Free Republic

<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Critics of a new Missouri ban on abortions at or after eight weeks of pregnancy are asking a judge to block the law from taking effect this week.</p> <p>Attorneys for Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union head to court Monday to ask U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs to put the law on hold while their legal challenge against it plays out in court. They face a tight deadline: The law is set to take effect Wednesday.</p>

A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists. It is the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting. Four people familiar with the operation described how it works, asserting that it has compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at some of the country’s most prominent news organizations....

THE TRUMP administration just won a victory over Planned Parenthood. Thousands of women will pay the price. Planned Parenthood announced this month that it was leaving the federal government’s Title X program, which pays for family planning services for low-income Americans. As many as 1.6 million women and girls who currently rely on Planned Parenthood for things such as birth control pills and health screenings could be affected. The Trump administration argues there will be alternatives available to this vulnerable population. In some areas, that is not clear. Planned Parenthood is the only Title X provider in Utah. The organization serves...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) campaign said roughly 15,000 people attended her rally in Seattle on Sunday night. The top-tier Democratic presidential candidate has seen large crowds in recent weeks, with an event in St. Paul, Minn., last week drawing about 12,000, according to her campaign. Her event Sunday had to move locations from the WaMu Theater, with a capacity of 7,000, to the International Fountain at Seattle Center in order to accommodate more people. Warren billed her event Sunday as the “Seattle Town Hall,” and it was her first in Washington since launching her campaign. A spokesperson for Warren’s campaign...

Events related to Iran and Israel appear to be dominant with numerous Israeli attacks reported in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria since Saturday night. There's also been a rocket attack aimed at southern Israel from Gaza..... Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif arrived by airplane at Biarritz, France. site of the G7 summit, just after 8am Eastern US time Sunday morning.... The Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said the Israeli drone strike reported in the suburbs of Beirut early Sunday was a: "blatant attack on Lebanon's sovereignty"..... The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with the Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri Sunday...

The Mexican government announced the major fentanyl seizure of initially reported by local media outlets to be approximately 25.75 tons (23,368 kilograms or 51,517 pounds) of powdered fentanyl that originated in Shanghai China and was headed to Culiacán, Sinaloa, the home base for the Sinaloa Cartel. .

The Twilight of the John Paul II Institute? An interview with Prof. Stanisław Grygiel Hanna Nowak (Teologia Polityczna): In recent days there have been great changes in the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, which you created together with Karol Wojtyła 40 years ago. How do you pull yourself together in the face of your dismissal? Was it possible to predict such a situation? Prof. Stanisław Grygiel (philosopher, ethicist, anthropologist): There have been no changes in the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. The Institute was simply dissolved by Pope Francis exactly...

Anti Trump: A man has been arrested after allegedly sending a rambling email to one of ABC News' affiliate stations in Tennessee, threatening to go to the "state capital to blow someone's brains out." ABC Nashville affiliate WKRN-TV received a threatening email on Wednesday, authorities said, allegedly from Nathan Semans, who also expressed his displeasure toward President Donald Trump. “Look if you don’t run story I’m going to state capital to blow someone’s brain out," the email read. "I don’t look good at the moment cause the tyranny of what trump did, the nature of this call is secret. You...

Election 2020: Biden’s Bid Is Doomed “Joe Biden has led Democratic polls since day one,” Dan McCarthy ­observes in Spectator USA. But there are plenty of reasons why “you should still bet against” the former vice president “getting the nomination or getting into the White House.” The biggest problem? His age and its effects on his mental acuity. At 76, he is showing signs of senescence “more than Bernie Sanders (77) or Donald Trump (73)” are. And those infamous gaffes of his “are increasingly worrying,” because they just “keep coming.” The question is: “How many will it take before voters...

President Donald Trump said Sunday he could declare the escalating U.S.-China trade war as a national emergency if he wanted to. “In many ways this is an emergency,” Trump said of the ongoing trade battle between the world’s top two economies. Clouding the G-7 gathering, which represents the world’s major industrial economies, are the tit-for-tat tariffs between Washington and Beijing. Clouding the G-7 gathering, which represents the world’s major industrial economies, are the tit-for-tat tariffs between Washington and Beijing. On Friday, Trump said he would raise existing duties on $250 billion in Chinese products to 30% from 25% on Oct....

