Free Republic

More advanced societies tend to have more educated citizens, which is one reason why politicians of all stripes call for sending more students to college. One country has taken that impulse to its logical extreme—but has found that more is not always better. South Korea has a more educated population than any other country in the developed world. Seventy percent of young Koreans (ages 25-34) have completed some higher education, and a similar proportion of high school graduates continue on to college or university each year. By contrast, only 49 percent of young Americans have a degree beyond high school....

Laura Ingraham blasted Democrats Tuesday after they launched a formalization of an impeachment inquiry, saying they are incapable of moving past their hatred of Trump. "The most sickening thing is that House Democrats, they know impeachment, the whole inquiry, is futile," Ingraham said Tuesday on "The Ingraham Angle." "The Senate Republican majority is not going to vote to convict the president."

FULL TITLE: Bernie Sanders Wants Abortions Up to Birth Nationwide Because He Falsely Claims America is Overpopulate Bernie Sanders is a real blast from the past. Not only does the aging pol peddle failed socialist ideas that are better at producing tyranny than prosperity, now he’s recycling the long discredited idea that we are breeding ourselves off the face of the planet. Even that other New York City newspaper long ago abandoned the cherished leftist belief in “overpopulation,” calling it one of the myths of the 20th century. Bernie must have skipped the paper that day. The truth is that...

The agency is piloting a proof-of-concept that will track how individual taxpayers interact with its online systems. ============================================================== When taxpayers use online systems, the IRS really wants to make sure the people accessing information are who they say they are. The agency has implemented a number of authentication tools over the years—with varying degrees of success—and is now looking at behavioral analytics as an option. The IRS announced a sole-source contract to BioCatch for a proof-of-concept that would incorporate behavioral analytics for the agency’s eAuthentication system. BioCatch’s technology tracks how a user interacts with their device and the agency’s apps...

The Trump administration is encouraging countries across the world to stand up for the rights of unborn babies by opposing radical pro-abortion policies at the United Nations. In a letter leaked to the Guardian and reportedly signed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the United States urged countries to join a “growing coalition” in opposing the “harmful” pro-abortion agenda. The Guardian, a pro-abortion news outlet, described the letter as an attempt to “rollback women’s rights.” But abortion appears to be the real issue of concern. The letter criticized the United Nations for...

Joe Biden's family ties to an influence peddling scheme at a Ukrainian gas company could hurt the former vice president's 2020 campaign, political scientist Ian Bremmer told CNN on Tuesday. "[Joe] Biden does have a problem here. I have to say $50,000 a month for Hunter Biden—clearly to be selling influence because otherwise, no one would ever pay him that kind of money—for a company that, frankly, was pretty corrupt and has been before and has been since under investigation," Bremmer said. Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and Time magazine editor at large. He told CNN's New Day Hunter...

The View co-hosts Abby Huntsman and Joy Behar clashed on Tuesday’s show over the left’s messaging on climate change. After co-host Whoopi Goldberg praised 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s disturbing speech yesterday at the United Nations, an argument ensued between the liberal hosts and Huntsman. While she slammed the hysterical, fearmongering from Thunberg and the left on climate change, Joy Behar raged that we needed the younger generation to lead the way because older “deniers” didn’t love their grandchildren, enough. After playing a short clip of Thunberg's rant,, Behar was ready to rage at the “disgusting” “deniers” for “not caring”...

“The UPI would facilitate the vast data-sharing permitted without consent under HIPAA,” said Twila Brase, president and co-founder of CCHF. “This national patient ID would enable government and other third parties to link every piece of data in every medical record of every patient into one longitudinal digital dossier, leaving patients with no options for keeping their data, their personal lives, and their medical conditions confidential. As troubling as the privacy implications, this federal ID card would also become mandatory for patient access to care. In short -- no card, no care.”

[Catholic Caucus] Remaking the Church Amazon Synod in the works since earliest days of Francis' papacy One month after his election, Pope Francis began laying the groundwork to refashion the Universal Church — to remake the face of Roman Catholicism around the world. Days after becoming pope, Francis met with Peruvian Abp. Pedro Barreto Jimeno and Brazilian Cardinal-designate Cláudio Hummes to discuss setting up a Church network focused on the Amazon. Cdl. Pedro Barreto Jimeno That meeting put into motion the plan which eventually produced the Amazon Synod — a plan which has unfolded over the past six years. In a stunning...

