Free Republic

Scandals in politics have been motivated by personal gain, greed, love of power, lust, or simply a conviction that one's political agenda is so good it justifies bending the law. This ungodly behavior was observed by Machiavelli in The Prince (1513), who recorded the evil tactics of Cesare Borgia: "the ends justifies the means." In 1798, Yale President Timothy Dwight described how the Jacobins acted this way during the French Revolution: "Adultery, assassination, poisoning, and other crimes of the like infernal nature, were taught as lawful ... provided the end was good." Saul Alinsky advocated this in his nefarious Rules...

Copenhagen Zoo removed a map showing Taiwan as independent after complaints from China, before getting two coveted pandas on loan, letters leaked to the 24syv radio station have revealed. […] The map showing the animal’s global distribution had marked the island of Taiwan in a different color from mainland China, signaling its political independence. After receiving the letter, zoo officials removed the map ahead of the delivery of the two pandas, Mao Sun and Xing Er, in April. “The Chinese made us aware that they consider Taiwan a part of China,” the zoo told the station. …

Fifteen years ago Thursday, a Dave Matthews Band tour bus infamously dumped 800 pounds of human waste on a hapless river cruise floating at exactly the wrong time under the Kinzie Street Bridge. Boat passengers — including a Chicago Tribune reporter — enjoying an open air architectural river cruise “described a downpour of foul-smelling, brownish-yellow slurry that ruined their clothes and made several of them sick,” on the afternoon of Aug. 8, 2004, the Tribune reported.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told a crowd of supporters on Tuesday that "we choose truth over facts," apparently referring to the Democratic Party. "We choose science over fiction; we choose truth over facts," Biden said, drawing applause. The former vice president has a history of tripping over his words. Biden continues to hold a formidable lead in national Democratic primary polls. He leads the next two closest opponents, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), by over 15 percentage points. Although he avoided another awkward exchange with Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) in the most...

Missouri police say a man was arrested Thursday after he allegedly showed up to a local Walmart with a loaded rifle and a bulletproof vest. Police in Springfield, Mo., said nobody was harmed and no shots were fired. The suspect, a white man in his 20s, was detained by an off-duty firefighter until officers arrived on the scene, authorities said. The man allegedly showed up with a “tactical rifle” and bulletproof vest, the Springfield News-Leader reported. Springfield Police Lt. Mike Lucas told the outlet that the man, wearing body armor and military-style clothing, was taking videos on his phone...

Sean Hannity 8/8/19 | Breaking Fox News August 8, 2019 It's all falling into place.

WASHINGTON: After decades of neglect, the Army is urgently rebuilding its electronic warfare arm in a radically different form from the Cold War. The US isn’t trying to replicate the high-powered Russia arsenal that has scrambled GPS, radar, and radio from Scandinavia and Ukraine to Syria and Israel. Instead, the Army intends to combine EW with cyber, signals intelligence, and artificial intelligence to counter Russian power with a new kind of precision. “When the Russians emit like that, they’re letting the entire world known where they are,” Col. Mark Dotson, the Army’s capabilities manager for EW, told reporters in June....

How should red states prepare? How should blue states prepare? (with maps)

by Brian Hayes CNN has refused to air a report about an illegal alien who was charged in Dallas, Texas for murdering 19 elderly women -- and who may be a suspect in dozens more. The story broke last month when Kenyan national Billy Chemirmir, 46, was charged with the deaths of six women in Dallas County and then was charged on Thursday with the deaths of five women in Collin County. Chemirmir was already in prison from charges he faces from 2018 involving another alleged murder of an elderly woman. The story garnered national attention and was widely reported on...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS/WVAH) — The Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has dismissed two charges against a man arrested last week who was accused of assaulting an 82-year-old volunteer at the Women's Health Center in Charleston, according to an order filed Wednesday in Kanawha County Magistrate Court. Christopher McComas, 52, of St. Albans was charged with assault and disorderly conduct after incident that occurred on July 25 outside the health center at 510 Washington St. W., according to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court. In the motion to dismiss, prosecutors indicated that, "after careful review of the report,...

