Free Republic

Some White House aides reportedly joined in an effort to try to limit undocumented immigrants' access to public benefits, including the public school system. Bloomberg reported Saturday that Trump aide Stephen Miller led an effort beginning in 2017 that sought out ways to limit public school enrollment among undocumented immigrants, and pressed Cabinet officials as well as the White House Domestic Policy Council to aid his efforts. The plan was eventually abandoned, with Bloomberg reporting that Miller was informed that his efforts would run afoul of a Supreme Court decision guaranteeing access to public schools to all residents of the...

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are looking for ways to narrow the gap with Biden, who remains atop primary polls partly because of his standing with older black voters Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren framed their Democratic presidential bids in personal, faith-based terms Saturday before black millennial Christians who could help determine which candidate becomes the leading progressive alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden. Sanders, the Vermont senator whose struggles with black voters helped cost him the 2016 nomination, told the Young Leaders Conference that his family history shapes his approach to President Donald Trump's rhetoric and the rise...

Sharia UK: Police hunting for man who made a rude joke to a Muslim AUG 17, 2019 4:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER Note Tell MAMA’s headline: they claim that this man made a “racist slur” against a Muslim. What race is Islam again? In reality, there are Muslims, and Islamic jihadis, of all races. But TellMAMA wants to intimidate Britons into believing that anyone who makes a rude quip to a Muslim is a racist, and thus deserving to have the book thrown at him. But that’s all this was: a quip. Say anything you want: the guy was rude,...

Pakistan: Muslims murder five of the wrong kind of Muslims with bomb at mosque AUG 17, 2019 3:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER This was not an instance of “Islamophobia.” The Muslims at this mosque were, in the eyes of the perpetrators, heretics or apostates. And so, under Islamic law, they deserved death. “Blast kills at least five at Pakistan mosque – police,” TRT World, August 16, 2019: An explosion at a mosque in southwest Pakistan killed at least five people and injured over a dozen others, police and local media reported. Latest in a series of similar attacks, the explosion...

Liberals Taxing The Rich Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed...

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., are to appear at a lunch fundraiser Monday in support of President Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to an invitation to the event. The luncheon fundraiser in Jackson, Wyoming, will feature White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, along with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as "special guests," according to the invitation, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The invitation does not list the official titles of Mulvaney and the president's daughter and son-in-law, and it clarifies...

An award-winning local TV news anchor in New Orleans died in a plane crash while working on a story about a stunt pilot. Nancy Parker, 53, was killed along with the pilot, Franklin J.P. Augustus, on Friday when the plane crashed into a field near the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. The cause of the crash in under investigation, local officials said. Parker, who earned five Emmy Awards for her work as a journalist, was a fixture in New Orleans and at the station she worked at for 23 years, her station said. Her colleagues choked back tears as they shared...

A cozy alliance between insurers and law enforcement has turned the justice system into the industry’s hired gun and left innocent customers facing prison.... These tactics can be applied with impunity, thanks to legislation in all 50 states restricting the ability of customers to sue insurers for wrongly accusing them of fraud

Afghanistan: Bomb rips through wedding in Kabul An explosion has ripped through a wedding hall in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and many casualties are feared. Eye witnesses told the BBC a suicide bomber detonated explosives during a wedding ceremony. Witnesses said they had seen bodies. The explosion happened at around 22:40 local time (18.10 GMT) in an area mostly populated by Shia residents. No group said it carried out the attack, which happened in the west of the city. Sunni Muslim militants, including the Taliban and the Islamic State group, have repeatedly targeted Shia Hazara minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan....

President Donald Trump couldn't stop talking about the importance of strengthening background checks as he addressed reporters last Friday after a week steeped in the aftermath of the country's latest pair of mass shootings. He uttered the term "background checks" 18 times as he fielded questions from reporters about what kind of action he would take in the wake of the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 people. While he shied away from specifics, he made clear that he wanted to strengthen the system and that he felt he could rally Republican support for "common...