An interesting turn of events has brought renewed hope to the City of Brotherly Love. Within just the past few months, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reports that two Philadelphia abortion centers have shut their doors. The closures have received scant—if any—attention in the media sphere. However, the closures are definitely significant—especially in light of the sordid history of abortion in southeastern, PA. West Philadelphia, for instance, was where abortionist/convicted killer Kermit Gosnell plied his grisly trade. Gosnell is now serving three consecutive life sentences in connection with the murders of three newborn babies. He was also convicted of involuntary...

Prior to 1990, there was a much clearer distinction between immigrant and non-immigrants under the law. However, when Congress enacted the Immigration Act of 1990, it made a total mess of the system. One path to chaos was to allow H-1B and L non-immigrants to apply for permanent residency. This was rationalized with the Orwellian concept of "dual intent", wherein a foreigner applying for a non-immigrant (i.e. temporary) visa could be considered to simultaneously intend to return home and intend to remain the U.S. This change had a number of entirely predictable effects. First, it transformed green cards into a...

A fundraising drive from Trump and the RNC netted a million dollars Tuesday.

Sen Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) edged past former Vice President Joe Biden in a new poll gauging support in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Warren has the support of 27 percent of Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic while Biden had 25 percent in the Quinnipiac survey released Wednesday.

Appearing Monday on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, pro-impeachment Rep. Al Green (D-TX) invoked civil rights activist Rosa Parks in arguing for Congress to remove President Donald Trump from office.

Senate Republicans are vowing to quickly quash any articles of impeachment that pass the House and warn that Democrats will feel a political backlash if they go forward and impeach President Trump. Republican senators say there are no grounds to impeach Trump and are daring Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to embark on what they dismiss as a fool’s errand that will turn off swing voters. “My response to them is go hard or go home,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment. “If you want to impeach him, stop talking....

Republicans are latching onto conservative outrage over the push to impeach President Donald Trump — and turning it into a 2020 fundraising bonanza. Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee on Tuesday sent an array of fundraising emails inviting conservatives to donate and join the “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force,” which was described as a group “made up of only President Trump’s most LOYAL supporters, the ones committed to fighting for him, re-electing him, and taking back the House.” By the end of the day, party officials said, the fundraising offensive had netted around $1 million. The effort demonstrates...

Joe Biden and John Kerry became close while serving in the US Senate. So their sons going into business together in June 2009 was not exactly a bolt out of the blue. But with whom their sons cut lucrative deals while the elders were steering the ship of state is more of a surprise. Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz, the stepson of the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (later to be secretary of state), created an international private equity firm, anchored by the Heinz family investment fund, Rosemont Capital. The firm was populated by political loyalists and...

Morning "Just, and the justifier of him which believeth." Romans 3:26 Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Conscience accuses no longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory looks back upon past sins, with deep sorrow for the sin, but yet with no dread of any penalty to come; for Christ has paid the debt of his people to the last jot and tittle, and received the divine receipt; and unless God can be so unjust as to demand double payment for one debt, no soul for whom Jesus died as a substitute...

As Israeli frustration mounts about violence coming out of Gaza, the idea of a ground invasion, and once and for all to finish with Hamas aggression, becomes more appealing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed this approach, saying that "There probably won't be a choice but to topple the Hamas regime." While sympathetic to this impulse, I worry that too much attention is paid to tactics and not enough to goals. The result could be harmful to America's foremost Middle East ally. Attitudes toward Gaza are in flux. Efraim Inbar, the strategist who heads the Jerusalem Institute for Security Studies,...

The Democratic race for the presidential nomination may be at a turning point as a surging Elizabeth Warren blew by both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in California to take an 8-point lead in the latest tracking poll from the state. This poll is not an outlier. Warren also took the lead in Iowa in the Des Moines Register poll. It appears that Democrats are beginning to shake off worries about "electability" and are embracing the far-left "soak the rich" agenda of the Warren/Sanders wing of the party. The California poll is something of a shocker.