Free Republic

First-term lawmakers want to see Senate action on ethics overhaul While it is not quite an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, the metaphor is close enough: Freshman House Democrats who roared into the majority in January with ambitious legislative plans are increasingly facing the reality of a Senate majority leader who has little interest in what they want. The latest reality check came on Wednesday when a substantial portion of first-year House Democrats — 62 members — urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to act on HR 1, a sweeping House-passed bill that seeks to fortify ethics rules for...

McDonald’s new Worldwide Favorites menu — a roundup of the chains alleged top hits abroad — proves that the world’s worse off than we knew. Each of five items, launched this week and inspired by different countries, is awful in its own way. But hideous qualities they all share make it convenient to flush the whole lot down the toilet at once — ghastly flavors, sickly mouth feel and industrial-tasting sauces. If, as McDonald’s boasts, “Around the world is now around the corner,” no one should leave their house. Stroopwafel McFlurry ($3.09) Tomato Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich ($5.99) Tomato Mozzarella Crunchy...

Is it time for a 3 Million March on D.C.? How do we start to organize?

RUSH: Now, Donald Trump in the United Kingdom. This has been a very bad week — and it’s only Wednesday — for the Drive-By Media worldwide. Remember the story about the dead North Korean officials that were executed? They’re walking around. They’re alive. They are above ground. As we say on the golf course, “They’re on the right side of the grass.” Big, big mistake. Now we found that… Remember the story we had…? I think it was Monday. This is Wednesday, so it was Monday. The African-American forklift operator who put together the satirical video of Pelosi appearing to...

The U.S. and Mexico failed to reach a deal on immigration issues during their Wednesday meeting. Officials met just days before 5% tariffs on all Mexican imports are set to kick in, while President Donald Trump was in the U.K. on a state visit. Trump announced the tariffs in a surprise tweet last Thursday, saying they would be imposed “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.” On Wednesday evening, Trump tweeted that “progress is being made, but not nearly enough!” The president said talks will continue on Thursday and that if no deal...

Well, what is China like? Is it a smog filled “hell hole”, or is it a Stalinist storm-trooper stomping dictatorship? Just what the heck is it, and what is it like? This is a post that I threw together after reading a fellow American justify the eight wars that America is currently fighting all over the globe. As he said “…it our duty to police the world because no one has it better than us.” Eh? Say what? Of course he was referring to a United States military presence all over the world. And at this I shake my...

One of the big questions in solar physics is why the Sun's activity follows a regular cycle of 11 years. Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), an independent German research institute, now present new findings, indicating that the tidal forces of Venus, Earth and Jupiter influence the solar magnetic field, thus governing the solar cycle.

The schoolyard version of ‘Survivor’ may go the way of the lawn dart, if ‘authorities’ get their way. And so, the endless march of the sissifying of children continues unabated… Pinggggggg! If you are of a certain age — and went to public school — you know exactly the kind of a red rubber ball that made that distinctive sound. It was the one that you hoped desperately would NOT make that noise while bouncing off your face. Dodgeball. It was the kind of game that taught us about the cold hard truth of merit. And now a team of...

With his fortunes fading, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke attempted to sell himself as a possible running mate to South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg by boasting “I am a giant a**hole.” Though seasoned political observers are calling this “another gaffe in an unbroken chain of gaffes since his unsuccessful attempt to win a US Senate seat last year,” sources close to the candidate are optimistic that “Mayor Pete will understand that Beto is proposing a mutually satisfying coupling between two ideological soul mates.” if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at... https://azconservative.org/2019/06/01/dem-signals-support-for-secret-police/

Openly embracing President Donald Trump didn’t work for a New Jersey lawmaker fighting to keep his seat in the state’s craziest primary Tuesday. Two-term incumbent Joe Howarth was easily unseated in the Republican state Assembly primary in South Jersey’s 8th legislative district after employing a surprising re-election strategy when he lost his local party’s support: running as a pro-Trump candidate, even though he previously bashed the polarizing GOP president.

