Free Republic

... Ms. Harris’s plan, which she released this month, first cites tendentious statistics. “Women who work full time,” it says, “are paid just 80 cents, on average, for every dollar paid to men.” To repeat for the 862nd time, these figures are raw medians for all men and women, meaning they don’t control for occupational choices, career paths, hours worked, differing risks of on-the-job fatality, and so forth. The “80 cents” figure is simply incompatible with calls of equal pay for equal work. Studies that compare apples with apples find a much narrower pay gap—or none at all. Last year...

Taylor Swift says her new music carries some “political undertones” after speaking out in favor of Tennessee Democrats in 2018. “Invoking racism and provoking fear through thinly veiled messaging is not what I want from our leaders, and I realized that it actually is my responsibility to use my influence against that disgusting rhetoric. I’m going to do more to help. We have a big race coming up next year," she wrote.

Canada slapped a traveler with a $15,000 fine after he was caught at the airport with a bizarre, blood-sucking secret in his carry-on luggage, officials said. Ippolit Bodounov of Niagara Falls, Ontario, had flown from Russia to Canada on Oct. 17, 2018, when agents discovered “a large quantity of live leeches in his carry-on luggage” at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, the country’s environment and climate change agency said in a news release Monday. “An enforcement officer detained the leeches to identify the species and determine if the import was lawful,” environment officials said. Lawful it was not: Bodounov pleaded guilty...

Remember the old cry in the 1980's? Let Reagan be Reagan!Same thing. Let Trump be Trump!

In their continued efforts to deceive the public, Muslim terrorist-sponsoring groups have engineered an Erebusic plan of subversion that has been successful in its early stages. I submit that they are in the beginning stages of packing elected offices with Muslim women who are, by all appearance, Americanized. These women do not view themselves as Americans – they view themselves as Muslims. The best example of this is Ilhan Omar, D-MN. Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit reported this miserable person complained, during a recent House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, that President Trump’s administration is droning the Muslim terrorists “to...

How do we respond to the violence of natural disasters? How does our theology deal with such wanton destruction that shows no respect for persons? The elderly, infants, and helplessly infirm experience no mercy in the face of natural disasters such as floods and storms that sweep away everything in their paths. After such events, the question on many people’s lips is: “How could a good God allow such a thing to happen?” Nature’s angry tirades have produced endless speculation from philosophers and theologians. How do we, as Christians, respond to the problem of pain and suffering in the world?...

The Swiss government has been more supportive of citizens owning guns than just about anywhere else. But they voted in a referendum over the weekend for more restrictions, and an analyst explains it was under extreme pressure from the European Union. EU officials told “gun-friendly nations – the Czech Republic and Switzerland” – to make changes in their laws or lose the benefits of easy cross-border access. “In essence, the EU provided a solution in search of a problem,” wrote Bill Wirtz of Young Voices Advocates at the Foundation for Economic Education. “And somehow, they got people to agree with...

KAWASAKI, Japan (AP) — A man carrying a knife in each hand and screaming “I will kill you!” attacked a group of schoolgirls near a school bus parked at a bus stop just outside Tokyo on Tuesday, killing two people and injuring at least 17 before killing himself, officials said. Most of the victims were students at a Catholic elementary school who were lined up at the bus stop near Noborito Park in the city of Kawasaki when a man in his 50s began slashing them with knives. City officials, quoting police, said the suspect was captured but died from...

ST. CROIX — Governor Albert Bryan Jr. on Tuesday announced the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would cover the cost of replacing the Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital (JFL) on St. Croix after it sustained severe damage during hurricane Maria in September 2017. FEMA has reviewed the proposed replacement of Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital and found the actual replacement cost is eligible, as the estimated repair cost exceeds 50 percent of the estimated replacement cost. The move to have FEMA fund the cost of replacing the hospital began under the Mapp (R) administration following the devastating storms of 2017....

According to statistics, cited by the ministry, when the agreement enters into force it will affect more than 1.2 billion people, with a total domestic product of about $3.4 trillion. It will cut duties on 90 percent of goods on the continent. The deal could boost intra-African trade by 52.3 percent, the UN said. Rwandan President Paul Kagame hailed it as a “new chapter in African unity.” The African Union’s trade commissioner Albert Muchanga told Fortune: “When you look at the African economies right now, their basic problem is fragmentation.”

