Free Republic

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said President Donald Trump was ignoring the “guardrails” of the presidency by pardoning supporters convicted of political corruption and white-collar crime. Christie said, “I think his view of this is that the biggest mistake he made in the first term was not to go further, was to have any type of guardrails placed upon him by either the people he puts around him or by recognition of the law and norms and customs for the position of the presidency. And so you see it in a whole bunch of different...

Senator Chis Van Hollen (D-MD) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Donald Trump is a lawless president ignoring the Supreme Court in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Van Hollen said, “What Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject. The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give people to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts....

Angel Moms Patty Morin and Tammy Nobles are ripping Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for traveling to El Salvador in an attempt to visit a deported illegal alien, accused of MS-13 gang membership and domestic violence, after ignoring the murders of their daughters in Maryland — 37-year-old Rachel Morin and 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton — both at the hands of illegal aliens. This week, Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador in the hopes of visiting 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien who crossed the United States-Mexico border in 2011 and has since been accused of being an MS-13 gang member,...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that while he’s not a huge fan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “over the last month, he’s gone against world opinion and American opinion on a whole range of issues, and he’s been absolutely right” in a way that has “served world peace” by weakening terrorist groups, and so those calling for him to declare victory in the wake of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar should accept they don’t have the same intelligence as Israel and Netanyahu has “been making some right calls over the last...

Those who disobeyed the barricaded road closures during the Maui fires survived the disaster, while many of those who heeded orders to turn around perished in their cars and homes with no way out... At least 114 people were killed in the fires earlier this month, and the FBI is estimating that up to 1,100 more are unaccounted for. Officials are facing increased scrutiny for the emergency response, including why the emergency sirens were not set off and whether closing the roads prevented people from getting to safety. ... Officials closed Lahaina Bypass Road due to the fires, blocking the...

Now that Black Lives Matter activists have served out their useful purpose for Democrats – energizing Black and White liberals voters to turn out for Joe Biden – they have apparently been dumped by the president-elect. Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a letter shortly after the election, requesting a meeting. She argued, “Without the resounding support of Black people, we would be saddled with a very different electoral outcome. In short, Black people won this election.”

All three networks spent so much time Monday morning breathlessly questioning whether or not Donald Trump Jr. “colluded” with Russia by agreeing to a meeting with an anonymous Russian lawyer during the campaign, that they couldn’t find any time to report on another important development in the same investigation--perhaps because it wasn’t centered on the Trump campaign. The new report from The Hill Sunday revealed that more than half of former FBI Director James Comey’s personal memos were determined to have contained classified information. While Comey claimed under oath that these were his personal notes and did not contain sensitive...

Following his long-awaited announcement detailing a proposal for massive defense spending cuts and an overall reduction in military personnel, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta revealed his list of the risks and the most pressing threats to America's security. "This is going to be tough," Panetta told reporters Thursday. "Obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have a smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond." So in the near future where will the world’s strongest military need to respond? Panetta says there's a long list of potential problems. Among his top...

The relationship between the US and the European Union is cooling. By declining to come to Spain for a trans-Atlantic summit, President Barack Obama made it clear that Brussels is far down on his priority list. The reasons for that can be found in Europe. The US president is traveling a lot these days -- and a clear pattern has emerged. The deeper into the United States it takes him, the better -- be it Nashua, New Hampshire or Tampa, Florida. The issue is always the same: How can Barack Obama create more jobs?

VALENCIA, Spain - The U.N.'s top climate official warned policymakers and scientists trying to hammer out a landmark report on climate change that ignoring the urgency of global warming would be "criminally irresponsible." Yvo de Boer's comments came at the opening of a weeklong conference that will complete a concise guide on the state of global warming and what can be done to stop the Earth from overheating. It is the fourth and last report issued this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace prize. Environmentalists and authors of the report expected tense...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will have to explain why it thinks it can ignore or overrule laws passed by Congress in a hearing next week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said on Wednesday. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he hoped to force the Bush administration to reduce its use of "signing statements" -- memos that reserve the right to ignore laws if the president thinks they impinge on his authority. "Our legislation doesn't amount to anything if the president can say, 'My constitutional authority supersedes the statute.' And I think we've got to lay down the gauntlet...

Despite a population boom forecast for California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes to keep traffic gridlock from worsening - and even improve it from today's levels - with his $107 billion transportation plan, officials said Friday. The governor's ambitious proposal for highways and freight-moving projects - which would be funded, in part, by voter-approved bonds - is unprecedented in a region where commuters spend 93 hours a year idling in traffic. It would add 750 highway miles, 550 miles of car-pool lanes and 600 miles of commuter rail. "We think we can make a significant improvement over today's levels for the...

CHICAGO - (KRT) - Bacterial infections may have killed four survivors of Hurricane Katrina, federal officials said Tuesday, while warning that other disease outbreaks may also be emerging. Officials named Vibrio vulnificus as a likely culprit in the deaths. The bacterium can lead to dangerous infections in people with open cuts and wounds who are exposed to hurricane floodwaters, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is also investigating a potential outbreak of norovirus, an infection infamous for causing stomach ailments on cruise ships, among refugees housed in the Houston Astrodome, Skinner...

North Korea: Salami or Hedgehog? North Korea has announced it removed 8,000 spent fuel rods from its reactor in Yongbyon, presumably to reprocess them into weapons-grade plutonium. Ten years ago, that would have caused a major commotion with talk that a red line has been crossed, No longer. All nations involved in six-party nuclear disarmament talks are playing it cool, with South Korea, the U.S., China and even Japan reacting as if it is no big deal. Whatever they do, it's a "negotiation ploy " The Korean government expressed "serious concern " while at the same time saying it believed...

Ron Paul, December 13, 2004 A recent study by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Task Force on Strategic Communications concluded that in the struggle for hearts and minds in Iraq, "American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended." This Pentagon report flatly states that our war in Iraq actually has elevated support for radical Islamists. It goes on to conclude that our active intervention in the Middle East as a whole has greatly diminished our reputation in the region, and strengthened support for radical groups. This is similar to what the CIA...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Amid warnings that another devastating terrorist attack on the United States could be imminent, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Thursday accused President Bush of leaving the nation's chemical plants vulnerable because of his political ties to the industry ``I wish their policies were in touch with the tough rhetoric that you keep hearing,'' Kerry told the National Conference of Black Mayors. ``What are we waiting for? Instead of misleading us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they ought to lead this nation to take every step to prevent one of our own chemical plants from...

Finger of blame points directly at the FBI for ignoring warnings that might have averted 11 September By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 25 May 2002 Campaign against terror We call it being wise after the event. In the US there is a more vivid expression, "Monday morning quarterbacking". It refers to the conversations people have around office water coolers discussing the previous day's televised American football games, and the performance of the quarterback, the key player who directs the strategy of his team. This month, as the country pores in anguish over the missed signals that might have warned that...