New York City public school teachers recently revealed that they have been instructed to reject “objectivity,” “written documentation” and “perfectionism” by Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, as part of his effort to “dismantle racism.” Carranza identified these values as tools of the “white-supremacy culture.” Our cultural overlords are way ahead of Carranza. With lightning speed, we've abandoned old, hidebound, Anglo-Saxon facts-and-evidence standards in deference to new, fresh African folk tale standards. (According to J. Bekunuru Kubayanda, writing in the Afro-Hispanic Review, even Latin America and the Caribbean got their oral history traditions from Africa.) Thus, for example, Gen. Robert E. Lee...

Impeachment is presented as a binary choice – but Congress has other options for dealing with perceived presidential offenses, including censure. And in some ways, an unofficial impeachment inquiry has already started. Yes or no: Do you favor impeaching President Donald Trump? That’s the question Democratic politicians around the country are being battered with – at town halls, in fundraisers, during TV interviews. Support for impeachment has been slowly rising among Democrats in Congress, within the large Democratic presidential field, and among the American people. Now that retired special counsel Robert Mueller has spoken publicly about his Trump-Russia investigation, effectively...

Both GOP senators from Texas are joining other republicans in breaking ranks with the president over a tariff threat to Mexico. Senator Ted Cruz says it is a game of chicken on who will blink first. “I understand that the president is frustrated with congressional democrats refusing to do their job,” Cruz said. “That being said, this is the wrong solution to the crisis.”

“I’ve spent 22 years on the Federal Circuit and nine years since dealing with patent cases and I cannot predict [under the current law] in a given case whether eligibility will be found or not found. If I can’t do it, how can bankers, venture capitalists [and] business executives make reliable predictions and sensible decisions?” – Judge Paul Michel The first of three scheduled hearings in which the Senate IP Subcommittee will hear testimony from a total of 45 witnesses on the subject of patent eligibility law raised many questions. While some read the proposed draft bill released by Congress...

A Guatemalan man who is serving prison time for fatally striking a motorcyclist with his SUV and then fleeing had been using a fake identity, federal officials say. Sebastian Velasquez-Ramos had been using the alias Luis Velasquez-Ortiz in order to falsely claim he was a U.S. citizen, federal officials said. He also used a Social Security number that wasn't his and said he was a few years younger than he actually is. Officials think Velasquez-Ramos is his real name because that is the name in his immigration documents that were filed when he arrived in the United States. Velasquez-Ramos, 47,...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7108037/The-good-Muslim-dead-one-Democrat-Rashida-Tlaib-cries-reading-death-threat.html

[Catholic Caucus] Proposed new apostolic constitution reorders Vatican's offices Reform draft downgrades the doctrinal office, stresses that Curia is at service of bishops and pope Vatican City — The draft of Pope Francis' document to reorganize the Vatican's sprawling bureaucracy significantly reorients the mission of the Catholic Church's central command, emphasizing that officials must no longer consider themselves a "superior authority" but servants of the pope and the world's bishops. The text of the proposed new apostolic constitution, obtained by NCR, also notably reorders the precedence of the Vatican's offices, downgrading the once all-powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of...

An attorney for six bikers arrested after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout in Waco is asking a judge to appoint a “special master” to oversee the return of items seized from almost 200 bikers who went to jail. Houston attorney Paul Looney filed a civil petition Wednesday morning in Waco’s 414th State District Court asking Judge Vicki Menard to appoint someone to help “make order out of all this chaos,” as Looney put it. Looney, representing Ray Nelson, Phillip Ray White, Cody Ledbetter, Marcus Ryan Pilkington, William English and Morgan English, said he is trying to help them and others...

The general thinking about the Republican Senate majority is that it has solidified to the point where Democrats are effectively shut out of gaining control of the upper chamber in 2020. But in truth, the GOP majority is in more danger than many analysts believe. Just how much jeopardy depends on how you think about the overall state of the race: If the election is going to be close, as many analysts (including myself) seem to believe, then the Senate probably leans Republican at best. And if President Trump is likely to lose, perhaps badly (as other analysts suggest), then...

RUSH: Right before the program began, I got an addendum to the audio sound bite roster, and Pelosi has said a couple things, and I have to play these for you. I have to do them now to get them out of the way. I’m gonna start with number 23 because this goes to the very notion that she’s trying to convince everybody in her party to not do impeachment because she doesn’t think that it will help them. She thinks impeaching Trump is going to rally his base, which… I mean, they’re already rallied, Madam Speaker. This is another...