Free Republic

I'm a 30-year-old Brazilian with two young children, temporary employment and hopes for an eventual legal career. When I sought permission to terminate my pregnancy, I was thinking about my family, my finances and my future. In the process I found myself at the center of a political story, becoming the first woman in our country to fight for an abortion in court based on personal, nonmedical needs. Last month, the United States marked the 45th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade — a landmark decision that secured the right of American women to have an abortion. It remains the law...

Maryland will sue the Trump administration for capping state and local tax (SALT) deductions in its new federal tax law, the state’s attorney general said Thursday. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by President Trump last year contains a provision capping SALT deductions at $10,000, and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said residents across the heavily-taxed state stand to take a hit as a result. “By eliminating the SALT deductions, Trump’s tax bill will jack up taxes for more than half a million Marylanders,” Mr. Frosh, a Democrat, said in a statement announcing his intent to sue the Trump...

NASHUA — The mysterious New Hampshire woman claiming to have won the $560 million Powerball ticket sold last month is losing about $14,000 a day in interest, according to the attorney who is trying to fast-track a court hearing in the case. The woman has not yet submitted her winning ticket to the New Hampshire Lottery Commission in the hopes that a Hillsborough County Superior Court judge will allow her identity to remain a secret — even though she already signed her name on the winning ticket purchased at Reed’s Ferry Market in Merrimack. New Hampshire Lottery Commission rules and...

Exporting companies are using Chinese ships, planes, and trucks to transport dead Americans across the world for research purposes, according to a Thursday report from Reuters. A Hong Kong flagged cargo ship departed South Carolina in July carrying 6,000 pounds of human remains valued at $67,204. The container’s temperature was set to 5 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent the parts from spoiling. Relatives of the dead, meanwhile, did not realize their loved ones’ remains were being dismembered and sent to Europe and elsewhere, the report notes. Body brokers like Oregon-based MedCure rely on lax regulations to export heads, shoulders, knees and...

The recently released batch of text message exchanges between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page reveal the partisan FBI agents criticized Chelsea Clinton in harsh and personal terms. Strzok, who was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation for sending anti-Trump texts, criticized Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Committee convention in late July. “Chelsea was awful. Tried to do Bills up close sharing. Didn’t come across as genuine. Plus, she has a HORRIBLE billv goat speech tic,” Strzok wrote in a text to Page — his mistress and FBI colleague on the investigation at the time. The insulting characterization...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Tired of all this Winning yet? Part I – Food stamp enrollments dropped by more than 4 million from October to November of last year, the Labor Department announced yesterday. That is the largest single-month decrease in such filings ever recorded. Tired of all this Winning yet? Part II – The Labor Department also reported that new claims for unemployment benefits last week dropped to 221,000, the lowest number of such claims recorded in 45 years. So despite the ongoing correction in the stock markets, the economy just keeps winning. I’ve always...

The connection between Middle Eastern and Mexican food goes all the way back to the Moors, and is well-known in culinary circles. Al pastor tacos are just a pork version of the shawarma spits that Lebanese immigrants brought with them to Mexico City in the 1930s. In nearby Puebla, a wrap called tacos árabes — Arabic tacos — uses a flatbread that's halfway between pita and lavash. Kibbe (fried meatballs made from bulghur wheat) is popular in the Yucatán, thanks to Syrians who settled in the Peninsula over the past century. And the Lebanese-Mexican Chedraui family of Mexico City owns...

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee communicated through phone calls and text messages last spring with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch in order to gain access to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the salacious and unverified anti-Trump dossier. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) texted back and forth with lobbyist Adam Waldman, who runs the Endeavor Group -- which has ties to (surprise!) Hillary Clinton -- while leading the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into President Trump's alleged ties to Russia with his Republican colleague North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr.In one text to the lobbyist, the senator expressed a desire...

The honor of which American athlete would carry the American flag for Team USA at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics came down to a coin flip today in Pyeongchang. And the athlete on the losing end of that flip is not pleased. Speed skater Shani Davis decided to not participate in today’s ceremonies after he lost the flip to luger Erin Hamlin. Davis took to Twitter and evoked African American history month in his commentary on the events.  I am an American and when I won the 1000m in 2010 I became the first American to 2-peat in that event. @TeamUSA...

PARIS—The Polish scholar Jan T. Gross, an expert on the country during World War II, didn’t mince words when I asked him about Poland’s new law that would criminalize mentioning the complicity of “the Polish nation” in the crimes of the Holocaust. “It’s terrible,” he said by phone from Berlin, where he lives. “It criminalizes all survivors of the Holocaust. Every Jew who is still alive and comes from Poland could be prosecuted.” That might be going a bit far—it’s still quite unclear how the law would be applied, and it’s hard to imagine extradition cases for discussing Polish war...

