Free Republic

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has a new national goal: He’s going to expand his massive private army to 4 million gunmen by the end of 2020. Another triumph of socialism! And never mind that the policies of Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have brought the nation to ruin, with all but the rulers and their clients facing slow starvation and “health care” without any medicine. Well over a tenth the population has fled, with more leaving all the time.

House Democrats made it official — they will vote on two impeachment articles. But as history-making events go, the announcement was extra weird. The decision was expected, yet the way it unfolded was strange. Speaker Nancy Pelosi obviously put out an order requiring her team to adopt a sackcloth-and-ashes pose for the cameras, as if they were attending a funeral. No high-fives, back slapping and smiles today! Gotta pretend we’re not enjoying this!

A 16-year-old high school student in Michigan claims her male teacher assaulted her for wearing a “Women For Trump” pin. Sadie Earegood, a junior at Mason High School, told FOX 47 that the alleged incident unfolded last Thursday when her teacher confronted her, saying he didn’t like the pin. “That’s fine, you don’t have to like it, we can have our opinions,” she recalled telling the educator.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made a puzzling argument on Tuesday in order to counter a conservative nonprofit's argument about free markets providing paid family leave. "Do we know how long puppies are allowed to stay with their mothers after a dog has given birth?" she asked during a House Oversight Committee hearing on paid leave. "Uh, eight weeks. So, the market has decided that women and people who give birth deserve less time with their children than a dog," she added.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D. N.Y., said Tuesday she plans to vote against a bill put forward by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would allow the government to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs. Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal lawmakers have been urging Pelosi for months to make the bill more progressive and have threatened to delay the bill without the changes, including making negotiated drug prices available to those without insurance, Politico reported.

Pete Buttigieg earns 3 'Pinocchios' over claim he slashed black poverty rate 'by more than half' in South Bend, Ind. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was awarded “Three Pinocchios” – the highest bluff rating on The Washington Post’s Fact Checker scale – after claiming last week that he had “cut the black poverty rate by more than half” in South Bend, Ind., since he became mayor there in 2012. Buttigieg made the assertion at a Dec. 2 meet-and-greet in Allendale, S.C. – where the majority of the population is black. According to the Post, the 2020 hopeful used estimates from...

Raleigh, N.C. — An anti-abortion group will soon start operating next door to a Raleigh clinic that provides abortions as part of a legal settlement with the city. A Hand of Hope ministry, which operates the Your Choice Pregnancy Clinic and provides free pregnancy services, purchased property at 1522 Jones Franklin Road four years ago for its new office. The site is next to A Preferred Women's Health Center. When the Raleigh City Council rejected a zoning change to allow the ministry to move in, Hand of Hope sued. The organization argued that the city had violated its First Amendment...

Oracle, a major Silicon Valley tech company, will move its annual OpenWorld conference to Las Vegas next year – over concerns about San Francisco’s hotel rates and the city’s “poor street conditions,” according to reports. The loss of OpenWorld, which has been held in San Francisco for about 20 years, is raising new concerns about whether the city’s struggles with homelessness, open drug use and street violence may be scaring off tourism and other business, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “For the industry, for the city, to have a major conference leave us impacts all of us,” Kevin Carroll, chief...

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said Tuesday she's willing to impeach President Trump again if he wins reelection in 2020. TMZ founder Harvey Levin presented Bass with a scenario in which Trump wins a second term but Democrats take over the Senate from the Republicans. "There's no such thing, really, as double jeopardy in an impeachment trial because it's political," Levin said. "Suppose he gets reelected... and you win back the Senate in a big way. If you did that, would you be inclined to take a second bite at the apple and reintroduce the exact same impeachment articles and then...

Fox News' Gregg Jarrett said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff appears to be guilty of the same offense he claims President Trump has committed. In an interview Tuesday on "The Ingraham Angle," Jarrett said Schiff is ignoring established legal precedent by depriving Trump and the Republican Party of due process. Schiff, D-Calif., did not allow the Republicans to call witnesses before his committee while they considered impeachment, and has not allowed the GOP to speak with the Ukraine whistleblower, Jarrett noted.

Republican Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida announced Tuesday that he will not seek another term, saying he never meant to spend more than eight years in Congress. Democrats seized upon the news as a sign of weakening morale among the GOP. Yoho, who aligned himself with the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party and has been a fierce supporter of President Donald Trump, joins at least 27 House Republicans in announcing their departures from the U.S. House. Of those, 23 aren't seeking reelection, while three have resigned and already left Congress. And one — California Rep. Duncan Hunter —...

