Free Republic

Aides to Bill de Blasio have long observed that he seems to grow happier with each mile of distance from the city he leads, and when the New York mayor arrived in South Carolina one Saturday in May, he had an air of weightlessness about him. run for president, announced two days earlier, came with an overnight makeover that had the City Hall press corps tittering: fresh navy sneakers, de-fuzzed sideburns, pants that fit. A sprig of white chest hair curled skyward beneath de Blasio’s open collar as he patrolled a nearly empty library in Columbia, S.C., looking like a...

Dozens of protesters gathered outside of Mitch McConnell’s home in Louisville Monday night, including one who wished the Senate majority leader would suffer several violent injuries. “I just want him to have a stroke, that is all,” said the woman, who was among around 40 protesters outside of McConnell’s home. The Republican was believed to be inside his house, recovering from a fall he sustained over the weekend that broke his shoulder. “One of those heart attacks where they can’t breath, and they’re holding their chest and they fall backwards,” the woman said later of what she hoped would be...

If there’s one thing everyone on the left, including most of the mainstream media, can agree on it’s that Donald Trump is a racist. We hear it on a daily basis like a drumbeat that never ends. It’s almost as if our cable news betters fear that if they stop repeating it, people will cease believing it. But when pressed to provide examples they fall into a familiar, stumbling pattern. I ran across yet another example this morning in this “think piece” from the Associated Press.While they manage to provide some balance by including people objecting to these characterizations,...

Dude, what if they make this idiot governor?Or senator?Actually, scratch that last one. I dislike Gillibrand enough that I’m basically agnostic about a death match between her and AOC.This new poll of New York State from Siena is newsy because it’s a sequel to a newsy poll they published in March. That was one of the first surveys to test Ocasio-Cortez’s popularity back home after she’d joined Congress and become a national figure, and the early verdict was chilly: She polled at just 34/41 in terms of favorability statewide and did only a bit better, 43/37, in her hometown...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block a Trump administration policy that fast-tracks deportations of illegal aliens. The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of immigrant-rights groups We Count! and Make the Road New York, argues that President Donald Trump’s expansion of expedited removal has stripped immigrants of due process and has led to wrongful deportations. “Hundreds of thousands of people living anywhere in the U.S. are at risk of being separated from their families and expelled from the country without any recourse,” ACLU lawyer Anand Balakrishnan said in a prepared statement released Tuesday....

While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other experts routinely underestimate the costs of government spending programs by huge amounts, they severely underestimate receipts and economic results when there are across the board tax cuts.  The data are readily available, and they show that after the Reagan and Bush major tax cuts, the economy improved rapidly — and tax receipts shot up.  Yet in all projections, the CBO assumes that receipts will go down and the economy won't expand much because of the cuts. The CBO said the Trump tax cuts would cost the government $1.5 trillion over ten years, but...

For nearly three years, Democrats were certain they would eat President Trump’s lunch in 2020. The 25 dreamers seeking the party’s nomination are testament to the conviction that one of them definitely would be the next president. Oops. Suddenly, after just two debates, the Nervous Nellies are climbing the walls. Many Dems are worried that the battle is too nasty and too negative, and that the front-runner, Joe Biden, is looking awfully ­wobbly. Equally worrisome, Biden’s strongest challengers, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are leaning so far left that their appeal could be limited to the most radical elements....

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (CN) — The federal judge who temporarily blocked enforcement of Arkansas abortion restrictions extended her order Tuesday while a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the laws proceeds through court. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock issued a preliminary injunction hours before her two-week temporary restraining order was set to expire. The July 23 restraining order was issued the day before the new laws were to take effect. Tuesday’s 186-page order found the three laws that include a ban on abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy would cause “ongoing and imminent irreparable harm.” The judge also...

I believe the overwhelming majority of NRA members are good people and responsible gun owners, but I decry the NRA's leadership and direction. I oppose its tactics. I condemn its inability to support its members, and I lament its transformation from a sportsman's organization into a shill for gun manufacturers... I used to be proud of my NRA affiliation. It was a group that brought me together with like-minded people. I have friends and family who are still members; some were even in Indianapolis. But now I'm proud that I left, especially given the leadership meltdown we saw this weekend...

In the wake of two shooting massacres, with China threatening the world economy and Iran threatening nuclear war, are the offenderati really losing their minds over a photograph of schoolboys fooling around with a cardboard cutout? Seems so, because the cardboard cutout depicts Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and she never passes up the chance to play the victim. These are harmless kids engaged in harmless skylarking. So harmless, they even tagged AOC in their initial posts. But they underestimated AOC’s mirthless self-importance and the punitive nature of her followers.

