Free Republic

California has been a completely Democrat-run state for so long that most people have forgotten that California was once a state much like any other. When people in other states think of it, they simply dismiss it as “Crazy California.” With the recent election in Virginia returning a Democrat-majority legislature in a state with a Democrat governor, Virginia is heading down the same path as California, although that's not immediately obvious. While the national press has covered the government’s attacks on the Second Amendment and its attempted end-run around the Electoral College, there are a host of other planned...

Andrew McCabe’s denials to his FBI colleagues that he was behind a media leak related to the Clinton Foundation investigation in October 2016 cast suspicion on his loyal aide, Lisa Page, former FBI Director James Comey said in an interview with the Justice Department’s inspector general. In a Nov. 15, 2017, interview, Comey said McCabe denied to him that he was involved in a leak for an Oct. 30, 2016, story in The Wall Street Journal that disclosed the existence of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Because of McCabe’s denials, Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki, came to suspect...

Joe Biden insisted his son Hunter is a good person who does not deserve the attacks President Trump has made toward him. "My son's a brilliant, honorable guy who — who feels so guilty for being put in this spot — that he put me in this spot," the former vice president said Sunday in an interview with NBC. Host Chuck Todd described the attacks on Hunter by the president as "cruelty."

Two Los Zetas cartel assassins have had their convictions partially vacated in the killing of a federal agent in Mexico nine years ago, according to a new report. Jose Emanuel “Zafado” Garcia Sota and Jesus Ivan “Loco” Quezada Pina had been convicted of four counts in the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in San Luis Potosi. A jury in Washington returned the verdict in 2017. Last month, a DC federal appeals court vacated their convictions on two of those counts — murder and attempted murder of a federal officer, The Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas, reported...

Boris Johnson cancelled a planned visit to the White House after a row over China in which President Trump slammed the phone down on him, according to reports. Prime Minister Johnson was originally due to visit the White House last month following his election win, before postponing the meeting until February. However, following a heated phone call with the American leader, the Prime Minister has cancelled his trip for fear causing a deeper rift, according to Business Insider. Donald Trump was said to have been “apoplectic” in his phone call with Johnson while discussing the Briton’s decision to allow Chinese...

WASHINGTON — More than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials called on Attorney General William P. Barr on Sunday to step down after he intervened last week to lower the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr.They also urged current government employees to report any signs of unethical behavior at the Justice Department to the agency’s inspector general and to Congress.“Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice,” the former Justice Department lawyers, who came from across the political spectrum, wrote...

The national media are flabbergasted that Americans won't consent to President Trump's removal from office. How can so many of his compatriots be indicted and so many government bureaucrats condemn his behavior without giving them what they desire: self-assurance that they are "on the right side of history"? If they ever wish to understand, the critical starting point in their education is not the current presidency, but the last one. Although there are numerous ways to describe the present divide in America, one of the simpler is thus: those Americans who take Barack Obama at his word that his presidency...

China steals Western capabilities, intimidates smaller nation states and seeks “advantage by any means and at any cost,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper cautioned on Saturday as he cast the world’s most populous nation as a disruptive threat to world order. Esper used an address at the 2020 Munich Security Conference in Germany to give a comprehensive condemnation of China that he said topped the Pentagon’s list of potential adversaries, followed by Russia and “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran

Hollywood has always had a problem with America's Judaeo-Christian culture, particularly now, putting itself at odds with a large part of its audience. That's left a gate open for new ideas, and entrepreneurs, using new technologies and approaches to fill the gap. So, a very successful series about the life of Jesus, called "The Chosen," creatively attempting to tell the story of Jesus from the point of view of the people around him, has taken off from under the radar. The streamed series, which can be viewed on as a multi-season television program, pretty much the first of its kind,...

A hearing was held Thursday to consider the arguments by defense lawyers that the case was moving far too rapidly. They claimed legal errors could occur that would result in a reversal on appeal and trigger yet another high-profile trial. Prosecutors had been pushing to have the trial begin with jury selection beginning Jan. 27. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer had insisted on keeping that date for probably the biggest trial in the county's history, but on Thursday said she would delay the start. Schere said she now wants the trial to begin in summer 2020. In a court filing...

