Free Republic

Attorney General William Barr said he does not think some Obama-era Justice Department officials who oversaw the Russia investigation committed treason. "Not as a legal matter, no," Barr told CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford when asked if he believed senior officials in the Obama administration committed treason, an accusation Mr. Trump has repeatedly made. Pressed on whether he had concerns about the way these officials conducted the investigation into Russian interference in U.S. elections and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the attorney general replied, "Yes." "Sometimes people can convince themselves that what they're doing is...

According to a new study, there are now just as many practicing Muslims among the 18 to 29-year-old demographic as there are practicing Roman Catholics in France. In 2018, around 32 percent of French people identified as members of the Roman Catholic church. However, of those people, 19 percent stated that they don’t practice while seven percent said that they attend mass just once a month, the French political magazine Le Point reports. In their article, Le Point cites research from sociologists Claude Dargent and Oliver Galland which compared present-day numbers to 1981 when 70 percent of French people identified...

“As far as I’m concerned, they can go f--- themselves,” Burke told Ald. Daniel Solis, who was working undercover for the FBI and secretly recording the conversation, according to a sweeping federal racketeering indictment filed Thursday against Burke. When Solis noted the developers would soon be before Burke’s Finance Committee requesting $100 million in tax-increment financing for the massive project, Burke responded, “Well, good luck getting it on the agenda,” the indictment alleged. In addition to the attempted extortion of the Post Office developers, the 14-count indictment accused Burke — the city’s longest-serving alderman and a vestige of the old...

Bishop's ColumnBrothers and Sisters in Christ, I am all in favor of laws that protect all our children from any form of abuse. The Catholic Church has been working hard to be a leader in Safe Environment training, vetting of clergy, employees and volunteers and reporting allegations to police authorities. However, a new law being proposed in the California State Senate is misguided and does nothing to support our efforts. It aims to strip confidentiality from the Sacrament of Confession. If passed, it would require priests to report certain sins they heard in confession to the police. This is a...

“Trump is known as a builder, but if there’s anything really Trump likes to do, it’s breaking things. Trump broke Kathy Griffin. He broke her really badly. He broke Michael Moore. He reduced Hillary Clinton to a bitter old drunk. He broke both Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels. He broke Rosie O’Donnell. He broke his former aide Omarosa. He’s in the process of breaking the anti-Trump propaganda network CNN completely. Everyone who goes up against Trump loses. It’s uncanny how some celebrity or athlete goes off on an anti-Trump rant and then fails professionally in some fashion, sometimes in unrelated...

Fox News' Juan Williams said Thursday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should testify before Congress and criticized President Trump for his comments directed towards the former FBI director.

BEIJING - China has begun five-day Confucian culture immersion courses for religious leaders in the sage’s hometown as part of a campaign to extend government control over faith communities through a process of sinicization. The ruling Communist Party’s United Work Front Department said in a news release issued Monday that the activity was designed to ensure the primacy of traditional Chinese values above all. “To hold activities here … is a collective tribute to excellent traditional Chinese culture and a conscious identification and integration with Chinese culture,” said the release, posted on the department’s website.

Last week the MailOnline carried a lengthy article about an Essex vicar who has resigned from his parish. This was considered a newsworthy story by a secular outlet because it highlights an issue of serious concern for many people, not just practising Christians: the increasingly aggressive promotion of LGBT ideology in schools. Rev John Parker pastors a thriving congregation and also, like many other clergy, acts as a governor of the local Church of England Primary school, state-funded, but supposedly retaining a Christian ethos which makes these schools popular with parents. As the article explains, when the head teacher announced...

**SNIP** Democrats have the logic of the impeachment completely backwards. They won’t lose because they pursued impeachment and failed. Princeton historian Kevin Kruse is right: Donald Trump isn’t Bill Clinton and Bob Mueller isn’t Ken Starr. Instead, they’ll lose because they failed to pursue impeachment. The reason is that the American public already believes that Democrats are too risk-averse and too rational; that they don’t lead from the heart, even when they genuinely care about doing the right thing. Whether recalling President Obama’s mantra to “not do stupid sh**” in foreign policy (i.e., better to err on the side of...

