletta began telling party officials of his decision last week. The person spoke on condition of anonymity Monday because Barletta has not yet made his plans public.</p>

RUSH: I want to start with a couple of stories that may not move mountains in the daily perusal of the news. The first one here in the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Companies Post Profit Growth Not Seen in Six Years.” Now, the reason I want to focus on this, folks, is because if you pay attention to the news, which I have often advised and suggested you not, then you would be forgiven for concluding the country is falling apart. You would seem to be perfectly logical if, after a daily diet of news, you think everything is coming...

National security adviser H.R. McMaster continues to purge conservatives from the ranks of the National Security Council.On Thursday, McMaster fired Col. Derek Harvey, a renowned Middle East expert who served under Gen. David Petraeus. Neither the White House nor the National Security Council gave a reason for Harvey’s firing.Harvey is recognized in national security circles as a brilliant Middle East strategist. The Weekly Standard (which first reported Harvey’s firing) describes him as an “out-of-the-box thinker who has shown a keen knack for identifying threats before they’ve matured.” The report then cites a passage from Bob Woodward’s 2008 book “The War...

Derek Harvey, a top adviser on the Middle East to President Donald Trump, was fired from the National Security Council on Thursday. Harvey's departure comes amid speculation about major shake-ups at the White House, the Weekly Standard reports. These shake-ups include possible conflicts between Trump and both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Two sources told the Standard that Harvey's departure was not a direct product of staff fighting, but that several top administration members saw Harvey as too close to White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon. Harvey was apparently a strong advocate of Trump's decision...

What Happens When an Imam Calls for Killing Jews How the Left covered up Muslim anti-Semitism in California. July 31, 2017 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. On Friday July 21st, Imam Ammar Shahin delivered a sermon at the Islamic Center of Davis calling for the extermination of the Jews. He quoted an infamous Islamic Hadith which claims that Judgement Day won’t come around until the Muslims hunt down and exterminate the Jews. “Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from...

It’s high time for the international community to wake up to certain Palestinian realities that many would rather avoid. Recent events in the region — including the brutal killing of two Israeli policemen and three members of an Israeli family — as well as the wild conspiracy stories circulated in regard to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, only underscore the point. By the way, for the purpose of context, I write as the representative of an organization, the AJC, that has long been committed to the search for an enduring two-state agreement, coexistence between Muslims and Jews and friendly ties...

Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics after reaching a deal with Olympic organizers, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, citing an unnamed source close to the negotiation. The agreement also paves the way for the 2024 Summer Games to be awarded to Paris. An announcement from the International Olympic Committee was expected later on Monday. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's office said he and other proponents of the city's bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games would make an announcement to the news media at 5 p.m. PDT (0000...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has brought in nearly $26 million for the Democratic Party so far this year, according to a report. The majority of the $25.9 million Pelosi raised will go to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which will lead the Democrats' efforts to regain control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. This year, the minority leader has sent the DCCC $24.7 million, which is $10 million more than Pelosi raised for the committee in the same period two years ago, according to the Washington Post. Pelosi raised millions through three "Speakers Cabinet" VIP events...

oday, Monday 31 July 2017, WikiLeaks publishes a searchable archive of 21,075 unique verified emails associated with the French presidential campaign of Emmanual Macron. The emails range from 20 March 2009 to 24 April 2017. The 21,075 emails have been individually forensically verified by WikiLeaks through its DKIM system. The full archive of 71,848 emails with 26,506 attachments from 4,493 unique senders is provided for context. WikiLeaks only certifies as verified the 21,075 emails marked with its green "DKIM verified" banner however based on statistical sampling the overwheling majority of the rest of the emails archive are authentic. As the...

Police warn of spiraling vigilantism, parallel Islamic legal system Muslim vigilantes enforcing Islamic justice have become increasingly common in Germany. The government's inability or unwillingness to stop them has led to the rise of anti-Muslim counter-vigilantes. Germany's BfV intelligence agency, in its latest annual report, warned that an escalating action-reaction cycle could result in open warfare on German streets. The self-appointed "Sharia Police" urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to attend mosques and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, music, pornography and prostitution. In November 2016, the Wuppertal District Court ruled that the Islamists did not break German law...

Imran Awan, a congressional aide arrested by the FBI after wiring $300,000 to Pakistan and misrepresenting the purpose, had previously wired money to the country and was frantically liquidating multiple real estate properties on the day he was arrested, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned. Imran's real estate properties provide a source of money that could be sent directly to Pakistan when two upcoming home sales close. Prosecutors have since filed paperwork saying they fear "the dissipation of the proceeds of the fraud and destruction of evidence in other locations." [Snip] Authorities released him with a GPS...

President Trump took to Twitter Monday to ask why insurance companies and Congress are not being hurt by the failings of Obamacare just as the American people are being hit. Trump started the day by noting that the unpopular healthcare law is “hurting people” and asked why it isn’t also hurting insurance companies, and also why Congress is exempt. Trump had previously threatened to end what he called “bailouts” for insurance companies and Congress after the failing of the GOP-led Senate to pass either a healthcare reform bill, a flat-out Obamacare repeal, or a so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare. The...

By now, Donald Trump was supposed to be selling herbal Viagra and 1,000-count packages of Trump Ice to reactionary survivalists over Facebook Live; Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to be resigning from the leadership of the (moribund) Labour Party to spend more time with his sewer grates; and Bernie Sanders was supposed to be ruing the fact that, in America, “democratic socialist” is a synonym for “politically irrelevant.” Alas, the pundits supposed wrong. The Republican Party nominated a xenophobic insult-comic — who had campaigned in support of political violence, religious discrimination, and mass-murdering Muslim prisoners of war with bullets dripped in...

Even if humans could instantly turn off all emissions of greenhouse gases, Earth would continue to heat up about two more degrees Fahrenheit by the turn of the century, according to a sophisticated new analysis published today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The new assessment, co-authored by Pincus and Thorsten Mauritsen of the Max Wanker Institute for Meteorology, is unique in that it does not rely on computer model simulations, but rather on observations of the climate system to calculate Earth’s climate commitment. Their work accounts for the capacity of oceans to absorb carbon, detailed data on the planet’s...

ROME, July 26, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Sources inside the Vatican suggest that Pope Francis aims to end Pope Benedict XVI’s universal permission for priests to say the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), also known as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. While the course of action would be in tune with Pope Francis’ repeatedly expressed disdain for the TLM especially among young people, there has been no open discussion of it to date. Sources in Rome told LifeSite last week that liberal prelates inside the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith were overheard discussing a plan ascribed to the Pope to...

New research suggests the chance of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius is highly unlikely. According to the latest analysis, there is a 90 percent chance Earth will warm by 2.0 to 4.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The researchers analyzed the trajectory and impact on global warming of three factors: total world population, GDP per person and carbon intensity, or carbon emitted per dollar of economic activity. To postulate forward, scientists analyzed the three inputs' effect on global warming over the last 50 years. Their analysis -- published this week in the journal...