Free Republic

A Virginia Democratic congresswoman who was a reluctant supporter of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump found herself in the middle of a tense town hall on Sunday when she explained her position on the matter. Constituents in Rep. Abigail Spanberger's moderate district -- she unseated Republican Rep. Dave Brat last year -- who both supported and opposed the impeachment effort shouted at times during the event in Spotsylvania, Virginia. She was discussing her record and instances when she voted against House Democratic leadership when a few audience members interrupted and told her to move on to impeachment. "My...

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Tuesday indicated that Democrats must impeach President Trump quickly in order to stop him from prevailing in the 2020 presidential election. Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against the president: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Notably, neither allege a high crime or misdemeanor. Noticeably absent was the Democrats’ longheld appeal to bribery, extortion, or treason.

On Dec. 10, Lisa Page filed a complaint against the Department of Justice and the FBI for alleged violations of the Privacy Act related to the disclosure of information about her to the media. The document is available here and below.

I explain why Islamic apologetics are so profoundly misguided, and why Muslims try to belittle the Bible in order to prop up their perverse prophet.

Its last known position was about 390 nautical miles from Punta Arenas and 280 nautical miles from the Antarctic base, according to the Air Force. There were 17 crew members and 21 other passengers on board, who were on their way to perform "logistical support tasks" such as repairing the floating oil pipeline that provides fuel for the base, said the Air Force. In addition to crew members, the plane was also carrying personnel from the armed forces, an engineering firm, and the University of Magallanes. After the plane lost contact, the Air Force declared a state of alert and...

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the bureau and the Justice Department, alleging privacy violations. In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Page alleges the agencies unlawfully provided text messages between her and former FBI agent Peter Strzok to members of the media in December 2017.

Twice in his first two years as New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy tried to raise income taxes on millionaires to funnel more money into the state budget for education, transportation, and public-worker pensions. And twice, his fellow Democrats who lead the state Legislature told him no, saying the Garden State is already over-taxed.

2 Shooters Fire At Civilians, Police From Jersey City Rooftops Yet another stunning active-shooter incident is unfolding Tuesday afternoon in New Jersey City, as two armed suspects fire on police officers using what appear to be sniper rifles as the shooters jump from rooftop to rooftop trying to escape, according to local media reports. Loud gunshots can be heard in videos posted to social media. At the end of the video below, a man can be heard shouting “they took him out”, though more gunshots followed.

<p>The Guardian headline reads: “DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser.”</p> <p>If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a “clearing” of the FBI, never clear me of anything. Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was.</p>

On paper, the speaker of the House and chairmen of the relevant committees announcing they will impeach the president should feel like a historic moment and a rarely equaled disgrace for the presidency. This day should feel momentous, grim, and solemn. In this presidency, it feels like “Tuesday.” On paper, the impeachment hearings did everything House Democrats wanted them to do. While some of the key testimony was second-hand, the witnesses painted an ugly picture of the administration and president, focused on farfetched tales of a lost server and obsessed with the Bidens and not seeming to give a fig...

Talk about fortuitous timing. As news broke last Tuesday that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was ending her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I was heading to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to interview another African American woman many want to be a part of the 2020 presidential campaign: Stacey Abrams. Abrams, a Democrat, was the first black woman to be nominated by a major party for governor when she ran (and lost) to be the next chief executive of Georgia in 2018. And her experience, Abrams said, mirrors that of Harris. “Wanting someone to...

Moses was a prophet and a leader according to Abrahamic religions, but many scholars view him as a legendary figure rather than a real historic person. They do concede that a Moses-like figure could have existed in history, so is it possible to track this person down through historic records? It is the view of this writer that this is very possible and that in fact the Moses figure can be traced as that of the primary confidant of none other than Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut. The trail begins with Th Exodus.

US small-business sentiment rose 2.3 points to 104.7, the biggest jump since May 2018, according to the November optimism survey from the National Federation of Independent Business. It shows a reversal from "previous months of clatter" about a looming recession, the report noted. Positive earnings and expectations that business conditions will get better drove the results, according to the survey. "Owners are aggressively moving forward with their business plans, proving that when they're given relief from the government, they put their money where their mouth is, and they invest, hire, and increase wages," said William Dunkelberg, the chief economist...

Reporter Alex Bozarjian said she was in "disbelief" when a man, who was running in the Savannah race she was covering on Saturday, moved behind her and appeared to slap her on the butt. "He took my power, and I'm trying to take that back," Bozarjian said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning," adding, "I think what it really comes down to is that he helped himself to a part of my body." Bozarjian filed a police report Monday, and the man, Tommy Callaway, was banned from future Savannah Sports Council races. Callaway's lawyer said: "While we regret the situation, Mr....

The Justice Department’s in-house watchdog released a ( 476-page report) Monday that criticizes some of the FBI’s actions in beginning an investigation of the Trump campaign’s connection with Russian election meddling, but does not concludes that political bias drove the agency’s probe. Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report does answer many questions and verifies some suspicions about the initial FBI investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane. [snip] Here are six key takeaways from Horowitz’s report.

China is developing a new high-tech system of mass surveillance and coercion aimed suppressing political dissent among its 1.4 billion people, while forcing American and Western businesses to conform to the government’s communist policies if they want to operate there. The massive system has been tested in several major Chinese cities and uses millions of surveillance cameras linked to supercomputers containing massive databases. Face and voice recognition technology then identifies and monitors people with the goal of controlling behaviors that range from dissident political activity to jaywalking, ostensibly as part of a financial credit monitoring system similar to those used...

The United States has a total area of 3,796,742 square miles. That makes it the third or fourth-largest country in the world by land area, depending if you count overseas territories. So what's the point? Despite its size, the U.S. is facing a dilemma of sorts. According to a new report from The Brookings Institution, regional divergence in the U.S. innovation sector "has reached extreme levels." The innovation sector, composed of 13 of the nation’s highest-tech, highest R&D industries, is vital to the U.S. economy. The innovation sector accounts for 3% of U.S. jobs, but generates 6% of the country’s...

Top Republicans are leaning toward calling for a vote to acquit Trump 'immediately' after House Democrats and the White House have delivered their arguments to head off partisan disagreements that might lengthen the trial....The president is not in danger of being removed from office by the Senate, a move that requires 67 votes. Republicans might forgo calling witnesses altogether, saying 'minds are made up on Trump’s guilt or innocence' and that testimony at trial on the Senate floor would draw out the proceedings unnecessarily.

Given the unsupported claims President Donald Trump has made for two years about the FBI’s Russia investigation - calling it a witch hunt cooked up by his political opponents - the conclusion by the Justice Department watchdog that the probe was justified was big news. But the other major findings of the inspector general's report - that there were serious problems with the way the FBI obtained a secret national security warrant to spy on a Trump campaign aide - were also noteworthy, if somewhat overshadowed by the bigger headlines. The report found an FBI process so badly managed, so...

One police officer has been shot in the head amid an ongoing active shooter situation at a bodega in Jersey City Tuesday, according to the preliminary investigation, a senior law enforcement official tells News 4. The situation is fluid and information is developing rapidly; one law enforcement source described the attack as an "ambush," and said at least one individual was holed up in a bodega with a long gun, sources say. Heavily armed local and state officers in SWAT trucks swarmed the scene, ducking behind doorways and store entrances -- some even crawling along sidewalks, closely pressed to the...