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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump struck a stance of defiance Wednesday, proclaiming his innocence and leveling distortions and falsehoods after the publicly released notes of his phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart turbocharged the push on Capitol Hill for his impeachment. The five pages of a rough transcript of Trump's call asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden landed like a hand grenade on Capitol Hill and led House Democrats to recalibrate their strategy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her fellow Democratic...

As House Democrats moved forward with an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened confirmation hearings for five judicial nominees. Wednesday’s candidates include two appeals court nominees and three trial court nominees. Sarah Pitlyk, a trial court nominee who litigated for pro-life groups and clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, bore the brunt of Democratic criticism at the hearing

Aggrieved church members should use more traditional methods to express their opinions to the Pope, the bishops said The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria has condemned recent verbal attacks on Pope Francis as well as xenophobic attacks by South Africans on foreigners. They condemned both attacks in a statement issued on September 20 at the end of their second plenary meeting at Divine Mercy Pastoral Center in Abeokuta. The bishops expressed their communion with and loyalty to Pope Francis, expressing “serious concern” about “attacks coming from some higher levels of the church in some parts of the world.” They said...

Danielle Hunsaker, a former clerk for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, got a step closer Wednesday to filling the seat left open on the court when O’Scannlain took senior status in 2016. Hunsaker said in her prepared remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that being confirmed as O’Scannlain’s successor would be “a highlight for me in my life,” although she said “the prospect of filling his shoes is daunting.” Hunsaker, whose father worked in Oregon’s timber and construction industry, and whose mother homeschooled her, answered largely friendly questions about her...

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said nuclear power should either be free for all states or banned completely. He warned that the “inequality” between states who have nuclear power and who do not undermines global balances. This comes amid global concern following news that Iran has exceeded limits to its uranium stockpile and was enriching the chemical to beyond limitations imposed by the Iran nuclear deal. Earlier this month, Tehran announced it would use advanced centrifuges prohibited under the deal. President Erdogan said: “The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone.” …

The President is transforming the federal courts in a flurry unlike anything we’ve seen in the past. Since he began his tenure in office, President Trump made revamping the courts a top priority. Even before elected he made this one of his most prominent campaign pledges. This started with his promise to fill Justice Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court at the commencement of his presidency and has continued at a rapid pace ever since. While this process began at the Supreme Court it surely has not lasted there. The federal courts of appeals and federal district courts have also...

What a shame! The Democrat Deep State apparatus thought they’d nail President Trump with phony impeachment investigations and it would sink him in the polls. Instead, Americans saw through this latest charade already. President Trump surged ahead of Slimy Joe Biden by 4 points in the latest Rasmussen poll. Via Rasmussen Reports: Most voters expect Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee, but President Trump has the edge for now in next year’s presidential race. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters think Biden is likely to be the Democrats’ presidential...

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough appeared to be fooled Wednesday by a parody transcript of a July phone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The parody transcript was tweeted by Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” amid claims that Trump improperly withheld military funds from Ukraine until it investigated then-Vice President Joe Biden’s dealings in the country. The White House released an unclassified transcript of the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, during which the president made no explicit reference to withholding military aid. “The Daily Show’s” tweet shows a clearly doctored version of that transcript, portraying Trump as...

On Tuesday Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced impeachment investigations against President Donald Trump for allegedly putting pressure on Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate the Biden Crime Family for laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ukraine. The bogus accusations were based on hearsay from an anti-Trump “whistleblower” who supports a rival political opponent. On Wednesday the transcript of the call between President Trump and President Zelensky was released. By late Wednesday morning we all know the allegations were false. President Trump did not put pressure on the Ukrainian leader and did not even bring up the subject with him during...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ DENALI DELIVERY At 17,400 feet, Mount Foraker towers above soldiers as they offload equipment and supplies from a CH-47F Chinook helicopter after landing on Kahiltna Glacier in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, April 24, 2016. Army photo by John Pennell Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. ENEMY LOCATIONS A Seabee yells out enemy locations to his teammates during a simulated attack as part of a field training exercise...