Medical Examiner noted daughter's use of NuvaRing in report MUSKEGON, Mich. — A mother in West Michigan is warning women about the potential dangers associated with certain birth control methods. Alexzandria Givens died in July, just two days shy of her 21st birthday. She had gotten out of bed to use the restroom when she collapsed. Her boyfriend quickly dialed 911 and Ally's parents. Ally's mother, Carla Givens, told FOX 17 on Friday, “It was a worst nightmare phone call you’d ever get in your life. We got it and we rushed out of bed and went to his house...

Last month, the pro-life group Americans United for Life (AUL) released the results of a survey on abortion clinic regulations commissioned through YouGov. The results indicated that super-majorities of Americans favor common sense regulations abortion facilities. Specifically, it found that 75 percent of respondents think that abortion doctors should be held to the same medical standards as any other physicians. Similarly, the poll also found that 70 percent want to hold abortion facilities to the same standards as hospitals. Finally, the results indicate that 78 percent of respondents believe physicians performing abortions should be able to transfer patients directly to...

When Governor Matt Bevin walks out of his office for the last time last night, it’s somewhat fitting that the U.S. Supreme Court picked yesterday to uphold one of the most important laws he ever signed — the Kentucky ultrasound bill. The justices, who watched the ACLU appeal all the way to their doorstep, refused to even hear the case. Instead, they deferred to the Sixth Circuit, which didn’t see the harm in showing moms a picture of their babies before they abort. If it’s just “a clump of cells,” who cares? Liberals, that’s who. The last thing the abortion...

Will this be what finally puts Crooked Hillary behind bars? Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said in a Fox News interview last week that three whistleblowers have come forward with hundreds of documents exposing the illicit behavior of the Clinton Foundation. The documents allegedly indicate the misappropriation of funds and quid-pro-quo promises made to elite donors. The Clinton Foundation is widely believed to be a slush fund used by the Clintons to enrich themselves and their cronies. Meadows, a House Freedom Caucus leader who leads the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, is set to have a hearing this week on...

Pro-abortion researchers would rather misinform women about the danger of the abortion pill than safeguard them from its risks, a scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) says, and their terminated study of Abortion Pill Reversal only further proves the "serious life-threatening risks" of taking the abortion pill. “Instead of focusing on the facts that the abortion pill is dangerous, the attempt here is to mislead the public into believing that any attempt to reverse the abortion pill and delay killing the baby could be potentially more dangerous to the mother," CLI Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences Dr....

As NRL News Today reported, on September 13, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland granted the request of the AMA and the Red River Women’s Clinic, the state’s only abortion clinic to “block the new North Dakota law requiring doctors to inform women seeking medical pill abortions about abortion reversal if they change their minds.” Represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the AMA and the abortion clinic also went after a part of the state’s 1975 Abortion Control Act which requires physicians to inform women that an abortion will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being....

Las Vegas is a place where you learn to expect the unexpected — but one recent discovery has even locals surprised. Facebook user Bobby Lee originally posted the video that has people either in stitches or up in arms, according to the New York Post: Apparently, at least two pigeons in Las Vegas are wearing little red cowboy hats. The sight is amusing — pigeons wearing hats? How ridiculous is that? But of course, the concerning bit is how the hats got there and why they're staying put — something Mariah Hillman with the animal rescue Lofty Hopes is pursuing....

The impeachment proceedings against President Trump have fueled all manner of conjecture regarding the proper discharge of foreign policy, hidden motives behind both Trump’s phone call and the ensuing investigation, and everything from the dead-cat bounce of the Mueller Report to the Kurdish policy shift. But there are a number of questions that, while they should be asked, haven’t been. (Obligatory disclaimer: None of these questions are intended to either excuse or indict the actions of Trump, the impeachment-hearing participants, or anyone else.) 1. Why is the U.S. giving $400 million to Ukraine, anyway? It makes little sense. Europe is...

The Conservatives are gaining confidence daily: you can tell from their amplification of the “red threat” in the final yards of the campaign – a dose of anxiety to galvanise their supporters. If they were genuinely anxious, they wouldn’t be able to show it for fear of looking weak. They have plenty of evidence to support their self-belief – they still have a clear lead in the polls. And, until Monday at least, they have survived a campaign with a “gaffe-prone” leader, which in 2019 is what we call a contemptuous clown spewing out race hate. They will hear the...