Free Republic

Attorney General William Barr's bombshell statement before Congress that there was "spying" on the 2016 Trump campaign triggered a ferocious media reaction. “I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr said during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. That statement set off a media frenzy. Tim O'Brien of Bloomberg compared Barr to Roy Cohn, the notorious chief counsel of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hearings into suspected communists in the 1950s and later...

The Treasury Department said on Wednesday evening that it would not immediately comply with a congressional request to hand over President Trump’s tax returns, setting up a protracted legal battle between two branches of government.

American Media Inc. reportedly thinks the National Enquirer is more trouble than it’s worth. The hedge fund manager who controls AMI is looking to sell off the supermarket tabloid, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The National Enquirer has seen a decline in circulation recently, but has faced the most trouble due to its — and CEO David Pecker’s — close ties to President Trump. Last year, the company publicly admitted to paying former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000, then killing her story about an alleged affair with the president.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a positive 52-33 percent favorability rating among voters of her district nearly three months into her first term in Congress, and 48 percent of all voters and 61 percent of Democrats would vote to re-elect Ocasio-Cortez in 2020 while 39 percent would prefer someone else, according to a new Siena College poll of New York CD 14 registered voters released today. Fifty-seven percent of CD 14 voters think it was bad for New York that Amazon cancelled its plans to build a new headquarters in Queens while 32 percent say it was good for New York,...

In my travels to the United States, members of the Trump administration, Congress and the media have asked me a variation of the same question: “What advice would you offer Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim women to serve in the House of Representatives?” It is a challenging question. I may be the secretary-general of the Muslim World League, but it’s not my place to counsel lawmakers — Muslim or not — elected and entrusted to represent their communities. My refrain is often along the lines of: “They should faithfully advocate for their constituents, and faithfully...

Gay mayor Pete Buttigieg is on the warpath, and the main target in his sights in vice president Mike Pence, right behind that is the biblical model of Christianity. Buttigieg says that it’s time to more on from that old model, to something that is more ‘inclusive’ and ‘humane’. Why? Because the bible is against the LGBTQ+P for pedophile lifestyle, and Mayor Pete is not happy with that. “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and...

President Trump on Wednesday signed two executive orders that will make it harder for states to block the construction of oil and gas pipelines and other energy projects due to environmental concerns. Coming on the heels of officials in Washington state and New York using permitting processes to stop new energy projects in recent years – and at the urging of some industry leaders – Trump’s executive order will speed up the construction of oil and gas pipelines across the country. “My action today will cut through the destructive permitting and denials,” Trump said during the signing of the executive...

MILAN (AP) — A third descendant of Italy’s long-time fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is entering the political arena. Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini — Mussolini’s great-grandson, whose name is taken from one of ancient Rome’s most famous rulers — is running as a candidate in European elections for the far-right Brothers of Italy Party. Party leader Giorgia Meloni announced Mussolini’s candidacy over the weekend. His political ambitions follow those of his second cousins, Alessandra Mussolini, an EU parliamentarian for Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, and Rachele Mussolini, a Rome city council member associated with Brothers of Italy. Meloni said protests against...

RUSH: I honestly don’t think that what has happened today has sunk in yet. I’m watching CNN. They’ve got a graphic: “Barr: I think spying did occur on Trump campaign. But the AG says no specific evidence, only concerns so far.” I’m looking at that screen, that picture of CNN. Now, for over two years every time I looked up at CNN the chyron graphic had to do with Trump colluding with Russia, for over two years, all day, every day. Maybe they took a break and did other news, but the central focus of CNN — I’m using CNN...

Donald Trump’s three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar defense budget request submitted to Congress last month contains a dirty secret, one that should make us all think twice about perpetual war and public support for it. The youth of America don’t want to serve in the military any more. The situation has become so dire that just to maintain America’s ground forces – the army and Marine Corps – the two services are resorting to unprecedented pay raises, bonuses and socialist trappings. And things are going to get worse. This year, for the first time ever, Americans born after 11 September 2001 will be able...

