Free Republic

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed a massive $1.2 trillion government funding plan despite the objections of the majority of House Republicans, violating the Hastert Rule and crossing the Rubicon into dangerous territory for the future of his speakership. House Republicans enacted the longstanding rule to prohibit Republican Speakers from colluding with Democrats to pass legislation. But Johnson sent the bill to the Senate despite the objections of 112 Republican colleagues, with only 101 Republican votes in favor, although Johnson and his leadership team applied significant pressure. Johnson also broke a House rule intended to give lawmakers time to review legislation...

China’s military on Friday staged its second-largest incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) this year, ordering 18 warplanes to fly through the special zone, the Taipei Times reported on Saturday. China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) deployed six J-11 fighter jets, six J-16 fighter jets, two H-6 bombers, two KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and one Shaanxi Y-8 electronic warfare aircraft into Taiwan’s ADIZ on May 6.

A Michigan-Flint University professor says Harvard's hosting a music program open to “all BIPOC students” is a Title VI violation. Professor Mark Perry filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over an upcoming program at Harvard that will require applicants to disclose their race . “No Label Academy at Harvard,” is a “music business” course that will be hosted by rapper IDK . It is “open to all BIPOC individuals interested in music business,” and designed to build “a pipeline for BIPOC talent to kickstart their music careers,” according to the program’s website. Those...

Turkey's AKP government has over the past year shipped drones, armored vehicles, "laser weapons," and other arms and ammunition to Libya's Tripoli-based pro-Islamist Government of National Accord (GNA), which is led by Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj and which the UN recognizes as Libya's legitimate government.[1] The AKP government has also trained GNA military and police personnel. While this military support has been reported since as early as 2015, it appears to have expanded in 2019. The policy represents Turkey's role in the ongoing Second Libyan Civil War, which began in 2014 and is now characterized largely by fighting between the...

“The Turkish attacks and invasion against Afrin, canton of the autonomous Region of Rojava – Northern Syria, part of the sovereign State of Syria, are an aggression violating international law”, said author and economist Thomas Benedikter. Author and economist Thomas Benedikter spoke to the ANF about the Turkish state’s invasion operation against Afrin that has left one month behind amid intensifying attacks and clashes. Remarking that Afrin has been one of the most safe and stable regions in Syria during the 7 years of war in Syria, Benedikter recalled that the region has welcomed and accommodated hundreds of thousands of...

A Russian official has criticized Washington's lack of authorization from Syria to deploy troops. The UN warned Damascus and Moscow of increased violence against civilians after a hospital was bombed, leaving 30 dead. Moscow sees the deployment of an additional 250 US military personnel in Syria as an affront to Damascus' territorial sovereignty, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's state-owned TASS news agency on Friday. "If we are talking from the position of the foreign minister, we - of course - cannot not be concerned over the fact that the US carries out such actions without coordination with...

Some senior U.S. officials involved in the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal have privately concluded that a key sanctions relief provision – a concession to Iran that will open the doors to tens of billions of dollars in U.S.-backed commerce with the Islamic regime – conflicts with existing federal statutes and cannot be implemented without violating those laws, Fox News has learned. At issue is a passage tucked away in ancillary paperwork attached to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, as the Iran nuclear deal is formally known. Specifically, Section 5.1.2 of Annex II provides that in...

The Obama administration is secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans -- and it's been going on for years. "It is sweeping, it is not what I would expect from the United States," Mark Rumold, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said. In a secret program code-named PRISM, major Internet companies like Microsoft, Apple and Facebook are allowing the NSA and FBI to tap into their central servers to track people. This latest revelation comes on the heels of a discovery by Britain's The Guardian newspaper that the NSA is collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon...

According to Section 455(b)(3) of Title 28 of the U.S. Code, justices must disqualify themselves in cases where they have “served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser, or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case or controversy.” As solicitor general of the United States, Justice Elena Kagan served as the head of an office responsible for formulating the Obama administration’s legal defense of its domestic agenda priority — Obamacare.

One of two men convicted of the "Onion Field" kidnap.m.urder of a police officer in 1963 has violated parole and is being sought by authorities. Jimmy Lee Smith, 76, has been at large since Dec. 22, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jonathan Parsley. Although Parsley couldn't specify what parole condition was violated, but Smith went back to prison in June 2005 after admitting that he had violated parole by possessing heroin. Smith and Gregory Powell were convicted of abducting two Los Angeles policemen from a Hollywood street on March 6, 1963. The officers were driven 75 miles...

The American Civil Liberties Union claimed in a federal lawsuit Wednesday that California's lethal injection protocol violates the First Amendment rights of execution witnesses by not allowing them to see if the inmate is experiencing pain before death. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says the only reason San Quentin State Prison officials inject a paralyzing agent is to sanitize the execution and prevent witnesses from perhaps seeing convulsions. The paralyzing drug, according to the lawsuit, "makes it impossible for witnesses to determine whether death row inmates in California are being subjected to substantial and unnecessary...

Elkhart, IN - An Elkhart boy who climbed into a crane machine last week has garnered national attention including an appearance on the Today Show but the media spotlight almost landed his mother in jail. According to our reporting partners at The Truth, the boy's mother, 22-year-old Danielle Manges, violated her probation Monday when she went to New York and appeared on the Today Show with her son. Manges pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge of auto theft and was sentenced last October to 18 months of probation. Her Today Show appearance was her third violation in...

I guess it worked. I guess the terror-alert system in Washington -- the one that shot to red because two nitwits got lost in their plane -- worked. But the incident was awfully disconcerting. It reminded me of a James Thurber story, "The Day the Dam Broke," that details the chaos that erupted in Columbus, Ohio in 1913 when everyone thought the dam had burst (it didn't). Thurber speculated that the scare started when one man, possibly late for a lunch date with his wife, began to run east. When someone else began to run, perhaps a newsboy in high...

Groups: MBTA's Search Policy Violates Rights Officials To Search Bags, Packages On Subway POSTED: 11:15 am EDT June 28, 2004 BOSTON -- Civil rights groups said Monday that the MBTA's proposed searches of bags and packages on subway and commuter trains would be unconstitutional, and urged riders to not give their consent. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority wants to begin random searches next month, an anti-terrorism measure it plans to have in place before the July 26-29 Democratic National Convention. The civil rights groups said they'll file a lawsuit to stop the T from instituting the policy -- which would...