Free Republic

Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg released his plans for American workers on Saturday that promises raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, strengthening union protections and other concessions. His proposals include signing legislation that would raise the minimum wage, providing employees with 12 weeks of paid family leave and seven days of paid sick leave, expanding overtime protections, prohibiting “right to work” laws for private-sector unions, preventing gender discrimination through several legislations, and guaranteeing the right to unionize and bargain collectively to public sector employees. “I started out in an entry-level job, and in building my business, I...

Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was toasted at the Munich Security Conference Saturday as “probably the most courageous lawmaker we have in the United States.” “He was governor of Massachusetts early in his career. He was the person who organized the Salt Lake Winter Olympics — one of the most successful. He was the Republican nominee in 2012. He’s got a doctorate in law from Harvard … And he is probably the most courageous lawmaker we have in the United States,” the panel moderator said. The audience then applauded.

Federal prosecutor John Durham is scrutinizing the intelligence community’s interagency turf war over viewing secretive foreign intelligence and the government restricting access to President Barack Obama's emails that were hacked by Russians but obtained by a foreign ally, sources claimed. Durham, selected by Attorney General William Barr last year to lead the Justice Department’s inquiry into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the conduct of the U.S. government in dealing with the Kremlin’s interference, apparently is focused on at least two clashes over sensitive information, according to sources cited by the New York Times. The first internal Obama administration...

NASCAR named Trump the grand marshal of the Daytona500, marking the first time a sitting president has held the honor. Trump AND THe FIRST LADY is planning to take a lap around the track prior to the NASCAR event in the presidential limousine known as The Beast The U.S. Secret Service will have more than 500 agents on site at the Daytona500 according to people briefed on the security plan, one of the largest presences by the Secret Service in all of American history. âž– Air Force One may fly over the track before it lands.

All day, I’ve been waiting for someone to debunk the claim on Drudge Report that Mike Bloomberg is considering Hillary Clinton as his running mate. All day, I’ve been disappointed. I’ve watched my favorite conspiracy theory sites. I’ve watched the usual suspects among Bernie Bro journalists, MAGA-hat-wearing bloggers, and DNC shills on Twitter. Nothing. Nobody’s talking about the sham of this news report. It seems that everyone took the bait for one reason and one reason only: It was broken by Matt Drudge. For over two decades, he’s dropped several scoops on his homepage regarding scandals that usually turned out...

Things are getting testy out in Nevada as we crash headlong toward caucus day. And with Joe Biden seeing his previous lead in the polls slipping away to Bernie Sanders, he has to find a way to draw a distinction and deflate some of the Democratic Socialist’s momentum. That means breaking out the oppo folder and finding some of Bernie’s old votes to throw in his face. This weekend Uncle Joe reached all the way back to 2005 when Sanders was still in the House of Representatives, bringing up his vote in favor of the Protection of Lawful Commerce...

California has been a completely Democrat-run state for so long that most people have forgotten that California was once a state much like any other. When people in other states think of it, they simply dismiss it as “Crazy California.” With the recent election in Virginia returning a Democrat-majority legislature in a state with a Democrat governor, Virginia is heading down the same path as California, although that's not immediately obvious. While the national press has covered the government’s attacks on the Second Amendment and its attempted end-run around the Electoral College, there are a host of other planned...

Andrew McCabe’s denials to his FBI colleagues that he was behind a media leak related to the Clinton Foundation investigation in October 2016 cast suspicion on his loyal aide, Lisa Page, former FBI Director James Comey said in an interview with the Justice Department’s inspector general. In a Nov. 15, 2017, interview, Comey said McCabe denied to him that he was involved in a leak for an Oct. 30, 2016, story in The Wall Street Journal that disclosed the existence of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Because of McCabe’s denials, Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki, came to suspect...

Joe Biden insisted his son Hunter is a good person who does not deserve the attacks President Trump has made toward him. "My son's a brilliant, honorable guy who — who feels so guilty for being put in this spot — that he put me in this spot," the former vice president said Sunday in an interview with NBC. Host Chuck Todd described the attacks on Hunter by the president as "cruelty."

