Free Republic

Nothing says “welcome to the third world” quite like entering Jasper County, South Carolina on Interstate 95. Traveling from Georgia, the highway narrows from six lanes to four lanes – with rusty guardrails flanking the roadside. Trash is everywhere, greeting visiting motorists as they pass through a 1990s-era stucco display that might as well be the entrance to a drug kingpin’s barn – or a trailer park. Which … is fitting. Traffic grinds to a slow crawl, then proceeds in stop-and-go fashion for the next fifty miles. Worst of all is the pavement – which resembles an Afghan airstrip following...

After President Trump pointed out the rat-infested piles of trash strewn around Baltimore, a group of 100 volunteers conducted a massive clean-up effort. Though tons of trash were removed at no cost to the City’s inhabitants, the Baltimore Sun newspaper derided the volunteers. While conceding that Baltimore is cleaner and healthier as a result of the voluntary clean-up, the paper’s editors found fault with the fact that the person who organized the clean-up is a Trump supporter. “If it had been anyone else, we would’ve been okay with it,” the editors wrote. “But having a Trump supporter do a good...

The minute I read Trey Gowdy's quote concerning Jeffrey Epstein's suicide I knew that we will never get to the bottom of the irresponsible and unforgivable actions of our government concerning the suicide of Epstein. Gowdy, who never gets to the bottom of anything before retiring and cashing big checks, said, "I am heartbroken for the victims." Gowdy might as well have said, "Well that's that, we will never know the truth. Too bad for all of those underage women, I am sorry but the secrets die with the man." No further curiosity needed; too bad for those girls. Gowdy...

Millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein died in an apparent suicide while in federal custody in Manhattan early Saturday, a stunning end that both infuriated and baffled his victims, and the federal officials responsible for his safety. “I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey ­Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody,” Barr said in a statement. “Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered. In addition to the FBI’s investigation, I have consulted with the inspector general, who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death,” Barr said. Epstein...

CANTERBURY, England — “Doomsday prepping” or stockpiling food, medicine, weapons and other supplies in case of an apocalyptic scenario has long been considered peculiar behavior only exhibited by conspiracy theorists and other extremists in the United States. However, such prepping has actually been steadily on the rise in the U.S. over the past decade. So, what’s causing this surge in stockpiled rice packets and underground bunkers? One group of researchers say it is an ever growing sense of impending doom in American culture. Many have speculated that this surge in doomsday preppers over the last 10 years was linked to...

A federal lawsuit accuses the brother of former Vice President Joe Biden, hedge fund manager Michael Lewitt and others of attempting to defraud a Tennessee business. ... It says the plaintiffs founded Diverse Medical Management to reform failing rural hospitals, and Jim Biden promised to sell the health care plan to investors. It says Biden and Lewitt then urged the plaintiffs to borrow $10 million from Lewitt that would be repaid by investors. But the investors never materialized. It says Lewitt then threatened to sue the plaintiffs for not making payments on the borrowed cash.

NRA officials contend that Ackerman McQueen suggested the real estate purchase and that it was ultimately rejected by top NRA leaders...Most did not respond to requests for comment via email or phone. Those who did rallied to the LaPierre’s defense, accusing Ackerman McQueen — which is locked in a legal battle with the NRA — of distorting details about the real estate discussions. “This story is a big lie,” said Howard Walter, a retired Navy fighter pilot who lives in North Carolina and has served on the board for 21 years.

OUTRAGEOUS: Most Corrupt FBI Agent in US History (Peter Strzok) Lands Most Corrupt Judge in US History (Amy Berman Jackson) to Oversee His Case!!! - ( Full title ) ... The most corrupt judge in US history, Obama appointee Amy Berman Jackson, was assigned to the wrongful termination lawsuit from the most corrupt FBI Agent in US history, Peter Strzok. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointed liberal judge with a corrupt disposition and anger towards Americans who think differently than Obama, will now apply her own distorted interpretation of the law in corrupt cop Peter Strzok’s wrongful termination case....

Two Boston City Hall officials have been convicted of conspiring to extort the founders of the Boston Calling music festival, federal prosecutors said. Kenneth Brissette, the city’s director of tourism, and Timothy Sullivan, chief of intergovernmental affairs, were charged in US District Court in Boston with illegally pressuring Crash Line Productions into hiring nine members of a stagehands union to please Mayor Martin J. Walsh, a former union leader with close ties to organized labor. Jurors, who had deliberated for only a few hours, convicted Brissette of both charges he faced — Hobbs Act conspiracy and Hobbs Act extortion, according...