Today’s Cryptogram LG PTM PUORZTBM NGPTSXG YUXG NSXJGX JTAG HJUYMX, UY YGEUBPG NGPTSXG HJUYM NSXJGX JTAG YUXGX. ---TZRJUMXG DTYY Author of today’s quote You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and any tips you...

What do the Iranian regime, the New York Times and Sen. Rand Paul have in common? “I believe Mr. Trump does not seek war. But Mr. Bolton and Netanyahu have always sought war.” Thus spoke Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, at a Monday press conference in Tehran. It’s not the first time Mr. Zarif has tried to drive a wedge between President Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton—or between the president and his most steadfast international ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But for Mr. Bolton, Mr. Zarif implies, we could have peace in the Middle East tomorrow....

As the first week of August approaches, retailers are focusing their promotions and expanding their offerings to capture the $27.5 billion families are expected to spend on new clothes, electronics, shoes and other supplies for their kids this back-to-school season. And with one in four kids belonging to Hispanic families, the U.S. Hispanic consumer is a critical driver of how families shop and spend. NRF’s latest back-to-school shopping survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, found that U.S. Hispanic parents are expected to spend $148 more during back-to-school than the average shopper; they also outspend other families on items like...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Old Testament) 2 Kings 13 Jehoahaz King of Israel 13 In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned seventeen years. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord by following the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, and he did not turn away from them. 3 So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and for a long time he kept them under the power of Hazael king of Aram and...

A spearfisherman who was attacked by a shark over the weekend in Florida was saved by a group of medical professionals who just happened to be in a boat nearby. Cellphone video taken by an employee of Hot Shot Charters shows a man in a wetsuit being helped onto the boat by two fisherman from another boat. ...that the boat he was climbing into was full of nurses ready to assist him during his emergency, including Christine Haines and Glaiza Martin, a pediatric nurse and an operating nurse... The bite was so severe that the man's arm was "mangled" and...

When it comes to gun control, conservatives have been fortunate in their enemies. Every time there is a mass shooting, the left renews its calls for gun control, but it spends a great deal of energy on futile and ahistorical arguments about the wording of the Second Amendment, or making hackle-raising, invidious comparisons with Europe. And when it comes time to actually suggest what should be done, Democrats generally suggest policies recycled from the 1994 crime bill, such as background checks and a ban on assault weapons. There’s little evidence that these policies did anything to curb gun violence the...

PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. (KIRO/CNN) – What a Washington woman thought would be a fun and unusual photo op turned into a painful situation when an octopus bit her on the face and injured her with its venom. Jamie Bisceglia says she intended to enter a photo contest during a fishing derby near Tacoma, Wash., so she met up Friday to take a picture with some fishermen who had hooked an octopus. “So, crazy me. Hindsight now and looking back, I probably made a big mistake,” she said. Bisceglia put the small octopus, believed to be either a juvenile version of...

ABILENE, Texas (KTXS) — An Abilene man -- who appears to be homeless and handicap -- is making a good living by panhandling on weekends, according to the police chief. Chief Stan Standridge said the man panhandles every Saturday and Sunday at the intersection of Hwy 83/84 and FM 707. He sits in a wheelchair and the police department has gotten calls from people concerned about the man thinking he's homeless. ADVERTISING Standridge said the department's homeless outreach team has been in contact with the man. They learned he is not homeless. Standridge said the man lives in a home...

President Donald Trump said that Robert “Beto” O’Rourke shouldn’t oppose him visiting El Paso, where a mass shooting took place over the weekend. Trump, writing early Aug. 7, and poised to visit the border city later on Wednesday, wrote on Twitter that O’Rourke should mind his own business, especially in light of polling so low among Democratic primary voters and after what happened last time the president visited the city. “Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more...

Gov. Cuomo said the panic that erupted in Times Square after a backfiring motorcycle mistaken for gunshots sent people fleeing from the area shows just how “terrified” the nation is in the wake of the mass shootings over the weekend. SEE ALSO Panic in Times Square after motorcycle backfire mistaken for gunshots ​”That’s where we are. You hear a noise, you run. That’s the state of this nation. We’re petrified,” he said Wednesday during an interview on WCBS 880 radio. The governor also railed about the “impotence of government” for its failure to respond with any substantial gun control legislation,...