Free Republic

Happy New Year, everyone!! Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! President Trump should take the win in the Senate trial without dragging it out, then concentrate on winning the 2020 election with wide coattails, then bide his time as the cases against the various coup plotters wind their way through the justice system. Win the election, hold the senate, take back the house!! And then continue the work of making America great again: Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all!! End DACA!! End sanctuary cities!! End anchor babies!! Continue cutting regulations, cutting government, cutting spending and...

This is Legal Insurrection posting an article from The Seattle Times about Washington State's new tax on businesses that is designed to pay for a large part of the tuition costs for college students. The state is already experiencing a shortfall.

Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrews received a letter from Secretary of War Stanton authorizing the Governor to raise a regiment of black free men for service in the Union Army. Recruiting began almost immediately. On May 28th the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment departed Boston for Beaufort SC. the 54th was the first black regiment authorized by the War Department. Another black regiment (1st Kansas Colored Infantry) had been raised earlier, but it had not been authorized by the War Department. These were the first of 175 black regiments of infantry, artillery, cavalry and engineers raised for the Union Army. By...

Former Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan said Sunday that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made “dangerous” and “idiotic” statements regarding ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at a campaign rally for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Iowa. “She's disgusting,” Homan said on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday morning, reacting to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments the night before. On Saturday, with Sanders, I-Vt., tied up in Washington at President Trump's Senate impeachment trial, Ocasio-Cortez addressed his supporters in Ames, Iowa, calling for the abolition of ICE and CBP. The New York Democrat also urged Sanders'...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday that National Public Radio reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to him and broke an off-the-record agreement. “NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice,” Pompeo said in a statement. “First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record.” Pompeo and his staff said Kelly agreed that an interview with the secretary would be about Iran but that she asked questions about Ukraine and United States Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Kelly revealed on NPR that Pompeo afterward berated her...

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the Democratic lawmaker leading the impeachment case against him, Representative Adam Schiff, has “not paid the price, yet” for his actions, a statement Schiff said he viewed as a threat. The vitriol from Trump against Schiff and other Democrats followed three days of their arguments in his impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate on charges he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival, and then tried to obstruct an investigation by Congress. “Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very...

In an editorial published Wednesday at National Review, the editors argue that an “unspoken consensus” has emerged among Republican senators that what President Trump did was wrong but it doesn’t warrant his removal from office. The editors think this a “reasonable” position and that Republicans should make the case for it publicly, but they can’t because of the president’s “obstinacy” in defending his actions vis-à-vis Ukraine.Instead of insisting that Trump “cannot be impeached for any abuse of power unless that abuse took the form of a criminal violation of a statute,” they write, “Republicans would be better off arguing...

Bernie Sanders leads the race for the Democratic nomination in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire. Overall, 25% of likely Democratic primary voters back the Vermont senator, with former Vice President Joe Biden (16%), former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (15%) and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (12%) battling for second place. Behind these four, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (6%), Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (5%) and businessman Andrew Yang (5%) make up a third tier of candidates. Sanders' edge in New Hampshire, a state he won by more than 20 points...

Last week the New York Times endorsed Liawatha, this week the Des Moines Register follows along. Neither endorsement matters much in the world of actual voting; however, when the Iowa progressive media support is combined with CNN’s previously coordinated hit against Bernie Sanders, to the specific benefit of Warren, these endorsements start to highlight where the institutional DNC is aligned.

German railway operator Deutsche Bahn on Sunday said the central station in Bonn was closed due to police investigations. Local newspaper General Anzeiger said the closure was due to a bomb threat. However, police did not locate a device after combing through the station and its surrounding areas. …

The OC Health Care Agency said it received confirmation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday evening that an Orange County case has tested positive for the coronavirus that appears to have spread from China. The patient, a “traveler from Wuhan, China, has been in contact with the HCA and was provided guidance in order to reduce exposure to the public while awaiting laboratory confirmation from the CDC. The individual has now been transported to a local hospital and is in isolation in good condition,” the HCA said in a statement. The Orange County agency said...

