Free Republic

CNN host John King couldn't believe no contestant on the popular trivia show "Jeopardy!" knew the answer to a question about the Russia investigation, wondering Friday what that said about the nation's "focus." "Only the smartest of the smart get to be on Jeopardy, right?" King asked. "So what does this little exchange last night say about the nation's focus, or lack thereof, on the whole [Robert] Mueller Russia meddling and collusion investigation?" Two contestants buzzed in and responded incorrectly to the $1,000 clue Thursday night, "In 2017, this ex-National Security Adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI?" One...

A federal judge has ordered China's largest wind-turbine firm, Sinovel, to pay $59 million for stealing trade secrets from a Massachusetts-based technology company. Last January, Sinovel was found guilty of stealing trade secrets in federal criminal court in Madison, Wis. The company paid an Austria-based employee of American Superconductor Corp. to steal its source code for software that powered wind turbines.

A space shuttle-era main engine is undergoing a series of daily test firings to demonstrate its suitability for use on a reusable spaceplane under development. The Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-22 engine is in the midst of a series of 10 100-second engine firings over the course of 10 days at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. As of July 2, the company has completed six such tests and was on track to complete the rest on schedule. The engine is a version of the Space Shuttle Main Engine with only minor modifications, said Jeff Haynes, AR-22 program manager at Aerojet, in...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCloTOCdJSs

Last fall, the Pew Research Center released one of its periodic typologies of the American electorate, identifying the demographic and ideological fissures both within and between the two parties. The two most conservative factions within the Republican Party were familiar types. The first, and largest, “Core Conservatives,” holds doctrinaire positions on everything. This group is “financially comfortable,” and “overwhelmingly supports smaller government, lower corporate tax rates and believes in the fairness of the nation’s economic system,” and also “express[es] a positive view of U.S. involvement in the global economy.” This is the conservatism of Paul Ryan. Another group, “Country First...

Jordan said the timing of the allegations is suspect, since they come immediate after a contentious hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and also during the ongoing discussion that the congressman may run for speaker of the House. He said the law firm representing some of the accusers, Perkins Coie, is the same firm that was involved with the Trump-Russia dossier.

Artist Steve Ditko, who co-created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee, has died at age 90. The New York Police Department confirmed his death to The Hollywood Reporter. No cause of death was announced. Ditko was found dead in his apartment on June 29 and it is believed he died about two days earlier. In 1961, Ditko and Lee created Spider-Man. Lee, the editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, gave Ditko the assignment after he wasn't satisfied with Jack Kirby's take on the idea of a teen superhero with spider powers. The look of Spider-Man — the costume, the web shooters,...

(CNN)Prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller said in a court filing Friday that they intend to present evidence at the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort that a banking executive allegedly helped Manafort obtain loans of more than $6 million while the banker sought a role in the Trump campaign. Manafort faces trial on bank fraud charges in the Eastern District of Virginia beginning July 25. Until now, there had been no indication that his role in the Trump campaign would become part of the trial, and he had asked the judge to keep details about his ties...

The lobby for hundreds of medical schools and teaching hospitals Wednesday said it was “deeply concerned” that the Trump administration was rescinding guidance on consideration of race in university admissions. The 4th of July announcement by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) comes after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded 24 Obama-era guidance documents on affirmative action the Trump justice department said were “unnecessary, outdated, inconsistent with existing law or otherwise improper.” A joint letter from the Justice Department and the Department of Education said the Obama administration advocated policy and "positions beyond the requirements of the Constitution,” the...

Multiple Democratic Socialists of America leaders endorse Communism The Democratic Socialists of America recently got a major boost when one of their endorsed candidates, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, beat out incumbent Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley in a primary last Tuesday for New York’s 14th Congressional District.This far-left political organization previously made headlines when leadership from their Iowa State campus chapter encouraged people to shoot president Trump and when leadership from their University of Georgia Chapter called for the execution of house GOP members. Now multiple DSA leaders are publicly endorsing communism, an ideology responsible or the oppression, incarceration, and murder of tens...

This Brexit strategy is a sell-out to the global corporates, at it was during Maastricht. The Tory Euroskeptics are a waste of space" Nigel Farage Twitter 7/6/2018 May's surrender proposal talks of Economic and Security Partnership. This means EU control of our trade policy and being part of their plans for EU Armed Forces. Plus being bound to things like the evil European Arrest Warrant...." Gerard Batten-UKIP leader Twitter 7/6/2018 "Brexit did not mean keeping 90 percent of our economy that does not export to the EU trapped by their laws...." Nigel Farage Twitter 7/6/2018 After an eight hour meeting...

