Free Republic

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler came under fire over a viral video showing Antifa protesters blocking traffic and harassing drivers, but he says he supports the decision by police to watch from a distance without getting involved. “I was appalled by what I saw in the video, but I support the Portland Police Bureau’s decision not to intervene,” he said at a Friday press conference. “This whole incident will be investigated.” The video posted by journalist Andy C. Ngo showed protesters, including members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, blocking an intersection and attempting to direct traffic at while officers on...

The crimes of abortionist and serial killer Kermit Gosnell are, by now, well known. But another abortionist is currently under investigation by the FBI: Douglas Karpen, who has come to be known as the “Texas Gosnell.” In 2011, Karpen appeared before the Texas Medical Board following multiple complaints, but they were all dismissed. In 2013, however, the voices against him grew louder as staffers from his abortion facility began to come forward, accusing him of committing grisly late-term abortions, after which babies were sometimes born alive. Instead of getting them medical attention, as federal law requires, Karpen would instead —...

(snip) -- A pair of Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Trump open up about the anxieties of their jobs and a pair of credible assassination threats they stopped in Manila. November 1996, President Clinton visited Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. Protests raged in the streets, with American flags being burned, so local police closed down many roads, allowing the Secret Service to chart a specific route for the president’s motorcade. As the president and members of his cabinet traveled from their hotel to the first venue of the day, “There was intelligence that came in, and...

Gritty, the bright orange, furry, 7-foot creature of Philadelphian origin, is no longer a simple mascot for a hockey team: Antifa activists have co-opted him as their own. In fact, they so effectively claimed Gritty as a working-class, leftist icon that the Wall Street Journal was forced to publish an anguished op-ed Monday demanding that these people keep their “Marxist hands off Gritty.” “The same leftists who want statues of Thomas Jefferson removed are now petitioning for Gritty to replace Mayor Frank Rizzo on a downtown mural,” Jillian Kay Melchior said in the Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Gritty belongs to...

Members of opposing groups violently clashed in downtown Portland, Ore., on Saturday night during an event that was billed as a march for “law and order.” Participants with the conservative Patriot Prayer group and counter-demonstrators with Antifa got into a bloody melee outside a popular bar where members on both sides used bear spray, fists and batons to beat each other, the Oregonian reported.

A City Council committee took the first step Thursday toward approving legislation that outlines how the Obama Foundation can use Jackson Park and the Obama Presidential Center once it is built. And for the first time, the committee revealed language in the legislation that seeks to protect current homeowners and residents who live closest to the selected site. As part of their agreement, which the panel approved unanimously, the city will monitor property values and other indicators of demographic changes near the center site. If there are dramatic changes, the city will implement measures to keep residents in their homes,...

In 2009, Barack Obama honored dead gay man Matthew Shepard by putting his name on some silly-ass federal hate crimes act. Now Shepard’s gay corpse will join other luminaries as Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller by being interred at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Ever since Shepard’s 1998 murder in Laramie, WY, his legacy has become sanctified to a nigh untouchable level. We are led to believe that two homophobic Wyoming rednecks met Shepard at a bar, then lured him to the outskirts of town, where they cracked his skull by pistol-whipping him and then tied him to a...

Republicans are ecstatic and Democrats are livid about Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation as a Supreme Court justice. But while the Supreme Court is important, many Americans tend to exaggerate its powers. Democrats still firmly control the nation’s district courts and circuit courts of appeals, where virtually all federal judicial decisions are made. Even if Republicans keep control of the Senate in the Nov. 6 midterm elections, the balance of power on these courts isn't going to change in the next two years. The Supreme Court grants oral arguments to about 80 cases a year. The nation’s highest court decides another...

Four men died and one was injured in a shooting at a toddler's birthday party near Corpus Christi, Texas, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. Police responded to reports of a shooting at a home in Taft, Texas on Saturday, the state's Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Nathan Brandley said. The shooting stemmed from an altercation between two separate families who were celebrating the birthday of a 1-year-old child, Brandley said.

Even with the midterm elections looming, Republican leaders in Congress made clear this week they're paying close attention to a looming battle over President Donald Trump's promised border wall. On Monday, House Speaker Paul Ryan predicted a "big fight" over border security on the horizon, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that the GOP is "committed" to working to secure the funding the President wants for his signature campaign pledge.

