Free Republic

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has congratulated United States President Donald Trump on the elimination of Islamic State terror-movement leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Bin Salman said the historic operation was another step in the fight against terrorism...

We have so many elections—and with campaigning now a year-round activity, it’s tough to tell what we’re voting on. This November, Houston residents will have a ballot before them allowing them to decide on leaders at the local level—the level of government that has the most immediate impact on our lives. “This municipal election is important because whoever is mayor in the city of Houston in 2020 is really gonna have some say,” Mayor Turner recently said. And he’s right. The mayor has over 10 challengers, ranging from former and current Houston City Council members to a professional wrestler. In...

RUSH: You know, Trump did not tell any Democrats — and you know what’s fascinating, folks? If I may add. There are four reporters — and I don’t remember all their names. Maggie Haberman is one from the New York Times, and there’s another one at the New York Times, Schmidt, maybe. There’s a couple from the Washington Post. And these four reporters are the primary reporters of leaks. And so they have accrued great reputations as having inside knowledge right inside the Trump administration. They’ve got sources in the Oval Office. And not a one of those four reporters...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Attorney General William Barr shed new light on his role at the center of an investigation into the origins of the Russia probe in an interview Monday, telling Fox News that he spoke with foreign officials about the inquiry being run by US Attorney John Durham at their countries' request, and that the conversations served to establish a "channel" through which Durham could "obtain assistance." Durham's investigation has received remarkable assists from the attorney general since Barr initiated it earlier this year over concerns that the 2016 presidential campaign of President Donald Trump had been improperly surveilled....

Most Americans believe that the House-led Democrat impeachment effort is politically motivated and not based on legitimate legal concerns, the McLaughlin & Associates’ October Poll released last week revealed. The McLaughlin & Associates National Survey, taken October 17-22 among 1,000 likely voters, found that the majority of Americans believe the Democrat-led impeachment effort is politically motivated. Respondents were asked, “Do you think that Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are moving forward with their impeachment inquiry against President Trump mainly for political reasons to stop him from being re-elected or mainly for legal reasons?” The majority, 52 percent, said Democrats...

This was amusing, amazing and just an all around joy to watch: In a speech to police chiefs from across the country, President Donald Trump on Monday criticized Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson for skipping the event, saying “more than anyone else, this person should be here, because maybe he could learn something.” Johnson last week said he would not attend the president’s speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference at McCormick Place, “because the values of the people of Chicago are more important than anything that he would have to say.” “That’s a very insulting statement...

State Rep. Luis Arroyo stood outside a Highland Park restaurant last August, looked an Illinois senator in the eye and assured him, “Whatever you tell me … stays between you and me.” Then, hoping to move sweepstakes gaming legislation forward in Springfield, Arroyo gave the lawmaker a nudge by telling him, “We could put you on a contract. … Tell me what you need.” Weeks later, Arroyo allegedly gave the senator the first of what he promised would become monthly payments of $2,500. “This is the jackpot,” Arroyo allegedly boasted as he handed over the check. Trouble is, the feds...

If Boris Johnson had one key promise when he stood for the Tory leadership it was that nothing would prevent him from leading Britain out of the European Union on 31 October. It was a message that he repeated ad nauseam during the contest for the party crown and in his early days as Prime Minister, variously pledging to deliver Brexit “do or die”, “come what may” and “in all circumstances”. He said he would rather “die in a ditch” than fail and even denounced his main leadership rival, Jeremy Hunt, for suggesting that Halloween was a “fake deadline” to...

President Trump has repeatedly slammed the secret impeachment hearings in the Capitol basement as a “kangaroo court.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi got the message. On Monday, she announced the full House will vote to formally launch impeachment proceedings that will be out in the open, instead of in the dark. Democrats have been trying to suggest they have the goods on Trump. But fact is, none of the witnesses they have called so far have any firsthand knowledge of presidential wrongdoing. Behind closed doors and with no media allowed, House Democrats have tried to put on the ­appearance of a legal...

The mockery and the spin from President Trump’s political opponents poured in as soon as he made his announcement on Sunday about US forces killing ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The president didn’t restrain his urge to take credit for the triumph or hold back on describing the events in pure Trumpspeak. He spoke of al-Baghdadi “whimpering” and “dying like a dog.” While giving the proper credit to the heroism of the operators who put an end to the career of a murderer and rapist who was one of the planet’s true villains, Trump did the presidential equivalent of an...

