Free Republic

Gov. Rick Scott has removed State Attorney Aramis Ayala from prosecuting two Orlando women who are accused of beating a 3-year-old boy to death because he drank milk from the jug. Scott issued two executive orders Monday to strip the two cases from Ayala and reassign them to neighboring State Attorney Brad King. Callene Marcia Barton and Lakesha Chantell Lewis were arrested July 7 at Eagle Landing on Silver Star Road in Orlando after authorities arrived to the apartment complex to find 3-year-old Xavier Mokarzel-Satchel unconscious and struggling to breathe, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said. Deputies said the boy's...

Revelations about email transactions between the US State Department and the Russian election watchdog Golos prior to Russia's parliamentary elections threaten to bring the reset to a grinding halt. Before a single vote was cast in the parliamentary elections, a string of incidents indicated that foreign governments were already exerting influence over the election process. Golos, an independent watchdog that has been monitoring elections in Russia for 10 years, was fined 30,000 rubles ($1,000) last week by a Moscow court for publishing “election-related opinion polls and research” after a deadline for publishing such material had passed (it is illegal in...

Shortened title. Full title: During Trump’s Paris Visit Migrant Suburbs Saw 900 Cars Burned in Scenes of ‘Intolerable Urban Violence’ While U.S. President Donald Trump was on a visit to France for the national Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, clashes in the capital’s migrant-dominated suburbs saw 13 security force members wounded and 897 cars burned. The Interior Ministry said 368 people were placed in custody for riots and violence on the nights of 13 and 14 July  — scenes which have become a regular occurrence in multicultural urban neighborhoods of Paris at the start of Bastille Day celebrations each year.

As a former CIA Officer, I know the value of misdirection. When properly executed, it can get you in doors and across borders without resistance. The government has used misdirection to win wars and create worldwide change.One of the more famous examples of government misdirection is Operation Fortitude in WWII. The Allied nations worked together to build phantom field armies to convince the Nazis that their invasion would be coming from places other than where the real invasion was coming from.The misdirection around Operation Fortitude took thousands of men and an entire army’s worth of fake, inflatable vehicles. But most...

HINGHAM — As police cars rolled into his pristine suburban neighborhood last Saturday night, past the sprawling Colonials and manicured lawns, and as dozens of officers from across the region surrounded his home, Russell Reeves begged them again and again to back off. In a bedroom upstairs his son Austin, 26, was distraught over a breakup. He had told his family he needed time alone. With him was his dog and his 9 mm handgun. If you pressure him, if he feels cornered, Reeves said he told the police, this will end with Austin killing himself. The police listened and...

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department will issue new directives to increase the federal govenment's use of civil asset forfeiture, a controversial practice that allows law enforcement to seize property from suspected criminals without charging them with a crime. Speaking at a National District Attorneys Association conference in Minneapolis Monday, Sessions said state and local law enforcement could expect changes from U.S. Attorneys in several areas: increased prosecution of gun crimes, immigration offenses, gang activity, and prescription drug abuse, as well as increased asset seizure by the federal government. "[W]e hope to issue this week a new...

Days after Judicial Watch exposed a new policy banning Phoenix police from contacting the feds after arresting illegal aliens, alarming pressure on the city council and chief of police has forced officials in Arizona’s largest city to postpone the order. Crafted at a Hispanic advisory committee that promotes open borders, the policy also prohibits officers from asking about suspects’ immigration status. The new policy’s two principle measures violate key provisions of a state law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and leave the city vulnerable to costly lawsuits. In the aftermath of Judicial Watch’s story, which included a copy of...

According to Springfield Police Department, Donohue attached a the plastic wagon to the rear of her car with a tie-down rope and drove to a roundabout circle, where she made laps around the roundabout until citizens stepped in. The vehicle traveled up to 30 miles per hour at one point during the incident, according to witnesses. One witness told police the toddler began crying after the wagon went up on two wheels. The witness says Donohue pulled over and moved the toddler from the wagon to the car and continued driving with the 4 year-old and the 8 year-old still...

My initial response—unbidden, unguarded—to the Civiltà Cattolica broadside against American conservatives was relief. Almost a kind of glee. The Emperor has thrown his New Clothes on the floor in a fit of pique; his courtiers bend low to pick up what is not there. The pantomime is fully in the open. Here, thankfully, is a barefaced specimen of intellectual sterility too obvious for a cosmetic gloss. Illustration by Munro Scott Orr (1874-1955) The Spadaro-Figueroa tirade is as nasty as it is ignorant. Writing as proxies for Francis, the pair make plain their boss’ uncomprehending distaste for America—its history, its politics,...