SIERRA VISTA – Police officials have completed an investigation into the death of Susan Dunbar, who was run over by a pickup truck in the Fry’s Food parking lot Dec. 28. “The case was sent to the Cochise County Attorney’s Office on Monday for review of whether the driver is charged,” said Sgt. Brian Sebastian of Sierra Vista Police Department (SVPD). County attorney Brian McIntyre confirmed his office has the file and that it will be given priority because it involves a death investigation. “As for a timeline, I cannot provide one as there are many factors that can affect...

Amid the brouhahas about the Nunes memo and immigration, an item from Greg Hinz of Crain's Chicago Business caught my eye. Demographers crunching census data estimate that Chicago's black population fell to 842,000, while its white non-Hispanic population increased to 867,000. National political significance: In our three largest cities -- New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- gentry liberals have become the dominant political demographic. That's consistent with election results. Gentry liberals -- the term is urban analyst Joel Kotkin's -- are the political base of those cities' mayors, Bill de Blasio, Eric Garcetti and Rahm Emanuel. That's something new...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - More than six years after they were forced to leave their homes in the civil war that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, tens of thousands of residents of the Libyan ghost city of Tawergha were finally meant to start going home last week. It never happened. Armed groups blocked the road, shattering the hopes of families, casting a long-negotiated settlement into doubt, and demonstrating yet again the human cost of life in a country ruled by men with guns who appear to answer to no one. The case of Tawergha, a city built among date palm groves about 200...

There on the CNN split screen this morning were former Obama communications director Jen Psaki, and former Ted Cruz aide Amanda Carpenter. But you could be forgiven for wondering whether CNN had mistakenly switched their names. Because Carpenter was, during a discussion of former Trump aide Rob Porter, far rougher on President Trump. Claiming that Trump “does not give a whit” about the abuse of women, Carpenter recounted a list of alleged Trump transgressions. Among them, Carpenter mentioned “the rape allegation from his first wife, Ivanka [sic, Ivana].” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

PHOENIX — Linking the crime to domestic violence, a Senate panel voted Thursday to expand state laws of what constitutes animal abuse and demand harsher penalties. Existing law already makes it a Class 6 felony to intentionally or knowingly inflict unnecessary physical injury to an animal. The same penalty — a year in state prison — applies to those who subject any animal to cruel mistreatment. SB 1295 would create a special Class 5 felony for subjecting pets to cruel mistreatment. And the same penalty would apply for killing a pet without the owner's consent. Deputy Pima County Attorney Kathleen...

Elizabeth Hawley, who chronicled hiking expeditions on the Himalayas for over 50 years, has died in Nepal aged 94. The US journalist was a leading authority on the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest, despite never having reached its base camp. She was seen as a key person to authenticate climbs, keeping meticulous records and verifying claims about successful expeditions. Tributes have been pouring in from the climbing community. She died in a Kathmandu hospital on Friday, a week after catching a lung infection. 'The Sherlock Holmes of mountaineering' Part investigator, part librarian, Ms Hawley had been documenting Himalayan climbs since...

SIERRA VISTA — Every year, the Southwestern Association of Buffalo Soldiers celebrates Black History Month with educational lectures commemorating the contributions of African-Americans, both past and present. This year, the organization will hold a lecture at the Sierra Vista Public Library from noon to 2 p.m., highlighting pivotal impacts African-Americans had in U.S. wars throughout history. Charles Hancock, presenter and president of the association, will discuss the contributions of African-Americans in the military, much of which, he said, isn’t commonly examined in history books. “It’ll be from the Revolutionary War to the present,” Hancock said. “From my research in dealing...

Republicans on the Federal Communications Commission ended President Obama's "net neutrality" regulations. Those regulations were passed with no reason, but a fear of what might happen to the internet by major corporations. They were not needed. But Democrats declared that their repeal would cause people to die. Republicans rolled back Barack Obama's individual mandate that forces Americans to buy health insurance whether or not they want it. Statisticians declared Americans would lose their health insurance if the GOP did this, ignoring that those losing health insurance would be those actively choosing to forego an insurance plan. Again, Democrats declared the...

Video: President Trump is being slammed for wanting a Military Parade, but hang on, didn't Chuck Schumer call for a Military Parade back in 2014? Yes he did. Oh, the hypocrisy! He's is reading a script that is handed down to him from his globalist puppet masters knowing that the talking points will change again in a not too distant future as needed. Such a tired and overused expression but it is proven over and over daily; the only standards Poilticians have are double standards. Video link

Shani Davis, the churlish speed skating star who's no stranger to Olympic controversy, blasted Team USA team on Thursday after he lost a coin flip to determine the flag-bearer for Friday's Opening Ceremony of the Winter Games. Erin Hamlin, who in 2014 became the first American woman to ever medal in luge, won the honor to lead the U.S. delegation into Pyeongchang. On Friday morning, Martin Rogers of USA TODAY Sports reported that Davis is not expected to walk in the Opening Ceremony. The 35-year-old, who's won four Olympic medals and was the first black athlete to ever win gold...