Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to tap Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.</p> <p>The Supreme Court said Friday that it would lift a freeze on the money put in place by a lower court. The Supreme Court's action means the Trump administration can tap the funds and begin work on four contracts it has awarded. Four liberal justices wouldn't have allowed construction to start.</p>

DUBAI —A British warship tried but failed to prevent Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from seizing a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week, intercepted radio communications show, fueling a wave of recriminations in London on Sunday over who was to blame for the incident last week. In recordings obtained by the shipping consultancy Dryad Global and posted on its website Sunday, a member of the Revolutionary Guard is heard ordering the British-flagged Stena Impero tanker to divert course toward Iran. “Alter your course,” the man says. “If you obey you will be safe.” A British naval officer...

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was greeted at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport by more than a hundred supporters -- constituents, organizers and well-wishers, carrying homemade "stand with Ilhan" signs welcoming her back to Minneapolis... [snip] "It sure feels good to be home!" she said to cheers, ahead of a Medicare-for-All town hall event with progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Omar was defiant, criticizing Trump’s "fascist" policies, and promised to continue standing up for her beliefs, pointing to her Medicare-for-All town hall this evening. "Everybody is talking about that he is threatened because we criticize him," she said. "But the reality is that...

SALEM — Senate leaders say they are preparing to invoice 11 Republican senators for fines associated with a June walkout, after determining a plan to dock their pay wasn’t legal. The invoices would total $3,500 for each senator. The total includes $500 per day for seven of the days Republicans refused to show up for a floor session, Oregon Public Media reported . Carol McAlice Currie, a spokeswoman for Democratic Senate President Peter Courtney, said this week bills will be sent to each senator who missed work. “If they refuse to pay, they will be sent through the regular debt...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that media attention over her racial complaints about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is unwarranted as she’s “just pointing out a pattern.” The New York Democrat told CNN’s Manu Raju that claims of “persistent singling out … out of newly elected women of color” by Mrs. Pelosi should be interpreted through a broader context. At issue, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday, were cultural issues that are bigger than intraparty disputes. “Well I think it’s really just pointing out a pattern, right?” she asked Mr. Raju. “We’re not talking just about progressives, it’s singling out four individuals and knowing...

(WASHINGTON) — The House Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to authorize subpoenas for 12 people mentioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, including President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The panel also voted to authorize subpoenas for documents and testimony related to Trump’s handling of immigration, including on the separation of migrant families at the southern border. The resolution authorizes an investigation into whether there have been any discussions of Trump offering pardons to Homeland Security officials who work on immigration issues. Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York will make the final decision about...

Senate Democrats are requesting the Government Accountability Office (GAO) open an investigation into the costs of President Trump's July 4th celebration, including if it complied with legal restrictions on political activity. Democratic Sens. Tom Udall (N.M.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said in a letter to Gene Dodaro, GAO's comptroller general, that they are "concerned by the impacts and the precedent of diverting limited Federal resources " for the July 4th events. "Further, we are troubled by reports that preferential access to the National Mall was organized by political entities such as the Republican National Committee, which...

LONDON/DUBAI, July 5 (Reuters) - An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander threatened on Friday to seize a British ship in retaliation for the capture of an Iranian supertanker by Royal Marines in Gibraltar. "If Britain does not release the Iranian oil tanker, it is the authorities' duty to seize a British oil tanker," Mohsen Rezai said on Twitter. The Gibraltar government said the crew on board the supertanker Grace 1 were being interviewed as witnesses, not criminal suspects, in an effort to establish the nature of the cargo and its ultimate destination. British Royal Marines boarded the ship off the coast...