McCarrick correspondence confirms restrictions, speaks to Wuerl and China ROME - Correspondence obtained by Crux from an ex-aide to Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal laicized over charges of sexual misconduct and abuse, confirms that restrictions on McCarrick were imposed by the Vatican in 2008. McCarrick also claims that Cardinal Donald Wuerl, then the Archbishop of Washington, was aware of them and involved in conversations about their implementation.Though the details of those restrictions have never been made public, the correspondence shows McCarrick promising not to travel without express Vatican permission and to resign from all roles at the Vatican and within...

No, the Greens did not surge in popularity. There are two "Green" coalitions, the European United Left-Nordic Green Alliance (EUL) and the Green-European Free Alliance (EFA). The EUL is the successor to communist parties; the EFA includes several ethnic minority and regional interests and is considered Center-Left. The EFA gained 17 seats, and the EUL lost 13... so the Greens gained 4 seats in a legislature of 751 seats. So the big story isn't the minor net gain, but the net movement of Green from hard Left to center-left. The big story on the Left is the further collapse of...

Among the potential bad guys you'll find on Bay Area roads, villainous potholes reign supreme, although they may have met their match. “So we started this by finally saying enough was enough,” said one of Oakland’s Pothole Vigilantes. “We're fixing the streets because they've been neglected for so long they're hurting our cars.” Meet Oakland's Pothole Vigilantes -- a pair of masked men who aren't fighting crime, but they are taking care of the streets. “Put some asphalt in the pothole, tampering it down make it flat. [It] takes five to 15 minutes depending on the size of the pothole....

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) ate it last week. No, it wasn’t about the Green New Deal, which is a recipe for economic disaster; it was a poorly executed counterattack against…the media. Yep, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is running for the Democratic nomination in 2020, so your whole life goes under the microscope. Y’all know the drill. It so happens that she had quite the legal career as well, charging $675/hour and worked on over 50 legal cases. CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski simply tweeted about this dot on Warren’s resume, which AOC thought was an attack, pulled the trigger, but got face-full...

Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman penned a piece focusing on former prominent White House staffer Hope Hicks being subpoenaed by Congress. "Hope Hicks, one of the best-known but least visible former members of President Trump's White House staff, is facing an existential question: whether to comply with a congressional subpoena," the Times captioned the piece. The write-up includes a photograph of Ms. Hicks taken by freelance photographer Tom Brenner -- which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) ironically took serious issue with. Tom Brenner/The New York Times ************* "Yup. Where’s the 'no angel' take now?" asked Ocasio-Cortez, deeply...

Eluding radar, quietly sailing into enemy territory and launching long-range precision attacks from less-detectable positions all begin to paint the picture of how a “stealthy” offensive surface destroyers could transform modern maritime warfare. Can a massive surface destroyer, armed with Tomahawk missiles, deck-mounted guns, sensors, antennas and heat-generating onboard electrical power, truly be considered stealthy? Surely, tall, vertical masts, hull-mounted sensors and protruding antenna could never be a low-observable ship, yet performing these missions comprised the technical starting point from which engineers launched into building a first-of-its-kind stealth warship. Stealth attributes are just one of a number of defining characteristics...

These are very serious charges, and, if proven, serious crimes. What makes them worse — far worse — is that they may well be connected to each other. If they are, they would represent a high-level conspiracy by government officials, appointed by one party and directed at political opponents during and after an election. This assault on democracy has not been proven, but the evidence emerging in dribs and drabs strongly suggests the possibility. If it is proven, and if the Obama White House was directly involved, as some FBI texts plainly say, the scandal would be one of the...

Malaysia will send back some 3,000 metric tons (3,300 tons) of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Tuesday. Yeo said Malaysia and many developing countries have become new targets after China banned the import of plastic waste last year. Last week, the Philippines said it would ship back dozens of containers of garbage which Filipino officials were illegally shipped to the country from Canada in 2013 to 2014. Yeo said 60 containers stacked with contaminated...

If you’re out driving around in your car and a tornado suddenly appears your best bet is to seek refuge in a church. Your second best option? A Chick-fil-A, a temple of another sort. They’ll even let you in through the drive-up window if you need shelter from a storm. Then again, they are known for their service. But can you believe it? The staff encouraged them to come in without even asking what their birth-gender was, or how they felt about gay marriage! This actually happened to a couple in Oklahoma City as a tornado touched down last Friday...

In any normal UK election, it would be inconceivable for either of the two main parties - Conservative and Labour - to attract just 23 per cent of the vote. The fact that that is all they could muster between them is hilarious, and greatly to be enjoyed. As I put it on the radio last week, the departing Theresa May has led the Tories to their worst result in two hundred years. But, really, that's praising with faint damns. I saw Daniel Hannan on the telly extending Mrs May's impressive feat back through the pre-Reform Act era and accounting...