Full title: Judicial Watch Obtains Records of 14 Referrals of FBI Employees for Leaking Sensitive or Classified Information (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it received records of 14 referrals of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employees to the organization’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) for the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive or classified information. The disclosure comes off the heels of Judicial Watch’s uncovering a FBI report detailing fired FBI Director James Comey kept FBI documents on President Trump at his house. Comey also admitted to leaking these documents. Although the FBI’s OPR does not have its own website,...

Adding to the barrage of criticism of prominent Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), President Donald Trump recently said “billions and billions” in federal assistance to the city has been “stolen.” Plenty of federal dollars flow to Baltimore every year, but what happens to all of it is hard to determine, since the city has long had a problem tracking its dollars. “What Elijah Cummings should do is, he should take his [House] Oversight Committee, bring them down to Baltimore, and invest all of them and really study the billions and billions of dollars that’s been stolen,” Trump told reporters upon...

One could consider the billions trillions of dollars in taxpayer funds already spent on places like Baltimore a form of reparations.  But it should be clear by now that more money from the government is not going to fix places like Baltimore. Ever since Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party gave us the infamous promises of the "Great Society" — which was supposed to result in "the total elimination of poverty and racial injustice" — for decades, liberals across the U.S. have promised minorities, especially black Americans, that if they would only vote for Democrats, life would be better. Fifty-five years,...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A West Side hospital was forced to stop accepting patients on the tail end of a violent weekend that has left 47 people been shot, four fatally, across the city. Saturday night, resources were stretched to the breaking point as officers responded to multiple shootings in Chicago's 10th Police District, which includes West Side neighborhoods such as Lawndale, Douglas Park and Homan Square. The shootings all occurred within a three hour period, resulting in 17 people injured and at least one dead. "Throughout the night, we had multiple incidents where there were large gatherings and it was...

The Feds are looking into possible campaign finance misdeeds by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff and lead rainmaker, who suddenly resigned Friday, federal sources told The Post. The inquiry centers on two political action committees founded by Saikat Chakrabarti, the top aide who quit along with Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent,the sources said. Trent left to join the congresswoman’s 2020 re-election campaign.

A federal grand jury indicted Illinois State Sen. Thomas Cullerton this morning on embezzlement charges related to a job with Teamsters Local Union 734. Prosecutors allege he received $275,000 in salary, bonuses, health and pension benefits for “little or no work” as a union organizer. The Villa Park senator, 49, worked for the union before assuming office in November 2012. In a statement, Cullerton’s attorney denied any wrongdoing and suggested Cullerton was the victim of Teamsters boss John Coli. Coli is cooperating with federal investigators as part of a plea deal in an extortion case related to Cinespace Studios on...

Joe Biden is being portrayed as the Democrats’ safest potential presidential nominee, despite his obvious flaws as a candidate. But one wonders how Biden’s history of swamp corruption will play if he actually faces the scrutiny of a national run. Biden’s family has gotten wealthy, like those of so many low-paid “public servants”–Tom Daschle and Harry Reid are obvious examples. How does that happen? Politico headlines: “Biden Inc. Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.” It begins:

Joe Biden’s younger brother James received a series of “unusually generous” bank loans during the 1970s, while the former vice president served on the Senate Banking Committee. Politico reported on Friday that James Biden, who has a history of murky financial dealings, was able to parlay his role as the chief fundraiser for his brother’s 1972 Senate run into the startup capital required to open a nightclub. The loans were considered “unusually generous” given that the younger Biden was a salesman without any business experience and purportedly had a net worth of less than $10,000 at the outset of the...

Three members of the National Rifle Association’s board resigned on Thursday August 1, 2019. Concerns about fiscal impropriety and mismanagement motivated the board members to resign from the organization. The three board members — Esther Schneider of Texas, Sean Maloney of Ohio and Timothy Knight of Tennessee — claimed that they were stripped of their committee assignments after they questioned NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s spending habits. BLP reported on concerns about LaPierre’s lavish spending a few months ago, which has drawn considerable criticism from members of the gun rights community.

President Trump's criticism of the rampant crime, corruption, and filth that pervades the City of Baltimore was characterized as "racist" by his political opponents in the Democratic Party and the media. Though Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md) had previously made similar criticisms of the City, he took offense at "the President's insensitive remarks. It is one thing for those of us who have had to suffer the decades of misgovernment to complain. It is quite another for a white outsider to dare to expose it to the world. That's racist." Trump pointed out that "Cummings has represented the worst portions of...

“The water is meant to represent gender and sexual fluidity,” Mr. Singh said, seated beneath a 1988 Herb Ritts portrait of Cindy Crawford. The women who would pose in that water — their limbs wrapped around one another in a balletlike pose — were not simply models but activists. One uses performance art and digital media to share stories about the H.I.V. epidemic. Another is an underwater dancer who promotes ocean conservation. The third, a Belgian artist, recently filmed herself walking naked through a Hasidic neighborhood of Brooklyn during a sacred holiday.