Free Republic

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used a secret, off-the-books bank account to rent a $21,000 suite at a Nascar race, take a trip to Las Vegas and donate money to the school of one of the agents’ children, according to records and interviews. Agents also used the account to finance undercover operations around the country, despite laws prohibiting government officials from using private money to supplement their budgets, according to current and former government officials and others familiar with the account. The revelations highlight the lax oversight at the A.T.F. that allowed agents and informants...

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is calling for a hearing the forceful removal of a United Airlines passenger from an overbooked flight. “I deplore the violent removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight this weekend,” Norton said in a statement Monday. “Airline passengers must have protections against such abusive treatment. "I am asking our committee for a hearing, which will allow us to question airport police, United Airlines personnel, and airport officials, among others, about whether appropriate procedures were in place in Chicago and are in place across the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Last year, Sheryl Crow started a petition on Change.org to shorten the U.S. presidential election cycle. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter said she was exhausted by the mudslinging and divisive language that had dominated the discussion about the candidates. “I felt like it was becoming so hateful that I had to watch to make sure my kids didn’t pick up the remote and turn the TV on,” she said during a recent interview at her home in Nashville....

What if 4 whites assaulted a black teenager that was supporting “Blue lives matter”, in defense of police officers, and they cracked his skull ? What if two of the 4 assaulters were 21 years old ? What if one of the assaulters was the son of Sylacauga District 2 City Councilwoman-elect Tiffany Nix ? What if those 2 adults (21 year olds) were going to be tried as juveniles so their record would be cleared later ? Do you think that would make national news ? Do you think the people would stay in office who allowed such...

Senators are alarmed about the national security implications of Russia acquiring a significant ownership share in an oil company whose terminals span 20 states across the nation. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who is chairman of the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) say he needs to be prepared to protect U.S. energy infrastructure should Rosneft carry through with seizing control of CITGO Petroleum Corporation’s Venezuelan parent company, state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. Oil...

HELENA – Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed a bill that would have banned Sharia and other foreign laws from being used in Montana courts, saying Thursday that the measure would "upend our legal system and debase what we stand for as Montanans and Americans."

RUSH: Man, oh, man. Rex Tillerson arrives today in Russia on a tiny jet. I couldn’t believe this when I saw it. He shows up in a Boeing 737. Now, I realize he didn’t fly all the way from Washington. There was a G20 meeting somewhere. So it was a short hop to Moscow. But I can’t believe it, a U.S. secretary of state shows up in a puddle jumper jet. Probably to avoid the appearances of grandiosity. There’s nothing wrong with the Boeing 737, but they normally use Boeing 757 or 767s for cabinet officials and the veep. Anyway,...

Imagine being able to see your bullet hitting the target as it hits its target. Vortex and Hornady released a video of a new "bullet-cam" and it had many talking, whether they believed it or not. Some new technology that would hypothetically change the hunting and filming game forever from Vortex and Hornady took the outdoor world by storm recently. News like this would change the industry…if only it were true, lol. An epic April Fool's prank cooked up an incredibly cool product, outstanding visuals and dialogue, and some great acting from employees. Vortex and Hornady released the video that...

Ya think? Oh yes, many people beat up on Target for this bit of nonsense. Ourselves included. They deserved it, and they couldn’t deny it was happening. But they tried to insist at the time that it didn’t affect their business. That seemed implausible at the time, and now even they aren’t trying to pretend any longer. You simply can’t announce a policy that is guaranteed to upset at least half your customer base, and then expect to suffer no conquences for it. So when Target brashly announced last summer that it would allow everyone to use the bathroom corrersponding...

Sounds like pretty conventional geopolitics, but it doesn't fit the media template of the 2016 election Normally this would be a bottom story of the day: The United States and Britain are working together to pressure Russia into withholding support from a bad actor in the Middle East. That’s about as conventional as geopolitics ever gets. It transcends partisan changes in either or both parties’ leadership roles, and it hasn’t even been changed all that much by the collapse of communism - an event that is astonishingly approaching 30 years old.

