Free Republic

ell Middle School teacher Shane Parmely was detained for over an hour by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint in New Mexico because she refused to say whether she was a U.S. citizen. Parmely’s family helped her film the incident, which she posted Friday evening on her Facebook account in several segments that were widely shared. Parmely told Border Patrol agents that she believed she did not have to answer their questions. One agent showed her a card listing immigration law and a Supreme Court case decision that give Border Patrol agents authority to operate checkpoints within 100 miles of...

“Ads that perpetuate gender stereotypes will be banned in UK, but not in the good ol’ USA!” reads a recent headline at the Web site Jezebel. Yay to the good ol’ USA for continuing to value the fundamental right of free expression, you might say. Or maybe not. Why would a feminist — or anyone, for that matter — celebrate the idea of empowering bureaucrats to decide how we talk about “gender stereotypes”? Because these days, foundational values mean increasingly little to those who believe hearing something disagreeable is the worst thing that could happen to them.

Remember the bakers in Oregon who were driven out of business for refusing to bake a cake for a ceremony that was against their principles? They were fined $135,000 under Oregon law. Now the federal government is going even further, by pushing a bill to erode the First Amendment, which would criminalize opinions deemed as “hate speech.” Indeed, if House Bill 257 is passed into law, you could be jailed for an opinion that defies political orthodoxy with regards to sharia law, or radical Islam. The United States already has strict laws that protect against hate crimes, so one reasonably...

The pro-Russian hacker site “Cyber Berkut” published links between the Ukrainian government and the Hillary Clinton Campaign today. Wikileaks posted the image. BOOM! Pro-Russia Hacker Site “Cyber Berkut” Publishes Links Between Ukraine and Clinton Jim Hoft Jul 13th, 2017 10:33 am 89 Comments The pro-Russian hacker site “Cyber Berkut” published links between the Ukrainian government and the Hillary Clinton Campaign today. Wikileaks posted the image. THIS IS AMAZING— Cyber Berkut published this damning news today. Hillary Clinton campaign and the Ukrainian government! According to Cyber Berkut the Ukrainian foundation transferred 10 to 25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Ukraine...

The Seattle City Council unanimously approved a pioneering new income tax on wealthy residents Monday. A a legal challenge is widely anticipated. The measure applies a 2.25 percent tax on total income above $250,000 for individuals and above $500,000 for married couples filing their taxes together. The city has estimated the tax will raise about $125 million a year and cost $10 million to $13 million to set up, plus $5 million to $6 million per year to run and enforce. The council’s finance committee cleared the tax last week, increasing the rate from 2 percent to 2.25 percent.

The amount of money the government spends on programs and the amount it collects in taxes could change from the budget office projections, so the office warns that the Treasury could run out of funds even earlier. Currently, the federal deficit stands at $693 billion, which is an increase of $134 billion than what it projected in January. The federal government has an outstanding debt of $19.8 trillion, which includes $14.3 trillion in public debt and $5.5 trillion held by government accounts. Spending on major government programs such as Social Security and Medicare causes the amount of borrowing to increase....

<p>The Office of U.S. Special Counsel, the government’s main whistleblower agency, is investigating whether FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s activities supporting his wife Jill’s Democratic campaign for Virginia state senate in 2015 violated the Hatch Act’s prohibition against FBI agents campaigning in partisan races. The agency’s probe was prompted by a complaint in April from a former FBI agent who forwarded social media photos showing McCabe wearing a T-shirt supporting his wife’s campaign during a public event and then posting a photo on social media urging voters to join him in voting for his wife. “I am voting for Jill because she is the best wife ever,” McCabe put on a sign that he photographed himself holding. The photo was posted on her social media page a few days before the election, in response to Dr. Jill McCabe's plea to “help me win” by posting photos expressing reasons why voters should vote for her, according to the complaint.</p>

A despotism in our midst no one can do anything about, evidently. Could Congress create a fourth branch of government? Maybe break off a piece of what the executive branch handles now — commerce, say, or agriculture, or maybe even defense — and create a new office supported by its own dedicated tax stream and the authority to levy penalties? The president could still appoint this officer — I think prince-bishop has a nice ring to it — but wouldn’t be able to remove His Excellency absent extraordinary factual circumstances. Maybe we could expect the prince-bishop to decree exile for...

