Free Republic

The 'socialist' doctor charged with cracking Senator Rand Paul's ribs in a crunching blindside tackle may have harbored a secret grudge against his GOP neighbor for spoiling his lakeside views and 'devaluing' his home, DailyMail.com can reveal. Rene Boucher, 59, told Paul in the wake of the mauling that he hadn't been able to sell his $740,000 house for ten years because the congressman's trees were 'in the way'. It's believed Boucher was referring to woodland at the back of Paul's property that blocks the doctor's views of the picturesque private lake that forms the centerpiece of their upscale gated...

On July 15, 2016, an American college professor named Henri Barkey convened an academic workshop about Iran at a hotel on an island near Istanbul. That night, elements of the Turkish military attempted a coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that quickly failed but triggered a massive campaign of repression which continues to this day. Barkey went through with his conference, spent a couple of days in Istanbul and flew home. To Barkey’s astonishment, he soon became a target of the world’s newest political weapon: fake news, in the form of a feverish, government-sponsored campaign. Pro-Erdogan media claimed that Barkey...

Jeff Sessions: I Have No Reason to Believe Judge Moore Accusers are Lying Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee fired off several questions today on Republican Judge Roy Moore during the House Judiciary hearing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Lee accused Judge Roy Moore of five counts of child sexual activity today during testimony at the House Judiciary Committee. So far two women have accused Judge Moore of illicit sexual activity with minors. Three others were teens when they accused Judge Moore of sexual advances which would not be illegal due to the age of the women at the time. Jeff Sessions...

In the continuing Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations controversy, there are a lot of unknowns. But we do know one thing: Mitch McConnell can't lose. The rest of us? Not so much. The accusations against Moore and the nature of those allegations couldn't have come at a better time for McConnell, whose top priority is and has always been consolidating his personal power in the Senate. Politically, this works out well for McConnell because the news broke a few weeks after Moore defeated Senator Luther Strange in the Alabama special election primary. Strange was the candidate McConnell backed in the...

The country’s immigration enforcement officers launched a website Tuesday demanding President Trump do more to clean up their agency, saying he’s left the Obama team in place and it’s stymieing his goal of enforcing the laws on the books. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisors in Philadelphia banned officers from wearing bullet proof vests during an operation in the dangerous “badlands” section in the city’s north, for fear of offending the immigrant community, the new website, jicreport.com, charges. Meanwhile officers in one Utah city are required to give city officials seven days’ heads-up before arresting anyone — and by the...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified Tuesday that the Justice Department has 27 open investigations into leaks.“We had about nine open investigations of classified leaks in the last three years,” Sessions said. “We have 27 investigations open today. We intend to get to the bottom of these leaks. I think it…has reached epidemic proportions. It cannot be allowed to continue and we will do our best effort to ensure it does not continue.”President Donald Trump has been enraged about the amount of national security leaks during his administration. These leaks have included transcripts of his phone calls with foreign leaders.  A July Senate...

Two men are facing charges they vandalized the bronze memorial sculpture outside the VFW Post on Macedon Center Road in Fairport. Rhys Baetzhold of Pittsford and Anthony Fennell of Perinton are both charged with felony grand larceny, felony criminal mischief and conspiracy. Deputies say Baetzhold admitted yesterday causing the damage last week and stealing a piece of the monument. And deputies say he implicated Fennell. Deputies searched Fennell's home and found the stolen piece next to his bed.

Be extra careful of the male lawmakers who sleep in their offices -- they can be trouble. Avoid finding yourself alone with a congressman or senator in elevators, late-night meetings or events where alcohol is flowing. And think twice before speaking out about sexual harassment from a boss -- it could cost you your career. These are a few of the unwritten rules that some female lawmakers, staff and interns say they follow on Capitol Hill, where they say harassment and coercion is pervasive on both sides of the rotunda. There is also the "creep list" -- an informal roster...

An aphorism much favored by my fellow dipsomaniacs goes thus: “Dogs are smarter than people. A dog won’t eat or drink anything that has made him sick in the past.” In other words, fill up Fido’s water bowl with Booker’s, let him slurp down enough to induce vomiting, and you’ll not get him near booze nor bowl again. What has this to do with Maine or Medicaid? Well, Maine experimented with Medicaid expansion 15 years ago, and it took the state a decade to recover from the hangover. Nonetheless, a majority of Maine’s voters approved another Medicaid expansion last Tuesday....

