Free Republic

The FBI issued a statement in response to the damning Twitter Files 1-8 released by Elon Musk, and it’s offensive. The FBI admits the facts in the files, claims what is recounted are normal interactions, and then suggests the information results from conspiracy theorists spreading misinformation. They’re not apologetic. Instead, they’re continuing the disinformation campaign. THE STATEMENT The correspondence between Twitter and the FBI shows nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding, and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries. As evidence in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information...

Michael Shellenberger’s revelations about the FBI’s efforts to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story should have been shocking. But we are long past the time when we can legitimately expect our top government officials to be more than a power-grabbing group of grifters. Among the revelations was the fact that the FBI had 80 agents monitoring Twitter and feeding suggestions about accounts and tweets to censor. Lots of people are rightly outraged about that, but in itself it is hardly surprising. The growth of the security state has become pervasive enough to make me almost shrug. Sad, I know. What...

The FBI has obtained Pegasus spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group, which allows the agency to take complete control of a person’s phone without their knowledge. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has demanded answers from the FBI about how often it uses this invasive tool to hack Americans and whether the agency has gotten authorization from the courts to do so.“The American people have a right to know the scale of the FBI’s hacking activities and the rules that govern the use of this controversial surveillance technique,” Wyden said in a letter Tuesday to FBI Director Chris Wray.In particular, Wyden...

Humor. A book of my grandmother Catharine's that I illustrated and set to the music of Sousa that came out the same year as her book, 1908. Catharine was the first female newspaper publisher in Colorado, and the daughter of General Henry L. Burnett. Her earlier book, "Moods and Tenses," is in the Special Collections of Brown University.

Jeff Legwold ESPN Senior Writer Facebook Twitter Facebook Messenger Pinterest Email print ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Former Denver Broncos running back Ronnie Hillman, who played on two Super Bowl teams, including the Broncos' Super Bowl 50 winner, has died after a bout with cancer, his family said Thursday. He was 31. Former teammates such as Derek Wolfe and Orlando Franklin had expressed how dire Hillman's health was in recent days, saying Hillman had been moved into hospice care. Franklin took to social media to ask "please pray for Ronnie Hillman ... this ain't fair, please god, please." Wolfe said that Hillman...

It was, perhaps, a small miracle that Kari Lake’s election challenge was allowed to go to trial, but the tough part still lies ahead: proving beyond a reasonable doubt (Count II) that ballot printer problems on Election Day were intentional, designed to affect the results of the election—and that they, in fact, did—and (Count IV) that additional votes were allowed to be counted in violation of the County Election Manual.On Wednesday, Lake’s team took a huge step toward doing that.When asked by Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm if the county knew on Election Day how many ballots had been submitted by...

The House of Representatives passed a bill mandating annual reviews of a president’s tax returns Thursday, following a committee move to disclose publicly former President Donald Trump's tax returns earlier in the week. Dubbed the Presidential Tax Filings and Audit Transparency Act, the measure cleared the lower chamber 222-201 largely along party lines. The bill follows revelations that the IRS did not audit Trump during two of the years he served as president. Under IRS policy, the tax agency is required to audit sitting presidents annually, but those rules were agency requirements. The bill that passed the House Thursday would...

Animal has been grazing in the same neighbourhood since November A long-distance shot of a moose missing half a leg eating part of a tree branch on a snowy day. Despite missing most of one of its legs, the moose is continuing to move and is able to eat, so wildlife officials say they don't need to intervene. (B.C. Conservation Officer Service) A three-legged moose is being monitored by conservation officers in Prince George, who say they are hopeful the animal will survive the winter despite its injury. The young bull moose was first spotted in early November and has...

“Recipients are cautioned that making a payment or donation to a third party (including a charity) in the amount of any payment received from a FTX contributor does not prevent the FTX debtors from seeking recovery from the recipient or any subsequent transferee,” FTX added in a statement.

in its 14-year existence, the cryptocurrency world has failed to generate any significant real-world use case apart from the financing of crime. It has mainly been a speculative investment, which only worked as long as real dollars were entering the system. Crypto has never known anything but easy money ... There’s a brutal liquidity squeeze going on in global markets, and money is being sucked out of risky asset classes.” Cryptocurrencies have been about as risky as it gets. But the real promise was that cryptocurrency would always go up in price ... The promise in cryptocurrencies has always been...

VIDEO AT LINK........... Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Wildlife officers and firefighters in Washington came to the rescue of a mother moose that fell through the ice covering a frozen river. Paula Pershall-Gilbert said she and her husband, Bill Gilbert, spotted the moose struggling in the frigid water of the Little Spokane River from the back porch of their home in Elk. The couple contacted the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, but officials said they initially thought the situation sounded too risky to mount a rescue. "We initially said we wouldn't attempt a rescue because wild animals, cold weather and...

