Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A watchdog investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith over his prosecutions of President Trump is based on an “imaginary and unfounded” premise, Smith’s lawyers wrote in a letter obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday. The letter marks the first response by Smith and his legal team to news that the Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog office, had launched an investigation into whether Smith engaged in improper political activity through his criminal inquiries into Trump. The attorneys told Jamieson Greer, the acting head of the office, that his investigation into Smith was “wholly without merit.”...

Discovered within the darkness of Petralona Cave, this remarkable skull - which belongs to an archaic species of human - is notable for the fact that it has a stalagmite growing directly through it. Initially found in 1960 and often referred to as "Petralona Man", this intriguing specimen has long left paleoanthropologist's scratching their heads. A recent study has concluded that it is neither Neanderthal nor human, leaving a question mark over exactly which species of archaic human ancestor it actually belonged to. The 'Petralona Man' skull. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 NadinaThe skull is also now believed to date...

The result, legal experts say, is an escalation in the way Trump officials seek to penalize, remove or even jail adversaries.President Donald Trump’s move to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook on Monday was the latest illustration of his administration’s surprising new weapon against its enemies: their own mortgages.Trump and other officials raised allegations of mortgage fraud last week against Cook, a prominent economist put on the Fed board by President Joe Biden. The Justice Department is investigating the claims now, and Trump says the allegations alone are enough for him to push her out of her seat. Additionally, the...

Socialism is defined as a system of social organization where the ownership of property and the distribution of income are subject to social rather than private control. This definition reflects the early understanding of socialism as a form of social democracy, where the government plays a role in the economy and distribution of resources. It’s interesting that we see on the horizon those who have come into America asking for asylum from the oppressive and destructive measures of the government that they allegedly sought asylum from. Then, they attempt to implement the very government here in America that they fled...

The director of Federal Housing Finance Agency could win the president an opening on the Federal Reserve board.Bill Pulte finally may have captured a head at the Fed.For weeks, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has publicly called for the firing of Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, and issued warnings on social media about a crackdown on mortgage fraud.That crackdown appears to have now ensnared a different member of the Federal Reserve Board, Lisa Cook. On Monday evening, President Trump fired Ms. Cook because of allegations that she falsified records to obtain favorable terms on a...

A 17-year-old girl in her third trimester of pregnancy was gunned down in a road rage incident in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, over the weekend. According to the Tangipahoa Sheriff’s Department, Katelynn Strate was a passenger in a vehicle with two others when another driver began tailgating them. The other driver, 54-year-old Barry West, fired a shot, and it struck Katelynn Strate in the head. Katelynn Strate delivered her baby at 27 weeks before she was taken off life support. The baby is reportedly healthy and in the NICU.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Maryland’s entire federal bench in an emphatic ruling that underscored the extraordinary nature of the suit, slamming it as “potentially calamitous.”U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also criticized the administration’s attacks on the judiciary, highlighting in a footnote that White House officials in recent months had described judges as “rogue,” “unhinged” and “crooked,” among other epithets. “Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to...

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has disputed President Donald Trump’s characterization of Baltimore.President Donald Trump described Baltimore as a "hellhole" while talking about crime during Tuesday's cabinet meeting. The president was addressing Maryland Governor Wes Moore's invitation to walk the streets with him when he made the comment. "I'm not walking in Baltimore right now," President Donald Trump said. "Baltimore is a hellhole." Following President Trump's order for the National Guard to respond to crime in Washington, he has suggested a similar move in other cities, including Chicago, New York and potentially Baltimore. Moore has disputed President Trump’s characterization of Baltimore....

Summary Trump says he has 'cause' to remove Fed governor Cook's lawyer says she will take matter to court Another open board seat could boost Trump's influence over Fed Market reaction to Trump's move on Cook muted WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will file a lawsuit to prevent President Donald Trump from firing her, a lawyer for the embattled central bank official said on Tuesday, kicking off what could be a protracted legal fight over the White House's effort to shape U.S. monetary policy."His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks...

Australia has given Iran's ambassador seven days to leave the country after alleging the country's government directed antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. Intelligence services linked Iran to an arson attack on a cafe in Sydney in October last year, and another on a synagogue in Melbourne in December, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a press conference on Tuesday. Albanese added the two incidents were "attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community". Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and three other officials have been ordered to leave Australia, which has withdrawn its own diplomats from Tehran. Iran has "absolutely...