Very nice trick here by the Lawfare advisory and rules committee that is handling the construct of the “Official House Inquiry” on impeachment. It is such a good trick it has everyone crossed-up and confused. Likely, that is by design. On Thursday of this week Speaker Pelosi is bringing to the floor a resolution to affirm her previous declaration of an “Official House Inquiry”. Mrs. Pelosi is very purposefully and carefully telling reporters this is not a “House resolution on impeachment”. Read the wording carefully. Speaker Pelosi is holding a vote, a resolution, to affirm her previous declaration of a...

Who’s a good boy? President Trump answered that question Monday afternoon when he tweeted a photo of the U.S. military dog injured in the raid that claimed the life of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The hero dog -- name still a mystery -- was unveiled in a tweet, reading: “We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!”

A federal judge in Kentucky on Monday partially reopened Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann's $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post, which the same judge dismissed in July. The new ruling, by District Judge William O. Bertelsman, is based on an amended complaint filed by Sandmann's legal team. The decision permitted Sandmann to obtain documents from The Post during an upcoming discovery process, as his lawyers have sought to argue that the paper negligently covered Sandmann's interactions with a Native American man, Nathan Phillips, while the student wore a red "Make America Great Again" hat and stood...

A second aide to Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., has been sentenced in a scheme to break into Hassan's office to obtain and publicly post the personal information of several Republican politicians amid contentious confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The 24-year-old former aide, Samantha Deforest Davis, was sentenced to two years of supervised probation with 200 hours of community service, with a suspended sentence of 180 days in prison. She was ordered to "stay away from [Hassan's] office to include current and former staff, and to not use Tor or anonymized computer applications," the Justice Department said in a statement....

The de Blasio administration has agreed to add 250 miles of protected bike lanes after a dramatic surge in cyclist deaths. The mayor got behind City Council Speaker Corey Johnson's $1.7 billion proposal to remake the streets in an effort to, “break the car culture in New York,” as Johnson often puts it. Twenty five people have died this year riding bicycles, compared to 10 in all of last year despite the mayor's safe streets agenda, which is called Vision Zero. Bicycle advocates have been demanding the city take new action, especially as traffic increases from e-hailed vehicles and on-demand...

October 29 2019 Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Rom 8:18-25 Brothers and sisters:I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothingcompared with the glory to be revealed for us.For creation awaits with eager expectationthe revelation of the children of God;for creation was made subject to futility,not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it,in hope that creation itselfwould be set free from slavery to corruptionand share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;and...

Daniel Cameron, a black Republican candidate for attorney general of Kentucky, pushed back Sunday against a political cartoon showing him holding onto a Ku Klux Klan robe being worn by President Donald Trump. The cartoon, which was published in the Lexington Herald-Leader, portrays Trump as a member of the KKK and shows him walking away from a burning cross. Cameron—depicted with light skin—is shown happily clutching on the tail end of his robe. "This is what the @HeraldLeader —a ‘tolerant,' left-leaning newspaper—thinks about black folks who dare to be Republican. You're a racist following the KKK unless you hate @realDonaldTrump,"...

Democrat legislators have drafted a bill to import at least 50,000 “climate refugees” per year despite the damaging impact on Americans’ wages and rents. “America will continue to stand tall as a safe haven for immigrants,” declared Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), who was born in Puerto Rico and chairs the House Committee on Small Business. She said: Despite this Administration’s efforts to strip the world’s most vulnerable populations of refuge … this legislation will not only reaffirm our nation’s longstanding role as a home to those fleeing conflict and disasters, but it will also update it to reflect changes to...

Natural history specimens are widely used across ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation. Although biological sex may influence all of these areas, it is often overlooked in large-scale studies using museum specimens. If collections are biased towards one sex, studies may not be representative of the species. Here, we investigate sex ratios in over two million bird and mammal specimen records from five large international museums. We found a slight bias towards males in birds (40% females) and mammals (48% females), but this varied among orders. The proportion of female specimens has not significantly changed in 130 years, but has decreased...

U.S.—Everyone praised the classified "Hero Dog" for taking down ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Everyone, that is, except CNN, who quickly searched through the dog's internet history and college yearbooks. Sure enough, CNN found a picture of the Hero Dog partying at obedience school. In the picture, the dog is seen sniffing a butt without consent. "Oh yeah, good old [redacted]? He was nuts!" said one German Shepherd who attended Old Yaler Obedience School with the hero dog, according to a CNN report. "He was always sniffing any butt he could find. Cats, dogs, humans, you name it. He didn't...