Free Republic

Contrary to liberal media reporting, the Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was a win for Trump, both in substance and in tone. The meeting gave people an opportunity to see who fears transparency, who's misrepresenting his/her position and who is being the aggressor in the border debate, and it's not Donald Trump. Instead of listening to the media's version, watch the video. President Trump set the tone of the meeting, and it was decidedly cordial, saying it was a great honor to have Pelosi and Schumer there and...

Talk-radio host and friend Chris Plante recently made an excellent point about Hollywood. As horrible new revelations of sexual misbehavior surface about former Les Moonves, it's highly unlikely anyone's going to make a movie about him, or about Matt Lauer, or Charlie Rose and so on. But there are two fictional projects (and a new documentary) supposedly based on the late Fox News boss Roger Ailes. Early pictures have emerged of actress Nicole Kidman dressed up to look like former Fox News morning host Gretchen Carlson, who played a major role in exposing a culture of sexual harassment of women...

Two weeks ago in this column, I asked what is to blame for the weakness of the heads of government here and in Western Europe, institutional failure, voter fecklessness, leaders' personal weaknesses or some combination of all three? This week, let's look at one of those institutions: political parties. How have they contributed to current woes? How can they perform better? There are those who would ask, "What would you expect from parties? They're nasty, grubby, selfish, inward-looking institutions, in which intellectual dishonesty is the norm. Why not be done with them and have a virtuous, nonpartisan democracy?" One quick...

A North Natomas man has been charged with the killing of a Sacramento librarian who was found shot in her car Tuesday night. Ronald Seay, 56, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of felony homicide in the shooting death of Amber Clark, who was killed in the parking lot of the North Natomas Public Library, police announced Thursday.

Which is worse: candidate, businessman, and then still private citizen Donald Trump using his own money to make what Hillary Clinton might call "bimbo eruptions" go away to protect his brand and himself from personal embarrassment, or Congress using taxpayer money in a slush fund to pay off those sexually harassed by sitting officeholders? As Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, notes in USA Today: Literally a year ago – as the #MeToo era was erupting – the nation was waking up to news that a secret congressional "hush fund" had been used by Members of Congress to pay off...

A mother and five other adults have been arrested after they repeatedly beat and threw scalding water on a 3-year-old boy in order to punish him at the Newark home they share, prosecutors said. . Police said a Newark public preschool alerted authorities to the abuse. Prosecutors said the abuse, which began in July, was a “systematic and coordinated beating” of the child with a belt and their fists. They also poured scalding water on him to punish him, authorities said. The child, hospitalized in order to treat his injuries, has been released from the hospital and is in protective...

A customer at a Wisconsin Walmart tackled Christopher Simpson as he was trying to walk out of the store with stolen video games and held him down until police arrived. Simpson says he's sorry for what he did but he wants to know: did he need to be tackled over it - or was that a job better left to police? "Me and my girlfriend decided to steal some video games from the place, and I was the one to walk out with them and she was to come out behind me," said Christopher Simpson. "I'm unemployed and I guess...

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into Border Patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States illegally with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote span of New Mexico desert, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

Nearly 20 years ago, former President George H.W. Bush wanted to sponsor a Filipino boy named Timothy through Colorado Springs-based nonprofit Compassion International — but first, he needed a pseudonym. “He’s passed away now, so it’s probably not a classified name anymore — it was George Walker,” said Wess Stafford, Compassion president emeritus. “That’s the same name that he used, apparently, whenever he checked into a hospital and they needed to have it unknown that he was in there.” Bush’s security team was worried about Timothy’s safety, said Stafford. If word had gotten out that the child was communicating with...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, hot cocoa, conversation and music.How about some homemade eggnog? Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here.No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Pull up a chair. Grab a cup and start a conversation.You never know who you might meet in...

RUSH: What I want to start with today on the Trump stuff, two things here that are equally important. One of them that’s important, potentially, the judge in the Michael Flynn case is named Emmet Sullivan. Emmet Sullivan is the judge in the Ted Stevens case, the Ted Stevens trial. And, in that trial, the prosecutors, the same group of people on Mueller’s team, the prosecutors in that case suborned perjury from the star witness against Ted Stevens, a contractor, a home repair guy. They got Ted Stevens kicked out of the Senate for supposedly accepting a kickback of 150...