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s tax filings came under scrutiny Friday after Minnesota campaign finance investigators revealed she had filed jointly with a man to whom she wasn’t legally married for two consecutive years before she took elected office. The revelation was seized on by some conservative media outlets and social media pundits, who said the situation was tantamount to tax fraud — a charge Omar denied. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) A campaign spokesman for the Minneapolis Democrat issued the following statement Friday: “All of Rep. Omar’s tax filings are fully compliant with all applicable tax law.”...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department threatened on Tuesday to completely withhold Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report from Congress if House Democrats decide to move ahead with plans to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt. The department said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler any move by Democrats to hold Barr in contempt would compel Barr to “request that the President invoke executive privilege” over the unredacted materials in Mueller’s report that the Democrats previously subpoenaed.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A nationwide experiment with basic income in Finland has not increased employment among those participating in the two-year trial, but their general well-being seems to have increased, a report said Friday. The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, or Kela, said "it was not yet possible to draw any firm conclusions" from the first half of the experiment, where about 2,000 randomly selected, unemployed people aged 25-58 got tax-free income of 560 euros ($636) a month with no questions asked. Finland is looking into ways to reshape its social security system and became in January 2017 the first...

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he would be "dumbfounded" if Democrats failed to retake the majority in the House, and expressed certainty that President Trump would question the legitimacy of the results if Republicans falter in Tuesday's midterm elections. "I guarantee he’ll challenge the legitimacy of the vote," Biden said with a laugh when asked about the possibility after casting his ballot in Delaware. "You know, he’s still looking for that million crowd that was there for his inauguration, for God’s sake," Biden continued. "He’s an interesting guy." Biden spoke with reporters after he voted on Tuesday.

Twitter has put 1,500 users in Twitter jail for what it calls "coordinated platform manipulation" but critics say it's nothing more than punishing humor. Twitter says the accounts used cartoon avatars the creators call NPC's. In the gaming world that stands for non-playable character – someone you meet while playing that is controlled by the game and whose sole job it is to pass on information. Think the voice on your GPS. Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center explains that those game characters "regurgitate the same thing over and over," and some creative Internet users are comparing that description...

WASHINGTON — The bitter partisan fury that engulfed Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation was the fiercest battle in a political war over the judiciary that has been steadily intensifying since the Senate rejected Judge Robert H. Bork in 1987. But an even greater conflagration may be coming. “This confirmation vote will not necessarily be the last word on Brett Kavanaugh serving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court,” said Brian Fallon, executive director of the liberal group Demand Justice and the top spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Facing a Supreme Court controlled by five solidly conservative...

MoveOn, a progressive outside group, said on Friday that it is cutting support for Democrats in two key Senate races because they are supporting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. "We're cancelling a planned six-figure digital video ad expenditure for Phil Bredesen in Tennessee due to his Kavanaugh position," the group said in a tweet. They added that "similarly [we] will be pulling all planned campaigning on behalf of Joe Manchin in West Virginia if he votes yes. Kavanaugh is unfit for the Court." Manchin became the only Senate Democrat to say he would vote for Kavanaugh on Friday, calling him...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley appears to have ended the halting talks with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford about testifying next week about her allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh. After setting a sudden 10:00 PM deadline for agreement with his terms and rejecting further talks with Ford or her lawyers, Grassley has reportedly scheduled a Committee vote on the confirmation for Monday.

Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, will speak to the FBI on Friday in San Francisco about the death threats against her, a source close to Ford tells CNN. The FBI investigation pertains only to the threats Ford has received since coming public with her allegations last weekend; it is not about the assault accusations against the Supreme Court nominee. Ford has alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s by pushing her into a bedroom at a party and attempting to remove her clothes. Kavanaugh has categorically denied the allegation....

In a newly released YouGov poll about Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, only 26 percent of respondents agreed that “the allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh” made by California professor Christine Blasely Ford is “generally credible.” Conversely, 28 percent of respondents reported thinking that the allegation is “not credible” while the plurality of those polled either were “not sure” about the credibility of the allegation (14 percent) or hadn’t heard enough information to come to a conclusion (32 percent). YouGov pollsters conducted the survey with one thousand respondents on Monday and Tuesday, so the results represent Americans’...

Evergreen State College enrollment plummeted after fallout from the controversial “Day of Absence” in May 2017 when all white people were asked to leave the campus. The publicly funded college – committed to social justice – became the poster child of a campus overrun by hyper-political correctness when students shut down the campus and shouted down then-evolutionary biology professor Bret Weinstein for merely questioning the event kicking white people off campus. Weinstein, who describes himself as “deeply progressive,” ultimately lost his job and was labeled a “racist” and “white supremacist.” Although just estimates, a representative from Evergreen said they expect...