Free Republic

A U.S. District Court judge in New York who was presiding over a lawsuit involving a wealthy, Clinton-connected financier and sex offender died Sunday at the age of 96. Robert W. Sweet died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, while on vacation, The New York Times reported. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. Politico reported that Sweet was presiding over the lawsuit that followed what many saw as an unusual plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein. Alexander Acosta, the current U.S. Secretary of Labor, negotiated what critics called a sweetheart, potentially corrupt plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein when...

The Democratic presidential contenders are letting loose with a barrage of attacks against the news media, ripping national outlets for what they view as biased coverage of their campaigns or unfair double-standards in covering President Trump. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is leading the way, making his grievances with “corporate media” central to his anti-establishment campaign. The Sanders campaign took it up a notch this week, calling out CNN and NBC by name, and making the case that The Washington Post is covering Sanders negatively because he’s been critical of the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos. Top media personalities are firing...

Almost the entire population of Italy, it seems, spent the last week of June watching a boat arrive from across the Mediterranean. It was the Sea-Watch 3, a Netherlands-registered ship funded by progressive philanthropists and captained by Carola Rackete, a 31-year-old German climate-change activist. Rackete radioed that she was carrying 42 African refugees rescued at sea who were in desperate health. Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini holds that such ships rendezvous with traffickers just off the Libyan coast, and are really less interested in rescuing sailors than in transporting illegal immigrants to Europe en masse. “Taxis,” he has called them....

Are the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong coming to an end? No, but the airport is once again open and back in operation. If nothing else, that should diffuse some of the tension with the Chinese government. They’ve been highly critical of the impact the airport closure has had on tourism and commerce in general. That situation appears to have changed significantly in the past twelve hours, with protest leaders publishing apologies to the traveling public and moving into designated protest areas in the airport terminals. (Associated Press) Flights resumed at Hong Kong’s airport Wednesday morning after two days...

With leftists seeking to blame the El Paso shooting on President Trump, guns, white people, and whatever other boogieman will help score political points, a simple fact should be understood: Murder is a Democrat thing. We can start with the striking statistic that 68 percent of all homicides occur in just certain parts of 5 percent of America's counties – and all, or virtually all, of these are Democrat areas. Also striking is Democrats' devolution on prenatal infanticide. The line always was, though the savvy never believed it, "We want abortion to be safe, legal and rare." Leftists also insisted...

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is reporting for duty. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate revealed on Monday that she'll be leaving for active duty in Indonesia with the National Guard for two weeks, where she'll participate in a joint-training exercise with the Indonesian military. She returns to the campaign trail on Aug. 25."I look forward to joining my fellow soldiers for a joint-training exercise with the Indonesian military, focused on counterterrorism and disaster response," she said in a statement on Monday.The press are wondering if she's concerned whether this will be a "setback" for her campaign. But as she told Fox...

Burning forests to generate electricity is probably the worst green energy stupidity. It destroys forests; creates its own pollutants; is less efficient than coal to harvest, handle, and burn; and has a low heat value. If all factors are counted, it will take decades of forest regrowth to match the CO2 emissions of burning high-energy coal. Most coal-fired power stations are built on a coal field with reserves to last the life of the power station. The coal is mined efficiently, the fuel is of known quality and size, and efficient repetitive methods are used to extract and prepare the...

I heard this on Glenn Beck's show from yesterday & came to FR to see if I could find an article about it. Video at link. It brought a tear to my eye...

There is some $15 trillion in government debt that now yields less than zero, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan believes there’s no reason why U.S. government bond yields couldn’t join much of the developed world in the subzero world.

The “Jordan Option,” as articulated by and Mudar Zahran, the Secretary General of the Jordan Opposition Coalition, and myself, anticipates that King Abdullah will abdicate, willingly or otherwise, and that Mudar Zahran will take over Jordan as its leader. This option was first disclosed to the public shortly after the inauguration of President Trump in The Ultimate Alternate Israel-Palestine Solution.  What was unique about this iteration of the Option was that it called for King Abdullah to abdicate and for Mudar Zahran to become Jordan’s leader. Save for that, the Jordan Option had been proposed on and off since...

