Free Republic

For example, an unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA) mentioned in the IG report was responsible for ensuring that the bureau’s “Woods Procedures” were followed in the Page warrant application. According to the procedures, factual assertions need to be independently verified, and information contradicting those assertions must be presented to the court. But Horowitz found several instances in which the procedures were not followed. Horowitz’s report leaves little doubt that the unnamed SSA is Joe Pientka — a current bureau employee. Pientka briefly appeared on the FBI’s website as an “Assistant Special Agent in Charge” of the San Francisco field...

Label something “criminal-justice reform” these days and it’s likely to be whisked into law in left-leaning states with little thought to the consequences. Witness the fiasco of New York’s bail reform that took effect Jan. 1 and is already producing ill effects across the state. The reform that passed last year eliminated cash bail for misdemeanors and certain nonviolent felonies. The idea was that people who were no threat to the community were locked up only because they couldn’t afford bail, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo pitched it as a victory for fairness. It turns out that some of those now...

Its Swingin' Monday and here is Dirty Dishes by Cliffie Stone & His Hometown Jamboree Gang (1952).

Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing for a $600 million plan to raise the starting pay for new teachers... Nearly 1,000 teachers, who boarded 16 buses for a 10-hour bus ride to Tallahassee, had a sendoff that was also attended by Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Rep. Donna Shalala. “We’re fighting for better pay so we can make cost of living," said Mayade Ersoff, a teacher. “We’re fighting for no testing..."

Don’t make any promises you can’t keep, girl. – Megan Markle and her hairy husband Harry just gave us one more reason to vote for Trump in 2020: News broke over the weekend that the soon-to-be-ex-royal couple will never return to live in America until the Trump presidency is over. It’s going to be a long, cold five years for these two up in their new home in Canada. Come to think of it, maybe this is a good time to re-visit that whole 22nd Amendment. You know, the one that limits U.S. presidents to serving two terms? Or hey,...

President Trump's tweet in Farsi expressing his support for Iranians protesting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already earned over 200,000 likes, making it the "most liked Persian tweet" in the social media giant's history, according to a leading think tank adviser. On Saturday, protesters in the country called upon Khamenei to step down after Iran admitted to shooting down a commercial airliner on which dozens of Iranian citizens were traveling. That evening, the president sent out a tweet in Farsi, saying that he stands with their efforts. “To the brave and suffering Iranian people: I have stood with you...

I’m doing a “guest” post today, although Betty Ann (aka Mellow Lemoncello) doesn’t know it yet. She’s been doing her part to save journalism in the age of fake news. This is a screen shot of page 1 that Raj took. Then he combined the other 7 pages of the first edition into one pdf, uploaded it to the interweb and created a link to the whole paper. Btw, we are on the road, heading to the Rocky Mountain bunker. We stopped n Des Moines last night enroute to Park City. So far so good. Say a little prayer, the...

(snip)Before Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, got his strange but lucrative deal to sit on the board of energy company Burisma Holdings in Ukraine to the tune of $50,000 a month, there was Chelsea Clinton, the only child of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She was similarly rewarded with jobs and board positions that had absolutely no relationship with that young woman’s interests, life, education or any perceived expertise. All of this has racked up to what the New York Post reported back in 2015 was an estimated...

Climate Change opportunists are using the Australian wildfire arsons to push their political aspirations. In true leftist fashion, they are applying the motto once said by former Chicago Democratic Mayor Rahm Emmanuel – “never let a crisis go to waste.”  In the last couple of months, as many as 200 wildfires have destroyed Australia all over the continent. Due to the number of fires and location, law enforcement determined that the blazes were intentionally set, and 183 arsonists have been arrested for the crime so far. The Left tends to ignore the truth and push lies that work for their...

COLORADO SPRINGS — The sergeant in charge of one of the busiest Army recruiting centers in Colorado, Sergeant First Class Dustin Comes, joined the Army, in part, because his father served. Now two of his four children say they want to serve, too. And he will not be surprised if the other two make the same decision once they are a little older. “Hey, if that’s what your calling is, I encourage it, absolutely,” said Sergeant Comes, who wore a dagger-shaped patch on his camouflage uniform, signifying that he had been in combat. Enlisting, he said, enabled him to build...