DALLAS — Firefighters and paramedics in Dallas were dodging fireworks Wednesday night, as many Independence Day revelers illuminated the skyline illegally. ... According to Dallas Fire-Rescue Spokesperson Jason Evans, two engines had to be taken out of service after they were hit with fireworks. One of those engines, Engine 18, is quite possibly the busiest engine in the city. A firefighter riding in the back of Engine 18 even captured the moment the truck was hit on his cell phone. According to Captain Jim McDade, the President of the Dallas Fire Fighter’s Association, Engine 18 was headed to a medical...

{full title} EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: Stephen Paddock’s Three Female Room Guests Partially IDed; LVMPD Tries to Disguise Radio Traffic In the recent weeks of the document releases for the October 1 Las Vegas Shooting investigation, I exclusively reported that revealed Stephen Paddock had three additional guests registered to his room at the Mandalay Bay when he allegedly committed mass murder from the 32nd floor of his suite, murdering 58, and leaving more than 800 injured as they fled the concert venue and rapid gunfire. The report showed the entry in the dispatch log released by LVMPD that three females were registered...

The United States trade deficit dropped in May to the lowest level in 19 months as exports rose to a record level. The Department of Commerce announced the May trade deficit — the difference between what America sells and what it buys in foreign markets — decreased 6.6 percent to $43.1 billion — the smallest imbalance since October 2016. Exports climbed 1.9 percent to a record $215.3 billion. Imports were up a smaller 0.4 percent to $258.4 billion. The Trump administration followed through with imposing tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products on Friday. China retaliated in kind, starting what...

Silverstone Circuit FIRST GRAND PRIX 1950 NUMBER OF LAPS 52 CIRCUIT LENGTH 5.891KM RACE DISTANCE 306.198KM LAP RECORD 1:30.621 by Lewis Hamilton (2017)

Scott Pruitt was the perfect villain: On top of pursuing Presdient Trump’s deregulatory plan for the Environmental Protection Agency, including pulling out from the Paris climate accords, he had a laundry list of ethical and possibly legal violations that put him at the heart of a at least 13 federal investigations. He was easy to criticize, didn’t seem to know his way around Washington, and constantly found himself in the spotlight for undeniably questionable activity. Moreover, his haste and lack of regulatory know-how led to six of his initiatives being struck down by the courts. Now Pruitt is out and...

Has a trade war started? The stock market doesn’t suggest that a full-scale trade fight between China and the U.S. has erupted, but a tweet from Ray Dalio, founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, implies otherwise. Friday afternoon, Dalio tweeted: “Today is the first day of the war with China.” Today is the first day of the war with China. — Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) July 6, 2018 The tweet from the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, which manages some $160 billion, comes after the U.S. slapped levies on $34 billion of 25% on China’s exports at midnight, and...

It turns out that our galaxy looks the way it does today thanks to a run-in with something called the 'Gaia Sausage'. As greasy as space is, we're not talking cosmic processed foods here. Rather, astronomers have found signs that a small galaxy smashed into the Milky Way billions of years ago, leaving behind a mess of stars with some rather unusual orbits. So, what makes this cosmic object a 'sausage'? Cambridge University astronomer Wyn Evans says it all came down to the paths of the stars following the impact... Collisions between galaxies aren't all that unusual, and the Milky...

A Lafayette man pleaded guilty Thursday to making threatening communications to the Lafayette office of U.S. Representative Clay Higgins. Sohail Rana, 60, of Lafayette, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell to one count of threats by interstate communications. According to the guilty plea, Rana called Higgins’ Lafayette office on July 17, 2017 while in Colorado and spoke to his district director. Rana was described as being irate, cursing and screaming during the call. He said that he would end Higgins’ career and kill Higgins. The district director noted the phone number and reported the call within minutes...

A series of recent events has inspired some soul searching on the part of democrats who still have a brain. Among them, the call to abolish ICE Sen. Elizabeth Warren: The Massachusetts senator and liberal fixture said Saturday at a rally in Boston: "We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom by starting with replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality." Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.: Like Warren, she is a potential 2020 contender. Gillibrand decried ICE as a "deportation force" -- a reference to child separation at the border that Trump officials have criticizedas being inaccurately pinned on ICE. She told...