Free Republic

An attorney who helped Gov. Chris Christie’s administration handle fallout from the “Bridgegate” investigation was confirmed Tuesday to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, despite vigorous objections from New Jersey’s two Democratic senators. Paul Matey, a former deputy chief counsel under Christie, became only the second judge since at least 1979 to be confirmed while both of his home state senators opposed him — a further break with Senate tradition, which for decades has given deference to senators in both parties when it came to judicial nominees from their states.

Democrats wax furious over anti-vaxxers, but the same yuppie millennials who lose their minds over the thought that a kindergartener might not have all their shots shrugs at the masses of illegal aliens, including their nannies, crossing the border with contagious diseases. Why do they hate science? More than 2,000 people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are being quarantined amid an outbreak of mumps and other diseases. "As of March 7, 2019, there was a total of 2,287 detainees cohorted for exposure to a detainee with a contagious condition," said ICE spokesperson Brendan Raedy in a statement.

RUSH: Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi says that impeaching Donald Trump is “just not worth it.” This was in an interview yesterday with the Washington Post. She said impeachment is so divisive to the country, unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan — bipartisan — I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country and he is just not worth it. Now, there could be any number of ways to analyze this and to explain it. One theory is that they think Mueller and their investigations are gonna find something that they can blow...

Catholic Church Suspends Pro-CCP Priest A priest in Hebei who urged Chinese Communist Party to arrest his (underground) bishop was punished by his diocese with the approval of the Holy See. The confusion about how to interpret the Vatican-China deal of 2018 reigns sovereign. Bitter Winter has repeatedly reported that the CCP interprets it in the sense that priests and bishops in the Underground Catholic Church should simply join the Patriotic Catholic Church, which is controlled by the government. As we reported, the Vatican has denounced this interpretation as unacceptable.A former underground priest in the diocese of Xuanhua (Hebei), Francis...

Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, hinted Tuesday that it could be a while before the panel releases the transcripts of Michael Cohen’s private testimony. “We would certainly like to release those transcripts as soon as we are able to, but at the same time, there may be evidence in those transcripts that would prejudice the investigation if they were disclosed before we did other investigative work,” the California Democrat told reporters at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast, according to Politico. Cohen testified behind closed doors to the committee Feb. 28 and March 6. After the first...

In today's stunning news of a college bribery scandal alleging that ultrawealthy, well-connected, privileged elites conspired with a college preparatory business to falsify their children's test scores and bribe university officials to get them into the country's top schools, is this bit of high-weirdness, reported in CNN: In one case, [Rick Singer, founder of the college prep firm called The Key] even worked with parents to take staged photos of their child engaged in particular sports. In another example, they used stock photos of a person playing a sport and then put the face of a student onto that of...

I do photoshop, but I don't know how to morph AOC into the joker she so richly deserves.

Last Friday, former Penn men’s basketball star and coach Jerome Allen testified in Miami federal court that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Philip Esformes, a Miami Beach executive and father of current a Wharton senior. Between 2013 and 2015, Esformes bribed Allen to recruit his son, Morris Esformes, as a basketball player in order to facilitate his acceptance into Wharton. In October 2018, Allen pleaded guilty to bribery charges in a federal district court, admitting that he had accepted money from Esformes to advocate for his son. Esformes is facing charges of fraud after obtaining...

(Reuters) - Christian Mejia thought he had a shot at getting out of immigration detention in rural Louisiana after he found a lawyer to help him seek asylum. Then he was quarantined. In early January, a mumps outbreak at the privately run Pine Prairie U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center put Mejia and hundreds of other detainees on lockdown. “When there is just one person who is sick, everybody pays,” Mejia, 19, said in a phone interview from the Pine Prairie center describing weeks without visits and access to the library and dining hall. His attorney was not...

Video of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete for Clean Tuesday, the second day of Lent. The Great Canon (also known as the Canon of Repentance or the Great Canon of Repentance), is the longest canon ever composed (250 strophes). It is written primarily in the first person, and goes chronologically through the entire Old and New Testaments drawing examples (both negative and positive) which it correlates to the need of the sinful soul for repentance and a humble return to God. It is divided into four parts (called methymony) which are chanted at Great Compline on the...

Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney responded Tuesday after the University of Wyoming’s new slogan “The World Needs More Cowboys” drew criticism for being “racist” and “sexist.” “The world DOES need more Cowboys,” Cheney told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Cowboys and cowgirls embody the no-nonsense, never-back-down grit at the heart of our Wyoming heritage.”

President Trump’s campaign on Tuesday called on his Democratic challengers for 2020 to say whether they support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stance against impeachment. “Every single Democrat running for president should be made to answer: do they agree with the Speaker who stands in opposition to baseless impeachment charges, or will they risk fracturing the country by bowing to the radical elements in their party who want to disenfranchise the American people and overturn the legitimate and lawful result of the last election?” said Trump campaign press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Pelosi made waves Monday when she told the Washington Post...

Southwest Airlines, the nation's third-largest carrier, is struggling with a surge in planes being taken out of service for maintenance. The airline blames the mechanics union, but the union claims it's a matter of safety. Photos obtained exclusively by CBS News show what mechanics describe as landing gear tires so worn that Southwest had to pull a 737 out of service on Tuesday. More than 40 airplanes per day have been grounded for maintenance issues since last Tuesday. That's unusually high, more than double a normal day. Southwest has declared an "operational emergency" and its chief operating officer Mike Van...

French Labor Minister Muriel Penicaud on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of pursuing protectionist policies that could be sign of possible conflicts on the horizon. “I understand the point short-term but for the long term … We don’t think that protectionism is a policy,” Penicaud told the Washington Examiner. “Protectionism goes very quickly with nationalism, and that can go with conflict too.” She spoke just as the Trump administration and European Union leaders are making preparations to begin talks later this year for a new trade deal.

Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better. Split second decisions are........needed, and the complexity creates danger. All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!

House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Tuesday released hundreds of pages of transcripts from last year's closed-door interview with ex-FBI attorney Lisa Page, revealing new details about the bureau's controversial internal discussions regarding an “insurance policy” against then-candidate Donald Trump. Page first entered the spotlight in December 2017, when it was revealed by the Justice Department inspector general that she and then-FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages. The two were involved in the FBI’s initial counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 election, and later served on Special Counsel...

Television lawyer Michael Avenatti announced Tuesday that he will no longer represent pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. “On February 19, we informed Stormy Daniels in writing that we were terminating our legal representation of her for various reasons that we can disclose publicly due to attorney-client privilege,” Avenatti said in a statement shared to Twitter. “This was not a decision we made lightly and it came only after lengthy discussion, thought and deliberation, as well as consultation with other professionals,” he added. “We wish Stormy all the best.” In a separate statement, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she...

Tristan King yelled at administrators at Norton Elementary School in Snellville, Ga., in a Feb. 28 Facebook video because the school bus left behind his kindergartner, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “After them losing our daughter for the third time this year,” King wrote alongside the 6-minute 39-second video with 1.8 million views. “If you have adults all through the hallway, how did it happen for the third time?” the father said angrily to a female official and the assistant principal, Anthony Williams. “The first time I was calm, I was understanding. … The second time, I was mad but...

President Donald Trump told Breitbart News on Monday that his administration is thinking “very seriously” about labeling violent Mexican drug cartels, or factions of these cartels, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Asked by Deputy Political Editor Amanda House during a wide-ranging, exclusive Oval Office interview with Breitbart News whether his administration is considering designating factions of cartels, or cartels as a whole, as terrorist groups, Trump replied that he is. “We are. We are,” Trump said. “We’re thinking about doing it very seriously. In fact, we’ve been thinking about it for a long time.” “It’s psychological, but it’s also economic,”...

SAN ANTONIO — Student loans. The thought alone can spark a headache, but some students at UTSA are finding relief with the help of so-called "sugar daddies." The students have been coined "sugar babies," and the operators of the dating website Seeking Arrangement said UTSA is among the top colleges of what they call "Sugar Baby Schools." They said local college students are turning to sugar daddies to pay student loans, a financial dilemma UTSA students we spoke with can relate to. Anthony Silvas calls himself a super senior. He said over the last five years, he’s borrowed about $15,000...