Free Republic

2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has accused President Donald Trump of pretending to have an injury so he could avoid serving in the Vietnam War.Buttigieg claimed that Trump 'manipulated' the system to get a diagnosis allowing him to avoid the draft.“I have a pretty dim view of his decision to use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in Vietnam,” Mr. Buttigieg said at a Washington Post event.

A former top lawyer for the FBI described to lawmakers the “unusual” way the surveillance request targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page was handled by top leadership at the Justice Department and FBI, according to a transcript released this week. In front of a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Aug. 31, 2018, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson said she was normally responsible for signing off on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications before they reached the desk of her superiors for approval. Anderson said the “linear path” those applications typically take was upended...

Elon Musk’s space venture last year discovered that an employee at one of its contractors falsified product-quality reports for components intended for its rockets, generating concerns among officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to federal investigators. The complaint, filed in federal court on Tuesday, accuses engineer James Smalley with falsifying reports and parts certifications at his former company, PMI Industries LLC. Rochester, N.Y.-based PMI Industries provided precision machining services for parts used to build space flight vehicles for Mr. Musk’s closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. NASA, the Air Force and other federal agencies have...

One evening earlier this year, an old friend and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton sat down with the former president for dinner at a quiet Manhattan restaurant. Bill, the friend says, looked thinner and more tired than he had in some time. He is 72 now, 15 years on from open-heart surgery and the complications that arose from it. He was, the friend says, a “bit sad, and more than a bit angry.”The 2020 race for the White House was underway, and not many of the ever-expanding field of Democratic contenders had phoned him or come calling to discuss...

Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters believe the FBI knew a controversial dossier was unreliable when they used it to obtain a search warrant against President Trump’s 2016 campaign. A ScottRasmussen.com national survey found that skepticism is shared by 86% of Republicans, 64% of Independents, and 47% of Democrats (see crosstab results). Forty-nine percent (49%) favor having the Department of Justice investigate whether the FBI illegally spied on the Trump campaign. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are opposed and 22% are not sure. Support for an investigation comes from 64% of Republicans, 52% of Independents, and 34% of Democrats. Just 34% of voters...

A GLAAD survey of 110 major studio films released in 2018 indicated that the overall number of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer characters increased by 5.4 percent. Compared with the wide range of diverse characters represented in mainstream television and independent film, studio pictures are failing to depict those whose sexual preferences or gender identity offers something different to the standard state of affairs. In a new survey of 110 films released by major studios in 2018, the advocacy group GLAAD reports that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer characters appeared in only 20 films — just 18.2 percent...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday agreed to an accelerated schedule for the next round of legal battles between the House Oversight and Reform Committee and President Trump over obtaining the president's financial records. A three-judge panel on the appeals court will hear oral arguments on July 12 to determine whether the accounting firm Mazars can hand over Trump's financial records to House Democrats. The court also set a series of deadlines spanning June and July for parties to submit filings arguing their positions in the case. The order comes one day after lawyers for Trump and House...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was adamant that Democrats remain uninterested in pursuing impeachment, despite what she called President Trump's "irresponsible behavior" at the White House on Wednesday, when he dismissed claims of a "cover-up" in a 12-minute long tirade against Democrats in the Rose Garden. At her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Pelosi claimed the president is "crying out for impeachment" as Democrats continue to press ahead with numerous investigations into the Trump administration. Pelosi told reporters, however, that any suggestion that Democrats are planning to pursue impeachment "simply isn't the truth." "Impeachment is a very divisive...

No, you didn’t read the headline incorrectly. We really believe that President Donald J. Trump, who has been accused of everything from being a Manchurian candidate for Russia, a traitor, a theft, a crook, a liar, and an obstructor of justice, will go down in history as one of the most, if not the most, honest president we’ve ever had. As this column goes online, the president continues to be hampered in his ability to perform his constitutional duties as head of the Executive Branch by a Democratic Party that, quite frankly, is being run by people who hate our...

Congresswoman Mad Maxine Waters has already obtained President Trump’s financial documents from Wells Fargo and TD Bank. NBC News reported that two out of nine financial institutions have already complied with subpoenas issued by the House Financial Services and handed over thousands of documents to the Committee.

SHAMEFUL: Nancy Pelosi Calls for Trump Family Intervention During Weekly Presser Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stumbled her way through another press conference Thursday, this time calling for the Trump family to hold an intervention with President Donald J. Trump. “But the president again stormed out, I think, um, first, pound the table, walk out the door,” she said. “Next time have the TV cameras in there while I have my say. That didn’t work for him either. Now, this time, another temper tantrum, again. I pray for the president of the United States. I wish his family...

