Free Republic

<p>The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.</p>

Tax Reform: What do you call a tax break that delivers 88% of the benefits to upper-income families and subsidizes rich states at the expense of poor ones? If you're a Democrat, you call it a sacred cow. One provision of the Republican's tax-cutting plan that has drawn intense opposition from Democrats is the elimination of state and local tax deductions for those who itemize. ... Fewer than 22% of tax filers even claim the state and local tax deduction, and the vast majority of these are higher-income families. While 78% of those with incomes above $200,000 claim the deduction,...

All Russian roads lead to Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is neck deep in a Russian scandal involving bribery, kickbacks and extortion. FBI documents show that a Russian spy ring was simultaneously targeting her before and during her time as Secretary of State. The FBI arrested 10 Russian spies in June of 2010 and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly rushed them back to Moscow on a busy 4th of July weekend before the FBI was finished questioning them. Returning the spy ring to Moscow also prevented them from standing trial. Why???

Uranium investors’ efforts to buy mining assets in Kazakhstan and the United States led to a takeover bid by a Russian state-owned energy company. The investors gave millions to the Clinton Foundation over the same period, while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office was involved with approving the Russian bid

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch was informed yesterday by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that the FBI has located 30 pages of documents related to the June 27, 2016, tarmac meeting between former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton, and proposes non-exempt material be produced no later than November 30, 2017 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02046)). The new documents are being sent to Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request seeking the...

The FBI is investigating multiple allegations of Puerto Rican government officials withholding FEMA supplies meant for hurricane victims. The bureau received several complaints that local officials are distributing supplies to their friends and political supporters instead of people in need. So far, the FBI is aware of six areas in Puerto Rico where supplies are being misappropriated. This comes as President Trump hints he will pull first responders from the island.

Commentary: Welcome to the dysfunction of Illinois government Diana Sroka Rickert I walked into the Thompson Center on my first day, not knowing what to expect. In many ways, my new workplace was like any other large organization: big building, thousands of people and plenty of broken computers. Except this building is dilapidated, many of the employees are political hires and the computers will never be repaired, ever. And it’s all paid for by you, Illinois taxpayers. “Welcome to state government,” said a new colleague, as we boarded the elevator for the 16th floor. This summer I got to see...

Their proposals would do nothing to stop mass shootings. By now you’ve seen it a thousand times. On Twitter, in print, and on the air, Democratic politicians and progressive activists try to name and shame conservatives — especially conservative politicians — who offer “thoughts and prayers” in the aftermath of a mass shooting. “Your job isn’t to pray,” they argue. “Your job is to legislate. Your job is to fix the problem.” I hate to pick on Kirsten Powers — because she’s brave and right on many vital issues and also a thoughtful and kind person even when she’s wrong...

Bloomberg White House correspondent Jennifer Jacobs reports on Twitter that Trump's chief of staff, General John Kelly, was originally going to be on the Air Force One flight to Las Vegas but was "pulled off flight" at the last moment. Follow Jennifer Jacobs ✔@JenniferJJacobs Gen. Kelly was originally going to be on AF1 to Vegas with Trump today but was pulled off flight, I'm told. WH not answering Qs about it. 11:03 AM - Oct 4, 2017 587 587 Replies 3,413 3,413 Retweets 5,315 5,315 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy Although the White House initially refused to answer her...

(Full Title)‘The T-shirt Shack has reopened!’ Where did San Juan’s mayor get that custom-printed ‘Help Us’ shirt anyway? As Twitchy reported Saturday morning, President Donald Trump in a series of tweets slammed the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, citing her “poor leadership ability.” Trump’s tweets raised quite a few questions, the least of which was not, “Should the president be tweeting like this right now?” Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz has been all over the media this weekend inspiring some questions of her own. During a press conference Friday, she said she was “mad as hell” about the relief effort,...

President Trump is preparing an executive order to allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines, a reform conservatives have long championed as a way to bring costs down and stir greater competition in the national marketplace. The executive action gives the White House a chance to follow through on at least one promise related to healthcare reform after Senate Republicans' second attempt to overhaul Obamacare failed this week. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul "I think there's going to be big news from the White House in the next week or two, something they can do on their own," Paul...

