Free Republic

Senate PASSES resolution to terminate President Trump's emergency declaration at the border, 59-41, sending it to Trump's desk for him to veto (as he has threatened to do). 12 GOP YES VOTES: Alexander Blunt Collins Lee Moran Murkowski Paul Portman Romney Rubio Toomey Wicker

Jussie Smollett told Chicago police he had fought off a pair of attackers who targeted him in an apparent hate crime, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx tried to persuade Police Supt. Eddie Johnson to turn the investigation over to the FBI. Foxx’s call came after an influential supporter of the “Empire” actor reached out to Foxx personally: Tina Tchen, a Chicago attorney and former chief of staff for Michelle Obama, according to emails and text messages provided to the Chicago Sun-Times in response to a public records request. Tchen passed Foxx’s number to a relative of the actor, and...

Dear Fr. _______, I find the re-theming of Lent by Climate Crisis this year-- apparently a "wholesale" international push (Global Catholic Climate Movement, Catholic Climate Covenant, etc. etc.) with local "retail" distributors --- deeply misplaced. It's hard for me to know how to express this. Getting a reasonable and godly perspective is a struggle, but let me give you my best. I write as a spokes-person (ha) for my little circle of Church Ladies at this point. Several -- I won't name names -- have started this conversation with me, and what we all agree on is this: Nobody here...

The trains will stop at three stations inside the terminal loop and three outside that includes a Metro station, stitching public transit with air travel. Officials are hoping the new transportation system will reduce congestion in and around the airport, which was recently named the fourth busiest in the world. The project will cost $5.5 billion and will be paid for with both private and public funds. It’s also expected to bring 2,000 jobs to the area. The people mover is scheduled to be completed in 2023.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) couldn’t name a single congressional accomplishment for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) during her weekly press conference on Thursday. A reporter asked Pelosi what she believed O’Rourke’s signature accomplishment was when he served as a member of the House. “Beto brought a bit of vitality to Congress,” Pelosi said. “When he came, he came as a real champion of the environment, he got a great deal of support from the environmental community in his district. He won in a primary on that subject.” “Also he’s a member of the Armed Service Committee, a strong member of...

Man charged over bow and arrow attack in Australia; victim’s iPhone saves him from potentially lethal injury “Officers from Richmond Police District were called to a residential address in Nimbin, northern New South Wales on Wednesday, where a 43-year-old man said he had been the victim of a bow and arrow attack,” News.co.au reports. “At about 9am, the victim drove into his driveway on Nimbin Road and got out of his car. He said he noticed another man, who is known to him, standing outside his property allegedly armed with a bow and arrow.” “The resident held up his mobile...

A growing number of Senate Republicans have announced they will stand with the Democrats in opposition to President Trump’s national emergency declaration. The latest to betray the American people is Sen. Mitt Romney. “This is not a vote against border security. In fact, I agree that a physical barrier is urgently needed to help ease the humanitarian crisis at the southern border, and the administration already has $4.5 billion available within existing authority to fund a barrier – even without an emergency declaration,” he said. The senator is foolish. Today’s vote is indeed a vote against border security. Here’s the...

GREENSBURG, Pa. - The family of a Greensburg woman shot and killed by police on Wednesday said they hold no ill will toward the officer who shot her. According to police, Nina Adams was on the front porch of a home on Harvey Avenue firing a gun down the street toward a building. Channel 11's Courtney Brennan spoke with Adams' family Thursday. They said she suffered from schizophrenia and could be violent.

Facebook users around the world reported issues logging into and posting on the site as well as on Instagram and WhatsApp thoughout the day on Wednesday. The outages lasted about a full day, and was Facebook’s longest downtime ever. In a statement posted to Twitter Thursday, the company blamed a “server configuration change” for the outages. The company said its services were coming back online. “Yesterday, as a result of a server configuration change, many people had trouble accessing our apps and services,” the statement said. “We’ve now resolved the issues and our systems are recovering. We’re very sorry for...

The infamous 2016 "Tarmac Meeting," between former President Bill Clinton and Obama's Attorney General Loretta Lynch, has come back under the spotlight following revelations in ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page's bombshell testimony that emerged this week.The off-the-record meeting, that took place on an airport runway in Arizona aboard Lynch's private plane, has been shrouded in suspicion ever since it was exposed by a local news reporter from ABC News affiliate KNXV-TV, at the time.