President Trump introduced in a tweet on Thursday that he’ll maintain a rally in North Carolina to help Republican candidate Dan Bishop, who’s working towards Democrat Dan McCready in a September 10 particular election within the state’s Ninth Congressional District. The president blasted Bishop’s opponent, whom he didn’t identify, saying he “wants Open Borders, Sanctuary Cities, and Socialism.” He additionally tied McCready, the Democrat candidate, to the far-left politics of 4 first-term Democrat Home members often called the “Squad”: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA): Wanting ahead to quickly...

Protesters gathered outside a Los Angeles bar Saturday night after a video surfaced on social media of two transgender women being forcibly and violently removed from the venue by bar staff and security after allegedly being the target of a hate crime by other patrons. A group of volunteers and staff members from Bienestar Human Services, a local nonprofit organization, had just finished attending and speaking at DTLA Proud, an annual two-day event that celebrates the LGBTQ community, when they were aggressively approached by a heterosexual couple at Las Perlas bar, according to a press release from Bienestar. "My friend...

During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms. Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea. Now for a more rigorous scientific explanation of why this would not be an effective hurricane modification technique. The main difficulty with using explosives to modify hurricanes is the amount of energy...

Bank of America Corp.’s CEO Brian Moynihan says he doesn’t see a recession in the offing because the U.S. consumer remains healthy. . . . “Look, when the yield curve moved around the pundit-ocracy got going, saying, ‘Here, this means a recessions coming,’” Moynihan told CNBC. However, the bank boss said this time the recessionary gauge may be influenced by a global market swirling in some $15 trillion in negative interest rates.

A man has been charged in the murder of a 22-year-old transgender woman he was dating who was found dead last month, according to Houston police. The body of Tracy Williams, also known as Tracy Single, was found on July 30 about 3:30 a.m. in a parking lot on Interstate 10 in Houston, officials from the Houston Police Department said in a press release. She had sustained a "puncture wound" and severe lacerations, police said. Joshua Dominic Bourgeois, 25, was considered a suspect after investigators learned he had been in a "dating relationship" with Williams, police said. He was arrested...

A 6-month-old girl is fighting for her life in a Texas hospital after she and her father illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with a group of migrants, federal officials said. The baby is being treated at Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she is in critical condition, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the young girl and her father during this difficult time," CBP officials said in their statement. U.S. Border Patrol agents came upon the infant and her father at 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, about three miles...

A shooting that broke out over an argument at a 2-year-old's birthday party in Maryland sent seven people to the hospital on Saturday night. The shooting took place outside of an apartment complex in Camp Springs, where about 12 people were in attendance at the party. An individual approached the group of party-goers where allegedly "words were exchanged" and shots were fired into the group, according to Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski. Of the seven shot, three are "more serious” and four are "less serious," Stawinski said. All were transported to the hospital and are expected to survive.

The California sheriff's deputy who launched an expensive, citywide manhunt for the sniper who shot him in his own station's parking lot made up the entire incident, police said late Saturday. Angel Reinosa, who is still a trainee with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Lancaster station, said he had been shot in the shoulder of his bulletproof vest while making his way to his car Wednesday. He announced over his radio in dramatic fashion he had been shot by someone in the apartment building next to the parking lot. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department immediately mobilized a large-scale...

Joe Arpaio announced Sunday night that he plans to run for sheriff of Maricopa County in 2020 after losing his most recent reelection bid. Arpaio served as the county’s sheriff for 1993 until 2016, with his 24 years in office making him the longest-serving sheriff in the county’s history. "The last four years have proven to be a time of lost opportunities to continue the kind of tough policing this county needs," Arpaio wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. "Once back in office, I will use my position to restore pride to our law enforcement ranks, not only here,...

The New York Times has, several days after Breitbart News first exposed politics editor Tom Wright-Piersanti’s racist and antisemitic comments on Twitter, admitted the comments were in fact racist and antisemitic. A piece the New York Times released on Sunday, which described a broader operation of loosely organized supporters of President Donald Trump fighting back against the media with aggressive new tactics, was the first time the newspaper in its own pages addressed the scandal regarding Wright-Piersanti. In the piece, the Times reveals that it considers the tweets racist and antisemitic. Before this piece, the Times had only described the...