Free Republic

A proposal considered by California lawmakers would substantially remake the health care system of the nation’s most populous state by eliminating insurance companies and guaranteeing coverage for everyone. The idea known as single-payer health care has long been popular on the left and is getting a new look in California as President Donald Trump struggles to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law. The proposal, promoted by the state’s powerful nursing union and two Democratic senators, is a longshot. But supporters hope the time is right to persuade lawmakers in California, where Democrats like to push the...

The “Antifa” far left Communist group has managed to get an entire parade and carnival canceled in Portland because the Multnomah County Republicans were going to be in the parade. The communists threatened to riot, loot, assault people at the parade. The festival people decided to cancel the entire weekend of activities, which was going to be this weekend due to the threats of violence by the leftist group. The Antifa group promised to rush the parade and drag away the Republicans.

Ivanka Trump said resettling Syrian refugees in the United States should be “part of the discussion.” “I think there is a global humanitarian crisis that’s happening,” Ivanka — who serves as a special assistant to her father — said during an interview with the “Today” show. “And we have to come together and we have to solve it.” When asked if that means letting Syrian refugees into the United States, Ivanka said, “That has to be part of the discussion, but that’s not going to be enough in and of itself.” Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that...

Latino, African American and Asian American Democratic members of Congress said on Wednesday they plan to "fight together" against Trump administration policies that impact their communities. The chairs of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) — collectively known as the Tri-Caucus — met Wednesday on Capitol Hill with the five Democratic senators of color as part of a strategy to bring Democratic minority legislators together as a bloc. They said this was an effective way to push back against any Trump administration policies or GOP proposals they consider detrimental to...

NASA is set to use a radical new 'tricorder' DNA sequencer to work out what a mysterious fungus found growing on the International Space Station is. Astronauts have reported funding the strange microbial growths on walls and surfaces, and it has even clogged waterlines. Now, two instruments onboard will be used to analyse it in orbit, allowing mission controllers to work out how to deal with it

Ann Coulter said Wednesday that she is canceling her planned speech at the University of California, Berkeley, because she had lost the backing of conservative groups that had initially sponsored her appearance. Ms. Coulter, in a message to The New York Times, said, “It’s a sad day for free speech.” Despite insisting that she would go to Berkeley regardless — even after the university said it could not accommodate her on the date and time it had initially scheduled her because of threats of violence — Ms. Coulter said she did not see how she could go forward. The school...

UPDATE: Conservative commentator Ann Coulter says she has canceled her speech planned for this week at UC Berkeley

April 26 (Reuters) - Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has canceled her speech planned for this week at the University of California's Berkeley campus after a dispute with university officials, who feared violent protests, over whether a safe venue could be found. "There will be no speech," she wrote in an email to Reuters on Wednesday, saying two conservative groups sponsoring her speech were no longer supporting her. "I looked over my shoulder and my allies had joined the other team," she wrote. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York)

"Breaking new ground in a concerted effort to expand gun rights, a Texas House committee approved legislation Tuesday that would allow handguns to be carried — concealed or in a holster — without a state-issued license. Approval came on a 6-2 party-line vote..."

Dana Milbank reports, with glee, that the United Nations “has contacted the Trump administration as part of an investigation into whether repealing [Obamacare] without an adequate substitute for the millions who would lose health coverage would be a violation of several international conventions that bind the United States.” The warning comes from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva.

A spectre is haunting Seattle—the spectre of Kshama Sawant. Consider the April 12 Seattle Times editorial. In it, the editorial board called on Mayor Ed Murray to forgo a re-election bid. The reason: The child sexual-abuse allegations recently leveled against him make him vulnerable. “If he runs under that cloud,” the paper reasoned, “it increases the possibility of a Mayor Kshama Sawant, or some other extreme left-wing ideologue, steering this booming city wildly off course.” This was an odd argument to make, especially since Councilmember Sawant is almost certainly not running for mayor this year. In the swell of resistance...

