Free Republic

Former national security adviser John Bolton has suggested Donald Trump is bluffing about stopping North Korea from producing nuclear weapons in his most direct criticism of the president’s foreign policy yet. Mr Bolton, who resigned from the Trump administration in September, accused Mr Trump of having more of a “rhetorical policy” on North Korea rather than a serious plan in an interview with the news website Axios. “The idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on North Korea is unfortunately just not true,” the former adviser said. “We're now nearly three years into the administration with no visible progress...

Remember when you could watch TV like this during the Christmas season? Here it is in its entirety. God bless us, everyone.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, or ObamaCare, includes a “requirement” that Americans “shall . . . ensure” that they and their dependents have “minimum essential coverage” for medical care. Seven years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts provided the decisive vote to uphold this requirement, the individual mandate, after counterintuitively concluding that it was neither a requirement nor a mandate but was instead merely a condition for avoiding a tax that the law describes as a “penalty.” As of January, thanks to a tax reform bill that Congress enacted in 2017, that penalty was reduced to zero....

The Trump campaign on Christmas Eve launched a website full of talking points intended to help supporters of the president win arguments with "that liberal snowflake relative." Featuring videos on topics from the economy to immigration and attacks on the media, snowflakevictory.com seeks to provide pro-Trump tidbits that can be brought to the holiday dinner table. "Family holidays. Full of love. Full of laughter. And full of the inevitable conversations with the family liberal who just does not want to believe how great America is doing with President Trump in office," according to the website.

Pickpocketing doesn't pay. But sometimes, it'll get you Jean Peters.

Leaders who spoke during a Friday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a new Interstate 15 interchange touted the $31 million project as a prime example of what can be accomplished when entities cooperate. The Northgate interchange opened to the public a few hours after the ceremony concluded, with Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad, Chubbuck Mayor Kevin England and members of the Bannock County Commission all driving their cars across the bridge as the official first users. The interchange is located north of both the Pocatello Creek Road exit and I-15’s “flying Y” with Interstate 86. The interchange was first added to...

When Israel relinquished control of Bethlehem to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo Accord agreement in 1995, 85% of this prosperous town were middle class Christians. Business and life was good when it was part of Israel. By Christmas 2019, Christians are less than 10% of the population in an economically stricken town. How did this come about? In 1995, Elias Freij was that the last Christian mayor of Bethlehem. He appealed to Israeli Prime Minister, Yizchak Rabin, not to withdraw from the city as part of the Accords due to his fear for the...

by Gina Cassini What is wrong with these people? Just when you thought the conspiracy mainstream media could not stoop any lower comes this question to US President Trump… Reporter: “Sir, what did President Putin say to you that convinced you that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections?” WATCH: This is what passes for "journalism" in 2019: absolute garbage.

.... The SPLC did their best to depict Mr. Miller as a wicked racist that pushes white supremacist propaganda unto giddy, unsuspecting journalists. Since they were able to publish these nefarious claims next to Stephen Miller’s name without consequence, the ante is up and at least 80 Democrat Representatives have lobbied together to call for his termination. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly started a petition to have Miller fired which as of now, claims to have 20,000 signatures. ...It is impossible for anybody to actually quote Stephen Miller and prove that’s he supports white nationalist ideology, a task that would be...

Russia successfully disconnected from the internet Russia’s government announced that it has successfully concluded a series of tests for its RuNet intranet aimed at country disconnection from the Internet. The Russian Government has announced on Monday that it has successfully concluded the test on its RuNet intranet and the complete disconnection of the country from the Internet. “The results of the exercises showed that, in general, both authorities and telecom operators are ready to effectively respond to emerging risks and threats, to ensure the stable functioning of both the Internet and the unified telecommunication network in the Russian Federation,” said...

The claim that Jesus Christ was a socialist has become a popular refrain among liberals, even from some whose Christianity is lukewarm at best. But is there any truth in it? That question cannot be answered without a reliable definition of socialism. A century ago, it was widely regarded as government ownership of the means of production. Jesus never once even hinted at that concept, let alone endorsed it. Yet the definition has changed over time. When the critiques of economists such as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman demolished any intellectual case for the original form...