Two Los Zetas cartel assassins have had their convictions partially vacated in the killing of a federal agent in Mexico nine years ago, according to a new report. Jose Emanuel “Zafado” Garcia Sota and Jesus Ivan “Loco” Quezada Pina had been convicted of four counts in the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in San Luis Potosi. A jury in Washington returned the verdict in 2017. Last month, a DC federal appeals court vacated their convictions on two of those counts — murder and attempted murder of a federal officer, The Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas, reported...

Boris Johnson cancelled a planned visit to the White House after a row over China in which President Trump slammed the phone down on him, according to reports. Prime Minister Johnson was originally due to visit the White House last month following his election win, before postponing the meeting until February. However, following a heated phone call with the American leader, the Prime Minister has cancelled his trip for fear causing a deeper rift, according to Business Insider. Donald Trump was said to have been “apoplectic” in his phone call with Johnson while discussing the Briton’s decision to allow Chinese...

WASHINGTON — More than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials called on Attorney General William P. Barr on Sunday to step down after he intervened last week to lower the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr.They also urged current government employees to report any signs of unethical behavior at the Justice Department to the agency’s inspector general and to Congress.“Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice,” the former Justice Department lawyers, who came from across the political spectrum, wrote...

The national media are flabbergasted that Americans won't consent to President Trump's removal from office. How can so many of his compatriots be indicted and so many government bureaucrats condemn his behavior without giving them what they desire: self-assurance that they are "on the right side of history"? If they ever wish to understand, the critical starting point in their education is not the current presidency, but the last one. Although there are numerous ways to describe the present divide in America, one of the simpler is thus: those Americans who take Barack Obama at his word that his presidency...

China steals Western capabilities, intimidates smaller nation states and seeks “advantage by any means and at any cost,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper cautioned on Saturday as he cast the world’s most populous nation as a disruptive threat to world order. Esper used an address at the 2020 Munich Security Conference in Germany to give a comprehensive condemnation of China that he said topped the Pentagon’s list of potential adversaries, followed by Russia and “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran

Hollywood has always had a problem with America's Judaeo-Christian culture, particularly now, putting itself at odds with a large part of its audience. That's left a gate open for new ideas, and entrepreneurs, using new technologies and approaches to fill the gap. So, a very successful series about the life of Jesus, called "The Chosen," creatively attempting to tell the story of Jesus from the point of view of the people around him, has taken off from under the radar. The streamed series, which can be viewed on as a multi-season television program, pretty much the first of its kind,...

A hearing was held Thursday to consider the arguments by defense lawyers that the case was moving far too rapidly. They claimed legal errors could occur that would result in a reversal on appeal and trigger yet another high-profile trial. Prosecutors had been pushing to have the trial begin with jury selection beginning Jan. 27. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer had insisted on keeping that date for probably the biggest trial in the county's history, but on Thursday said she would delay the start. Schere said she now wants the trial to begin in summer 2020. In a court filing...

McClatchy, the publisher of the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and dozens of other newspapers, has filed for bankruptcy protection as it struggles to pay off debt while revenue shrinks because more readers and advertisers are going online.

Posts Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 A Picture of the Transformed Human Person – A Homily for the Sixth Sunday of the Year The Gospel for Sunday’s Mass is from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), specifically 5:17-37. In a way the Lord is drawing a picture for us of the transformed human person. He is presenting a kind of slide show of what sanctity really is. In understanding this rather lengthy text we do well to reflect on it in three parts.I. The Power of New Life in Christ – We have discussed before that...

As Bloomberg’s VP, Hillary Clinton could get revenge against Trump: Goodwin “Watch for smoke signals from Chappaqua,” a Democratic friend said recently. “She wants back in.” She — there is only one political she — might be getting what she wants. The report that Hillary Clinton could become Michael Bloomberg’s running mate is one of those times when it is no exaggeration to use the word bombshell. Earthquake would also work, assuming the political marriage actually happens. For now, it’s a trial balloon, as demonstrated by the timing and the way the idea was leaked. A big red banner on...