Free Republic

Florida officials are requesting answers from the Senate Intelligence Committee after Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) claimed this week that the state's election systems had been "penetrated" by Russian hackers ahead of the 2018 midterms. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner (R) sent a letter Thursday to committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) requesting information about remarks Nelson made the previous day in which he claimed that hackers had "already penetrated certain counties in the state." "They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about," Nelson had said during an interview with...

A border lawmaker had drawn up a plan to pay for the wall in part by fining Mexico and other countries $2,000 for every illegal immigrant caught crossing into the United States.Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, who has made is mark on Washington in just his first term, is pushing a plan that includes the tax on illegals and other ways to pay for the border wall demanded by President Trump.With up some 400,000 illegal immigrants being apprehended at the border yearly, his tax could raise $800 million a year. Immigration groups claim that an equal amount of illegal immigrants get...

A border state Republican congressman is introducing a bill that would effectively use foreign funds to help pay for President Trump's planned wall on the Mexican border. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona authored House Resolution 6657, which would establish a separate U.S. Treasury account to "hold deposits to be used to secure the southern border of the United States." Republican Reps. Scott Des Jarlais of Tennessee, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Paul Gosar of Arizona have signed on as co-sponsors. Biggs said in a statement obtained by The Washington Examiner that "even with a Republican-controlled...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) - An argument on Facebook over politics led to the shooting of a man in Tampa on Monday. According to police, Alex Stephens, 46, and Brian Sebring, 44, became involved in an argument over politics on the social media platform. After receiving several explicit messages and threats, Sebring went to Stephens’ home to confront him. Sebring, anticipating the confrontation would escalate, brought his Glock semi-automatic pistol. When he arrived to Stephens’ home, Sebring honked his horn and waited by his truck for the victim to leave his home. Stephens left the home and immediately sprinted towards Sebring,...

President Donald Trump's long-promised border wall between the US and Mexico could costs billions of dollars more than estimated, a new report from a government watchdog agency said on Monday. The report from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan group that forms part of Congress' oversight arm, said that "key information" is missing from the plans. It further concluded that the US Department of Homeland Security "faces an increased risk that the Border Wall System Program will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected." Factors like a varying terrain and land ownership had...

Troublemaker: The “Rev.” Al Sharpton, like all of his race-baiting colleagues, long ago ceased to be a useful force for change in America. That’s because long ago — in the 1960s — our country adopted a series of civil rights laws and regulations cementing the Constitution’s promise of equal treatment and justice for all. But in 2018 Sharpton continues to pretend like our country has made no progress at all when it comes to civil rights, so every time there is an incident involving a black man killed by a white person, he has to show up and needlessly stir...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Florida woman was arrested on Sunday after police say she stripped naked and ran around at a public park because she believed a giant spider was on her and she had to get away from it. According to an arrest report, Teeples was "acting erratically and rubbing her hair and breasts while screaming and running between two trees." Post Miranda, police say that Teeples admitted to recently using drugs such as crack cocaine, spice and crystal meth. She also said that she believed a giant spider was on her and she had to get away...

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. - Cows helped Sanford officers corral a suspect who was on the 'moove' after crashing a stolen car, officials said. The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office’s helicopter captured the incident on video Sunday night as police were following the vehicle. And that’s when the cows came home. The video then shows one of the suspects running through a cow pasture as the animals chased and surrounded one of the suspects, who was eventually captured by police.

MIAMI - Federal officials said a construction company did not do enough to protect its workers before a concrete barrier collapsed and killed two men along Interstate 95 in February. "This tragedy could have been prevented if the employer had ensured that adjoining structures were shored, braced or underpinned to avoid a collapse," said Condell Eastmond, with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Atlanta-based Archer Western Construction Inc. faces up to $33,000 in fines. OSHA officials also said the work site was not properly inspected for hazards. The Florida Highway Patrol said Abel Orlando Zuniga-Fajardo, 37,...

Full title..........................Moms arrested after 11 children found in 'filthy' New Mexico compound with armed Muslim 'extremists,' cops say............................The three mothers of the 11 malnourished children found living in a filthy New Mexico compound were arrested and charged Sunday along with two men described as armed Muslim “extremists” after authorities raided the property in search of a 4-year-old boy. snip Authorities raided the compound Friday as part of their search for 4-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, who vanished last December. Abdul-Ghani’s mother reported her son missing after Wahhaj took the boy, who turned 4 on Monday, to the park in Clayton County, Ga.,...