We are honored to announce that Senator John McCain will be at the Reagan Library on Monday, November 27th for a speech to discuss what it means to be a Republican. [snip] John McCain entered the Naval Academy in June of 1954. He served in the United States Navy until 1981. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona in 1982 and elected to the United States Senate in 1986. He was the Republican Party’s nominee for president in the 2008 election. He currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

Sessions says he has ‘no reason to doubt’ women who have accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct.

A Peruvian farmer won a small but significant legal victory on Monday when a German court said his appeal against energy giant RWE, which he accuses of contributing to climate change that is threatening his Andean home, had merit. After hearing oral arguments from both sides, the higher regional court in the western city of Hamm said Saul Luciano Lliuya’s demand for damages from RWE was “admissible”, paving the way for the case to proceed. Luciano argues that RWE, as one of the world’s top emitters of climate-altering carbon dioxide, must share in the cost of protecting his hometown Huaraz...

An avalanche of mass defections of advertisers from Sean Hannity’s Fox News program appears to have been staunched – at least for the present. Over the weekend, initially five, and then more, major sponsors were about to bolt. On Monday, the CEO of the company in the forefront of the defections, Keurig, apologized for his company’s threat to quit running its commercials on Hannity’s show. With that move, the tide against Hannity appeared to be turning. At least that is how Hannity positioned the news. Monday was a day of fast-breaking developments, with Hannity’s fans, social media, and Hannity’s four...

WASHINGTON — A new poll of Alabama voters shows Roy Moore’s support is waning after bombshell allegations he molested a 14-year-old girl in 1979. Democrat Doug Jones now leads Moore by 4 percentage points in the special election race for U.S. Senate — 46% to 42%, with 9% undecided, according to a JMC Analytics and Polling survey. That’s a significant swing from October, when Moore had a 48%-40% lead in the same survey. The Washington Post published a story Thursday about four women who said Moore sought a sexual or romantic relationship with them when they were teenagers and he...

I have no idea whether the stories about Roy Moore are true or not, but neither do the Washington Post reporters and all the other reporters who just repeat the unverified story with no investigation. Forty-year-old allegations are especially hard to disprove. I find it odd that this story came up after the primary and after decades of service by Roy Moore. Why did the Washington Post reporters wait until after no one else could be put on the ballot to run a 40-year-old story? Isn't it also strange that a supposed sexual predator would have all of a sudden...

A new study for the journal of the American Geophysical Union, Earth’s Future, looked at global annual temperature records from 1861 to 2005 which indicated there were 17 record hot years over that period. Then experts examined whether or not those temperature records were being broken more frequently and if so, whether humans were to blame for that rise. The findings show human influence has greatly increased the likelihood of record-breaking hot years occurring on a global scale. Without human-caused climate change, there should only have been an average of seven record hot years from 1861 to 2005, not 17....

Speaker Paul Ryan, responding to a question from CNN’s Lauren Fox at a House GOP press conference, said Roy Moore should step aside from the Alabama Senate race. "He should step aside. Number one, these allegations are credible. Number two, if he cares about the values that he claims to care about, then he should step aside."

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According to a recent report, the Senate majority leader has decided to escalate his feud with Steve Bannon, the former adviser to President Trump and current Breitbart News executive chairman. McConnell’s allies cite the decision as evidence of his toughness. But it illustrates instead the limits of his leadership. While long considered a canny operator, the reality is that McConnell has been unsuccessful in leading Senate Republicans in the current environment. And the decision to treat his critics as adversaries suggests that he would rather deflect blame for his missteps than rise above a conflict that threatens to tear his...

Elections in 18 separate nations were influenced by online disinformation campaigns last year, suggests research. Independent watchdog Freedom House looked at how online discourse was influenced by governments, bots and paid opinion formers. In total, 30 governments were actively engaged in using social media to stifle dissent, said the report. Educating users to spot fake news and making tech firms police their networks could combat the manipulation, it said. The different tactics used to influence online speech included: * automated bots that echoed official messages * armies of paid commentators that swamped discussions with pro-government views * false news sites...