"I thought back to the 1993 confirmation of my nomination to the court—the hearing was altogether civil, the vote was 96 to 3. For Justice Scalia, the vote was unanimous," Ginsburg said. "Let's hope members of Congress, the members that Allegheny College has already honored — Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John McCain, the women of the Senate, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Lindsey Graham — let's hope that they and others of goodwill will lead in restoring harmonious work ways." Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg erroneously labeled South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham as one of the "women of the Senate" on Monday. Ginsburg's misstatement came in her remarks upon accepting an Allegheny College award given to her and the late Justice Antonin Scalia for civility in public life. Hours after Justice Neil Gorsuch was sworn in to replace Scalia, Ginsburg took to the podium in calling on lawmakers to work together, but mistakenly identified South Carolina's senior senator as a woman. "I thought back to the 1993 confirmation of my nomination to the court—the hearing was altogether civil, the vote was...

I heard y'all like firearms, so I decided to link this clip, especially since it made me laugh out loud in a quiet public place... And I am bored to high heaven anyway. Enjoy!

THE biggest loser from last week's cruise-missile strikes on a Syrian air base wasn't President Bashar al-Assad. It was Vladimir Putin. The Syrian leader was punished, but Russia's new tsar was humiliated. Even with an hour's warning of the attacks, Putin's military in Syria did nothing to defend its ally. For all of the Russian bluster in recent years, Putin couldn't stop the strikes. His military lacked the means to do so. And any attempt to interfere with the operation would only have revealed the inferior quality of Russian armaments - including their much-ballyhooed air defence systems. This is vitally...

united Things aren’t looking very good for United Airlines at the moment. The airline is dealing with a public relations nightmare, their stock is tanking, and to top it all off, they are under review by the Department of Transportation. The DOT announced last night that they’d be looking into United over how they treated the passenger who was physically ejected from their overbooked plane this weekend. Their statement says that the department will particularly examine rules regarding overbooked flights, as well as the procedures for dealing with fliers who refuse to give up their seats. Fox News noted that...

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday accused the Russian government of engaging in a cover-up of the chemical weapons attack last week by Syrian forces that prompted American airstrikes, saying that United States intelligence and numerous contemporaneous reports confirmed that the Syrians used sarin gas on their own people. In a declassified four-page report that details United States intelligence on the chemical weapons attack, the White House asserted that the Syrian and Russian governments have sought to confuse the world community about the assault through disinformation and “false narratives.” Senior White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity...

Rev. Al Sharpton claimed this weekend that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice is just the latest victim of a Republican campaign of calumny against influential African-American females—an effort the black activist argued has already targeted California Congressman Maxine Waters and journalist April Ryan. Sharpton declared during his weekly rally on Saturday that the allegations are part of a pattern of conservative attacks on black women. “Same time we saw that they want to jump on Susan Rice. Now, how many black women are ya’ll gonna try to demonize?” Sharpton told an applauding crowd at the Harlem headquarters of his...

Hope you enjoy. Sister Christian

Anyone buying that? No? OK Neil Gorsuch has been confirmed to a lifetime SCOTUS appointment, there’s nothing they can do about it, and Democrats are furious. Lefties who demanded the “nuclear option” be employed when they were in power, are simply aghast that the GOP has called Harry Reid’s bluff and used it against them. Remember, as Reid famously said, “Let them do it, why would we care.”

Judge rules Great Ormond Street hospital can withdraw life support for Charlie Gard after doctors say he has brain damageDoctors can withdraw life-support treatment from a sick baby boy against his parents’ wishes, a high court judge has ruled. Specialists at Great Ormond Street hospital (GOSH) in central London had told the court they believed it was time to stop providing life support for eight-month-old Charlie Gard, who has a rare genetic condition. Doctors treating the infant say he has brain damage and should be moved on to a palliative care regime. His parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, of...