A clip of a confrontation between conservative activist Candace Owens and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has become the most-viewed C-SPAN Twitter video from a House hearing ever, according to C-SPAN. “In less than 24 hours, this video is the most watched C-SPAN Twitter video from a House hearing (4.47 million views),” Jeremy Art, C-SPAN’s social media senior specialist, said on Twitter. During the exchange, Lieu questioned the appropriateness of Owens’s presence at the hearing, playing a clip of her from December discussing the difference between "nationalism" and "globalism" using Adolf Hitler as an example. "If Hitler just wanted to make...

Ken Starr purposefully left out the finding that Hillary Clinton had 'triggered' the suicide of President Clinton's Deputy White House Counsel in his final FBI report to spare her feelings, DailyMail.com can reveal. FBI agents investigating the death of Vince Foster learned he was set off after Hillary attacked and humiliated him in front of other White House aides a week before he took his own life on July 20, 1993. But for what were then unexplained reasons, Starr elected to conceal the FBI's finding that Hillary's tirade triggered Foster's suicide when he wrote his final report on the matter....

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU leaders agreed on Thursday to delay Brexit until the end of October, with a review in June, diplomatic sources told Reuters. The 27 EU leaders agreed their joint stance during talks in Brussels and their chairman, Donald Tusk, has now taken it to the British Prime Minister Theresa May for her approval.

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Wednesday related to energy infrastructure at an event in Crosby, Texas. He said the measures would help ease the permitting process and help investment in energy projects. "My first order will speed up the process for approving vital infrastructure on our nation's border," Trump said. The President highlighted the economic growth and job creation that has taken place during his time in office, calling the economy "the envy of the world."

[Catholic Caucus] New Icon for the Catholic Church in China: The Bulldozer of Qianyang The photo depicts a bulldozer in the process of demolishing the parish building of the “underground” Catholic Church in Qianyang, China, which housed a church on the second floor and a free medical clinic for the poor on the first. The video of the event is here.This, writes Sandro Magister, is how “[t]he Chinese regime is… applying its agreement with the Holy See…” That is, its secret agreement with the communist dictators in Beijing, whose pseudo-church, the Patriotic Catholic Association (PCA), the wizards of Vatican...

Videos at link. LOS ANGELES – Embattled lawyer Michael Avenatti was the subject of a federal warrant Wednesday that resulted in the seizure of his private jet, worth about $4.5 million. A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman, Thom Mrozek, confirmed to Fox News that federal agents seized a Honda HA-420 twin-engine jet from Santa Barbara Airport about 10 a.m. after a federal judge issued a warrant. The plane was originally scheduled to be flown Wednesday to Orange County on Avenatti's behalf, but pilots had to file a new flight plan to San Bernardino County. The six-seat business jet was flown by...

Health officials made a specific point to condemn the resurgence of “measles parties,” get-togethers where parents gather unvaccinated children with kids already suffering with measles in order to intentionally infect the group at a young age. The practice has its own faulty logic based on how humans fight off the disease. Once people have become infected by measles, their bodies build up their immune systems to prevent new inflections. They are immune for the rest of their lives. “As a parent, I have no doubt that each and every parent is making decisions based out of what they believe is...

RUSH: Folks, this is great. This is very, very good. It was only yesterday right here on this program we were discussing the testimony at the time of the attorney general, William Barr, before a bunch of these inflated ego congressional committees. And Mr. Snerdley asked me a question: “Do you think there will ever actually be an investigation into what happened, into who did this, who was behind this coup to get rid of a president, overturn the presidential elections, and do you think that we will ever see results from it?” And I paused, and I said to...

8mm home movies shot in color showing street scenes from New York City in the summer of 1941. (appx 3 mins)

There’s no shortage of anti-vaxxer’s at FR. I was wondering what their opinion is of taking a vaccine for an old-folks malady?