The El Paso shootings were horrific. Patrick Wood Crusius, a crazed man with white supremacist views, gunned down over 20 people at a local Walmart on August 3 and wounded scores more. He was targeting Mexicans. His manifesto is littered with racial overtones, yes, but he noted that his views predated Trump’s 2016 win, that Republicans are terrible, and that a lot of people have to die to in order to maintain the sustainability of the planet. There is an eco-terror angle that makes up the core of his manifesto that the media is ignoring. Eco-terrorism isn’t an activity of...

For every person who fits the profile of the El Paso shooter, there are likely thousands who fit the profile of Maurice Hill, the man arrested for shooting six cops in north Philadelphia yesterday. Based on a quick look at court documents from Philadelphia and Delaware Counties, Hill has a rap sheet dating back to 2001 that includes charges for illegal gun possession, drugs, driving offenses, assault, burglary, theft, robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder. However, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was only “convicted six times on charges that involved illegal possession of guns, drug dealing, and aggravated assault.” Will...

A ransomware attack has hit at least 20 local government entities in Texas, the State's Department of Information Resources (DIR) announced on Friday. When a ransomware attack occurs, a computer cannot be utilized until a ransom is paid.The Texas Division of Emergency Management is currently assisting. As of now, DIR, the Texas Military Department and the Texas A&M University System’s Cyber Response and Security Operations Center have deployed teams to the "most critically impacted jurisdictions." As requests come in, other resources will be implemented. The goal is to provide computing services and expertise that would get local entities back online, The...

Like a song that won't leave my head, I am looking for the movie where in a courtroom scene, the opening to "A Tale Of Two Cities" is used in (I think) a copyright case.

ISIL has largely taken over control of a huge camp in northeast Syria, and there’s no plan for what to do with the 70,000 people there (including more than 50,000 children). The United States and Europe must immediately address this urgent national security and humanitarian crisis, before a new caliphate is established while we watch. After the fall of Raqqa and the coalition defeat of ISIL’s strongholds, President Donald Trump announced that “100 percent” of the caliphate had been destroyed. But the tens of thousands of ISIL fighters and family members left over were herded into massive fenced internally displaced...

Dean Katherine Baicker to host conversation and present Justice Ginsburg with Dean’s Award U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will visit the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy on Sept. 9 for a conversation hosted by Harris Public Policy Dean Katherine Baicker, who will award Justice Ginsburg the 2019 Harris Dean’s Award. The award is given annually to an exceptional leader who has championed analytically rigorous, evidence-based approaches to policy, and who is an example for the next generation of policy leaders and scholars. “The distinguished career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg serves as an inspiration for our...

An adorable photo of a group of service dogs sitting in a Canadian theater last week catching a production of "Billy Elliot" has gone viral. The photo shows the crowd of mainly poodles and golden retrievers taking up at least four rows and attentively watching the stage during the Stratford Festival in Ontario. The objective was to prevent fur from flying during live theater so the pups can help their handlers navigate a theater atmosphere.

FULL TITLE: Michael Moore: Let’s Hope ‘The Squad’ Is the Face of the Democratic Party ‘Because That’s How We’re Going to Win’ Friday on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour,” liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said he was all for Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) being the face of the Democratic Party, a suggestion President Donald Trump has made in recent weeks. The foursome known as “The Squad” representing the Democrats’ brand is how they win according to Moore. “Let’s hope that Alexandria and Rashida and Ilhan and Congresswoman Pressley are the face...

Beneath a blazing mid-August sun at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines last week, liberal voters crowded around the Des Moines Register’s political soapbox to hear the Democratic presidential candidates speak. Meanwhile, on the other side of the fairground, farmers in the sheep, cattle and swine barns tended to their animals. A Trump poster hung from a rafter in the sheep barn and a Trump flag flew in front of a row of massive black cows in the cattle barn. Yet the farmers—who will play a key role in the 2020 presidential race in Iowa—didn’t talk much about politics...

“‘But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’” (Matthew 9:15). Fasting is meaningless if done merely from habit and if it doesn’t derive from a deep concern over some spiritual need. And as we saw yesterday, even the best and most foundational spiritual practices, if not done with sincere motives and right purposes, are only hypocritical and pretentious. Jesus was obviously referring to His crucifixion when He said He would be taken away from the disciples. From that time on, it would be fitting to fast and mourn. Fasting naturally...