On Tuesday, CBS This Morning was in awe of radical climate change activist Greta Thunberg, hailing the 16-year-old from Sweden as “the voice of the planet” and touting her plan to sail across the Atlantic to attend a United Nations climate summit in New York. The report particularly applauded Thunberg for scolding the United States and President Trump for not doing enough to stop global warming. “A teenager from Sweden called ‘the voice of the planet’ is ready to cross the Atlantic on a mission to fight climate change....She’ll be sailing from Europe to New York to call on world...

The two prison guards in charge of monitoring convicted pedophile and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein on the morning that he committed suicide reportedly "fell asleep," did not check on him for hours, and then falsified prison records to hide their actions. Current Time 0:04 Duration 0:47 Report: Jeffrey Epstein Commits Suicide The new developments in the investigation into Epstein's suicide come after the Justice Department announced on Tuesday that the two guards had been placed on administrative leave and the warden of the prison was being temporarily reassigned. "The two correctional officers in the special housing unit where Mr....

It should be clear to all Americans by now that the word the left loves to spew indiscriminately -- racism -- often now means nothing, absolutely nothing. That word is meant to be an accusation of the worst order, an epithet that is supposed to destroy all those so charged. But now it's used so frequently, it has no meaning at all. It's like the f-word, overused and merely a sign of one's lack of a wider vocabulary. Like the overused f-word, calling someone a 'racist' is a sign of sloppy, uncritical thinking. The word "racist" now means nothing more...

President Trump’s delay on implementing announced tariff increases on Chinese goods that would be on many Christmas shopping lists sparked a stock market bump yesterday. But, while domestic considerations (i.e., his re-election) are important, the move must be seen in the broader context of a staredown with President Xi.  Even though China is a dictatorship, XI’s hold on his job is not something he can take for granted. Xi has grabbed power, purging some of his enemies and ending limits on his tenure, which makes him personally responsible for the serious ill-effects of his tariff war with Trump and...

Tweet Bishop J. Strickland @Bishopoftyler I urge every faithful Catholic to join me in praying this Novena daily until October 6. Pray the intention “that all bishops guard the deposit of faith” May Our Blessed Mother intercede for her Son’s Bride. Novena Prayer to the Sacred Heart | EWTN (link: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/novena-prayer-to-the-sacred-heart-311) ewtn.com/catholicism/de… Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus O my Jesus, you have said: 'Truly I say to you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. ' Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the...

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's candid May 6 speech at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Finland startled many in his well-heeled audience. The Arctic Council consists of eight countries that control some Arctic territory (U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Russia) and six Arctic indigenous groups. Greenland is a Danish possession; the island has an immense Arctic Exclusive Economic Zone. Formed in 1996 after the Cold War lapsed, Arctic Council nations regarded the Arctic as a "low tension" area. A recent NATO study called it a "zone of depoliticized cooperation." Until 2010 or so, that condition held....

FULL HEADLINE: Eleventh Circuit grants immunity to officer who shot a child lying on the ground, while trying to shoot a harmless dog The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Corbitt v. Vickers, handed down last week, constitutes one of the most grotesque and indefensible applications of the qualified immunity I’ve ever seen. The case involves a claim of excessive force against Michael Vickers, a deputy sheriff in Coffee County, Georgia, who shot a ten-year-old child lying on the ground, while repeatedly attempting to shoot a pet dog that wasn’t posing any threat. Without even deciding the constitutional question, a majority of...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., threatened Tuesday to use billions of dollars in aid to Israel as “leverage” to combat what he called “racism” from the Jewish state’s government, while going so far as to compare America's Israel alliance to its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Sanders, one of the leading candidates in the Democratic presidential primary race and an increasingly vocal critic of the Netanyahu government, said during a New Hampshire town hall event that the U.S. should take a broader view of the Middle East – and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular – and not always side with Israel.

On Aug. 12, The New York Times published what The New York Times does best: a smear of conservatives in which they're attached to a national travesty. This time the headline was "How the El Paso Killer Echoed the Incendiary Words of Conservative Media Stars." The online article was illustrated with quotes from Rush Limbaugh, "Hannity," Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Boris Epshteyn of the Sinclair TV stations. In the newspaper, it was on page one, front and center under the shorter headline "How the El Paso Gunman Echoed the Words of Right-Wing Pundits." It is part of a series...

Gay penguins Skipper and Ping have been given the chance to be parents after taking in an abandoned egg at the Berlin Zoo. The pair, two male emperor penguins — both 10 years old — had longed to be dads for quite some time as they showed “immediate baby fever” as soon as they arrived to the zoo in April