Free Republic

A Florida-based Trump supporter who sent text messages suggesting that he was surveilling former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in Ukraine is apologizing for the exchanges and says they were part of a “playful exchange” with another Trump backer.

Curtis Phelps had just taken out the trash on the morning of Jan. 11 when he spotted something heading his way out of the corner of his eye. It turned out to be a large bull moose, and Phelps — knowing the animals can be aggressive — quickly shut himself back inside the shed. According to Curtis’ wife Amy, her husband immediately called her on his mobile phone — but she ignored the call, thinking it was accidental. “I had no clue that the poor thing was stuck in there,” she said of her husband, the Associated Press reported. Curtis,...

This moment of a nation, a people who lived free, lived in liberty so unique, so true, so brief. Praise be to God for all of it – even if fleeting, fading, and gone. It was, in our time, glorious.

Pope Enlists Atheist to Hose Down Media Firestorm Leftist Eugenio Scalfari dedicates three pages to defending Francis ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis has used his latest interview with his atheist journalist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, to de-escalate media furor over the book on priestly celibacy published by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cdl. Robert Sarah. The case of Benedict apparently coming out against Francis' possible ordination of married priests in the Amazon and other outlying regions is closed, the pontiff tells Scalfari, founder of La Repubblica, in a three-page interview. Francis insists that the pope emeritus has demonstrated "fraternal" solidarity with him and has not allied himself with Cdl....

Martin Luther King Jr. was born Jan.15, 1929. But the name on his original birth certificate — filed April 12, 1934, five years after King was born — was not Martin. Nor was it Luther. In fact, for the first years of his life, he was Michael King. And it wasn’t until he was 28 that, on July 23, 1957, his birth certificate was revised. The name Michael was crossed out, next to which someone printed carefully in black ink: “Martin Luther, Jr.” The story of how Michael became Martin began in 1934 when King’s father, who then was known...

The Constitution allocates to the president sole authority over foreign policy (short of declaring war or signing a treaty). It does not permit Congress to substitute its foreign policy preferences for those of the president. To the extent that the statute at issue constrains the power of the president to conduct foreign policy, it is unconstitutional. Even if the GAO were correct in its legal conclusion — which it is not — the alleged violation would be neither a crime nor an impeachable offense. It would be a civil violation subject to a civil remedy, as were the numerous violations...

Iran's secret underground 'missile city' unveiled Iran’s news agency, The Iranian Tansim, has just released disturbing photos, and the purpose of their publicity is unknown. The Jerusalem Post reported that images of “the Islamic Republic’s underground ‘missile cities,’ which hold hundreds of missiles and solid-fuel rockets ready-to-fire under fie levels of concrete” were released. Radio Farda reported Tansim’s claims and stated that “two out of the 15 missiles that were fired at Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq and the Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan targeting US troops fell on the republic’s territory.” Despite the United States, namely during the Obama...

An accused serial burglar was able to steal packages from Brooklyn apartment buildings over and over around Christmas thanks to the state’s new bail law, the Daily News has learned. Anthony Manson, 50, was arrested for nine burglaries in Prospect Lefferts-Gardens and Crown Heights on Dec. 23, police said. He appeared before a judge on Christmas and was released — only to be busted for six more break ins on Jan. 3, cops said. He was released yet again — and then was nabbed for ripping off a Manhattan sunglasses store on Wednesday. Even Manson was stunned when he walked...

Federal immigration officials, after blaming the city’s sanctuary policy for a 92-year-old woman’s rape and murder, were blasted Tuesday by City Hall for using the tragedy to trumpet their immigration agenda. The NYPD ignored a federal request to turn over an undocumented Guyanese immigrant busted in November for assaulting his father, leaving the twisted suspect free to kill helpless nonagenarian Maria Fuentes six weeks later, charged Thomas Decker, field office director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations. “Clearly the politicians care more about criminal illegal aliens than the citizens they are elected to serve and protect," said...

Still using Internet Explorer? Don't. There's another zero-day Microsoft let slip on Friday an advisory detailing an under-attack zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2020-0674) for Internet Explorer. The scripting engine flaw can be exploited to gain remote code execution on a vulnerable machine by way of a specially crafted webpage. The flaw can be mitigated by restricting access to the JavaScript component JScript.dll, and thus far there is no patch available. "Microsoft is aware of this vulnerability and working on a fix," the software giant noted. "Our standard policy is to release security updates on Update Tuesday, the second Tuesday of each...