The anonymous whistleblower who filed a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general, which includes allegations about President Donald Trump's conduct, has tentatively agreed to meet with congressional lawmakers, according to correspondence obtained by CNN. The meeting will take place on the condition that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire approves appropriate security clearances for the individual's legal counsel so that they can accompany their client, the correspondence showed.

A Palestinian rally set to take place Wednesday in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate has caused a diplomatic storm as both the Israeli and US ambassadors to Germany called for a performance by Palestinian rappers Shadi Al-Bourini and Shadi Al-Najjar to be banned. Their pressure succeeded at the last hour with the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper reporting, just 30 minuted before the rally was due to start, that the Berlin Senate Department for Home Affairs and Sport said it was banning the two rappers from appearing. The spokesperson for the Home Affairs and Sport Ministry, Martin Pallgen, said it would probably...

Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell claimed that she is aware of Senate Republicans who are willing to back impeachment of President Trump if it becomes clear that he tried to use foreign aid as "leverage." In a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump discussed both the aid the United States provides to Ukraine, while also requesting he look into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. The transcript of the phone call in question was released by the White House on Wednesday. In an interview on CNN shortly after, Mucarsel-Powell stated, "I do...

Democrats are already in disarray less than a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an “official” impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Moderate Democrats who came out in support of impeachment and put their careers on the line are now questioning what is new or different from before. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), one of the House’s most vulnerable Democrats, came out with six other moderate colleagues on Monday evening to back an impeachment inquiry in an op-ed that was seen as a watershed moment in impeachment efforts. But after a Democrat caucus meeting with Pelosi Tuesday afternoon, Slotkin reportedly said...

Fox News host Shepard Smith criticized fellow network personality Tucker Carlson for not defending Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano after a guest on his show called the judge “a fool.” Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova appeared on Carlson’s opinion show Tuesday night after news broke that Democrats had begun an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. On the show, diGenova tore into Napolitano, calling him a “fool.” Smith went after Carlson and diGenova, calling the incident “repugnant.”.........."

A Tesla electric patrol car by the Fremont, California police department ran low on electricity in the middle of a pursuit, after the department said someone forgot to plug the vehicle into a charger. According to officials, the officer was pursuing a vehicle headed down to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area when the car began to run low on battery power.

Two decades after its accession to the World Trade Organization, China still uses its intertwined public and private sectors to serve the Communist Party’s mercantilist goals. Many Chinese businesses are listed on U.S. stock exchanges, but Beijing’s intransigence ensures that American investors often don’t get a true picture of those companies’ financial health. In December 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued a joint warning to investors about the challenges American regulators face when attempting to conduct oversight of U.S.-listed companies based in China and Hong Kong. While the PCAOB regularly inspects audits...

The German government is generally critical of US President Donald Trump’s politics, especially when it comes to questions of war and peace in the Middle East. Last year, Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Germany, France and the UK, among others, had struggled to secure and wanted to maintain at all costs. The situation appeared to escalate dangerously after the drone attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia on September 14. Iran-aligned Houthi rebels fighting a Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen have claimed responsibility. The US immediately blamed Iran, even as the Saudi government...

[Catholic Caucus] Now We’re Getting Somewhere: Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider Finally Point the Finger at Pope Francis Courtesy of the Remnant Newspaper In an addendum to their historic eight-page declaration against the errors of the Instrumentum Laboris for the upcoming “Shamazon Synod,” as Michael Matt dubs it, Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider finally squarely identify Pope Francis as the ultimate source of “the almost general doctrinal confusion which is reigning in the life of the Church in our days,” which they had hitherto attributed to some sort of malaise of indeterminate origin.The addendum begins with the usual...

The White House on Wednesday released the transcript of President Trump’s July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the news is that Mr. Trump was telling the truth about it. The conversation was largely routine diplomacy, and even the reference to Joe Biden was less than promoted by the press. Good luck persuading Americans that this is an impeachable offense. The five-page transcript shows that Mr. Trump called to congratulate Mr. Zelensky on his party’s victory in Parliament. After niceties, Mr. Trump waxes on as he often does that the U.S. “spend[s] a lot of effort and a lot...