McClatchy, the publisher of the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and dozens of other newspapers, has filed for bankruptcy protection as it struggles to pay off debt while revenue shrinks because more readers and advertisers are going online.

Posts Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 A Picture of the Transformed Human Person – A Homily for the Sixth Sunday of the Year The Gospel for Sunday’s Mass is from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), specifically 5:17-37. In a way the Lord is drawing a picture for us of the transformed human person. He is presenting a kind of slide show of what sanctity really is. In understanding this rather lengthy text we do well to reflect on it in three parts.I. The Power of New Life in Christ – We have discussed before that...

As Bloomberg’s VP, Hillary Clinton could get revenge against Trump: Goodwin “Watch for smoke signals from Chappaqua,” a Democratic friend said recently. “She wants back in.” She — there is only one political she — might be getting what she wants. The report that Hillary Clinton could become Michael Bloomberg’s running mate is one of those times when it is no exaggeration to use the word bombshell. Earthquake would also work, assuming the political marriage actually happens. For now, it’s a trial balloon, as demonstrated by the timing and the way the idea was leaked. A big red banner on...

At the near end of the day, Oregon politicians rolled out a sneak attack 177-page amendment to the massively complex Oregon Carbon Tax (SB 1530, also known as Carbon Cap-and-trade) and expected lawmakers to vote on it with less than 24-hours to read it much less have enough time for experts to understand what the 177-page amendment really does. The Oregonian comments, “Democrats delivered a 177-page amendment to the bill late Wednesday, less than 24 hours before it was scheduled for a vote. Republicans objected to holding vote on the bill before they’d had time to digest the changes and...

The tape of Mike Bloomberg’s 2015 defense of stop, question and frisk presents his own successful policies in a way guaranteed to repulse fair-minded listeners. Indeed, his claim that “the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them” is an insult to the police officers tasked with using stop-and-frisk to fight crime: NYPD cops strive to use the least force necessary now — and they did then, too. Oh, and: “Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O.,” he said —...

The U.S. Justice Department has accused Huawei Technologies of helping Iran track protesters in its latest indictment against the Chinese tech giant as Washington steps up pressure on the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker. In a new indictment unsealed on February 13, Huawei was also charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from six U.S. technology companies and to violate a racketeering law typically used in the fight against organized crime. The indictment supersedes one unsealed last year in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. According to prosecutors, Huawei provided surveillance equipment to Iran that enabled the monitoring of protesters...

The central Chinese province of Hubei escalated its restrictions to contain a coronavirus epidemic on the weekend, ordering the province’s residents - including 24 million people in rural areas - to stay home until further notice. The orders came as the death toll from the outbreak neared 1,700, including reports of the first death in Europe and Taiwan on the weekend. Hubei, a province of 58 million, accounts for over 80 per cent of the confirmed cases and 96 per cent of the deaths in China. On Saturday, Hubei reported 1,843 new cases out of a nationwide total of 2,009...

The United States Air Force updated its official dress code policy this month, in observance of religious practices, to allow military personnel to wear turbans or hijabs as a part of the uniform. The Air Force released an update to the “Dress and Personal Appearance of Air Force Personnel” code on Feb. 7, now permitting airmen to request a waiver to wear religious apparel while in uniform as long as they are “neat and conservative.”The material used for headwear must resemble the color of the assigned uniform. This includes camouflage, and must be worn in a fashion that presents a...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the jury is still out on bail reform. “What I would just say is that we should just give this time. It’s been five minutes,” AOC told The Post when asked if the controversial new law needed to be amended. “Give it a shot. We’ve had almost no time since these things have passed. So I would just say, in this environment with political pressure, to maybe just say let’s just slow down a bit.” Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks during a ceremony to kick off her 2020 reelection effort in Parkchester, The Bronx, on Saturday. She...