Fox News is facing renewed legal claims that it mistreated non-white employees, including a television anchor who said he was depicted as "the racist caricature of a black entertainer." Eleven current and former Fox employees, including anchor Kelly Wright, filed an amended lawsuit in New York state court on Tuesday claiming they were demeaned, humiliated, paid less than white coworkers, and passed over for promotions. The lawsuit was originally filed last month by two Fox News payroll employees. Tuesday's complaint added class action racial discrimination claims to the case.

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YAF and the Berkeley College Republicans are suing the university, and on Tuesday YAF withdrew its support for the Coulter event, citing the refusal of local law enforcement to protect participants. Berkeley’s mayor, 32-year-old Jesse Arreguin, expressed sympathy for the protests against Milo. He is also allegedly a member of the Facebook group of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a local left-wing militant group that has played a leading role in the unrest.

Hillary Clinton’s Department of State aides threatened a South Asian prime minister’s son with an IRS audit in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of a close friend and donor of Clinton’s, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group learned. A Bangladesh government commission was investigating multiple charges of financial mismanagement at Grameen Bank, beginning in May 2012. Muhammad Yunus, a major Clinton Foundation donor, served as managing director of the bank. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and permanent U.S. resident, recalled the account of the threatened IRS audit to TheDCNF. The allegations mark the first known instance...

In D.C. Comic’s fictional “Bizarro World,” all things are done opposite of here on Earth. According to the “Bizarro Code,” inhabitants of the cube-shaped planet “hate beauty,” “love ugliness” and consider it illegal to “make anything perfect.” Ironically, here on planet Earth, many liberals – and a disturbing number of judges – subscribe to a similar Bizarro Code when considering matters involving the Second Amendment. To these Earth-bound Bizarro Code adherents, it should be -- and in some cases is -- illegal to legally exercise the fundamental, constitutionally-guaranteed right to possess a firearm. While the Supreme Court, and a number...

A federal jury's failure to reach a unanimous verdict on 50 of the 60 counts in the first Bunkerville standoff case--and the mistrial that resulted--has spurred a flurry of concerns about speedy-trial rights among others accused of conspiring with rancher Cliven Bundy. Eleven people still await trial on charges that they organized a mass assault on federal agents who tried to seize Bundy's cattle from public land in April 2014. The first trial ended Monday when U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial and set a new trial date of June 26. Jurors convicted two of the first six...

Donald Trump is far from the first president to enlist his children and in-laws in the work of the White House. Look back through history, and it turns out that plenty of presidencies have been a family affair. Eighteen sons served in their fathers' White Houses, most of them with the title of "secretary to the president," according to Doug Wead, who served in the George H.W. Bush White House and has written books on presidential children and the 2016 campaign. Fourteen daughters or daughters-in-law have taken on responsibilities in the White House, mostly ceremonial but sometimes more substantive, says...

Between 1935 and 1975, Will and Ariel Durant published a series of volumes that together were known as “The Story of Civilization.” They basically told human history (mostly Western history) as an accumulation of great ideas and innovations, from the Egyptians, through Athens, Magna Carta, the Age of Faith, the Renaissance and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The series was phenomenally successful, selling over two million copies. That series encapsulated the Western civilization narrative that people, at least in Europe and North America, used for most of the past few centuries to explain their place in the world...

How the mighty have fallen!” The biblical lament has particular relevance this week, as Bill O’Reilly—trusted by millions of Americans every weeknight since 1996 on his “spin-stopping” Fox News program The O’Reilly Factor—will not return to the network following an exposé of alleged sexual harassment incidents over the past decade. The announcement follows other high-profile departures from the nation’s top cable news network in recent months. Notably, prime-time anchor Megyn Kelly will soon debut as a news commentator for NBC News—following her lead role in last summer’s resignation by Fox News president and founder Roger Ailes, who was forced out...