A majority of millionaires support a wealth tax on those worth $50 million or more, but their support declines for a tax on those worth $10 million, according to a new poll. Fifty-nine percent of millionaires said they would support a new federal tax on wealth over $50 million, according to the Q4 CNBC Millionaire Survey. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s tax plan includes a wealth tax of 2% on wealth over $50 million and 6% over $1 billion. Forty-eight percent opposed a wealth tax on those worth over $10 million. Attitudes toward the wealth tax are also strongly dependent...

Three bad ideas are fueling the backlash against J.K. Rowling. The first, that a human’s biological sex can be changed. The second, that believing otherwise tarnishes one’s character. The third, that artists must conform entirely to leftist standards lest their work be deemed unworthy of consumption. Each of these bad ideas is rooted in notions both ascendant and troubling.Rowling, an outspoken leftist, made headlines just about everywhere on Thursday for tweeting in support of Maya Forstater, an academic who lost her job at a think tank over tweets affirming the reality of biological sex, including, “men cannot change into...

Freezing overnight temperatures and growing frustration over long waits to get an initial interview with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in El Paso are to blame, Mexican officials and activists told Border Report. The camps fashioned out of blue tarps and black plastic sheets sprung up in September south of the Paso del Norte and Zaragoza international bridges, as well as in a park near the Bridge of the Americas. The camps at one point held up to 3,000 people, mostly families, but as of Monday, only about 600 remained, according to Juarez police. Activists in El Paso who have...

About half of U.S. adults (51%) now consider a college education to be "very important," down from 70% in 2013. Over the same period, the percentages rating college as "fairly important" and "not too important" have both increased, to 36% and 13%, respectively. Perceptions that a college education is very important have declined in the U.S. among all age groups since 2013, but the drop has been especially pronounced -- 33 percentage points -- among adults aged 18 to 29. As a result, younger adults are now less likely than middle-aged adults and seniors to consider college as very important,...

In a letter to Timothy Dalrymple, the president of Christianity Today, nearly 200 evangelical faith leaders condemned both its editorial calling for the removal of President Donald Trump from office and its editor-in-chief, Mark Galli, for dismissing evangelicals who oppose his views on the matter as being “far right.”On Sunday, the faith leaders said in the letter, which can be read in full below, that the editorial “offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations."The signatories also decried Galli who they say “offensively dismissed” their point of view...

Every member of the eleven-person council has progressive political ideologies, something that’s made clear by the accessories many of them wear inspired by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Austin City Council Members are nonpartisan in that they don’t run as Democrats or Republicans. A city spokesperson pointed KXAN toward the Texas Election Code which indicates that all local governments in Texas run nonpartisan elections by default, Austin just hasn’t chosen to authorize partisan candidacy... Council Member Allison Alter added that the RBG accessories were, “one small way to show solidarity amongst ourselves.” Alter also pointed out that many...

Can you believe these shmucks?! Americans think New Yorkers are the biggest jerks in the country, according to a new survey — released just days before Christmas, no less. The slap-in-the-face Business Insider study found 34.3 percent of the knuckleheads who responded believe Big Apple residents are the rudest in the US. But many locals were too polite to respond to the diss Monday. “F–k off!” one man told a Post reporter on 125th Street in Harlem when asked his opinion of the study.

To guide the McCain, Bordeaux relied upon a navigation system the Navy considered a triumph of technology and thrift. It featured slick black touch screens to operate the ship’s wheel and propellers. It knit together information from radars and digital maps. It would save money by requiring fewer sailors to safely steer the ship. Bordeaux felt confident using the system to control the speed and heading of the ship. But there were many things he did not understand about the array of dials, arrows and data that filled the touch screen. “There was actually a lot of functions on there...

Self spell checking and suggestion search boxes... lol Can anyone think of a better one?