Free Republic

When Attorney General William Barr stated "spying did occur" against the 2016 Trump campaign, most attention was focused on the FBI's surveillance of former junior foreign policy aide Carter Page. But the spying Barr was thinking of, and which he said may or may not have been legally authorized, is more likely to be that carried out by Stefan Halper, a former Republican operative and White House aide who became a foreign policy academic with close ties to both American and British intelligence. One could be forgiven for believing Halper was a creation of the spy novelist John Le Carré....

The United States was a mere 28 years old by the time Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the Corps of Discovery were working their way up the Missouri River. In 1804, the men were nearing present-day Doniphan, Kansas. They spotted a stream on the Kansas side of the river, and as Clark writes: “as this Creek has no name, and this day is the 4th of July, we name this Independence us. [U.S.] Creek.” That night, they camped at a spot which Clark called “one of the most butifull [beautiful] Plains, I ever Saw.” They would dub the area “Joe...

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A topless woman has been arrested for stealing a bulldozer and crashing it into an apartment complex. Heather Houston, 34, allegedly stole the front end loader from a construction site and drove it 5.5 miles across town to the apartments in Great Falls, Montana, on Sunday morning. Police say Houston then ran over a fence, damaged a car and hit the side of the complex. She then reportedly elevated the front end of the excavator so she could climb up into an apartment on the second floor. Molly Broxholm, a resident of the Fox Hollow Apartment Complex, said she was...

Take note, good folks in the state of Montana: POTUS, Doanld J. Trump will attend a huge, evening, political rally, open to the public in Great Falls, Montana on Thursday, July 5th, 2018. Information and Free tickets (2) are listed & outlined on the "Trump For POTUS" web site.

A man scales the all-glass facade of Trump Tower, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016, in New York. A police spokeswoman says officers responded to Donald Trump's namesake skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The 58-story building is headquarters to the Republican presidential nominee's campaign. He also lives there. NEW YORK (AP) — A man who said he was seeking “a private audience” with Donald Trump by climbing the Republican presidential candidate’s skyscraper was hospitalized on Thursday after his arrest a day earlier on charges of reckless endangerment and trespassing. The New York Police Department identified the climber as 19-year-old Stephen Rogata,...

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Mitsu Yasukawa/ Staff Photographer Kodi Tarrant, 6, of Shinnecock, N.Y., waiting his turn Sunday as other dancers of Silver Cloud present their traditional dance at The Paterson Museum. The Sand Hill Band of the Lenape and Cherokee Indians, The Paterson Museum, and the National Park Service presented a festival of culture of the indigenous community of Paterson. PATERSON — Long before Alexander Hamilton identified the Great Falls as the site of the country’s first planned industrial city, and textile mills harnessing the water power multiplied, thrived, withered and crumbled, the Leni-Lenape Indians fished and hunted in the once densely...

GREAT FALLS - A woman has been charged after authorities said one of her children tested positive for methamphetamine. Jessica McKinley, 26, has been charged with one felony count of criminal possession of dangerous drugs, and misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of drug paraphernalia. Police were called to McKinley's home on Jan. 26 after receiving a report of drug activity. Court documents state that McKinley was there with two of her five children and consented to a search of the home. Police officers stated in an affidavit that McKinley was "acting strange" and...

Two Air Force units responsible for the nuclear missiles warehoused in Montana failed inspections last month, military officials said Monday. There is no threat to the public and the units at Malmstrom Air Force Base near Great Falls are still performing their missions while correcting the problems, according to Global Strike Command and Air Force Materiel Command, which oversee the units. The 341st Missile Wing and 16th Munitions Squadron received "unsatisfactory" ratings in February from Air Force inspector general teams evaluating the units' ability to carry out their missions. Neither Global Strike Command, which oversees the 341st Missile Wing, nor...

Hopes are running high that a long-pending bill to designate Paterson's Great Falls as a national park is moving toward approval in Washington."It's hugely exciting!" said Caley Gray, spokesman for Rep. William Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, who has been working to pass a designation bill since 2000. "It's been a long time coming."  The vote by the Senate today could test whether the expanded Democratic majority can overcome a Republican filibuster.  The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, is hardly a done deal.The Senate must first hold a cloture vote before it can proceed with debate of...

Suit says state at fault in grizzly mauling... The widow of a hunter mauled by a grizzly bear while he was gutting an elk has filed an appeal with the Montana Supreme Court after a district judge here dismissed her lawsuit against the state. Mary Ann Hilston contends negligent management practices led to the death of her husband...in the fall of 2001. She filed a lawsuit in federal court in September 2004, claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks knew there was an aggressive grizzly bear with two cubs prowling the...

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) -- The busiest street in Great Falls became a home for roaming buffalo. Three bison broke out of Mickey's Packing Plant on the southern edge of Great Falls Thursday and took to 10th Avenue South, one of the state's busiest thoroughfares. They stopped by a nursing home, ran through a park and visited Giant Springs Heritage Park before being herded into a pasture and shot several hours after the first report of them hitting the town.Diane Moog was on 38th Street when she saw the herd coming at her van."I could not believe my eyes," Moog...

CREDIT: Grant Black, Calgary Herald Ald. Darlene Heatherington A Lethbridge city councillor -- who claimed to have been drugged and abducted in Great Falls and driven to Las Vegas -- staged the elaborate hoax from the beginning, right down to tossing her keys under a rental car and leaving her personal belongings in clear view, authorities told the Herald. "That was clearly an effort to show that something happened to her," said Cascade County Attorney Brant Light. "By her doing that, it would be consistent with someone attacking her from behind and knocking the keys out of her hand,...

<p>PATERSON -- Anti-war protesters said they had come to show support for the city's large Muslim community Saturday, but only a small group of people from the neighborhood joined them.</p> <p>Some Muslims, watching from across the street, said they were suspicious of the protesters' motives. They remembered the backlash against them after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when radio talk shows spread apparently false rumors that there had been celebrations in Paterson.</p>

<p>PATERSON, N.J. — As the threat of imminent war looms over Iraq, Middle Eastern immigrants and Americans of Middle Eastern heritage in this New Jersey town continue to hope that President Bush can somehow steer clear of using military force.</p>

Mom admits killing son in toss off footbridge She agrees to a term of 18 years in prison Friday, January 24, 2003BY RUDY LARINI Star-Ledger Staff Her family had told her that if she ever needed them to care for her son, they would be there for her. But she didn't turn to them late that Saturday night in June 2000 when she wanted to go out and couldn't find anyone to watch the toddler. So she took him to a footbridge over the Passaic River in Paterson and  tossed him into the water just above the Great Falls. Yesterday,...