Free Republic

This information will likely not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Big Tech’s increasing propensity to violate the privacy of users and use their data for questionable reasons, but here we are. Two days ago, the tech website Venture Beat noticed an eyebrow-raising bit in the latest update to Apple’s privacy policy: "Apple’s promise of transparency regarding user data means that any new privacy policy update might reveal that it’s doing something new and weird with your data. Alongside yesterday’s releases of iOS 12, tvOS 12, and watchOS 5, Apple quietly updated some of its...

There are plenty of challenges to putting people on Mars, whether you look at the rocket, the astronaut or the planet itself. New data from one of the many spacecraft at work around Mars confirm just how dangerous a round-trip human journey would be by measuring the amount of radiation an astronaut would experience. Cosmic radiation is made up of incredibly tiny particles moving incredibly fast, nearly at the speed of light — the sort of phenomenon a human body isn't very well equipped to withstand. That radiation travels across all of space, but Earth's atmosphere buffers us from the worst...

An anti-Trump professor at Georgetown University went on a profanity-laced Twitter rant against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused of committing a sexual assault as a teen. Dr. Carol Christine Fair is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown, according to the school’s website. Fair referred to “Kreepy Kavanaugh” as a “perjurer” and a “rapist” on her verified Twitter account, adding that “nothing has changed since Anita Hill.” Fair also said the “GOP doesn’t care about women. We knew this. F--- them.” In another tweet about Kavanaugh, Fair referred to the GOP as “pro-rape,...

Jodie May of Grandville, Michigan, was forced to appear before a district judge earlier this week on a larceny charge for taking away her daughter’s cellphone as punishment. May took the iPhone 6 from her 15-year-old daughter in April after the teenager got in trouble at school, according to reports. “I was just being a mom, a concerned parent and disciplining my daughter,” May told WOOD-TV. What began as discipline became a criminal matter after May’s ex-husband reported it to Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office and claimed she committed a crime. After the mom’s arrest in May, she was immediately released...

Holocaust survivor, Korean War hero and Medal of Honor recipient Tibor Rubin died of natural causes, Dec. 5, 2015. Rubin served in the U.S. Army in Korea, and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions there, Sept. 23, 2005. In Korea, at the end of October 1950, thousands of Chinese troops were laying in wait. Masters of camouflage, they blended into the brush and burned fires to produce smoke to mask their movements. When Soldiers of the 8th Cavalry Regiment were stretched before them like sitting ducks, the Chinese swarmed in. “The whole mountain let loose,” Rubin recalled...

Bombshell: A former law clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has made a bold claim on Twitter — that embattled SCOTUS nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be exonerated within a week, based on “compelling evidence.” POTUS Donald Trump’s second high court pick has been accused of sexual assault — from 36 years ago while in high school — by Palo Alto Prof. Christine Blasey Ford, who made the allegations on a letter allegedly passed to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in July. For his part, Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations, even stating that he had no idea...

The Dow and S&P 500 recorded fresh all-time highs Thursday with investors waving off the tit-for-tat exchange of newly imposed trade tariffs placed on U.S. and Chinese goods and focusing on the latest, positive economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 251.22 points, or 0.95 percent, to 26,656.98 -- marking the Dow's 100th record close since the election of President Donald Trump and its first since January. The broader S&P 500 jumped 22.8 points, about 0.8 percent, to 2,930.75. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 78.19 points, or 0.98 percent, to 8,028.23. Ticker Security Last Change %Chg I:DJI DOW...

Dozens of protesters filled Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley’s office in protest of Judge Brett Kavanaugh Thursday to eat dozens of sandwiches and discuss their concerns with the Supreme Court nominee. The protest comes after Grassley told the lawyers of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Kavanaugh of high school-era sexual assault, that if she wants to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she must have prepared testimony submitted by Friday morning.

...BLACK AMERICAN: My question is, do you support granting citizenship and American-paid benefits to illegal aliens who violated our country to come here, who fly their foreign flags here, who have citizenship in their countries and whose families did absolutely not build this country, while black people are subject to things that you explained before? You can answer yes or no, please. [Emphasis added]

3 hurt in Pa. court shooting leave hospital; gunman identifiedThe gunman, Patrick Dowdell, 61, was shot and killed by a German Township police officer MASONTOWN, Pa. — Three civilians wounded when a gunman opened fire outside a crowded courtroom have been released from hospital, officials said Thursday. The three were taken to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, following Wednesday's shooting in southwestern Pennsylvania's Fayette County. The two men, ages 35 and 47, and a 39-year-old woman were all released Wednesday night, the hospital said. The gunman, Patrick Dowdell, 61, of Masontown, was shot and killed by a German...