But it is Venezuela that could be the mother of all black swan events. As Neil Dwane of Allianz Global Investors mentions, Venezuela has already seen the near total breakdown of society, and its oil production of 2 million barrels per day (mb/d) could unravel. It still seems unthinkable at this point, but becoming more likely by the day. Already, Venezuela’s oil production has eroded sharply, falling to 1.96 mb/d as of May 2017, down from 2.375 mb/d in 2015. Meanwhile, Venezuela’s refining industry is in shambles, forcing the country to increasingly import gasoline to avoid fuel shortages. The street...

RUSH: Algore is back. He’s got a sequel to his first book and movie, An Inconvenient “Lie.” And now this is an inconvenient sequel or whatever it is. And folks, it’s insane. Now, I fear I’m beginning to overuse the word. I don’t know what else to use. It’s just chock-full of literal lies. But I don’t know how else to characterize it. This is not somebody writing who’s wrong about things and making mistakes who happens to be honestly intended. This is just straight, straight deception. He said, “We’ve never had a president who’s deliberately made decisions to tear...

(Newser) – The last message sent by 14-year-old Madison Coe before she was electrocuted in the bathtub shows the tragic mistake that killed her. "When you use and (sic) extension cord so you can plug your phone in while you're in the bath," the teen from Lovington, NM, wrote to a friend, sending a picture of the cord connection on top of a towel. But despite the precautions, Madison was apparently unaware that there was fraying on part of the cord, NBC 12 reports. Officials say she was killed after touching a frayed section while she was in the water....

President Trump hates America's trade deals. But he hasn't said what better deals would look like, or how he'll bring jobs back from Mexico. That should change on Monday. Trump's U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, is expected to publish a list of goals for the upcoming renegotiation of NAFTA, the free trade agreement among Canada, Mexico and the United States. Trump made NAFTA his No. 1 trade target during his campaign for the White House. "NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country," he said during the first presidential debate in...

First of all, I want to be totally upfront. I was born and raised Muslim by liberal parents and stopped practicing the religion in my early twenties. I was also born and raised a feminist by the same parents and have only become more fanatical about my feminism as I grow older. My mother is a practicing Muslim feminist woman from whom I have practically no secrets. That being said, up until about 15 years ago, I had never actually read a word of the Qur’an myself. Like many people who are raised Muslim, it was told to me and...

Dozens of Arabs rioted tonight (Monday), throwing stones and blocking the Maale Mota Gur road in Jerusalem. Police forces are on the scene and the rioters are being driven out using riot control measures. At the same time, dozens of Arabs gathered near the Lions' Gate and attacked policemen. The Arab riots are part of the Arab protest against the metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount following the murderous attack on Friday. During the day, hundreds of Muslim worshipers came to the Al-Aqsa mosque but did not enter and prayed outside the Temple Mount to protest the...

The police officer who shot unarmed, white Australian woman Justine Damond has been identified. Police sources have named the shooter as Officer Mohamed Noor, according to Kare 11. The officer started on the force in 2015 and, at the time of the shooting, had two outstanding complaints against him, Kare 11’s Lou Raguse tweeted.

Academics and scholars must be mindful about using research done by only straight, white men, according to two scientists who argued that it oppresses diverse voices and bolsters the status of already privileged and established white male scholars. Geographers Carrie Mott and Daniel Cockayne argued in a recent paper that doing so also perpetuates what they call “white heteromasculinism,” which they defined as a “system of oppression” that benefits only those who are “white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.” (Cisgendered describes people whose gender identity matches their birth sex.) Mott, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey,...

The State Department is has long been compromised — State Department careerists work for the countries they are assigned to, not to America, and that’s the problem. The State Department is the problem. We need patriots and freedom lovers in state craft, not Muslim Brotherhood lackeys. President Trump is attempting to overhaul the State Department and leave his “America First” stamp on the cumbersome bureaucracy — a move that is reportedly making former officials very nervous. Trump’s war on the State Department The Hill, July 2017: President Trump is seeking to radically remodel the State Department in an unprecedented way,...

Charlie Gard’s parents remain "optimistic" following a brain scan that will determine whether he can have experimental therapy. The scan took place at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) where a US professor of neurosurgery examined the 11-month-old boy on Monday. Prof Michio Hirano was studying the scan and other medical records before deciding whether he felt the boy could benefit from treatment for the rare mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.

A woman shot and killed by Minneapolis police had called 911 to report a possible crime near her home, a source who knew her said. Justine Ruszczyk called 911 on Saturday night because she thought a sexual assault might be taking place in a back alley near her home, the source said. But, after Minneapolis police arrived, an officer shot and killed Ruszczyk. Police still haven’t explained how, or why. “Working to learn more” The shooting happened as two Minneapolis police officers responded to a 911 call reporting a possible assault shortly before 11 p.m., Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said....