Free Republic

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the United States has a “crisis at the border” that needed to be addressed by immigration reform. Host Jonathan Karl said, “On immigration, when Harris ran for the Democratic nomination against you and others in 2020, she said she favored decriminalizing illegal border crossing. She even suggested she would be in favor of abolishing ICE. Now, of course, she’s taking, at least rhetorically, a much tougher line on border security.”

Just a few weeks after Special Counsel John Durham revealed significant failures to investigate allegations against Hillary Clinton’s family charity, a U.S. Tax Court judge has once again breathed new life into a years-long whistleblower case alleging IRS improprieties involving the controversial Clinton Foundation. U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson has already once before denied an IRS request to dismiss the whistleblower case, first brought in 2017. And three years ago, he ordered the tax agency to reveal whether it criminally investigated the foundation, citing a mysterious "gap" in its records. The IRS filed a new motion to dismiss, and...

Download PDF flyer From Tampa Bay, Florida, to Portland, Oregon, from Los Angeles to Boston, people took to the streets Jan.30-Feb 1. They organized car caravans, speakouts and dropped banners demanding that the government immediately cancel the rents and mortgages, house the homeless and stop evictions.Actions took place in 30 cities as national and local eviction moratoriums have only paused millions of evictions, and a third of the population can’t pay their bills and are unable to catch up with the rent. An eviction crisis looms that will hit oppressed communities, already especially affected by the pandemic, the hardest. Meanwhile,...

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, outdoor gatherings with a friend or two have replaced the indoor dinner party. Many people have spent Friday night around a backyard fire pit or in lawn chairs parked on a sidewalk, pulling their masks on and off between sips of beer. Is this permitted under California's new stay-at-home order, now in place throughout Southern California and the Central Valley and adopted pre-emptively by six Bay Area jurisdictions — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco and the city of Berkeley? The answer is no, according to the state guidelines. Here's how Santa Clara County...

A man wanted for his role in an alleged $35 million Ponzi scheme was arrested Monday after evading FBI agents by swimming into California’s largest reservoir using an underwater “sea scooter,” federal prosecutors said. Matthew Piercey spent nearly 30 minutes in frigid Lake Shasta using the Yamaha 350Li submersible device before he eventually resurfaced and was handcuffed, the Sacramento Bee reported. It wasn't immediately known if the 44-year-old has an attorney. Agents later learned Piercey had a sea scooter, a motorized device that pulls users underwater at speeds of about 4 miles per hour, the newspaper said.

State Sen.-elect Lois Kolkhorst, laying out her priorities since winning a promotion to the upper chamber, said Wednesday she anticipates a “big revamp or repeal” of the Texas law allowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants — a move that has the blessing of Gov.-elect Greg Abbott. (SNIP) While Patrick has vowed to repeal the DREAM Act, Abbott’s position has been less straightforward. During his second gubernatorial debate with Democratic opponent Wendy Davis, he said he would not veto a repeal of the law if it came to his desk. His campaign has previously expressed a need to reform the measure...

Romney should not enter into this argument on Obama's terms, i.e., argue against amnesty or the dream act, but only to say, "the President has no authority to make this kind of unilateral decision... instead, this is something American society, through our elected officials, must hammer out". He needs to focus his argument on the idea, that for Obama, words have no meaning. He should show Obama's words from last year where the President said he had to follow the law and that he was powerless to make the kinds of changes he just made this last week. Then extend...

On June 15th, President Obama sent an e-mail out to supporters informing them about a raffle offering a “casual dinner” with the commander in chief. The money raised from the raffle will go to his re-election campaign. (snip)“We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford -- and I want to spend time with a few of you. So if you make a donation today, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner.

Over millions of years dogs have developed bigger brains than cats because highly social species of mammals need more brain power than solitary animals, according to a study by Oxford University. For the first time researchers have attempted to chart the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years. They have discovered that there are huge variations in how the brains of different groups of mammals have evolved over that time.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has signaled that it might accept health care cooperatives instead of a government-run health insurance program to compete with private insurers. Interest groups disagree on whether such co-ops would have enough negotiating clout to help consumers without threatening private insurance companies. Here, in question and answer form, is a look at the issue based on interviews with several authorities, including the chief proponent of health co-ops, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Q: How would a health care co-op work?