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will be released on $250 million bail in a deal designed by federal prosecutors and Bankman-Fried’s defense attorneys, a New York federal judge ruled on Thursday. Bankman-Fried was indicted in the Southern District of New York on eight counts including securities fraud and money laundering. Judge Gabriel Gorenstein said that Bankman-Fried would require “strict” supervision following his release to his parents’ home in California. His parents, both Stanford Law professors, were present in the courtroom. Bankman-Fried was flanked by two U.S. Marshals, dressed in a suit and tie. Bankman-Fried’s parents would put up the equity in...

A hostage situation unraveled at a Mississippi Walmart after a distressed customer held a worker at gunpoint before officers shot her dead. The incident occurred at around 5.40pm at a Richland store on Wednesday and ended shortly after police entered the building and shot the unidentified suspect. Horrific footage taken by a shopper showed the woman holding the gun directly to a wide-eyed and terrified female worker's head while walking at the front of the store. It's unclear what led to the woman pulling out the gun, but she was seen trembling in distress. The worker wasn't injured. The incident...

Fox News anchor Sean Hannity testified under oath Wednesday that he never believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Hannity gave his testimony in a hearing connected to Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion-defamation lawsuit against Fox News, The New York Times reported. Dominion’s lawsuit alleges that the company faced irreparable damages from the network’s coverage of allegations that its systems rerouted votes cast for former President Donald Trump to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. “I did not believe it for one second,” the anchor said, regarding the allegations. Stephen Shackelford, Jr., an attorney for Dominion, said Fox News Executive Vice President...

[Catholic Caucus] “It is the traditional diocesan priests that ‘Traditionis Custodes’ is murdering”: Interview with Louis RenaudinThe following is Letter 906 of Paix Liturgique, published in French on December 21, 2022.Paix Liturgique: More than a year and a half after the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis custodes, can you tell us to what extent traditionalists have been the victims of this iniquitous decisionLouis Renaudin: Forgive me for contradicting preconceived ideas, but I do not think that traditionalists were the real victims of this iniquitous decision. I would even say that the most "hard-line" among them were not at all...

Were it not for its proximity to Christmas, Hanukkah would be unknown to most non-Jews and it would not be celebrated by most non-religious Jews. The proof is that the other post-Hebrew Bible holiday, Purim, while very popular in Israel, where it is sort of a Jewish Mardi Gras, is essentially unknown to non-Jews and largely ignored by most American Jews. Too bad. Hanukkah is actually of seminal importance both to Judaism and to the world. SNIP To understand why Judaism so bothered Antiochus, one needs to understand that no pagan religion completely rejected Hellenism. Judaism did. If Antiochus wanted...

The FBI relied more extensively on Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in their Russiagate investigation than has been revealed, inserting key parts from it into their applications for warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign. Agents did this without telling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the precise wording was plucked directly from a political rumor sheet paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign or providing judges with any independent corroboration of the explosive allegations. For years, defenders of the FBI and its Russiagate probe have downplayed the bureau's reliance on the opposition research cooked up by Steele – with its...

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed what would be its largest fine ever - just under $300 million - against the biggest robocall company that it's ever investigated. The company made a staggering 5 billion scam calls over the course of three months last year, which the agency notes is enough to 'have called each person in the United States 15 times.' Since the robocallers met the definition for 'egregious violations,' the FCC decided to impose its largest fine ever: $299,997,000. Consumers were subjected to relentless calls that often began with something like: 'We've been trying to reach you concerning...

House Democrats voted Thursday to make Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) the top Democrat on the powerful Oversight and Reform Committee in the next Congress, a pivotal role in the defense of President Biden as Republicans prepare to take control of the lower chamber next year. Raskin, a six-year House veteran, defeated Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) in the closed-door, secret-ballot vote on Capitol Hill, where the full caucus gathered to finalize their committee roster heading into the 118th Congress.

Ten establishment senators on Thursday helped Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) Title 42 amendment fail, enabling the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill advance in the Senate, while providing political cover for 2024 endangered Democrat senators. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) worked with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Jon Tester (D-MT) Thursday morning to circumvent Lee’s amendment by crafting a side-by-side amendment to provide political cover for ten senators to ignore Lee’s Title 42 amendment, which was thawing a wrench into the passage of the omnibus bill. Lee’s Title 42 amendment tied funds for the Department of Homeland Security to the Biden administration maintaining...