Free Republic

A breakthrough in the talks came on Thursday evening when the European Union said it was willing to create the fund, but on the condition that it target the most vulnerable developing nations and that wealthier developing countries contribute.

President Biden to announce fresh measures to combat ‘new phase of the pandemic,’ will issue “stark warning” to unvaccinated Americans

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump sent a cease and desist letter to the Republican National Committee (RNC) over the weekend demanding that they stop using his name and likeness for fundraising efforts. The letters were also sent to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). This follows a report that Trump and his new campaign team are also cracking down on the use of the president’s name for fundraising According to a scoop from Politico on Saturday, Trump wants the organizations to stop “using his name and likeness on fundraising emails and merchandise.” On...

The CDC on Friday issued its strongest mask guidance yet during the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for "universal mask wearing" in all activity outside of one's home. The new recommendation comes at the end of a week when the U.S. saw its deadliest day of the pandemic so far, with more than 3,100 lives lost on Thursday alone.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney on Sunday called for the country to "get behind" President-elect Joe Biden and said he has seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud, even as President Donald Trump has pushed for election-related lawsuits and refused to concede the election. "I think we get behind the new president, unless for some reason that's overturned, we get behind the new president and wish him the very best," Romney, who was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." While CNN and other networks projected Saturday that Biden will become the 46th President...

Schumer: Trump tells Earth to 'drop dead' By Jacqueline Thomsen - 06/01/17 04:16 PM EDT Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) cast President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement as the president telling the Earth to "drop dead." Schumer posted a mock newspaper page on Twitter that said "Trump to Earth: Drop Dead," shortly after Trump's formal announcement. The mockup also featured the headlines: "U.S. No Longer a Leader," "Even Big CEOs Blast Trump," and "Global Temperatures Continue Rising." Schumer said in a formal statement that Trump's decision is a "devastating failure of historic proportions."...

Populism? No thanks. I am not now, nor will I ever be, a populist. Evidently, that separates me from a growing number of commentators, including some conservatives, wistfully engaged in Washington's latest fad: over-interpreting Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election. The normally sensible Mike Lee, Republican senator from Utah, took to our pages to plead the case of "principled populism" -- which is akin to calling for a sober Bacchanalia. Not surprisingly, Senator Lee's brief doesn't get very far before strangling in its own illogic, as odes to populism inevitably do. The "characteristic weakness" of populism, he tells...

Todays "Blizzard From Hell" has got to have all of you laughing at John Kerry and Obama. Especially in the lower southeastern corner. So tonights weather event is due to global warming, ha? And as usual, everytime there is a severe winter event, we never hear an explanation from Kerry/Gore/Obama. And we are the insane wacko's for denying Global Warming?

"Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values," [Obama] said.Six Republican governors have announced that Syrian refugees won't be allowed to resettle in their states in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Paris. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley issued statements Sunday saying that they wanted to prioritize the safety of the residents in their states. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a GOP presidential candidate; Arkansas Gov. Gov. Asa Hutchinson; and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence joined them on Monday. "Michigan is a welcoming state and we are...

Would you like some tolerance with that cappuccino? Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced a new PR campaign for the world’s largest coffee shop chain, in which employees are encouraged to serve up chats about race relations to customers. “We at Starbucks should be willing to talk about these issues in America," Schultz said in a corporate release on Monday announcing the “Race Together” campaign. Starting on Monday, Starbucks baristas are being asked to write “Race Together” on coffee cups they hand to customers, as an invitation to talk to them about race.

President Obama Friday mourned the passing of Leonard Nimoy, the beloved Mr. Spock of "Star Trek" fame. "Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy," Obama said. "And of course, Leonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek's optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity's future." Obama said simply, "I loved Spock."

Losing the vote on gun control in the Senate last week was a huge political blow to President Obama. While 90% support the Second Amendment and only 49% of the population support tougher gun laws, the president pushed through with his proposals regardless. Blaming the NRA did not help his cause as polls showed that the Manchin-Toomey bill was voted down because it would have had no impact on gun crime or future mass-shootings. It only made more legal gun sales subject to federal databases, but did nothing about illegal gun sales or mental health or any of the issues...

Not even a reprimand first, huh? Here’s hoping, at least, that some White House water-carrier like Media Matters threatened the paper with a boycott before it acted. It’s too depressing to think that the publisher might have canned him on his own initiative, without any pressure from the pretend-outrage industry, just because Johnson got a step too close to a Johnny Paycheck song title in writing about Bambi. Alternate headline stolen from Ace: “‘Free Press’ not so free.” Free Press editor Drew Johnson has been terminated after placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures.Johnson’s headline, “Take...

Citing a longstanding battle with upper management over journalistic practices at their Bangor TV stations, news co-anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio announced their resignations at the end of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. newscast. Michaels and Consiglio, who have a combined 12½ years’ service at WVII (Channel 7) and sister station WFVX (Channel 22), shocked staff members and viewers with their joint resignations Tuesday evening. “I just wanted to know that I was doing the best job I could and was being honest and ethical as a journalist, and I thought there were times when I wasn’t able to do that,”...

"Shove it!" That's the shocking kiss-off that Rhode Island's Democratic candidate for governor gave President Obama yesterday when he found out the campaigner-in-chief wouldn't be endorsing him. "He can take his endorsement and really shove it," a furious Frank Caprio said in a radio interview just hours before Obama touched down in Rhode Island to fund-raise and campaign for congressional hopefuls there. After his campaign said last week that Caprio would be honored to have Obama's backing, the Democrat was singing a different tune yesterday. "What I'm saying to President Obama very clearly is, I'll wear as a badge of...

One of the stories coming out of CPAC this year is the embrace of the tea party movement not by the Republican Party, but by the conservative movement. The issues of spending and smaller government are shared across the board. But while conservatives are embracing the tea party movement, Republican Senators continue castigating tea party activists and hoping they shut up and go away. The latest is Senator Orin Hatch who is petrified that tea party activists might elect Mike Lee and defeat Bob Bennett in Utah. The Hill reports: Speaking to constituents at a town hall, Hatch warned Tea...

Rick Perry just stated on Mark Davis' show that Texas may use the 10th Amendment to reject Obamacare. Go Rick.

RAWFORD, Texas (AFP) – Saudi King Abdullah told US President George W. Bush by telephone on Saturday that major countries must take action to halt Israel's attacks on Gaza, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe had said earlier that the king had called Bush, who was preparing to usher in 2009 on his Texas ranch, to discuss "the Middle East" and had declined to offer further details.

[...] The Pickens Plan, which could be overly ambitious in this financial crisis, calls for a conversion from oil products to natural gas in vehicles, first by phasing in two million new heavy trucks - roughly the entire fleet of big rigs that move goods around the country. Trucks account for about a quarter of the amount of oil we import every year. "If you don't buy into natural gas, you're not buying into the Pickens Plan as a bridge to the future?" Rose asks. "That's right," Pickens agrees. "Anybody, whether it's Sarah Palin or George Bush or John McCain,...

The Observer finds that Teresa Heinz Kerry appears to believe that the results in Ohio in 2004 are illegitimate: This convention, Ms. Heinz Kerry said, is “full of meaning and full of opportunity, and if you, as I, believe, and I know a lot of you do, we did not lose the last election, nor did Al Gore lose his last election. We won it.” While many Democrats remain angry about conflicts over voter registration and the provision of voting machines, in particular, fewer believe that those provided the margin of victory, or that Kerry was robbed of victory the...