Free Republic

Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars took to social media to celebrate and express their gratitude for the Republican senators who voted Friday morning against the so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare. “Great respect to @JohnMccain who put country over party,” comedian and actor Billy Crystal tweeted, thanking Senator McCain for putting “country over party” and voting against repeal.

On July 26 the infamous Italian abortionist Emma Bonino, 69, spoke in the parish-church of San Defendente, Cassato, Italy, in order to promote a pro-immigration campaign. For decades Bonino has been a diabolical presence in Italian politics. As an abortionist she murdered more than 10'000 children, her own included. She led the campaign that succeeded in introducing abortion in Italy in 1978. Now Bonino promotes stealing the young population from poor countries in order to fill the population gap in Italy. The pro-life organisation “Ora et labora in difesa della vita” organised prayer rallies against Bonino in front of the...

One person was killed and four wounded in a knife attack in a supermarket in the northern German city of Hamburg on Friday, the city's police said. The man ran into a supermarket in the Barmbek neighbourhood and attacked customers with a knife at around 3pm local time (2pm). "He struck out at customers without warning. There are one dead and several injured," Heike Uhde, a police spokeswoman said. The perpetrator escaped from the scene but was found half an hour later by police and arrested. he was seen covered in blood being driven away in a police car. German...

When it comes to a Democrat Party that feeds off symbolism and emotion on behalf of the downtrodden, one would also think that here would be a golden opportunity to show their base just how committed they are to the alternative they've always wanted once Obamacare melted down leaving the American people no other alternative. Here was their golden opportunity to stand by their convictions, vote their conscience, act on their principles, etc. It didn't happen.

...George Clooney has fired back at paparazzi pictures of his twin babies with wife Amal.... “Over the last week photographers from Voici magazine scaled our fence, climbed our tree and illegally took pictures of our infants inside our home," George Clooney said in a statement. "Make no mistake the photographers, the agency and the magazine will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The safety of our children demands it."

Sen. John McCain offered an explanation Friday for why he joined Democrats and two of his Republican colleagues in voting against the “skinny” repeal of Obamacare, saying he did not believe it would “actually reform our health care system.”"While the amendment would have repealed some of Obamacare’s most burdensome regulations, it offered no replacement to actually reform our health care system and deliver affordable, quality health care to our citizens,” McCain said in a statement."The Speaker's statement that the House would be ‘willing’ to go to conference does not ease my concern that this shell of a bill could be...

Given the bravery he showed in stepping out front as the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions deserves better from his boss than the Twitter-trashing he has lately received. The attorney general has not only been loyal to Trump and his agenda, he has the respect and affection of ex-colleagues in Congress and, more broadly, of populists and conservatives nationally. Trump's tweets about Sessions are only demoralizing his base. Yet the president is not wrong to be exasperated and enraged. A yearlong FBI investigation into Russian hacking has failed to produce a single indictment. Yet the president watches...

New White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was taught a valuable fashion lesson this week: That green should never be seen... at least on TV. Wearing a solid green garment acts like a green screen on television ― and invites people to superimpose all kinds of images over you. And that is exactly what BuzzFeed editor Jesse McLaren did Thursday night:

Rosie Rosie why you bugging. Ring around the Rosie. Just give it up. Go hide under a rock and don't come out. No mo, No mo, No mo.

May 2016: A John McCain reelection campaign ad, airing in Arizona: Obamacare is failing Arizonans. First, a massive rate hike more than twice the national average. Then, America’s largest health insurer abandoned Arizona’s failing Obamacare exchange. That’s devastating – especially to rural counties. Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick bragged about her Obamacare vote, saying “it’s also the one I’m most proud about..” While Kirkpatrick’s “proud” of putting us at risk, John McCain is leading the fight to stop Obamacare. Plenty of other McCain ads and campaign events and messaging pointed to stopping Obamacare as a big reason, perhaps the biggest reason, Arizonans...

Chronic mental health conditions are increasingly prevalent across the United States. That’s the take-away finding of a recent study commissioned by the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD). In fact, it’s estimated that only about 17 percent of adults in the U.S. are considered to be in a state of optimal mental health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Mental health has always been a challenging issue to address. It’s complex and requires many solutions. But exercise—a potentially powerful antidote—has been chronically overlooked. This increased prevalence of chronic mental health conditions, along with the strong connection...