Multi-Billion Dollar Stadiums: The Seen vs. the Horrid Unseen By Allan Golombek September 27, 2017 In 1995, the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis, extracting hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers to help build a new stadium. After 20 years in the Gateway City, the Rams moved right back where they came from – leaving the people of St. Louis and Missouri stuck with a $6 million a year tab to pay for an empty football field. American taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year to lure professional sports teams from one place to another in one of...

In 2001, Colorado electricity consumers enjoyed some of the lowest electric rates in the country. The 15 years since haven’t been so kind to ratepayers. For more than a decade, elected officials, PUC commissioners, industry and advocates have told Colorado ratepayers that they could transform the state’s electricity generation away from coal and toward industrial wind, solar and natural gas with little cost to ratepayers. However, the actual numbers tell a much different story. Colorado electricity rates have risen sharply – 62.1 percent – across residential, commercial and industrial sectors, despite a slight decrease in recent years. Colorado electricity rates...

Back in 2013, Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, refused to provide flowers for a gay friend’s same-sex wedding. The legal battle that ensued has now ended: The Washington State Supreme Court just unanimously ruled that the florist violated the state’s anti-discrimination law. The case has given rise to some misconceptions about discrimination. Here is the back story. In 2012, the state of Washington enacted Senate Bill 6239, which recognized same-sex marriage. Gay men Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed, who had been a couple since 2004, decided to get married in September of 2013. At the...

EXCLUSIVE: Security at the State Department's Benghazi compound was so dire that another contractor was brought in to clean up the mess just two weeks before the 2012 terror attack – and was later pressured to keep quiet by a government bureaucrat under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to two men from the American security company. Brad Owens and Jerry Torres, of Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, say they faced pressure to stay silent and get on the same page with the State Department with regard to the security lapses that led to the deaths of four Americans. They spoke...

And then there were three. Today Stanley Fischer submitted his letter of resignation from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, effective next month, the second such resignation of Donald Trump’s presidency. While Fischer’s term as Vice Chairman of the Fed was set to end next year, he had the ability to serve as a governor through 2020. Along with Trump’s decision next year on whether to replace Janet Yellen as the Fed’s chair, this means Trumps will have the opportunity to appoint five of seven governors to America’s central bank. Given that the position holds a 14-year term, it is...

The governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands has ordered its national guard to seize guns, ammunition and other weapons from its citizens as the territory prepares for Hurricane Irma to make landfall. Gov. Kenneth Mapp, an Independent, signed an executive order Tuesday instructing Adjutant General Deborah Howell “to take whatever actions she considers necessary” to maintain public order, The Times-Picayune reported. The order, obtained by The Daily Caller, states that Howell is “authorized and directed to seize arms, ammunition, explosives, incendiary material and any other property that may be required by the military forces for the performance of this emergency...

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election expands, one curious detail in Hillary Clinton’s email probe remains. The “lost” emails from Clinton’s private server aren’t lost — in fact — the NSA has them, but during the FBI’s investigation, Comey didn’t want to hear about it. New York Post reports: Remember, the Republicans now control this committee. So bad news isn’t going to be stifled anymore. Clinton, you probably remember, “lost” her private emails, which she’d been storing on a personal computer server. Comey chastised her harshly in a televised speech but then...

With a Republican in the White House, the anti-gun-control lobby smells a bit of blood in the water. Now is the time, they suggest, to pass national gun-licensing reciprocity laws forcing gun-restrictive states to recognize permits issued by gun-permissive states. The way this is phrased sounds nice and totally unobjectionable: this bill sounds like it's just saying people should be left alone. The problem, however, is that the drive for mandated reciprocity is essentially a drive to increase federal involvement and federal control in the realm of gun policy.

“Does a state violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause or Free Speech Clause when it punishes a judge who has discretionary authority to solemnize marriages because she states that her religious beliefs preclude her from performing a same-sex wedding?” That’s the question Judge Ruth Neely from Pinedale, Wyoming, wants the Supreme Court to answer. On August 4, she filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), asking them to review a March 7, 2017 ruling from the Wyoming Supreme Court. That ruling handed down a public censure and effectively removed her from a circuit court...