Free Republic

More bettors at one British bookmaker are backing Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic Party's 2020 nominee than they are any of the candidates actually running in the race, giving her better odds of winning than Senator Cory Booker and Beto O'Rourke, among others. Clinton, a former secretary of state and first lady, is not a candidate in the party's primaries and was the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election, which she lost to President Donald Trump. Despite winning the popular vote by almost 3 million, Clinton lost the Electoral College. At the bookmaker Ladbrokes, Clinton has seen enough backing...

In an exclusive interview with NPR, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has not changed her mind on pursuing impeachment but is ready to change the law to restrain presidential power and make it clear that a sitting president can, in fact, be indicted. "I do think that we will have to pass some laws that will have clarity for future presidents. [A] president should be indicted, if he's committed a wrongdoing — any president. There is nothing anyplace that says the president should not be indicted," Pelosi told All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro and NPR congressional correspondent Susan...

Two Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio will close their doors today as dozens of other reproductive health centers struggle to remain open after the organization rejected millions of dollars from a federal family planning program that banned abortion referrals. The closures in Cincinnati are just the beginning of what abortion rights advocates say will be an uphill battle as groups figure out how to make up the federal Title X funding.

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — A driver was taken into custody after a car drove through Woodfield Mall Friday afternoon. Police were on the scene at the Schaumburg mall around 2:30 p.m. after witnesses said a black SUV drove through Sears, striking kiosks. The incident took place on the lower level of the mall. A video posted to Twitter shows a black SUV driving past a Forever 21, and people running away. Schaumburg police said no injuries were reported. Police also said there was no evidence of an active shooter.

I remember the day that McDonald’s came to McMinnville, Oregon and filled the lives of reasonably fit children with enough fat, sugar and salt to turn us all into addicted fatties. I remember the smell of lard boiling, the weird brown and orange uniforms topped off with a paper hat and that $.10 could get you a baby cone filled with a vanilla custard-like ice cream that would send you into a sugar-high. But most of all, I remember McDonaldland, a place that ripped off Sid and Marty Kroft and was inhabited by characters like Ronald McDonald, Grimace (whatever the...

Abdullah said most of his orders came from Peshawar, a city in Pakistan where many Afghan Taliban commanders still live and are educated, and a short drive — about two hours on well-paved roads — from Bati Kot. It was the health facility explosion, in which several workers were injured and a much-needed clinic being built was left in rubble, that made him rethink his role. “Before giving orders to destroy it, I went to have a look. I saw the construction workers. They were laboring away in the hot sun, stacking heavy bricks. We desperately needed healthcare at that...

Between 27,000 and 200,000 Wisconsinites were "turned away" from the polls in 2016 due to lack of proper identification. — Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 in a speech at George Washington University Hillary Clinton just can’t quit Wisconsin. Or, more specifically, can’t quit blaming its voting system for her 2016 electoral defeat. The Democratic presidential candidate has repeatedly criticized the state’s voter ID law, which was in place for the first time in the election that pitted Clinton against Republican Donald Trump. And she’s repeatedly found herself at odds with the facts. In May 2017, Clinton claimed that...

It has been amazing to watch the national media’s coverage of the 2020 congressional elections so far. Virtually all the coverage has contained the same message: Republicans are retiring in droves, and this must mean 2020 will be a tough election for the GOP. Headlines, such as CNN’s “Here's why members of the House GOP keep abandoning ship” and USA Today’s “More than a dozen Republicans are leaving Congress. Here are the lawmakers who aren't running again in 2020” are prefect examples of the national media narrative. The problem with this narrative is it’s misleading and incomplete. What the trivia-focused,...

Speculation Ukraine was asked for information to damage Biden Trump ‘asked a foreign power to help him win an election. Again’ Donald Trump on Friday denied an accusation from his political rival Hillary Clinton that he sought help from a foreign government to help his bid for re-election – a potential replay of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The White House was rocked this week by a whistleblower’s complaint that included a private conversation between the US president and a foreign leader. Some of the allegations appear to centre on Ukraine, according to reports in the Washington Post...

One of the ways Democrats are hoping to gain more electoral and congressional power is by changing the status of heavily Democratic Washington D.C. from a federally controlled district to the 51st state. In January, a Democratic Congressman introduced House Resolution 51, the "Washington, D.C., Admission Act," which would "provide for the admission of the State of Washington, D.C. into the Union," and her fellow Democrats overwhelmingly signed on. On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held the first hearing on the bill. Among the Democrats enthusiastically supporting the bill is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who took to...

