Free Republic

It has been amazing to watch the national media’s coverage of the 2020 congressional elections so far. Virtually all the coverage has contained the same message: Republicans are retiring in droves, and this must mean 2020 will be a tough election for the GOP. Headlines, such as CNN’s “Here's why members of the House GOP keep abandoning ship” and USA Today’s “More than a dozen Republicans are leaving Congress. Here are the lawmakers who aren't running again in 2020” are prefect examples of the national media narrative. The problem with this narrative is it’s misleading and incomplete. What the trivia-focused,...

Speculation Ukraine was asked for information to damage Biden Trump ‘asked a foreign power to help him win an election. Again’ Donald Trump on Friday denied an accusation from his political rival Hillary Clinton that he sought help from a foreign government to help his bid for re-election – a potential replay of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The White House was rocked this week by a whistleblower’s complaint that included a private conversation between the US president and a foreign leader. Some of the allegations appear to centre on Ukraine, according to reports in the Washington Post...

One of the ways Democrats are hoping to gain more electoral and congressional power is by changing the status of heavily Democratic Washington D.C. from a federally controlled district to the 51st state. In January, a Democratic Congressman introduced House Resolution 51, the "Washington, D.C., Admission Act," which would "provide for the admission of the State of Washington, D.C. into the Union," and her fellow Democrats overwhelmingly signed on. On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held the first hearing on the bill. Among the Democrats enthusiastically supporting the bill is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who took to...

China's economy is grinding to its slowest levels of growth in decades. The country's second-quarter growth of 6.2% was the slowest rate seen since it began reporting quarterly figures. The preliminary third-quarter estimate of 6% to 6.5% is the slowest ever forecast. Though global stock markets have stabilized and trade talks with the US have resumed after a two-month hiatus, China's economy faces trouble from several different sectors, Nomura Research Institute chief economist Richard Koo wrote in a Wednesday report. A large part of China's economic prowess comes from its ability to provide cheaper labor than other industrial nations at...

BOSTON (CBS) — Antonio Brown’s Patriots career is over after one game. ADVERTISING After a controversial day, the Patriots released the wide receiver from their roster. “The New England Patriots are releasing Antonio Brown,” Patriots spokesperson Stacey James said. “We appreciate the hard work of many people over the past 11 days, but we feel that it is best to move in a different direction at this time.” The news broke Friday, just moments after Brown shared some posts on social media that indicated something was about to take place. He posted a photo of himself and Tom Brady to...

Big dollar signs make for memorable headlines. In June, when an Ohio jury ordered Oberlin College to pay $33 million in damages to a small bakery that had been the target of a protest orchestrated by employees of the college, the figure shocked many observers. Could Oberlin officials have really been so dastardly as to merit such a mammoth legal thumping? Apparently so. In a lengthy essay in Commentary magazine, former Oberlin professor Abraham Socher gave a thorough account of the events that led up to the $33 million verdict. The story, in case you don’t already know it, goes...

Updated at 2:11 p.m. ET President Trump blamed "a political hack job" for reports that a whistleblower has charged he had an improper conversation with a foreign leader. The Washington Post on Friday reported that the conversation in question involves Ukraine. Trump dismissed the reporting as a "ridiculous story" and said he did not know the identity of the whistleblower, "but I hear it's a partisan person." Trump said it was a "totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation," although he did not specify with whom. Asked if he mentioned former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe...

The IJF said that the Iran Judo Federation was suspended from “all competitions, administrative and social activities organized or authorized” by the IJF. The International Judo Federation (IJF) on Wednesday announced it had officially suspended Iran over its directive to its Judoka Saeid Mollaei to withdraw from a recent competition to avoid a contest against Israel’s Sagi Muki. The IJF said that the Iran Judo Federation was suspended from “all competitions, administrative and social activities organized or authorized” by the IJF. During the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo in August, Mollaei lost to Belgian judoka Matthias Casse on purpose to...

Multiple injuries were also reported in the crash on state Route 12, according to the Utah Highway Patrol, with between 12 to 15 of those considered “very critical injuries.” The tour bus was full of Chinese speaking tourists, according to the UHP. Pollock said the bus went off the road between Bryce Canyon Pines and the top of Red Canyon. What caused the crash was not immediately known. There were no reports of other vehicles involved. It was not known what the weather was like at the time of the crash. S.R. 12 is closed as multiple police and rescue...

