Free Republic

Success would give Nigel Farage’s party its first MP just eight weeks after it was formed If the Brexit party wins the Peterborough byelection, it would return its first MP to Westminster just eight weeks after it was launched – a trajectory that took Nigel Farage’s previous party, Ukip, more than two decades. And in a further sign of the fast-shifting fault lines of British politics, while Labour hopes it can retain the seat, the Conservatives, who held it for 12 years until 2017, are widely thought to be completely out of the running. Thursday’s contest seems likely to hinge...

BRUSSELS -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has promised to hold a referendum on NATO membership -- a move strongly opposed by Moscow -- as the country embarks on a path of European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The recently elected Zelenskiy said Ukraine and its people had the right as a sovereign nation to choose the alliances they desire, regardless of outside opinions. Fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014, shortly after Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has called Ukraine a "highly valued partner." But...

This year, the birthrate in the United States has fallen yet again, to 1.7 children per woman—well below the 2.1 replacement rate. With the exception of Hungarian President Viktor Orban, most leaders in the developed world seem to shrug at this news and focus on other matters.Part of the collective indifference to this otherwise-alarming statistic is the way it’s treated. Most often, a low birthrate is framed as a long-term economic problem that might affect the labor market, pensions, productivity, and the like. Occasionally, it’s seen as an environmental issue and not really a problem since each new human...

Fix the Supreme Court by Following the Constitution The Democrats don’t want to fix the Court, they want to break America. June 5, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 60 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Mayor Peter Buttigieg took a break from running the worst city in Indiana to call for raising the number of Supreme Court justices to fifteen. The plan comes from the same Rhodes Scholar who claimed that we should move to a popular vote system "if we're going to...

This article lays out details of Washington's new Democratic Party Primary System. Previously the state has used the caucus system to select delegates, and the primary was a "beauty contest". Under those rules in 2016 Bernie won 75% of the delegates at the caucus, but Hillary won 51% of the vote in primary (but didn't get any delegates because of it). Other important background to what is happening here is the the Democrats have had pretty much total control of the state for 20 years now, and as Democrats are wont to do, have slowly changed the rules to favor...

The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures. ... Federal officials have warned Congress that they are facing “a dramatic spike” in unaccompanied minors at the southern border and have asked Congress for $2.9 billion in emergency funding to expand shelters and care. The program could run out of money in late June, and the agency is legally obligated to direct funding to essential services, Weber said. The move — revealed in an email...

Americans view made-up news and information as a bigger problem than other critical issues, including terrorism, immigration, climate change and racism, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center... ...While most Americans blame political leaders and activist groups for creating misinformation over journalists, most say "the news media" is the most responsible for fixing the problem. {Ha!!! See poster's comment} Republicans blame journalists more for the issue than Democrats, according to the survey. {See poster's comment}

June 5 (UPI) -- One of the wealthiest communities in California has become the first city in the United States to ban the sale of tobacco products, after councilors approved a new law that will take effect in 2021. The city of Beverly Hills passed the new law Tuesday. While it doesn't bar smoking inside city limits, it prohibits any business from selling tobacco products beginning Jan. 21, 2021. The new ordinance exempts existing cigar lounges and will allow hotels to sell such products to guests. Councilors said they will consider hardship exemptions for businesses that can prove the law...

Q: - When did you first discover that the "Russian" dossier was a false document? Q: - When did you find out that the dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign? Q: - When you discovered the dossier was false, who did you tell and when? Q: - Did you find any evidence of coordination between between the CIA and FBI during the FBI's investigation of the President of the United States? Q: - Did you discover any foreign intelligence coordination with the FBI or CIA? Q: - Of the many leaks that sprung from your investigation, which did...

Okay, so I may be behind on the times. Maybe the masses all knew actor Randy Quaid has been doing dramatic readings of many of President Trump’s Tweets for months. But I didn’t. I had to read a Tweet from a colleague to become aware of this awesomeness. Call him what you will. A conspiracy theorist? Yes. A mentally unstable man? Perhaps. But what few can deny is that he’s all in for making America great again. He may even give the President a run for his money in how much he hates the fake news media. Reading through his...

Former presidential adviser Dr. Sebastian Gorka blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other “RINO” members of the Senate GOP caucus for opposing POTUS Donald Trump’s decision to levy an escalating tariff regime on Mexico for failing to do more to interdict illegal aliens enroute to the United States. On Tuesday, McConnell told reporters in a classic understatement, “There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure,” when discussing the president’s plan to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports beginning June 10, then steadily raising them throughout the remainder of this year until they...