An immigration enforcement advocacy organization finds it difficult to understand why the citizens of California continue to elect politicians who protect illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes like murder. Authorities in Northern California are criticizing "sanctuary" policies they say prevented federal authorities from detaining a gang member in the country illegally before he allegedly killed a woman inside her home. An Associated Press report quotes the chief of police in San Jose saying Carlos Eduardo Arevalo Carranza stalked Bambi Larson's neighborhood before allegedly beating and stabbing her to death. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had previously asked to take custody of...

Turns out Congressmen make a lot of money... A study found that while the average American’s net worth increased 3.7% per year between 2004-2012, members of Congress averaged 15.4% annual gains. That high level of pay means half the members of Congress are millionaires today… and continue to collect their $174,000 annual salary. Of course it’s you, the taxpayer, paying that cushy salary. But did you know the taxpayer also foots the bill for insane retirement benefits for Congress? Each retired member can start collecting a pension at age 62 if they’ve spent just five years in Congress. And they’ll...

Lindsay Lohan is sure the big bad Russians hacked Facebook and Instagram, which were both down for a while beginning Wednesday. So what’s the best way to battle them? Curse in their native language, of course, under a tweet by RT. “Not when russia hacks you. it is not funny kids. this is the real world (sic.),” the ‘Mean Girls’ actress wrote in a comment to a lighthearted gif posted by RT on Twitter during the worst outage Facebook has suffered in a decade. Lohan followed up her bizarre tirade by commenting on another RT tweet on the social media...

HARTFORD, Conn. — Gun maker Remington can be sued over how it marketed the Bushmaster rifle used to kill 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, a divided Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Justices issued a 4-3 decision that reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit and overturned a lower court ruling that the lawsuit was prohibited by a 2005 federal law that shields gun manufacturers from liability in most cases when their products are used in crimes. The plaintiffs include a survivor and relatives of nine people killed in the massacre. They argue the AR-15-style rifle...

After being contacted by a Chicago attorney who served as former first lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, the top prosecutor in Cook County asked the city’s top cop to turn over the Jussie Smollett probe to the FBI, according to reports. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx reached out to Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson after Tina Tchen, the former senior Obama official, emailed the prosecutor saying the “Empire” actor’s family had “concerns” about the probe, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Tchen passed Foxx’s number to a family member of Smollett, and the ensuing conversations with the relative were later cited...

California is free of drought and only a small amount of territory remains in the lesser condition of abnormal dryness after a very wet winter. The state has been mired in drought since Dec. 20, 2011, according to the National Weather Service. “Until this week some part of the state had seen some form of drought for 376 consecutive weeks,” the weather service tweeted. The U.S. Drought Monitor says Thursday that more than 93 percent of the state is free of drought or dryness. Tiny areas of abnormal dryness along the Oregon border and in parts of four southern counties...

Hollywood celebrities are constantly lecturing the rest of America on how to live, what to eat and who to vote for. They're better than you and me. But now and then things go wrong. Like yesterday: This doesn't happen every day: Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and Loughlin's fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, were arrested Tuesday and charged with paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to cheat their daughters into college.The three were charged along with nearly 50 other people in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and insiders at college testing centers to...

When visiting Khurrum Wahid’s Facebook page, you see photos of what appears to be a clean-cut politician attending different events, posing with important politicos, standing with young people, and smiling broadly for the camera. Wahid is running for the position of City Commissioner of Coral Springs, Florida, and his Facebook page has been manufactured to show the perfect candidate for the public’s view. What is hidden behind this façade, though, is Wahid’s history – and present – of his involvement in radical Islam. It is this other side of Wahid that the voters need to recognize, so that they do...

Police in Arizona said an 18-year-old woman admitted to slashing the tire of a random SUV because she saw one of President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats inside, The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday. Phoenix Police Department spokesman Sgt. Vincent Lewis said the woman admitted to slashing the tire “because she saw a hat with a political message inside the vehicle which she disagreed with.” The car belonged to Nick Dugas, a retail security manager, who noticed something didn’t seem right after leaving the parking lot of Paradise Vally Mall. He discovered a slash in his tire and turned back...

The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday said a lawsuit challenging how Remington marketed the rifle used in the December 2012 Newtown school shooting can proceed, overturning a lower court’s outright dismissal of the case. In a 4-3 opinion, the court narrowly ruled that families of victims of the Newtown school shooting can challenge whether Remington violated trade practices in how it marketed the AR-15-style rifle used in the shooting. “The regulation of advertising that threatens the public’s health, safety, and morals has long been considered a core exercise of the states’ police powers,” Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the majority....