How America’s most powerful agencies were weaponized against President Donald Trump. Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate—the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign—remains surprisingly simple:

A story broke last week that an Arabic journalist named Jamal Khashoggi who was working for the Washington Post had disappeared and was presumed dead. The official story is that Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on the afternoon of October 2. Immediately (and suspiciously) media stories that appeared to be coordinated appeared, pointing the finger of blame for Khashoggi’s disappearance at Saudi Arabia, in general, and at the country’s Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Salman, in particular. It was alleged by anonymous sources for several days that Khashoggi had been abducted and then killed at...

On October 12, 2018, a Turkish court freed U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson whose arrest on terrorism charges just over two years ago had fueled a diplomatic crisis. Since July, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had collectively tweeted about Brunson’s case almost two dozen times. Even in hyper-partisan Washington, Brunson’s plight received bipartisan support. In a quiet meeting only later disclosed, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)  met  President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to lobby for Brunson’s release. Brunson’s release reportedly comes after a  deal  negotiated by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike...

‘The Conners’ minus fired Roseanne Barr is one risky prospect. We’ve got details on how ABC execs are afraid the show will fail without its longtime lead character. Thanks to what Roseanne Barr calls a “misunderstood tweet” in May, she quickly was fired by ABC and the wildly successful revival of her 1990s sitcom was cancelled. The network thought her tweet about Barack Obama aide Valerie Jarrettwas racist and within hours Roseanne was out of a job. Now the show is going on without her and the rest of the cast is coming back for The Conners. ABC execs are...

Last week the Forest Hills High School band's half-time performance depicted police officers being shot. The school faced fierce backlash because two local police officers had just been killed in the line of duty. Now, the band is being penalized by the the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) and could face up to a year-long performance ban, the Clarion Ledger reported. The school district will be allowed to appeal the decision, MHSAA president Todd Kelly said. According to Jackson School District Superintendent Errick Greene, they plan to appeal the decision. "We don't believe for a moment that any...

**SNIP** Crowley has formed a state campaign committee “Joe for NY,” and is holding a fundraiser Oct. 29 at the Fitzpatrick Grand Central Hotel in Manhattan, where the maximum suggested donation is $10,000. According to an email sent to “Irish Americans & Friends Crowley” by Walter Swett of the firm Dynamic SRG, who is the Crowley committee’s campaign treasurer, the group was “established to position Joe for future opportunities in public service.” **SNIP** The IrishCentral website recently floated Crowley’s name for statewide office, noting that, “While white ethnic Catholic no longer plays that well in Queens, it is a powerful...

(CNN)A coalition of advocacy groups has launched a lawsuit to block Georgia from enforcing a practice critics say endangers the votes of more than 50,000 people in November and potentially larger numbers headed into the 2020 presidential election cycle. The Campaign Legal Center and Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law argued in the suit, which was filed in a federal district court on Thursday, that the state's "exact match" requirement violates the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The office of Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is now running for...

Donald Trump is responsible for all manner of things, particularly if you ask anyone at MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times or the Washington Post. He’s caused unrest around the world using nothing more than tweets, sparked riots in the streets and I’m pretty sure at least a couple of people have blamed him for global warming. But perhaps his greatest trick of all has been to increase the rates of alcohol consumption in America. Or at least that’s the opinion of WaPo columnist Kathleen Parker. Amid hurricanes, a vanished journalist, the recent Supreme Court hearings, midterms and “mobs,” it...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump welcomed American pastor Andrew Brunson to the Oval Office on Saturday, celebrating his release from nearly two years of confinement in Turkey that had sparked a diplomatic row with a key ally and outcry from U.S. evangelical groups. Brunson, who returned to the United States aboard a military jet shortly before their meeting, appeared to be in good health and good spirits. He thanked Trump for working to secure his freedom and then lead his family in prayer for the president. "You really fought for us," he told Trump. "From a Turkish prison to...

Former senior adviser to the Clintons, Mark Penn, said on “Fox & Friends” Friday that Bill and Hillary should withdraw from the public eye and start donating their speaking fees to charity. Penn said it was detrimental to the Democratic party to have the Clintons front and center, especially with the midterms less than a month away. (RELATED: Former Hillary Clinton Adviser Points Out Double Standard In Mueller Investigation) “At the moment, having the Clintons do a roadshow isn’t the best thing for the party that needs to move forward,” Penn said. “But I don’t really understand why this wouldn’t...