Some of you need to cease the denial and accept the harsh reality that the left hates you. It’s a fact, as much as the liberal gaslight gang and the conserva-sissy weakhearts deny it. You can tell that leftists hate you by the way that leftists tell you that they hate you.Take Sarah Jeong, please – hey, the New York Times was happy to get this bitter creep onboard because of her history of virulent racism. The Times saw her hate as a plus, not a negative, an asset, not a liability. You can’t draw any other conclusion – if you...

For the first time in 25 years, the International Republican Institute will have a new leader. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is battling brain cancer, has decided to step down from his role as chairman of the board of the organization, which for decades he has helped to fight for democracy, freedom, civil society, the rule of law and human rights around the world. McCain’s handoff to IRI’s next chairman, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), is not a signal that McCain’s health is declining. In fact, several McCain associates say his condition hasn’t changed in recent months and he remains actively...

An armed bystander shot a man who open-fired on a back to school event at a Titusville park following a fistfight, police said. The shooting occurred at Isaac Campbell Park on South Street shortly after 5:20 p.m. when the shooter, whom police have not identified, returned to the park after a fistfight and began firing. A bystander licensed to a carry a firearm then shot the shooter, who was flown to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said. The bystander who shot the suspect waited for officers and has been fully cooperative with the investigation, police said. After consulting...

After Twitter was caught last month “shadow-banning” Republicans, while giving Democrats unrestricted voice, the social-media giant insisted it has no political agenda. But records of its political contributions show board members, top executives and major shareholders have all given overwhelmingly to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while snubbing Republicans and Donald Trump. Federal records reveal 80 percent of Twitter’s corporate PAC contributions in the 2018 election cycle have gone to Democratic candidates, none of whom are moderates. Liberal Democrats also got top dollar in the 2016 race. The lobbying records I reviewed, moreover, show Twitter has sought to...

School officials “did not follow through” when Nikolas Cruz asked for special assistance months before the massacre, a new report finds. While more than half of the report was redacted, the blacked-out sections of the document could still easily be read by copying and pasting into a separate document, a trick used by The Sun-Sentinel to release the unredacted report on Friday. In Cruz’s junior year, after he had already begun exhibiting behavior so disturbing it led to guidance counselors wanting to have him committed,

Nine astronauts have new travel plans aboard commercial space capsules, with their mission assignments announced earlier today (Aug. 3). Five of those astronauts flew aboard the United States' last set of spacecraft to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), the space shuttles. But while the newly announced crews are excited to once again launch from Florida instead of Kazakhstan, they aren't very nostalgic for the hardware of the shuttles themselves. During the press announcement of the new astronaut assignments, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine asked two veteran astronauts to compare their new rides to the shuttles they flew more than...

WASHINGTON - Jewish-American Robert Levinson was not included in a prisoner exchange with Iran that came as the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal and the West rolled back sanctions. Iran on Saturday released five Americans it was holding in its prisons or in detention, four of them as part of a prison swap which included the release of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist detained on espionage charges since 2014. The exchange comes on "implementation day" of the sanctions relief for nuclear restrictions deal Iran concluded last year with the United States and five other...

Democratic candidate for governor Jeff Greene fought megaphone duels with a street preacher, a Rastafarian and a Black Lives Matter activist trying to make his message heard in the raucous, muggy protest zone at the Trump rally at the state fairgrounds Tuesday. But Greene wasn't specific when asked for details on a promise he's made that many Democrats may find enticing: If he's the Democratic nominee for governor, he says, he'll fund Democratic candidates in five Republican-held state Senate races including one in Tampa. Wins in those districts could bring the party close to the Senate majority, or give them...

Whatever teen anti-gun celebrity David Hogg learned in high school, it apparently wasn’t the English language. It’s that, or he actually wants to increase the number of gun deaths in inner-city communities. Either way, the poster boy for the gun-grabbing left is showing all the world just how confused and ignorant he really is. In recent a Twitter exchange with a conservative commentator, Hogg let his ignorance slip with a colossally nonsensical argument for the left’s favorite economic policy: Raising the minimum wage.

President Trump's public approval numbers have hit 50% among likely voters, according to a new Rasmussen poll, which is good news for midterms. And who should be pushing those ratings to el norte? No kidding: Hispanic voters. You know, the ones who are supposed to hate Trump with a passion. After all, doesn't the press dutifully report that Trump is an enemy of illegals, and aren't illegals in the same conventional wisdom simply synonymous with Hispanics, and with Hispanics and illegals all the same thing, isn't it all just proof that Trump is racist? Here's what the Washington Times, now...