The remains of an Army master sergeant from Indiana and a private first class from North Carolina were included in the 55 cases of remains of missing Korean War veterans turned over in July by North Korea, President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday. The two soldiers, both likely killed in action fighting Chinese forces in North Korea about 66 years ago, are the first positive identities that Pentagon officials have confirmed since the transfer was completed July 27 as part an agreement hashed out by Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their summit June 12 in Singapore. Pentagon...

If the Democrats want to dredge up 35 year old unfounded allegations, then it is fair game to bring up Sherrod Brown's wife abuse. I think Renacci should go full force with this! https://bigleaguepolitics.com/court-documents-sherrod-browns-ex-wife-accused-assaulting/

Small Miracle: For most of POTUS Donald Trump’s presidency thus far, The New York Times has committed journalistic malpractice on a regular basis, publishing fake news and outright lying about his policies. But in what has become the latest proof that small miracles do occur, the paper is actually praising the president’s Iran policy, saying that it is “working” as he intended for it. “When Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the Iran deal, experts feared it would hurt the economy and leave Iran free to restart its nuclear program. But, so far, the policy has been effective without...

Donald Trump questioned his Christianity, insulted his wife's appearance, suggested his father was involved with President John F. Kennedy's assassination and nicknamed him Lyin' Ted. Ted Cruz called Trump a "sniveling coward," a "pathological liar" and "utterly amoral." It's all water under the bridge now, as Cruz fights to hold his Senate seat in deep-red Texas and the President struggles to keep a Republican majority in the Senate. Trump has volunteered himself, as well as two of his most high-profile surrogates -- his children, Don Jr. and Ivanka -- to appear alongside the Texas senator as his re-election race tightens....

The full story of the conspiracy to blackmail Clarence Thomas into withdrawing will not be told until after the Senate votes on his confirmation Tuesday. But the outlines of the plot to use Anita Hill to bring him down are clear. Ricki Seidman, aide to that defender of womanhood, Senator Ted Kennedy, and James Brudney, aide to Senator Howard Metzenbaum, were tipped off by the legion of liberal activists digging for dirt that Professor Hill harbored a secret grudge against Judge Thomas. They called her and persuaded her to file the accusation that the reassembled Bork Brigade thought would surely...

FULL TITLE: PICTURED: Female shooter, 26, who killed three and injured four others at Maryland Rite Aid warehouse where she worked as a temporary employee before turning the gun on herself The female shooter who killed three people and injured three more before killing herself in a shooting at a Rite Aid warehouse on Thursday has been identified. Snochia Moseley, 26, opened fire at 9.06am after she showing up for work at the distribution facility in Enterprise Business Park and opened fire outside the building then made her way inside where the shooting continued. She injured three people and shot...

The tussle over the Sand Hill Property Co. project’s fate simmered at Tuesday’s nine-hour City Council meeting, leading to an extended, five-hour hearing Wednesday. ***** “According to the sales pitch, the new housing units would include low-income high-density housing apartments,” said one Cupertino resident at Tuesday night’s meeting. “This would mean that we would have uneducated people living in Cupertino. A lot of other residents and I are concerned that this would make the current residents of Cupertino uncomfortable, and would split our city in half.”

The Democratic and legacy media mantra that every alleged victim must be deemed credible and heard seems to have one big exception to that rule. It does not apply if you are a Democrat as evidenced by the reaction of the Democratic National Committee to the credible charges of abuse leveled against Rep. Keith Ellison, deputy DNC chair and candidate for Minnesota attorney general: The woman who accused Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of domestic abuse said on Monday that Democrats don’t believe her story and threatened to isolate her over the allegations. Karen Monahan, a former girlfriend, came forward...

One doesn’t often see a climbdown from Moscow, especially not from strongman Vladimir Putin, and even more so this fast. Yesterday, Russia’s defense spokesman spoke ominously of “the right to take appropriate measures against hostile actions by Israel” after Syrian air defense forces shot down a Russian surveillance plane. Now however, Putin has danced away from the threat, calling the downing the result of “tragic chance events”: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday described the downing of a Russian plane in Syria as the result of “tragic chance events,” appearing to dial back a rare flare-up in tensions with...

the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. The cause of McConnell's ire was the late-breaking allegation from Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist, that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, a charge that threatens to upend a confirmation which seemed assured just days ago. McConnell, who is determined to deliver his second conservative Supreme Court justice in two years, now must navigate a treacherous pass. On the one hand, the steely Republican leader is determined to act as quickly to confirm Kavanaugh as he was to delay and destroy Garland's nomination. McConnell knows that, even with one of the...