Free Republic

WASHINGTON — For two and a half years, President Trump has said he is finally doing in Asia what he asserts his predecessor, Barack Obama, failed to achieve with a strategic pivot: strengthen American influence and rally partners to push back against China. But as violence escalates and old animosities are rekindled across Asia, Washington has chosen inaction, and governments are ignoring the Trump administration’s mild admonitions and calls for calm. Whether it is the internal battles in India and Hong Kong or the rivalry between two American allies, Japan and South Korea, Mr. Trump and his advisers are staying...

"Shouting and shrieking" sounds were allegedly heard coming from deceased billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's prison cell on the morning he died, according to a report from CBS News.The news outlet reported on Tuesday morning that the sounds were heard from inside Epstein's jail cell at Metropolitan Correction Center, along with the sounds of guards attempting to resuscitate the Clinton-linked registered sex offender.

Residents of California, the self-fashioned “resistance” state that has sued the Trump administration more than 50 times, has donated more money to the Trump 2020 campaign than to most Democratic candidates in the 2020 race. Donald Trump raised $3.2m in California since the beginning of this year, according to campaign finance data analyzed by CalMatters, a not-for-profit news organization focused on California issues. Trump beat out everybody in the field except for Senator Kamala Harris, who raised $7.5m, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who raised $5.1m. Harris, who is California’s junior senator, has been leading in donations from the state since...

The New York City Fire Department has said it investigated if first responders or other medical personnel leaked the death of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to anonymous message board 4chan. The news was allegedly posted to the site 38 minutes before the story was initially broken by news outlets and reporters on Twitter. A detailed post revealing Jeffrey Epstein’s death was allegedly leaked on the anonymous message board 4chan 38 minutes before the news first broke on Twitter by ABC News reporter Aaron Katersky, according to a report by BuzzFeed News.

The Landshark (Chevy Chase) finds his dinner by knocking on doors. [Season 1, 1975]Landshark - SNL

Political donations went to Donald Trump and about half of the democratic candidates. With the 2020 election a year away, Brockton-area residents have given a total of $42,500 to candidates who are running for president. A review by The Enterprise of Federal Election Commission campaign finance data shows that for 2019 residents made nearly 600 donations with an average of about $450 per donor. President Donald Trump received the greatest number and dollar amount of donations from Brockton-area residents. For the Democrats, the top dollar contributions went to Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana; Bernie Sanders, a Vermont...

The deal, reported on by the New York Times and slated to be announced on Wednesday, will see Roc Nation and Jay-Z “consulting on entertainment, including the Super Bowl halftime show, and contributing to the league’s activism campaign, Inspire Change,” the paper writes.

Some U.S. companies are paying for employees to travel to other countries for medical care. To alleviate concerns about quality of care, American surgeons are traveling to perform their procedures, The New York Times reports with Kaiser Health News. The report highlights the story of one patient who traveled to Cancun, Mexico, for knee replacement surgery. The patient, Donna Ferguson, gets her health coverage through her husband's employer, Ashley Furniture Industries. In exchange for having her surgery performed in Mexico, Ashley Furniture paid Ms. Ferguson $5,000 and covered her travel costs. She also received the surgery free of out-of-pocket copayments...

WHEELING, W.Va. — A former Ohio County teacher who had four children with a former student agreed to an Alford plea Tuesday and was sentenced to 1 to 5 years in prison. Elizabeth Harbert, a former teacher at Bridge Street Middle School and Wheeling Park High School, entered the plea to third degree sexual assault. The Alford plea allows a case to result in a conviction without the defendant actually pleading guilty. Harbert and Christopher Birch began a relationship in 2005 when she was approximately 30 and he was 15. A criminal complaint said they had sex at least 50...

CORRECTION (Aug. 13, 2019, 4:14 p.m. ET) An earlier version of this article misidentified the warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It is Lamine N’Diaye, not Shirley Skipper-Scott. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/warden-reassigned-manhattan-jail-where-jeffrey-epstein-died-2-guards-n1041951 Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington. Now we know. NBC screwed up. And it was Pete Williams at NBC who did it. I recall Pete Williams was once the Bush spokesman in the State Dept.

