Free Republic

The Philippines has for the third time suspended a decision to scrap a two-decade-old Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, its foreign minister said on Monday, amid a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea. Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said the suspension would be for a further six months while President Rodrigo Duterte “studies, and both sides further address his concerns regarding, particular aspects of the agreement”. The Philippines is a treaty ally of the United States, and several military agreements are dependent on the VFA, which provides rules for the rotation of thousands of US...

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich once again used his press availability to launch into politics instead of basketball, as he heaped praise upon Austin, Texas, after their recent vote to defund the police. The coach then went on a rant about how “racist” Trump is because of what Popovich thinks is “voter suppression.” During his comments, Popovich waxed ecstatic that the City of Austin is moving to slash a third of its police department budget and added that he hopes his hometown of San Antonio would do the same, according to San Antonio’s KENS Channel 5. Popovich was asked...

After months of criticism that GoDaddy was providing a platform for hate speech, the Web hosting company announced late Sunday that it will no longer house the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that promotes white supremacist and white nationalist ideas. GoDaddy said in a tweet that Daily Stormer had been told it had 24 hours to move its website domain to another provider because it had “violated” the Web host’s “terms of service.” GoDaddy’s announcement was in response to an appeal from a Twitter user who called attention late Sunday to an online post by Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin....

Oops! Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, has discovered that his endorsement can be political poison. Such was the case with his endorsement at the beginning of this month of the very liberal Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, in the New York 23rd CD special election: Club for Growth darling Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party line, and has even garnered the endorsement of Fred Thompson. The guy has legitimate traction, fueled by the fact that Dede Scozzafava, the Republican, is actually the most liberal candidate in the race. (Heck, she has run on the very liberal Working...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Top lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding more information from the Homeland Security Department about medical treatment provided to illegal immigrants detained in the U.S. Recent news reports have detailed insufficient — and in some cases negligent — medical treatment for immigrant detainees over the past five years. The reports have sparked renewed interest in an issue that has been raised for years by human rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who has held one hearing on the topic, said details she has heard about detainees'...

After reading Ana Marie Cox’s (Time/Wonkette) puff piece on Markos “Screw ‘Em” Moulitsas, here are the top 5 things I didn’t know. 1. Since backing Ned Lamentos’ successful primary effort against Joe Lieberman, Markos considers himself to be the Netroots King-Maker. This after his personally endorsed candidates had previously gone a combined 0 - 16. [Note to Wonkette and The King: Primary wins are one thing, but if Lieberman wins the General Election, that makes you a combined 0 - 17 in elections that matter.] And, this was priceless: The day after Lamont’s win, Moulitsas came to lunch in a...

CELEBRATED LIB STRATEGIST HAS SHADY MARKET PAST Jerome Armstrong, the political strategist who followed a famous Internet fundraising effort for Howard Dean in 2004 with a book on "people-powered politics," has a sordid past as a shill for a worthless dot-com stock. Armstrong, 42, touted a dubious Chinese software company, BluePoint, beginning in 1999, without disclosing that he accepted "below-market" shares in exchange for the glowing reports he posted on a site called Raging Bull, according to a 2003 civil suit that named him as a defendant. "Armstrong posted over 80 times on the BluePoint message board located on the...