Rep. Chris Stewart’s (R-Utah) town hall event reportedly erupted in shouting Wednesday as the lawmaker addressed constituents about the recent mass shootings. Attendees of the event in North Salt Lake broke into yelling after Stewart’s first question focused on how the government could keep residents safe following the outbreak of gun violence, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The event reportedly became so contentious that Stewart told attendees he would walk out unless it became more civil, which brought it back in line. Stewart fielded one question and answered that everyone should condemn violence and racism, to which attendee Jamie...

Gun sales are surging after the weekend mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, fueled by first-time buyers seeking pistols they can carry with them for protection. The latest jump validated a big increase in purchases and background checks recorded by the FBI that show the four most recent months higher than the same months in 2018. What’s more, the trend in the “National Instant Criminal Background Check System,” or NICS, is on a path to make 2018 the second biggest year since 2016, when gun owners and prospective gun owners filled stores before the presidential election that...

In a dramatic early evening shooting, two men were shot to death on Interstate 10, tying up eastbound lanes filled with rush hour motorists according to Houston police. The shooter remains at large after fleeing the scene, police said. "Unreal scene just witnessed on I-10 in Houston," tweeted Daniel Gotera of KHOU. "A guy gets out of his car with gun just shooting in the middle of freeway. Unbelievable." Police said they do not believe the shooting is related to road rage. Interstate 10 east at John Ralston Road was closed due to the incident with traffic backed up for...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. The Springfield, Mo. Police Department say nobody was injured and officers arrested following response to an active-shooter call at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in the southwest Missouri city. Springfield station KY3 reports the Springfield PD arrived on the scene within three minutes of the call. Police tell KY3 a man appearing to be in his 20s, pulled up to the store donning body army and military fatigues. "Police say the man had tactical weapons," KY3 reports. Police say the man walked into the store, grabbed a cart and began pushing it around the store. They say he used...

More and more schools are developing and launching programs to study marijuana, a reflection of the psychoactive plant’s growing legal status across the country. In recent years schools such as Northern Michigan University have offered students the chance to study the controversial plant in an academic setting. Now even the Ivy League is offering such an opportunity. This fall, Cornell University “will offer the undergraduate course ‘Cannabis: Biology, Society and Industry,’ which will focus on exploring the history, culture, pharmacology, horticulture and legal challenges associated with cannabis,” Quartz reports. Next year the school will launch a master’s degree focusing on...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote directly to President Trump on Thursday to demand that he use a little-invoked constitutional power to recall the Senate from its recess so it can address gun violence. The move would essentially represent an end run around Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom top Democrats have urged to bring Congress back. Congress is not scheduled to return until the second week of September. "Today, as speaker of the House, I am writing in good faith to request that you call the United States Senate back into session immediately under your powers in Article II Section...

The emoji are bright yellow, with artificially long eyelashes and crisscrossed eyes. One’s tongue lolls out; the other’s mouth is zippered shut. They are painted against the pink facade of a Manhattan Beach, California, home embroiled in a feud between neighbors that has boiled over into a fight with the city. The fracas began last year, when Kathryn Kidd bought the 39th Street duplex, according to Easy Reader News, and rolled into the neighborhood in a Mercedes convertible with a license plate holder that read, "Move Over Princess, The Queen Has Arrived."

The FBI released 34 pages of notes, known as “302s,” of its 2016 and 2017 interviews with Bruce Ohr, the DOJ official who met with the British dossier author Christopher Steele and opposition research firm Fusion GPS’s Glen Simpson. Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, when they were hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Convention. The FBI was sued by the watchdog group Judicial Watch to comply with their requests for access to the notes via Freedom of Information Act. Read the documents below:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Somewhere out there, the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lurks. So wary House Democrats are amassing campaign war chests to scare off progressive upstarts from challenging them in primaries — or trounce them if they try.

Sebastian Gorka, former strategist to President Trump, takes aim at Google over its work in China. Gorka told FBN host Lou Dobbs that Google sees America as the problem and like to help nations that are against U.S. interests. Gorka said according to Chris Farrow at Judicial Watch he can predict that high-level Obama-era DOJ officials like Lisa Page and Bruce Ohr will be charged with serious felonies. "There will be people in high levels of the Obama administration who will be charged with very serious felonies to do with their seditious activity," Gorka said Wednesday. "However, you have to...