Free Republic

The small but mighty personal pronoun “they” has been declared the 2019 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster, officials announced Tuesday. “They” won the top spot on the annual, data-driven list after receiving a 313-percent search increase on the dictionary publisher’s website in comparison with 2018, the Associated Press reports. In September, Merriam-Webster expanded the definition of “they” as relating to a person whose gender identity is non-binary. Weeks later, the American Psychological Association recognized “they” as a singular third-person pronoun in its latest scholarly writing style guide.

Nancy Pelosi is letting impeachment stand in the way of passing a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Monday. He added that the focus on impeachment could wind up costing her the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. “There is one person holding this up,” Navarro said in an interview Monday on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM. “This thing is locked and loaded and ready for Nancy Pelosi to pull the trigger. House Democrats have been delaying passage of the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA, for months. The Democrats have...

Senator Elizabeth Warren envisions a future where our cars don’t run on gas but on the algae growing in our seas. That’s according to her “Blue New Deal” proposal out Tuesday that’s essentially a Green New Deal for the oceans. And what goes in our cars is only one quick example of the ways she would transform our relationship with the sea if she wins the presidency. This idea of a Blue New Deal has been floated earlier this year. But Warren, whose array of comprehensive climate plans is really quite impressive, is the only presidential candidate so far to...

Three and a half years after candidate Donald Trump bragged he could shoot someone in Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote, a lawyer for President Donald Trump was asked about the same scenario in a court of law. Trump’s lawyer had gone before the judge to stop the release of the president’s tax returns, which the Manhattan district attorney had subpoenaed as part of a criminal investigation. Trump’s legal team was breathtaking in its hubris: Because he was the president, Trump was immune from the criminal laws of New York or any other state. Did the same argument apply...

Sen. Rand Paul suspects someone revoked President Trump's order to have former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance revoked. The president announced in August that Brennan's security clearance was being stripped due to "erratic behavior" that disqualified him from having access to sensitive information. But the White House never followed through with the complicated bureaucratic process of revocation, a source told the New York Times in a report published last month. Asked to comment about it in an interview on CNN, Paul said the "deep state," in which federal or military officials defy a democratically elected government, was likely to blame."Now the...

On 2 October 2019, following an early dusting of snow in Highlands, a retired geography teacher from Inverness called Helen Rennie hiked up to a gentle slope near the top of Cairn Gorm, clipped on her skis and slid a short distance downhill... In doing so she made history, becoming the first person to ski on Scottish snow at least once a month, every month for ten years. Typically, when adventurers complete notable challenges, there is some sort of fanfare: cheering crowds, jostling camera crews, salivating sponsors. In Rennie’s case, however, the celebrations were far from extravagant. “I’m not really...

No excerpt from Bloomberg allowed, story here.

I spent the weekend searching for the meaning of malarkey. One guy I talked to said he thought malarkey was something he ordered at a Greek restaurant. Another said it was Hungarian cabbage soup. A young millennial I interviewed said it was an exotic bird. In my wanderings I talked to another young man who said he believed that malarkey was code for strong strain of Bolivian marijuana. His buddy said it was a county in Ireland.

Democrats have argued that Mr Trump betrayed his oath of office, and put his own political interests above those of the country, by seeking to pressure Ukraine into investigating his rival Joe Biden. Mr Biden's son Hunter was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while he was vice-president. The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing. Mr Trump is accused of trying to leverage $391 million in military aid to Ukraine to kick start a corruption investigation into Mr Biden. The president has called the impeachment inquiry a partisan "witch hunt" and denied doing anything wrong. Other articles of...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday excoriated the FBI’s investigation into now-debunked collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia as a “criminal enterprise.” Graham made the stinging remarks following the Justice Department inspector general report’s release in which 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” involving three applications filed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were detailed. The report, authored by DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz, stated the inaccuracies likely led to the FBI’s justification to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

A fund in which the Vatican’s Secretariat of State has invested tens of millions of euros has links to two Swiss banks investigated or implicated in bribery and money laundering scandals involving more than one billion dollars. The fund is under investigation by Vatican authorities. The fund, Centurion Global Fund, made headlines this week that it used the Vatican assets under its management to invest in Hollywood films, real estate, and utilities, including investments in movies like “Men in Black International” and the Elton John biopic “Rocketman.” Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported that the Centurion Global Fund has raised...