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he made the call to release to the media hundreds of text messages between two high-ranking FBI employees after they criticized then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, according to new court filings the Justice Department released late Friday night. In the messages, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page insulted Trump as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), expressing a preference for Hillary Clinton in the election. The messages, which were exchanged on government cellphones, also revealed that the two were engaged in an extramarital affair, which has made...

Ever since their epic failure on a sexual assault story that never happened at the University of Virginia, Rolling Stone magazine is still trying to repair its damaged reputation. They lost a libel suit in that fiasco. The reporter who wrote it has gone into the wilderness, so when you see an RS story—skepticism abounds, right? When it comes to music and movie reviews, Rolling Stone is great, but their political stuff is, well, what you’d expect from a liberal staff. No shocker, but at times—a blind squirrel finds a nut. Tuesday’s Democratic Debate in Iowa hosted by CNN was...

As a part of the president's national reelection campaign, organizing group Black Voices for Trump held a meeting at First Immanuel Baptist Church in North Philly on Thursday night. The meeting promoted as a "roundtable discussion and Trump Victory Leadership Initiative" according to the national Black Voices Facebook page. Discussion focused on Trump's impact on the African American community and a volunteer training session, reported the AP on Friday morning. More than 60 people showed up, --snip-- Supporters touted that Trump has improved the economy and lowered unemployment rates, specifically for African Americans.

The BBC has completely lost the plot on climate change with its star enviro loon Sir David Attenborough leading the charge over the cliff edge like the wrinkliest, long-tusked male in a herd of suicidal walruses. “The moment of crisis has come” in efforts to tackle climate change, Sir David Attenborough has warned. According to the renowned naturalist and broadcaster, “we have been putting things off for year after year”. “As I speak, south east Australia is on fire. Why? Because the temperatures of the Earth are increasing,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, released a statement on Thursday to clarify her stance on President Trump's upcoming impeachment trial and claimed her past comments have been taken out of context and misunderstood. "There has been a lot of mischaracterization and misunderstanding about my position on the process the Senate should follow for the impeachment trial," the statement began. "Rather than have my position relayed through the interpretation of others, I wanted to state it directly." Collins, who is considered a moderate, shared her views on how the process should play out and recommended that it mirror former President Bill Clinton's...

"""Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit royal life COMPLETELY: Couple drop HRH titles, will REPAY £2.4m spent on Frogmore Cottage and won't receive any more taxpayers' cash as Queen says they remain 'much loved family members'""" The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are no longer to use their HRH titles and will repay £2.4million of taxpayer's money spent on renovating their Frogmore Cottage home, Buckingham Palace announced tonight, as a Megxit deal was sealed. The Queen said in a statement: 'Following many months of conversations and more recent discussions, I am pleased that together we have found a constructive and...

Swedish National Police Commissioner Anders Thornberg has admitted that despite large numbers of weapons seizures and full prisons, the rate of shootings in Sweden remains high. Thornberg, who was also formerly chief of the Swedish Security Service (Sapo), said that police must “get better at their work” to tackle the problem of gang violence, claiming that children as young as eight were running drugs and helping criminal gangs in the multicultural city of Malmo, broadcaster YLE reports.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will lose their HRH titles after stepping back as senior members of the Royal Family, Buckingham Palace has announced. This means the Duke and Duchess of Sussex can no longer formally represent the Queen. It is not yet clear if they will be able to keep their SussexRoyal online branding or will attend formal family events such as Trooping the Colour. The decision was reached on Saturday after Palace aides spent days thrashing out a new arrangement for the young couple.

Sir Humphrey Appleby, the loathsome bureaucrat on the 1980s Britcom Yes, Minister, knew how to pry lawmakers off their ideals: Call them “controversial,” or better yet, “courageous.” The former quality, he explained, costs votes; the latter imperils reelection. Days after winning Texas’s 21st congressional seat in November 2018, soon-to-be U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R) told the Sir Humphrey types to get lost. “…Too many people in Washington on both sides of the aisle… get here and the first thing they start thinking about is moving the levers to get reelected,” Roy told Fox News’s Mark Levin. “That’s not why you’re...

Urban slang defines a person being "woke" or "wokeness" as someone being cognizant of "social justice." Social justice, in this worldview, encompasses racism, feminism, gender fluidity, inequality, and "undocumented visitors" (illegal aliens). The very word connotes a superior state of being in which any opposing opinion is perceived as a personal affront, or even attack, and triggers the necessity for safe spaces. Opposing viewpoints are bludgeoned on college campuses and in the mainstream media as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, gun-toting, and Bible-thumping idiocies. Oh, the elitism — and blindness! The woke are really the unwoke — those with no sense...