“Amoris laetitia” is at the center of the controversy over the John Paul II Theological Institute The architects and executors of the new Institute want the place to have a more sympathetic focus on the much-debated Apostolic Exhortation than they believe it has heretofore received from former faculty and administrators. Somehow, the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris laetitia, is at the center of the controversy over the present circumstances and future direction of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. At the end of the first essay in this three-part series examining the affair at the...

In case you haven’t fully gotten the message, African-American Democrats are really angry with any African-American Republican that embraces President Trump. Then, if an African-American Republican runs for an elected office, well, the racial slurs fly… from the Democrats. The race for Kentucky’s Attorney General is no different – just ask Daniel Cameron. Daniel Cameron is an African-American Republican candidate for attorney general in Kentucky. He came under attack by Dawn Elliott, a liberal female African-American lawyer and co-host of a political talk radio show, this week. Cameron is running against Democrat Greg Stumbo, a 67-year-old white Democrat who is...

Anyone have experience with Windham AR carbon fiber lowers? Dependable? Maintenance issues? Thanks.

To say that a highly-publicized Taylor Swift appearance on Fox’s 2019 Teen Choice Awards failed to save the award show from a ratings catastrophe would be quite the understatement. After hitting a record low in the ratings last year, the Teen Choice Awards collapsed Sunday night with a 28 percent freefall in total viewers and an incredible 50 percent drop in younger viewers, aged 18-49. Hoping to boost the night’s ratings, left-wing diva Taylor Swift landed the inaugural Icon Award. But Swift’s cynical move to embrace divisive politics has obviously dented her mass appeal and, by extension, her popularity. In...

SANTA FE — Ryan Stewart says he knows what it’s like to begin the school year in front of 30 students who want to know how much homework you’re going to assign. Now he begins the school year with a new challenge — as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s pick to lead the state Public Education Department. She dismissed his predecessor, Karen Trujillo, just three weeks ago for failing to meet her expectations. Stewart wasn’t a candidate the first time Lujan Grisham hired a public education secretary. But the governor said Monday that she’s confident his skills will be an asset...

What’s most fascinating about the controversy raging about Rep. Joaquin Castro’s tweeting out the names of donors to President Trump’s campaign is that Castro’s Republican detractors seem to be admitting to a dirty little secret. By complaining that he’s exposing those donors to public shaming, they’re effectively acknowledging that donating to Trump is shameful. Whoops. To bring you up to date, Castro, the twin brother of Julian Castro, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president , on Tuesday tweeted a list of the 44 donors in his hometown of San Antonio who have made the maximum donations to the...

A handful of Democratic Senators signed onto an amicus curiae brief in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York, defending New York City's blatant attack on the Second Amendment. For years, those who live in NYC could transport handguns, as long as it was to a few select gun ranges in the area. If you were a gun owner in NYC and wanted to take your firearm outside of city limits to a different gun range, that wasn't allowed.The Senators who signed alongside New York City include Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Mazi Hirono (HI), Richard Blumenthal (CT),...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After a three week search, police have arrested the suspect accused of shooting and killing a man outside a Northeast Albuquerque car wash last month. Jerrod Holguin, 22, was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center Tuesday morning on outstanding warrants. An arrest warrant has been filed charging him with murder. According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Holguin’s mother identified him as the man seen in security camera video shooting at 30-year-old Matthew Shaw on July 23. Shaw was struck in the back and died at the scene.

Proposed Chicago casino unattractive to investors because of ‘onerous’ taxes; South and West side sites wouldn’t draw tourists, says a state-hired consultant ...a Chicago casino operator’s profit margin “would, in a best-case scenario, equate to a few pennies on the dollar,” according to a report from Las Vegas-based Union Gaming Analytics As a result of the high taxes and other upfront costs, the casino’s owner would reap low single-digit profit margins, at best, on any of the five sites suggested as possible locations, according to the study. “Put another way, tourists generally will not patronize a casino in an area...

A South Carolina woman is recovering after being bitten by an alligator near her home in Hilton Head Island. ... Lucas says a 68-year-old woman was walking her dog about 10 p.m. near her house, which is also near several ponds. He says the 8-to-9-foot-long (2.4-to-2.7-meter-long) gator bit the woman on the wrist and leg ... The dog ran way during the attack and was not harmed.