China's economy is grinding to its slowest levels of growth in decades. The country's second-quarter growth of 6.2% was the slowest rate seen since it began reporting quarterly figures. The preliminary third-quarter estimate of 6% to 6.5% is the slowest ever forecast. Though global stock markets have stabilized and trade talks with the US have resumed after a two-month hiatus, China's economy faces trouble from several different sectors, Nomura Research Institute chief economist Richard Koo wrote in a Wednesday report. A large part of China's economic prowess comes from its ability to provide cheaper labor than other industrial nations at...

BOSTON (CBS) — Antonio Brown’s Patriots career is over after one game. ADVERTISING After a controversial day, the Patriots released the wide receiver from their roster. “The New England Patriots are releasing Antonio Brown,” Patriots spokesperson Stacey James said. “We appreciate the hard work of many people over the past 11 days, but we feel that it is best to move in a different direction at this time.” The news broke Friday, just moments after Brown shared some posts on social media that indicated something was about to take place. He posted a photo of himself and Tom Brady to...

Big dollar signs make for memorable headlines. In June, when an Ohio jury ordered Oberlin College to pay $33 million in damages to a small bakery that had been the target of a protest orchestrated by employees of the college, the figure shocked many observers. Could Oberlin officials have really been so dastardly as to merit such a mammoth legal thumping? Apparently so. In a lengthy essay in Commentary magazine, former Oberlin professor Abraham Socher gave a thorough account of the events that led up to the $33 million verdict. The story, in case you don’t already know it, goes...

Updated at 2:11 p.m. ET President Trump blamed "a political hack job" for reports that a whistleblower has charged he had an improper conversation with a foreign leader. The Washington Post on Friday reported that the conversation in question involves Ukraine. Trump dismissed the reporting as a "ridiculous story" and said he did not know the identity of the whistleblower, "but I hear it's a partisan person." Trump said it was a "totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation," although he did not specify with whom. Asked if he mentioned former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe...

The IJF said that the Iran Judo Federation was suspended from “all competitions, administrative and social activities organized or authorized” by the IJF. The International Judo Federation (IJF) on Wednesday announced it had officially suspended Iran over its directive to its Judoka Saeid Mollaei to withdraw from a recent competition to avoid a contest against Israel’s Sagi Muki. The IJF said that the Iran Judo Federation was suspended from “all competitions, administrative and social activities organized or authorized” by the IJF. During the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo in August, Mollaei lost to Belgian judoka Matthias Casse on purpose to...

Multiple injuries were also reported in the crash on state Route 12, according to the Utah Highway Patrol, with between 12 to 15 of those considered “very critical injuries.” The tour bus was full of Chinese speaking tourists, according to the UHP. Pollock said the bus went off the road between Bryce Canyon Pines and the top of Red Canyon. What caused the crash was not immediately known. There were no reports of other vehicles involved. It was not known what the weather was like at the time of the crash. S.R. 12 is closed as multiple police and rescue...

After ousting other leaders over anti-Semitism, the Women’s March selected another individual who had to be quickly removed when her hateful anti-Israel tweets were exposed. By United With Israel Staff Lawyer Zhara Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was set to fill an empty seat on the board of the Women’s March group following the resignation of its previous leaders who faced persistent accusations of anti-Semitism. After her appointment, Billoo’s history of vehemently anti-Israel remarks, including several that many viewed as crossing the line into anti-Semitism, was revealed. She...

President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ’s son, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe, according to people familiar with the matter. “He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” whether allegations were true or not, one of the people said. Mr. Trump didn’t mention a provision of foreign aid to Ukraine on the call, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered...

"When Sen. Bernie Sanders championed voting rights for prisoners during a CNN town hall, he spotlighted an intensifying national debate about why going to prison means losing the right to vote. In only two states, Maine and Vermont, all prisoners are eligible to vote. However, some prisoners in Mississippi, Alaska and Alabama can vote while incarcerated, depending on their convictions. Sanders is the sole presidential candidate to support the idea of prisoners voting, regardless of their crimes. His stance may reflect the reality that his home state of Vermont, and its neighbor Maine, have long-established procedures, and general public acceptance,...

Chinese agriculture officials who were due to visit U.S. farm states next week have canceled their trip to Montana as the officials will return to China sooner than originally scheduled, the Montana Farm Bureau told Reuters on Friday. The cancellation came as U.S.-Chinese trade talks were held in Washington and U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a complete trade deal with the Asian nation, not just an agreement for China to buy more U.S. agricultural goods.