""BREAKING: NSC Won’t Fulfill Subpoena Request For Susan Rice Unmasking Documents – The Records Were Moved to Obama Library""" Judicial Watch today announced that the National Security Council (NSC) on May 23, 2017, informed it by letter that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” were removed government possession.

"EXCLUSIVE: FBI Used Agents As Pawns To Insulate Hillary, Aides & Clinton Foundation From Prosecutions" In mid-summer a wave of panic and despair began to wash over key rank-and-file FBI agents who were doggedly working the Hillary Clinton investigations. Agents reluctantly pondered a potential, brutal reality that was creeping into the fabric of the high-profile case. What if their collective work wasn’t meant to bring this case to a grand jury for indictments and justice? What if they themselves, FBI agents sworn to uphold the law, were being used as intelligence pawns by superiors and higher powers to actually shield...

Eric Schmidt, billionaire chair of Alphabet, Inc. the parent company of Google, led a massive fundraising drive in December for leftist analytics firm Civis Analytics, represented by a law firm that partnered with Justice Department special prosecutor Robert Mueller—raising questions about Mueller’s impartiality in his so-called “Russia probe” into President Donald J. Trump’s campaign. In March 2014, WilmerHale announced Mueller would join its firm as a partner. Mueller left his position in May after the DOJ appointed him as a special prosecutor to look into alleged “ties” between President Trump’s campaign and Russia. WilmerHale represented Civis Analytics during a $22...

"""Judicial Watch Releases New Hillary Clinton Email Admitting Blackberry Use ‘Against the Advice of the Security Hawks’"""" Judicial Watch today submitted new evidence to U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan showing that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly used an unsecure BlackBerry device despite being warned by “security hawks” against doing so. The email record was obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act...

Russian intelligence agents hacked a U.S. voting systems manufacturer in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, according to a National Security Agency investigation report leaked to The Intercept. The Intercept reported Monday that the NSA believes hackers used that breach to obtain information used to spearphish its customers. The report, marked top secret and only to be shared with the "Five Eyes" nations (Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia), claims the Russian intelligence agency GRU targeted more than 120 email addresses associated with local government organizations, which it speculates were taken from the earlier hack.

Thursday at 3 p.m. ET, President Donald Trump will make a statement ...

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has urged the federal government to revoke a permit for a “free speech” rally and to refuse a permit for an anti-Muslim march planned for Portland next week. Wheeler made the request in light of a gruesome stabbing on a MAX light-rail train Friday, May 26. Two men died and another was seriously injured when they intervened to defend two teenage girls from a man’s bigoted tirade. In a series of posts on Twitter, Wheeler said the events should be canceled.

Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers — who were banned from the congressional network — have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information. Imran Awan and three relatives were colleagues until police banned them from computer networks at the House of Representatives after suspicion the brothers accessed congressional computers without permission. Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them. The baffled aides wonder...

Ousted FBI Director James Comey’s ties to the Clinton Foundation and the conflicts of interest that lie there are too close to not raise red flags. Comey served as general counsel at Lockheed Martin until 2010 when he departed with over $6 million to show for it. That same year Lockheed Martin became a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and “won 17 contracts from the U.S. State Department, which was led by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” Big League Politics reports. Comey just so happened to have joined the board of the British bank HSBC Holdings in 2013, which...

WATCH | An update on Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's conversation with Hillary Clinton over Dr. Muhammad Yunus' removal from Grameen Bank. While secretary of state, Hillary Clinton made a personal call to pressure Bangladesh’s prime minister to aid a donor to her husband’s charitable foundation despite federal ethics laws that require government officials to recuse themselves from matters that could impact their spouse’s business.

The City Council in Sacramento, Calif. voted unanimously late Thursday to spend taxpayer money on services to help illegal immigrants fight deportation. . . . Guerra, who led a task force that proposed allocating the city's funds, justified the decision by pointing out that illegal immigrants often pay taxes and contribute to the economy.

Thousands of Flint, Mich., residents have been warned that they could lose their homes if they don’t pay outstanding water bills — even as the city has just begun replacing lead-tainted pipes after a contamination crisis linked to a dozen deaths. Warning letters were mailed to 8,002 residents in April, according to the city, a few weeks after state officials ended a program that was paying the majority of their water bills. But many Flint residents still don’t trust their taps — lining up for free bottled water or installing city-recommended filters after revelations in 2014 and 2015 that dangerous...