Up until last week, every GOP governor had either agreed to accept refugees or had yet to say one way or another, that is until Texas Governor Greg Abbott made his state the first to decline refugee resettlement, citing the “disproportionate” impact on the border state thanks to the Federal government’s “broken” immigration system and a “responsibility to dedicate available resources to those who are already here, including refugees, migrants, and the homeless.” Abbott’s decision predictably triggered the wrath of America’s ‘woke police,’ who rival Iran’s morality police in their hysterical zeal to impose their twisted definition of ‘virtue’ on...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly want to make Los Angeles their new home following the announcement that they will "step back" as members of the Royal Family, but only after Donald Trump's presidency ends. Even though the couple plans to live in Canada, their true goal is to eventually have a home or business in Los Angeles -- only after Trump leaves office, anonymous sources told the Daily Mail. Markle, 38, has been openly critical of Trump, reportedly calling him "divisive" and misogynistic" back in 2016. The Duchess of Sussex threatened to move to Canada if he defeated Hillary...

Is college worth it? As the cost of American higher education soars, inequality widens, and wages stagnate, millions of Millennials and Gen Zers have asked themselves that question. The answer, at least from economists, has remained a resounding yes. One study found that college graduates earn nearly twice as much as their peers without a college degree. But what if those earnings are no longer translating into financial security and long-term prosperity? A new study by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis suggests that might be the case. College still boosts graduates’ earnings, but it does little...

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According to the first Briton to go into space, Dr. Helen Sharman, extraterrestrials do exist, and it could even be possible that they are among us here on Earth. Sharman recently spoke with Observer Magazine about her beliefs on the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe, and had some very surprising things to say. She seemed extremely confident in her beliefs, saying with certainty: “Aliens exist, there’s no two ways about it.“ “There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life,” she added. Sharman...

Here’s an idea that our Democrat politician friends might want to try if they want to stop being back-stabbing garbage people. It’s kind of a radical notion and a little outside the box, but here goes: How about, just once, you stop sucking-up to the foreign bastards who are attacking our country and take America’s side?Maybe you should not back and excuse the gay-hanging, women-stoning, airline-downing, Obama check-cashing, Israel-threatening, American-murdering cultists ruling Iran. Just a thought.It’s kind of crazy, but it just might work.Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking what your man-bunned grad student TA taught you, that...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly want to make Los Angeles their new home following the announcement that they will "step back" as members of the Royal Family, but only after Donald Trump's presidency ends. Even though the couple plans to live in Canada, their true goal is to eventually have a home or business in Los Angeles -- only after Trump leaves office, anonymous sources told the Daily Mail. Markle, 38, has been openly critical of Trump, reportedly calling him "divisive" and misogynistic" back in 2016. The Duchess of Sussex threatened to move to Canada if he defeated Hillary...

(snips) In the second half of Devin Nunes interview with Maria Bartiromo today he was asked his thoughts about the FISA Court selecting David Kris as an FBI surveillance and compliance monitor. The issue is quite important because the FBI FISA reforms and promises are essentially meaningless without some form of structural review process. However, the new 2020 FISC Presiding Judge James Boasberg selecting David Kris has been noted by several people as a rather weak effort on behalf of the court. As an outcome of our former FISA-702 reviews CTH has an entirely different reason for questioning the selection...

Given MSNBC's penchant for propagating wild theories, perhaps the network should rename itself "Conspiracies 'R Us." Rachel Maddow, MSNBC's leading host, damaged her ratings and her reputation, such as it was, by going all-in on wild Trump-Russia conspiracy theories, only to see them debunked. Last week on Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski floated the off-the-wall notion that President Trump has "dirt" on Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, and is using it to blackmail them into supporting him. On Sunday morning, Joy Reid demonstrated she was not to be outdone in the kooky-conjecture department. She proclaimed that her "first thought" when she...

The once prestigious Lancet medical journal has published a bizarre book review asserting that “white Americans continue to mobilise to maintain or extend the exclusive advantages whiteness offers those who can become white.” The Lancet selected Rhea W. Boyd, a Minority Health Policy Fellow at Harvard’s School of Public Health, to review a 2019 book called Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan Metzl, whose thesis is that “right-wing backlash policies have mortal consequences — even for the white voters they promise to help.” In his book, Metzl argues that white mortality is up in the United States ever since the 2016...