President Obama has had, by general consent, a torrid First Fortnight. To put it another way, it has taken precisely two weeks for the illusion that brought him to power to be exposed for the nonsense that it so obviously was. The transformational candidate who was going to sweep away pork-barrel politics, lobbyists and corruption has been up to his neck in sleaze, as eviscerated here by Charles Krauthammer. Despite the fact that he came to power promising to ‘ban all earmarks’, his ‘stimulus’ bill represents billions of dollars of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections -- which have nothing...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2007 – Terrorist-committed violence in Iraq has plummeted since the start of the surge of forces, a senior U.S. officer reported yesterday from Baghdad. “Terrorist attacks are at their lowest level since January 2006,” Navy Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference. The overall number of attacks in Iraq is 55 percent lower than the period before the surge took hold in June, Smith said. Civilian fatalities across Iraq are down by about 60 percent during the same period, Smith said. And civilian deaths in Baghdad...

Subject: Politic World Explained with Cows DEMOCRAT You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. Barbra Streisand sings for you. REPUBLICAN You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So? SOCIALIST You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow. COMMUNIST You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour. CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. You sell...

City of London to have bird flu drill LONDON (Reuters) - The City of London financial services sector will next month test out how it would cope with a bird flu pandemic in an exercise run by finance industry regulators. The Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury will organise the bird flu simulation event, which will run from October 13 to November 24. More than 60 organisations from the financial services industry have been asked to take part. These three bodies cooperate on business continuity planning for incidents that could cause major disruptions to the City...

Cows also 'have regional accents' Cows moo with a regional twang Cow moo recordings(Click on site to hear) Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested. They decided to examine the issue after dairy farmers noticed their cows had slightly different moos, depending on which herd they came from. John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, said regional twangs had been seen before in birds. The farmers in Somerset who noticed the phenomenon said it may have been the result of the close bond between them and their animals. Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said:...

CAMP LIBERTY — Troops serving at this large logistics base near Baghdad International Airport were provided a rare opportunity Saturday to meet and talk with Gen. Peter Pace, the sixteenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pace answered questions from Soldiers of Multi-National Division – Baghdad and the 4th Infantry Division. “We came a long way to do one very special thing, and that is to say thank you to you for what you are doing over here. We are so proud of what you do,” said Pace to the room of about 50 service members. “Sometimes, when you...

INNSBRUCK, Austria -- It's been suspected for centuries, but a team of world-renowned scientists has finally confirmed it: Lawyers and leeches have identical genetic makeup. Dr. Andreas Volkenweiler of Austria's famed Innsbruck Institute of Genetic Research confirms that, "While studying the DNA sequences of many genes that control body patterns in various occupations, our research team observed that each lawyer gene contains a stretch of 180 nucleotides -- or structural components of DNA -- which exactly match the structure of those found in leeches. "Once we made that basic match, other similarities between the two species were fairly easy to...

FORT HUACHUCA — Soldiers are guardians of two special flags — the American and the Army banners. More than two centuries ago today, the Continental Congress adopted two resolutions on June 14, one in 1775 and the other two years later. The first established an Army. The second gave them a flag to fight under. For Spc. Richard Edminson, a member of the fort’s honor guard, the Army flag represents the need for a service to ensure democracy is protected. “It represents our freedom,” the soldier said. From the top of the flag, campaign streamers honoring battles from the Revolutionary...

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class “Lucky” sniffs for weapons and explosives while manning a traffic control point at the Sadr al Yusufiyah water treatment facility May 14, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Doug Pfeffer Soldiers Have ‘Luck’ On Their Side Sgt. 1st Class Lucky is a two-year-old white lab that specializes in locating weapons caches by scent. By U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Doug Pfeffer2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment CAMP STRIKER, Iraq, June 13, 2006 — While deployed to Iraq, soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, have gained assistance in the searching of...

FORT BLISS, Texas (Army News Service, June 5, 2006) – The first-ever Afghan soldier to attend the Sergeants Major Academy has graduated as a member of SMA Class 56, at Fort Bliss, Texas, May 19. Sgt. Maj. Roshan Safi was selected to attend the U.S. SMA on recommendations from his commanders and U.S. Army mentors in Afghanistan because of his consistent leadership potential as a career-soldier, which began with the post-Taliban controlled Afghan military. “We have officer and enlisted training in Afghanistan,” says Safi. “But in the future we want to establish more non commissioned officer enlisted and officer schools.”...