Michael Avenatti is back in business, not practicing law of course, but wooing the press, now that he's been charged with multiple felonies for defrauding clients, running out on his tax tab, and attempting to shake down a major corporation for a big dollar payout. He's got a big spread in Vanity Fair, comparing himself to Icarus, the classic figure of Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun and fell into the sea, tragic, as in all tragedy, only because he was once great. No not exactly. Who's he blaming for this comeuppance? Not himself, of course. According...

Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei has moved to quell a rising tide of nationalistic fervour in China against US firms, including Google and Intel, following last week’s blacklisting of the world’s No 2 smartphone maker by the Trump administration. Speaking to mainland media outlets on Tuesday, Ren cautioned Chinese media and consumers against equating buying decisions with patriotism and called for an end to criticism of US corporations. In a global setback for Huawei’s 5G technology, US President Donald Trump also signed an executive order barring US companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk...

Sister Inés Nieves Sancho a sewing teacher, the nun that was decapitated. Image: elespanol.com Tuesday’s slaughter took place after an armed group called 3R attacked two villages in the Central African Republic. At least 26 people have been killed, and many more wounded, in a massacre representing one of the biggest single losses of life in the Central African Republic (CAR) since a February peace deal. The UN’s peacekeeping mission in CAR (Minusca) reported on Wednesday that Tuesday’s slaughter took place after an armed group called 3R attacked two villages Koundjili and Djoumjoum, in the north-west of the country. The...

WEBBERS FALLS, Okla. -- Two barges that broke free along the Arkansas River have struck the dam near Webbers Falls. On Wednesday afternoon, emergency management officials in eastern Oklahoma asked residents to completely evacuate the town due to dangers associated with flooding. "Residents in the Town of Webbers Falls need to evacuate immediately. This is a life threatening situation. If you choose to stay you are doing so at your own risk," officials wrote on Facebook. The situation became even worse when authorities learned that the flooding caused two barges on the Arkansas River to become unsecured. Officials became worried...

Presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway accused Nancy Pelosi of treating her like her "maid," as she fired back at the House speaker Thursday following a tense encounter at the White House. The counselor to President Trump gave her side of the story on Fox News' "America's Newsroom," after it emerged that Pelosi brushed her off a day earlier by saying she wouldn't talk to "staff." The clash happened after Trump cut short a meeting with Democratic leaders on infrastructure amid complaints about their investigations into him. Conway told Fox News that Pelosi proceeded to give an “odd” history of infrastructure in...

According to statistics in the incident reports, since March of this year, 747 trains have been either delayed or cancelled as a result of service disruptions caused by the same pattern of behavior. His strategy, such as it is, seems to be to ride on the back of an uptown train, most commonly the 2 or the 5, to a major express stop. He will then pull the emergency brakes, maneuver via the track and across the platform to a train headed in the opposite direction, and do it all over again, plugging both directions of service within minutes. jumped...

Congress has reached a last-minute deal to provide $19.1 billion in emergency aid funding for a series of natural disasters after President Donald Trump dropped his demand that border wall funding be included. The bill will provide aid to communities across America hit by hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters over the past three years, including Puerto Rico. The package was held up for months as Trump objected to aid money to help Puerto Rico recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017. Trump has repeatedly lied about how much disaster money the island has received. The...

As the city of Beverly Hills gets ready to pass perhaps the toughest law on tobacco sales in the country, local elites have lobbied to exempt their swanky and exclusive cigar lounges. Among them are a cardiac surgeon, a rabbi and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they may have smoked their way past the pending law, according to the Los Angeles TImes. Once passed, as expected, the city would terminate the sale of any tobacco products — with the exception of three cigar lounges, where those products could be bought and smoked on those premises. The law would prohibit...

Democratic presidential contender Julian Castro joined a march to a McDonald’s restaurant in North Carolina on Thursday to draw attention to workers’ efforts to raise the minimum wage and secure other protections. Nearly all the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for the idea that the federal minimum wage should be more than doubled, to $15 an hour, and several were joining actions around the country Thursday. The McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting is also Thursday in Dallas. Striking cooks and cashiers planned to travel to the shareholder meeting, where they’ll attend a video town hall hosted by Sen. Bernie...