Business software maker Salesforce is telling gun retailers they must stop selling AR-15s if they want to continue using the company’s business applications. The Washington Post reports that Salesforce is a $120 billion San Francisco-based company whose “skyscraper…towers over the city as the tallest building and a major landmark.” They are now telling customers who sell firearms that they are barred from using Salesforce “technology to market products, manage customer service operations and fulfill orders” unless they cease selling AR-15s. Salesforce’s “Acceptable Use Policy” goes beyond a ban on AR-15s, to include any semiautomatic firearms “that have the capacity to...

President Trump announced Thursday he’s slapping tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico as punishment for what he darkly described as the country’s failure to combat “chaos” on the U.S. southern border. In a Twitter statement, Trump announced a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports will start June 10. […] The potentially economically crippling tariffs — which will be paid by American consumers of Mexican goods — are allowed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump said. In his statement, Trump painted the unprecedented number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border with a broad and fear-mongering brush.“Gang members,...

An analysis of the causes of death of 3,419 former athletes in the National Football League and 2,708 former Major League Baseball players finds that football players suffer a mortality rate nearly 1.3 times higher than baseball players. The study, published last week (May 24) in JAMA Network Open, calculated NFLers to be 2.5 times more likely to succumb to cardiovascular disease and nearly three times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than MLB players. The underlying reason for the disparity is not known, and it’s unclear if it has to do with elements of the sports themselves, such...

Empowering Defenders. Together. Cyber security is not any one defender’s responsibility, but a global effort – a cause championed by many for the good of all. By coming together as a community to innovate, build strategies and share knowledge on today’s threats and tomorrow’s risks, we empower ourselves as defenders with the collective wisdom to protect our way of life and the technologies that have become central to it. Now in its 10th year, Cyber Defense Summit brings together many of the world's leading security experts, frontline heroes, government leaders, and executives from various industries to address the challenges of...

"So, Trump…did commit a crime? Or did he just not not commit a crime? Robert Mueller, why don’t you just speak English?! Even Yoda would be like, ‘Mmm, report confusing you make.'" That was Comedy Central's Daily Show host Trevor Noah on Wednesday scratching his head over just exactly what Robert Mueller actually said at his press conference earlier in the day. Noah also poked fun at the liberal media's wild speculations as to what Mueller would say although all they had to do was wait a very short while for him to speak his rather obfuscated English.

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. It's casual FRiday here at the Canteen. Pull up a seat and relax. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup or a glass, and start a conversation....

Full title: New York Times bans reporters from CNN's Don Lemon, MSNBC's Maddow shows for being 'too partisan:' reportThe New York Times is cracking down on its own reporters, stopping them from appearing on certain primetime cable news shows seen as being "too partisan," according to a new report. Vanity Fair published the explosive report, which alleged MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, as well as CNN anchor Don Lemon, made the newspaper's no-go list. The magazine began its report by alleging the Times' financial editor David Enrich had initially accepted an invitation to appear on "The Rachel Maddow Show"...

Former President Barack Obama spoke at a Boeing leadership meeting in January after the aerospace giant Opens a New Window. donated $10 million to the Obama Presidential Center, a company spokesman confirmed. Obama discussed U.S. economic development and his new foundation, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news. Boeing – the top U.S. exporter and one of the largest U.S. defense contractors – also donated $10 million to the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

LaCroix is "effectively in a free fall" amid declining sales and rising competition, according to a new research note from Guggenheim Securities. "The LaCroix brand has gone from bad, to worse, to disastrous in a relatively short period of time following negative media attention regarding the 'natural' claim of the brand's flavoring ingredients that surfaced in October of last year," analyst Laurent Grandet wrote. A lawsuit last year alleged that LaCroix contains artificial ingredients, which is contrary to the company's "all-natural" marketing claims. LaCroix has denied the claims in the suit.

Trump announced a new 5 percent tariff on Mexico beginning in early June, saying the levy will "gradually increase" until the ongoing illegal immigration surge at the southern border is "remedied" and illegal migrants "STOP." "On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP," Trump wrote. "The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied, ... ..at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex, seemed as surprised as everyone else when he admitted he agreed with a proposal put forward by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ✔ @AOC If you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn’t be allowed to turn right around&leverage your service for a lobbyist check. I don’t think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you’ve served in Congress. At minimum there should be a long wait period. Ted Cruz ✔ @tedcruz Here’s something I don’t say often: on this point, I AGREE with @AOC Indeed, I have...