After ousting other leaders over anti-Semitism, the Women’s March selected another individual who had to be quickly removed when her hateful anti-Israel tweets were exposed. By United With Israel Staff Lawyer Zhara Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was set to fill an empty seat on the board of the Women’s March group following the resignation of its previous leaders who faced persistent accusations of anti-Semitism. After her appointment, Billoo’s history of vehemently anti-Israel remarks, including several that many viewed as crossing the line into anti-Semitism, was revealed. She...

President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ’s son, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe, according to people familiar with the matter. “He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” whether allegations were true or not, one of the people said. Mr. Trump didn’t mention a provision of foreign aid to Ukraine on the call, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered...

"When Sen. Bernie Sanders championed voting rights for prisoners during a CNN town hall, he spotlighted an intensifying national debate about why going to prison means losing the right to vote. In only two states, Maine and Vermont, all prisoners are eligible to vote. However, some prisoners in Mississippi, Alaska and Alabama can vote while incarcerated, depending on their convictions. Sanders is the sole presidential candidate to support the idea of prisoners voting, regardless of their crimes. His stance may reflect the reality that his home state of Vermont, and its neighbor Maine, have long-established procedures, and general public acceptance,...

Chinese agriculture officials who were due to visit U.S. farm states next week have canceled their trip to Montana as the officials will return to China sooner than originally scheduled, the Montana Farm Bureau told Reuters on Friday. The cancellation came as U.S.-Chinese trade talks were held in Washington and U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a complete trade deal with the Asian nation, not just an agreement for China to buy more U.S. agricultural goods.

[...] On Thursday, as Lee attempted to push through his and Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) S. 386 — legislation that would allow Indian nationals to effectively monopolize the U.S. green card system for at least ten years — Perdue blocked a vote because he is concerned about the impact the plan will have on rural healthcare industries. “I support this bill … we have some language that needs to be clarified,” Perdue said. “And I still have some concerns about the impact this legislation would have on some specific industries in my state and in the country.” Lee said he...

No one knows the mind of God, except for God himself. He is infinite; we are finite. We are not entirely clueless about his character, however, because God speaks to us through his Word. According to the Bible, one reason bad things happen is because the whole world is under the control of the evil one (1 John 5:19). That’s why Jesus taught us to ask God to deliver us from the evil one when we pray (Matthew 6:13). Even in the Garden of Eden — in paradise, before Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit — Satan was...

The latest media mass hysteria over a whistleblower’s complaint is based on precious little information. That has not stopped journalists from convicting President Trump in the court of public opinion and predicting his imminent demise. Who exactly is this unidentified “whistleblower”? What is the specific nature of his or her “urgent concern” complaint against the president? Does this complaint really qualify under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA)? These are just a few of the most fundamental questions that remain largely unknown. Despite the paucity of facts, some reasonable observations and conclusions can be drawn: 1. It appears that...

Two swing states narrowly won by President Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 were the sites of the greatest losses in manufacturing jobs between 2018 and 2019, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. The agency's state employment survey found that Wisconsin has lost about 5,200 manufacturing jobs since August of last year. In Pennsylvania, losses of manufacturing jobs topped 7,700, according to the survey.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Friday demanded the Trump Administration hand over the whistleblower complaint alleging the President and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought to manipulate the Ukrainian government into assisting Trump win the 2020 presidential election. Pelosi accused the Trump administration of violating federal law for withholding the whistleblower complaint from Congress. President Trump knows this is just a Deep State hit from a highly partisan snitch, so he asserted executive privilege over the document. Pelosi warned President Trump that “if he has done what has been alleged, then he is stepping into a dangerous minefield with...

It’s still early in the 2020 campaign cycle, so political predictions are risky. Nonetheless, it appears that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has already become a two-person contest. Elizabeth Warren has replaced Bernie Sanders as the most formidable challenger to front-runner Joe Biden according to the most recent YouGov, SurveyUSA, and NBC/WSJ polls. All show Warren gaining on Biden and Sanders falling back to third place. Assuming these polls are accurate, the rest of the Democratic candidates are stuck in single digits. This is very good news for President Trump, who will have little difficulty beating Biden or...

Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib told D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser she wanted to hang a desecrated flag with 51 stars outside her congressional office, according to reports.Tlaib said Thursday she wants an altered American flag with 51 – instead of 50 – stars to demonstrate support for making the District of Columbia a state.Tlaib’s exchange with Bowser came about because of D.C. statehood advocating displaying American flags with 51 stars.