Defense Secretary James Mattis was caught off guard by President Trump's announcement that he was banning transgender people from serving in the military, according to a New York Times report. Mattis, who was on vacation at the time of Trump's decision, only had one day's worth of notice before Trump tweeted his announcement of the policy, the paper reported. The report described him as "appalled." Sources close to the Defense secretary told the Times that Mattis was infuriated by the tweets, and saw them as an insult to transgender Americans currently serving in the military. On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote...

From a press release that hit on Thursday… House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Judiciary Committee Republicans today sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein calling for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate unaddressed matters, some connected to the 2016 election and others, including many actions taken by Obama Administration officials like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The letter follows yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee approval of H. Res. 446, as amended, to request documents pertaining to the FBI’s...

A major double manhunt has been launched after a sickening back-to-back assault in Birmingham, England. Detectives said the teen was first attacked in a secluded part of Witton railway station, near the Aston Villa football ground, about 120 miles northwest of London, sometime between 7 p.m. Tuesday and 2 a.m. Wednesday. The victim had walked to the station with her friend but was led away by a man who approached her. Shortly after that attack, the girl walked out of the station and flagged down a passing vehicle to ask for help. But after getting in the car, she was...

A recent conference hosted by an Ivy League university focused on integration and inclusion in K-12 education and included workshops on how educators should face white privilege in their classrooms, challenge microaggressions and address “Eurocentric pedagogical approaches.” The “Reimagining Education Summer Institute” conference, organized by Columbia University’s Teachers College, was held in mid-July and concentrated on “opportunities and challenges of creating and sustaining racially, ethnically and socio-economically integrated schools,” according to its website. The event, in its second year, drew 300 participants that mostly consisted of K-12 teachers and principals, the institute’s director Amy Wells said in a phone interview...

A person has been stabbed to death, and four more injured, in a knife attack at a German supermarket. Police arrested one man after the stabbing, which took place on Friday afternoon at a branch of the Edeka supermarket on the outskirts on Hamburg. German tabloid Bild published a photograph of a bloodied figure in the back of a car whom they said was the suspect: The Hamburg police department said members of the public subdued the man, who was then arrested. He is the only suspect. Police do not yet have a motive for the killing. Bild also reported...

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that an Arkansas law restricting the use of the so-called abortion pill could proceed, overturning a lower court's decision in 2015 that blocked the law a day before it was to go into effect. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis sent the case back to the federal district court in Little Rock, telling the court it must estimate approximately how many women would likely be harmed by the law before the case could proceed further. Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which runs two of the three clinics providing abortions in...

The State Attorney General for New Jersey has been pumping up state-sponsored gun buy back programs scheduled for this weekend, arguing the events will help in the fight against violent crime. In an opinion piece published Thursday in the Star-Ledger, New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino admits that gun buy backs are not a complete solution but argues the events can do a lot to help law enforcement get crime guns off the streets. “Some doubters question the overall efficacy of buybacks, while others suggest that buybacks tend to bring in mostly old ‘attic’ guns,” Porrino said. “But once a...

On the first day of a two-day committee hearing discussing the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Republican Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch made it a point Wednesday to call out the partisan agenda in the Russian hacking investigation. “I come to this hearing with one simple message,” he said. “Let’s be fair. Let’s judge both sides of the political divide, both parties, by the same standards.” “[We need to look] at more than just foreign influence over the Trump campaign. It includes looking at serious allegations of foreign influence over the Clinton campaign. And the Democratic National Committee as well.”

North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Friday, the Pentagon confirmed. It was not immediately known if the missile, which was expected to land in the Sea of Japan, was an intercontinental ballistic missile or another type of rocket. “I can confirm that we detected a launch of a ballistic missile from North Korea," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said. "We are assessing and will have more information soon." The launch, which occurred shortly before 11 a.m. Eastern time, had been expected by U.S. analysts who initially believed the launch date would be Thursday -- the 64th anniversary of the...