Today’s Cryptogram From today's Arkansas Gazette CPNM ZDI ONK LD, DV LVXNY ZDI ONK, EXFHK HM. EDTLKXUU PNU FXKHIU, ADCXV NKL YNFHO HK HM. —SDPK NKUMXV You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and...

She's a keen environmentalist on a mission to halt and save the planet. And Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio used her December cover story for to spread her message. The 38-year-old traveled to Arabia, which she called one of her favorite places, for the photoshoot in the warm waters around Abu Dhabi’s Zaya Nurai Island. Growing up in Brazil, Alessandro stated, 'I always cared about the ocean. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I always spent quality time with my family and all my vacations by the beach. 'And of course, I always pretended to...

Nancy Pelosi, Serial liar Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and Democrats continue to lose the trust of the American public as they pursue their unprecedented politically motivated impeachment hearings. Democrats changed the rules, stacked the hearings with second-hand and third-hand witnesses, blocked Republicans from their day of witnesses, cut off Republicans from any decisions or requested witnesses, blocked Republicans and the White House from interviewing their original “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella who is linked to Schiff, John Brennan, Susan Rice and Joe Biden. Democrats blocked the White House from confronting their accuser, interrogating their accuser and providing witnesses. The entire process has...

With dozens of cameras pointing at her across a room full of reporters, celebrity teen environmentalist Greta Thunberg had an unexpected message: Look the other way. “Our stories have been told over and over again,” the 16-year-old Swede said, explaining why she and prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer would be handing over the stage at the U.N. climate meeting in Madrid to other young activists. “It’s really about them,” Thunberg added of the young activists from developing countries already facing the effects of climate change, including violent storms, droughts and rising sea levels. “We talk about our future, they talk...

For this year’s Army-Navy game, the Midshipmen have a new — err, old — look, and the Black Knights will honor a contingent of soldiers that attacked from the air. No. 24 Navy will wear uniforms inspired by the teams of the 1960s and a pair of Heisman trophy winners: halfback Joe Bellino and quarterback Roger Staubach. The Mids will wear blue tops with gold shoulder stripes and gold numbers, along with plain gold breeches. The tops feature the American Athletic Conference logo patch, the college football 150th anniversary patch and a patch signifying each Naval unit.

Now we learn that Congressman Schiff was able to obtain the personal phone call logs of his political opponents, including Congressman Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani and others. What isn’t clear is how they were obtained, with or without a subpoena. According to Schiff, “the blowback has only come from the far right.” He’s partly correct, as America in general, is likely far more interested in Sunday’s NFL scores than an outright abuse of power by Schiff and a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The phone call logs Schiff has now made public, showing who called who, and for how long the conversations...

MADRID (Reuters) - The world's richest nations are failing to "behave like adults" and act firmly enough to meet global warming targets set in the Paris climate accord, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday. Kerry, who served as the top U.S. diplomat under President Barack Obama and was a leading player in brokering the Paris Agreement in 2015, said the G20 nations are lagging behind on emission reduction plans and financial pledges to poor countries instead of setting a high bar for global climate action. "The burden falls largely on the G20 to behave like adults,...

As the planet continues to warm, researchers are increasingly pointing out the ways in which global warming will affect our health and that of the species around us. For example, some species of fungi that are resistant to existing treatments may be on the rise as a result of global warming, one study showed. Also, several species of fish may become more toxic as a result of warming waters, and malaria may spread to an unprecedented extent. Now, new research appearing in the journal Ecology Letters explores the ways in which birds may have been affected by rising global temperatures....

House Democrats on Tuesday announced articles of impeachment against President Trump alleging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress regarding his interactions with Ukraine, touching off a rapid-fire sequence that could result in a momentous floor vote in a matter of days.