Pornographers are bracing for the first major obscenity clampdown in three decades under President Trump’s new pick for attorney general, William Barr, a strident social conservative whose views threaten the lucrative industry. Anti-porn campaigners were thrilled with Trump's selection of Barr, previously attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, noting his enthusiastic obscenity prosecutions in the early ‘90s. Pornographers are taking the threat seriously, but argue a crackdown would be hypocritical under the thrice-married Trump. His links to the industry include softcore Playboy cameos, an alleged affair with Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal, an alleged tryst with hardcore star...

The Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) represent a broad cross section of French rural, working and middle classes. They are butchers, bakers and automobile makers. They are the folks who grow the food, drive the trucks, build the buildings and fix what breaks. They are France. They have had enough....Climate taxes on fuel to pay for inefficient, variable wind and solar power and other climate fantasies are wasteful job killers, and the folks in the yellow vests know it. They refuse to redistribute more of what they earn through their long, hard labor … in the name of global warming.

Former President Barack Obama was honored with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award at a gala in midtown Manhattan Wednesday evening. "I'm not sure if you've heard, but I've been on this hope kick for a while now. Even ran a couple of campaigns on it. Thank you for officially validating my hope credentials," Obama said during his remarks. The organization's president, Kerry Kennedy, presented the award, which celebrates leaders "who have demonstrated a commitment to social change." Past recipients include Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Bono, George Clooneyand Robert De Niro. "If we summon our best selves, we can...

Economist Paul Krugman warned of a new “axis of evil” this week that includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the U.S. Former President George W. Bush once spoke of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil” due to the actions of dictatorial regimes, long trains of humanitarian abuses and gulags. The new trifecta of evil, Mr. Krugman says, earn the designation for resisting reports on the severity of climate change. “There’s a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia — and the United States,” the New York Times columnist tweeted Monday while sharing a piece by The Washington...

The search for President Trump's next chief-of-staff continues, but we're getting closer to a decision. Speaking at the White House Thursday afternoon, President Trump said he has narrowed down his choices.  Pres Trump says he's down to 5 candidates for WH Chief of Staff. Calls them "really good ones. Terrific people. Mostly well known." Says they're undergoing interviews. pic.twitter.com/hZIFA8eNx0— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) December 13, 2018 During an interview with Fox News, President Trump said he is still open to ideas about who should replace General John Kelly, but that he's looking for someone who "thinks like him.""I want someone that's...

You know you've got a problem when your tax schemes are even being rejected by the French. While there's always a danger in reducing the causes of political unrest to a single issue, the plan to impose yet another regressive $9 billion annual carbon tax proved to be a catalyst for the "yellow vest" protests that are roiling Paris. The nonviolent version of the French carbon-tax revolt is spreading globally, too. Last November, Washington state voters rejected a very well-funded effort to pass the first ballot-approved carbon tax ever. The province of Ontario is suing the Canadian government to block...

Last week, federal prosecutors in Washington and New York filed sentencing memorandums with federal judges in advance of the sentencings of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. President Donald Trump's former campaign manager and his former personal lawyer had pleaded guilty to federal crimes, and the memorandums, which are required by the federal rules of criminal procedure, set forth the prosecutors' desired prison sentences for them. Judges rely on these submissions, as well as on those of defense counsel, before making the mathematical calculations that the law requires. Sadly, sentencing today is largely an algorithmic function, dictated by federal sentencing guidelines,...

Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but scorning the Washington Establishment produces even greater anger. The Establishment's full fury has been unleashed against Donald Trump and is not about to subside until its goal is reached: the removal of the president from office, either through impeachment or defeat in the 2020 election. If there were more than the kitchen sink to throw at Trump, the Establishment would be throwing it. The latest is the hyping of private money paid to two women by Trump's disgraced lawyer, Michael Cohen. The women claim it was money to keep...

A U.S. appeals court Thursday blocked rules by the Trump administration allowing more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. States were likely to succeed on their claim that the changes to President Barack Obama’s health care law were made without required notice and public comment, a divided, three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. The panel upheld a preliminary injunction against the rules issued by a lower court judge last year. An email to the Justice Department seeking comment was not immediately returned. Obama’s health care law required most companies to...