Far-right parties' hopes of forging a powerful new eurosceptic bloc in the European Parliament suffered a double blow on Wednesday when Poland's ruling nationalists and Britain's Brexit Party both said they would not join such a grouping. Italy's far-right League was one of the biggest winners in last month's EU elections and its leader, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, has sought to persuade Europe's nationalist parties to set aside their differences and form a 10-party European Alliance for People and Nations in the new assembly.Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland's conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), ruled out joining on...

An Ohio doctor accused of ordering excessive and potentially fatal doses of opioids to dozens of near-death patients is facing multiple counts of murder, prosecutors announced Wednesday. William Husel voluntarily surrendered to authorities and was charged in 25 deaths following a six-month investigation by the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office. The patient deaths exposed a stunning case of medical oversight and alleged medical malpractice, and called into question how repeated failures potentially involving 30 or more employees could have gone unchecked for so long. Husel, 43, was employed with the Mount Carmel Health System, one of the largest in central Ohio,...

Mexico is going to cave, and it's not just the tariffs. We've got the Mexicans over a barrel on energy, and if we want, we can wipe their economy out. Without American energy imports, the Mexican economy collapses. This actually doesn't make any sense. Mexico is awash in petroleum and natural gas. But the Mexicans just can't get it out of the ground. American petroleum engineers were critical to the early success of the Mexican oil industry. From 1918 to the late '20s, Mexico was second only to the United States in oil production, and it was number one in...

Russia and China took another step away from the US dollar after the two countries agreed to develop bilateral trade using the ruble and the yuan. It was just one of the major deals reached after the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, held talks in Moscow on Wednesday. “Russia and China intend to develop the practice of settlements in national currencies,” Putin told journalists at the news conference following the talks. He added that the states have signed intergovernmental agreements on expanding the use of the yuan and the ruble in bilateral financial operations. A...

Democratic senators on Wednesday defended their decision to ask President Trump’s Catholic judicial nominees about their beliefs, saying it’s fair to ask whether they can separate their religious faiths from their jobs as judges. “It is never inappropriate for a member of this committee to ask whether a nominee for a lifetime position for the federal judiciary can rule fairly whatever their personal affiliations might be,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat who’s frequently questioned nominees’ religious backgrounds. The issue came to the fore Wednesday as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing on Peter Joseph Phipps, a...

Does Donald Trump want Jeremy Corbyn as his next partner in the US-UK relationship? Because this is precisely how you get more Jeremy Corbyn. In touting the potential for a post-Brexit trade agreement with the Brits, Trump told reporters that their National Health Service would have to be “on the table,” comments immediately seized upon by Labour: When asked if the NHS should be on the table for a post-Brexit trade deal, Donald Trump says "everything will be on table".Get live updates here: https://t.co/BbLjWva8ok pic.twitter.com/BDoQzGjjXn— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 4, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump said Britain’s public health...

Seattle’s City Council is made up of 8 Democrats and one Socialist. That breakdown gives you an idea of how progressive the city’s residents are. But with seven out of nine City Council seats up for grabs this fall, one issue is making liberal voters consider new options: homelessness. Today the Seattle Times profiled three Seattle voters, two of whom are progressives who are now thinking about what a vote for a left-leaning candidate could mean for their neighborhoods: Until a few years ago, Christi Muoneke didn’t pay much attention to Seattle politics. “I couldn’t even tell you who...

Metapa, Mexico - Some 200 military police, immigration agents and federal police were awaiting a group of about 1,000 Central American migrants who were walking north along a southern Mexico highway on Wednesday. The group of migrants, including many women and children, set out early from Cuidad Hidalgo at the Mexico Guatemala border and was headed for Tapachula, the principal city in the region. State and local police accompanied the caravan. ...

An ostensibly libertarian acquaintance who’s veered leftward unfriended me because I objected to her support for pelting right-wingers with eggs. A short time later, as if to maintain the cosmic balance, a right-winger unfriended me, she claims, because I sometimes muse openly about people’s reasons for unfriending me, which is sort of meta. But let’s get back to those eggs—or better yet, let’s examine the left’s fondness lately for a similar projectile weapon, milkshakes. Leftists have lately thrown milkshakes at various right-wingers in England and in the past few days have splattered their first member of the U.S. Congress with...