During the last quarter of 2024 we had to upgrade our merchant services account to a new provider. Our old provider did not require the security code on the card so we did not capture that information. However, our monthlies with our new provider will not run without the security code. This means all of our credit and debit card monthlies quit working. During the last several months we've had about half of our credit card monthlies sign up for a new monthly but we still have the other half to go. If you have a debit or credit card...

Many paid tribute on Tuesday to the 13 American service members who were killed four years earlier in the terrorist attack at Abbey Gate — and President Donald Trump led the charge. The attack was carried out by ISIS-K terrorists on August 26, 2021, and targeted the chaos and crowds at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan — chaos that might have been avoided altogether if President Joe Biden had not so badly botched the plan to end the war and evacuate American service members, civilians, and allies. Trump had announced one day prior that Tuesday would be set...

Around 900 migrants arrived in the UK under darkness after being picked up in the Channel over the bank holiday weekend, providing further proof of the failure of Labour's 'smash the gangs' policy. A total of 52,180 people have now arrived illegally in Britain since Sir Keir Starmer took office and ditched the Conservatives' Rwanda scheme - putting his faith instead in a vague plan to target people smugglers. Ministers confirmed today that the first arrivals have been detained in a new one in, one out deal with France, but critics warn its narrow scope means it will do little...

Looking past the man to his party of choice makes him even more frightening.With so much attention showered on the person of Zohran Mamdani following his shocking blowout victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, it has been easy to overlook the underlying ideology of the party to which he belongs. And we are not talking about the Democrats, but the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which Mamdani proudly joined in 2017. But, you might say, Mamdani does not actually believe — or still believe — the most nakedly communist tenets of the DSA’s party platform, right? And...

Imagine if some of us still drove horse-drawn carriages for our daily commutes while others zoomed around in the newest-model cars. That is the gap — in terms of speed, technical innovation and consumer benefit — between how we use money today and what stablecoins promise. Recent analysis suggests that many Americans still have no idea what stablecoins are. But now that Congress has passed the bipartisan GENIUS Act — the first federal framework for stablecoins — rapid adoption is likely. Understanding how these digital dollars work will be not just helpful but necessary. Put simply, a stablecoin is a...

A white man lost it in a Walgreens after noticing the Mahogany line of greeting cards, calling the cards specifically designed for people of color “whack.” His brief rant launched a social media firestorm. What’s probably the weirdest thing about his meltdown is that such cards have been around since before the 1980s, so his outrage is coming more than 40 years after the cards first showed up in retail outlets. “Ya’ll I’m at Walgreens looking at freakin cards,” Drew Bishop370 originally posted on TikTok. Bishop thought Walgreens had just started selling the cards. Hallmark said its Mahogany line of...

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a Pennsylvania requirement for mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates to be tossed out is unconstitutional, upholding a lower district court ruling. A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a March ruling from a federal district court in Pennsylvania that found the requirement did “not pass constitutional muster” in a lawsuit filed around the 2022 election. The Republican National Committee had appealed the lower court ruling, but a panel of three judges appointed by former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush rejected...

The previously classified documents are the focus of the current investigation into weaponization of American intelligence agencies against Donald Trump. Ironically, Democrats and deep-staters caught in the crosshairs are claiming that they are victims of weaponization and revenge.The Trump administration’s probe into weaponization of the intelligence community, beginning with the genesis of the fake Russia collusion allegations in 2016, has kicked into full gear this summer. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel have declassified and released a mountain of documents shedding light on how the bureau's deeply flawed and politically-motivated Trump-Russia inquiry, known as...

https://babylonbee.com/news/genius-trump-enacts-plan-to-dumb-down-chinese-population-by-inviting-them-to-attend-american-universities WASHINGTON, D.C. — In yet another genius move designed to weaken a rival nation, President Donald Trump enacted a plan to dumb down the Chinese population by inviting them to attend American universities. Trump's plan was praised by national security experts, who cited it as a brilliant maneuver to reduce China's influence on global affairs in the long term by shrewdly allowing their students to be made substantially less intelligent at educational institutions in the U.S. "Pretty soon, Chinese kids will all be dumb, just as dumb as American students," the president reportedly told his advisors. "We'll let in...