Free Republic

Imagine how it must have pained CNN to report this: “FBI official under investigation after allegedly altering document in 2016 Russia probe.” Who is the official? We don’t know. Nor does the CNN report makes clear the context, although, given the scope of the DOJ Inspector General’s investigation, obtaining the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page is the obvious candidate. An FBI official is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN. Presumably, that means the FISA warrant to spy on Carter...

Pennsylvania Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday vetoed a bill to protect unborn babies with Down syndrome from discrimination. The Down Syndrome Protection Act (House Bill 321) passed the state Senate on Wednesday in a 27-22 vote. The bill would prohibit an abortion solely based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome. It would add to a state law that also prohibits discriminatory sex-selection abortions. The Pennsylvania House previously passed the measure by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin. But Wolf today vetoed the legislation to protect babies with Down syndrome. In a statement, the governor called the legislation a “restriction on women...

... For years, the medical and legal establishments have been ignoring evidence and bending their standards to please transgender activists, some of whom are clinicians. There are three clinical approaches to helping children who exhibit symptoms of gender confusion. One involves a range of talk therapies and psychotherapies to address suspected underlying causes. A second, called “watchful waiting,” allows the child’s development to unfold as it will, which may mean that he chooses to transition later or not at all. Then there is a third option — informed by an ideology according to which it is possible for a child...

An FBI official is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN. CNN's Evan Perez reports. #CNN #News

This is what I watched instead of stupid impeachment hearings last night.

With the Trump Administration supportive of religious liberty, the attacks against free exercise are currently coming from politically progressive states. New York just enacted a law that forbids any employer from punishing an employee for any reproductive health-care medical decision and specifically allows an employee to sue if he or she believes they have been so sanctioned....The law also forces speech by requiring employee handbooks to inform employee of their rights under this lawThis would seem to literally mean that, say, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York is legally required to inform employees they have the right to act as...

THE WHO bandmembers Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey share their detailed personal accounts of what happened the night of December 3, 1979, when 11 young people were killed outside a coliseum before their concert started. In the WCPO documentary "The Who: The Night That Changed Rock", they talk about how this single event forever changed rock and the lives of so many people. While they didn't know about the deaths until after the concertended, they have lived with the pain of the losses for 40 years. "You know, I'm still traumatized by it," says Townshend. "It's a weird thing to...

The FReeper Canteen Presents... Tell Us Your Favorite Songs With "Land and Sea” In The Title or Lyrics *Video* Elvis ~ Promised land *Video* Frank Sinatra ~ America The Beautiful Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly.

A month ago, Upstate voters supported impeaching and removing Trump 49% to 43%. Now voters in the region oppose impeachment 51% to 47%, within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, according to the Siena College poll of registered voters in New York.

San Francisco, CA – The RICO case filed by Planned Parenthood against Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, and other pro-life activists, including Sandra Merritt, David Daleiden, and Albin Rhomberg, who were involved in investigating the trafficking of aborted baby body parts for profit, continued yesterday with a development of note. An observer inside the courtroom told Operation Rescue that one abortionist took the stand who said he had a brief discussion with undercover journalists from the Center for Medical Progress. When asked why he wanted to talk to the journalists, who posed as representatives of an organ procurement company,...

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday gave sign-off to two nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in party-line votes, moving both a step closer to confirmation. All 12 Republican Senate Judiciary members voted to forward the nominations of Southern California prosecutor Patrick Bumatay and former Nevada and Montana solicitor general Lawrence VanDyke to the full Senate. Committee Democrats, citing Bumatay’s lack of appellate experience and questions about VanDyke’s qualifications and ties to Nevada, voted against both nominations.

Watching 'Broadway Joe' Namath do Medicare commercials puts a punctuation mark on getting older. It will happen to all of us, but I just remember him after his career, cavorting with various women in the 80s - and then marrying a 22 year-old. Living large. Now he's talking about having meals delivered.

WASHINGTON — A group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately Thursday to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks. Senators Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, John Neely Kennedy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and Tom Cotton met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, according to the officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss a...

Abuse of power. Bribery. Contempt of Congress. Obstruction of justice. Those the four potential articles of impeachment that House Judiciary Committee Democrats could draw up against President Trump as soon as next month, Fox News is told, after all scheduled public hearings before the House Intelligence Committee wrapped up on a testy note Thursday. At a meeting with top GOP senators and Trump administration officials at the White House on Thursday afternoon, Fox News is told there was a consensus that should Trump be impeached by the House, the GOP-controlled Senate should hold a trial rather than tabling the issue....

State Department staffer David Holmes refused to promise Congress on Thursday afternoon that he would be more responsible in future with sensitive communications. The political officer for the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, was testifying in the last public hearing of the House Intelligence Committee impeachment inquiry. He said that he had overheard a phone conversation at an outdoor restaurant between President Donald Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland in which Trump had mentioned “investigations.” Though he did not take notes of that portion of the call, and had been drinking wine, Holmes said that his...

This is the same imam, Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, who was invited to speak at at a Florida mosque, just weeks before a homegrown Muslim terrorist gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, a British-born scholar who currently lives in Iran and travels the world to spread his hateful message, preached at the Husseini Islamic Center in the Orlando suburb of Sanford last month. The sermon — delivered behind closed doors — was titled, “How to deal with the phenomenon of homosexuality” and raised the ire of local LGBT community leaders.

I explore the inescapable idolatry contained with in the Koran, and Muhammad's distortion of Genesis 18.

As our calculator shows, the perhaps impulsive addition of just one service to your budget can snowball into a hefty outlay over a hypothetical half-century horizon, particularly when you're looking at that "true" lifetime cost. Take someone paying for Netflix's NFLX, +0.07% standard subscription and Hulu, with no add-ons. That person is looking at a monthly bill of $18.98, and a lifetime aggregate cost of $19,264. Factor in the opportunity cost -- as represented by how much money could have been made investing that same money in the S&P 500 over those years -- and the lifetime cost balloons to...

NO: A Ban Looks Good—Until You Do the Math Those seeking to ban natural-gas hookups in new buildings say it will reduce local pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions, while saving end users money. Some also point to safety benefits: Fewer natural-gas lines means less potential damage during earthquakes. When you compare the benefits and costs of such policies, however, you will find that their claims have little or no merit. For starters, if consumers had an economic incentive to use electricity instead of natural gas, there would be no need for bans in the first place. With these kinds of analyses...

For years, Democrats have tried to force President Trump to disclose his tax returns, and Trump has resisted. The California Legislature, aiming at the president, passed a law this year to try to force Trump’s hand. On a party-line vote, lawmakers approved a bill to require presidential candidates to disclose five years of tax returns in order to appear on the state’s primary ballot, the first such law in the nation. It did not survive even six months. California’s highest court decided Thursday that the Legislature went too far. Though legislators and analysts considered early on whether the requirement might...