Thirteen police officers sustained minor injuries in the eastern German city of Leipzig on Saturday when protesters pelted them with stones and fireworks during a demonstration against the banning of a leftist website. Eleven officers were attacked with stones and glass bottles and two sustained injuries from fireworks. The protest began peacefully in front of the Federal Administrative Courthouse in the largest city in Saxony, where a lawsuit against the ban is due to be heard later this week. […] Around 1,600 people, according to police figures, had gathered for the demonstration in Leipzig to protest a ban of the...

Here’s what we know – or think we know – about the new coronavirus: China has claimed that, in Wuhan, which is Ground Zero for the virus, 1,975 people have confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 324 in critical condition, and that 56 people have died. In addition, there are 2,684 suspected cases. The virus is a relative of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (or SARS), another coronavirus virus that hit in 2002. Experts are currently saying that the new virus is not as severe as the 2002 outbreak, although it may be more contagious. So far, that’s not too bad....

Just how bad was it in swampville when President Trump was beginning to take off in the polls ahead of the 2016 election? Well, here's a pretty credible conversation recorded for a documentary intended to tell the election story for the benefit of Hillary Clinton's fans: Barack Obama called Donald Trump a "fascist" in a phone conversation with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia during the 2016 presidential election, Kaine says in a video clip featured in an upcoming documentary about Hillary Clinton. Kaine, Clinton's running mate on the Democratic ticket, recounts the call during an exchange with Clinton that was caught on...

The TDS-addled viewers that comprise the audience for MSNBC don’t want honest appraisals of the strength of the case presented by the House impeachment managers. They have become a cult founded on the belief that Donald Trump somehow is a threat to the Republic, though the concentration camps, wars blundered into, and economic depression so confidently predicted have nowhere manifested themselves in this dimension of reality. The only apocalypse in sight is a potential crushing Democrat defeat at the polls in November once voters focus on whether their lives are better off now than they were 4 years ago. President...

Adam Schiff! Masterfully leading astray the anti-Trumpers and his Party’s faithful What does it say about our country, when one political Party, the Democratic Party, deeply involved with the corruption in Ukraine, uses it as part of their effort to try and discredit the other Party’s candidate for President and then President, particularly after he begins to look into such corruption? Getting a majority in the House of Representatives, this Party, with zero support from the minority Party, voted in December to recommend to the Senate the President’s removal from office, and this week spent four days on national television...

Economic sanctions against Iran are having an effect, experts who spoke with The Epoch Times agreed. Yet views diverged on the nature of the impact and on how big of a role sanctions have played in the Islamic regime’s reluctance to escalate after the assassination of a top general. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in Baghdad on Jan. 3 by a missile fired from a U.S. drone. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the strike a preemptive move to keep Soleimani from executing an “imminent” attack on American assets. In retaliation, Iranian leaders ordered ballistic missile strikes that on Jan....

I am not suggesting that we not remain alert, nor am I suggesting that we cast caution to the winds, but this present coronavirus will probably be nowhere near as deadly as many Chicken Littles are predicting. Why? Because, quite often, it is not the virus itself, but the secondary infections that are so deadly. The majority of deaths during the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 were not caused by the influenza virus acting alone, report researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. Instead, most victims succumbed to bacterial pneumonia...

Lindsey Graham: When this trial is over, I don’t want to call Hunter Biden now, we will do oversight of the Bidens to give the Vice President (Biden) the scrutiny that the president has had regarding the Ukraine is yet to be had. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXmR1BTvs_Q At 9.00 minutes

Thanks to the Iowa father who exposed Warren’s true agenda In our country, the average American is a law-abiding person who works hard to pay his or her debts, including taxes and student loans. For this type of person, government bailouts are unnecessary. Sadly, presidential candidates do not seem to be interested in appealing to this type of voter. For example, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has campaigned on a plan to eliminate student tuition debt. This has not pleased those students and their parents who worked hard, and maybe took on an extra job, to pay these burdensome debts.