Free Republic

Tired of all this WINNING yet? – Gosh, it’s been like four trading days since we were able to celebrate the setting of new record highs on the various stock market indexes. Oh, hey, that’s because it has been all of four trading days since that happened. But on Wednesday that happened yet again, with both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 closing at record high levels. The Dow closed slightly below its all-time record due only to weakness at Boeing after one of its planes flown by Ukrainian Airlines was shot down shortly after taking off from Tehran. Dow’s futures,...

A Cincinnati Planned Parenthood could be forced to close because it has not been able to comply with a health law that protects women suffering from emergency complications. The AP reports the abortion facility does not have a transfer agreement with a local hospital, as required by law. Until recently, the state granted it a variance, allowing Planned Parenthood to have agreements with four doctors to treat patients with emergency complications instead. In late December, however, Ohio Health Director Amy Acton rescinded the exception after one of the four doctors ended his agreement with the abortion chain, according to the...

Congressional hearings were created to educate lawmakers so they have knowledge before they pass bills or impeach a president. Not today. Today, hardly any education happens. During the President Trump impeachment "testimony," legislators tried to score points. At least five times, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., shut down criticism by shouting, "Gentleman is not recognized!" I get that politicians are eager for "face time" in front of a larger audience, but I assumed they would at least try to learn things. Nope. Maybe they don't want to ask real questions because they fear looking as dumb as then-Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah,...

This last week was like a bad bet, one where President Trump insisted he could get Democrats to defend Iran and someone said there was just no way that was possible. If this hypothetical existed, President Trump would’ve won, easily. Maybe I grew up in a different country, but I swear there was a time when the country rallied together in times of crisis. Petty differences always existed, but as a nation we had the “your mamma” rule – where someone could say anything they wanted about their mother, but there was a line for everyone else. Americans are...

Iran's response to the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was to put on a light show over several Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. It was just enough to show the people of Iran and the world that the regime was serious about responding to the attack but benign enough to signal to the United States that they were standing down, at least as a nation state. The country of Iran is in real trouble. Sanctions have decimated the economy and there is great social unrest. Add to that the fact that their military mastermind -- the man who ran...

“It was characteristic of the Jazz Age that it had no interest in politics at all. It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, writing about the Twenties in 1931 This year Throwback Thursdays will be dedicated to a look back at how we have changed – or not – during the past century.  First I would update Fitzgerald’s quote for the Roaring Twenties of the 21st century: “It was characteristic of the Jazzed Age that it had...

On Wednesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts issued a proclamation declaring Jan. 22, 2020, as a Statewide Day of Prayer. Wednesday is the 22nd is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. "Governor Ricketts’ proclamation encourages Nebraskans to pray for an end to abortion and a deepening in respect for the humanity of unborn children," a press release stated.

According to Cincinnati, Ohio-area Fox affiliate WXIX-19, CNN reached a settlement Tuesday with Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann for an undisclosed amount in federal court. The news brings to an end a dispute nearly a year after CNN decided to falsely tar and feather Sandmann and his fellow students as racist rascals following a January 18, 2019 confrontation with the less-than-truthful Native American activist Nathan Phillips on the National Mall. Fox 19 said that “[t]he amount of the settlement was not made public” and was a piece of a $800 million suit Sandmann brought against “CNN, the Washington...

In the wake of the airstrike President Donald Trump ordered to take out top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, some in the liberal media have gone over the top in attacking the president over the order while treating the murderous Iranian regime’s reaction to Soleimani’s death with deference. Aside from largely downplaying and glossing over Soleimani’s indisputable history as a brutal thug enforcer for the repressive Iranian mullahs, the media has also seemed to take glee in highlighting the massive crowds that turned out — estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions — for several days of...

Editor’s note. Hard as it is to believe, we are just two weeks away from commemorating the 47rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. For the past two weeks, we’ve been reposting some of our prior stories written about Roe and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton. The following first appeared in December 2013. When we flip the calendar over to December, even more than usual, we come to think about the anniversary of an earth-shattering event that will be only seven weeks away: January 22, 1973. Last year attention focused a great deal around the obvious—that it had been 40...

NRA HQ Range in Fairfax, Virginia Virginia House Bill no. 567, prefiled on 6 January, 2020, and offered on 8 January, 2020, seems aimed particularly at the NRA headquarters range at 11250 Waples Mill Rd. in Fairfax, Virginia. HB 567 contains a number of provisions that single out the NRA HQ range from nearly all others. Here are the provisions of the bill: Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:1. That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding in Article 3 of Chapter 12 of Title 18.2 a section numbered 18.2-511.2 as follows: § 18.2-511.2. Indoor shooting...

More than 500 abortion workers have left the industry since Abby Johnson began her outreach to them seven years ago. According to the Christian Post, 550 abortion clinic employees and seven doctors have left their abortion jobs with the help of And Then There Were None. Johnson herself worked at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility for years, even receiving an award at one point for her dedication. Eventually, she left after realizing that abortions, not women, were Planned Parenthood’s top priority, and abortions kill unborn babies. Seven years ago, Johnson began And Then There Were None to help other abortion...

“In love [God] predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will” (Eph. 1:4-5). Because God loves you, He adopted you as His child and grants you all the rights and privileges of family membership. Moses told Israel that God didn't choose them because of their great numbers or any inherent goodness on their part, but as an expression of God's sovereign will and sacrificial love (Deut. 7:7-8). That's true of you as well if you're a Christian. The Greek word translated “love” in Ephesians 1:4 speaks not of emotional...

After losing its top strategist, military commander and arch-terrorist, Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian theocracy is weighing responses. One, Iran can quiet down and cease military provocations. After attacking tankers off its coast, destroying an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, shooting down a U.S. drone and being responsible for the killing and wounding of Americans in Iraq, Iran could now keep quiet. It might accept that its strategy of escalation has failed to lead to any quantifiable advantage. Trump did not prove a passive "Twitter tiger," as his critics mocked. Instead, he upped the stakes to Iran's disadvantage and existential danger....

Addiction expert and reality show star Dr. Drew Pinsky is reportedly mulling a congressional run and is considering mounting a bid against his current congressman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Pinsky, who has been an outspoken commentator on homelessness and the opioid crisis, told The Hill that seeing the impeachment hearings on television increased his desire to get involved in the political process. “I was watching all the impeachment proceedings and I was going, ‘Oh my God, our Congress is tied up and we’re dying out here in California. What are these people doing?’ ”

Rod Rosentein, the former deputy U.S. attorney general who oversaw the Russia investigation after Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe into the Trump campaign, has taken a job with a corporate law firm, according to reports. Rosenstein, 54, has accepted a position with King & Spalding LLP, an Atlanta-based firm that operates 20 offices around the world. He will join the firm’s special government investigations team in Washington – with an office that directly overlooks the White House, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Referring to it with happy little buzzwords such as “climate justice,” the city of Portland will soon be implementing the first (and hopefully only) “green new deal” carbon tax in the nation, which city “leaders” estimate will suck $60 million out of the economy. The money will allegedly be going toward “creating” “green energy” jobs. They say the tax will only affect The Evil Corporations™ specifically referring to Walmart. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/portland-passes-green-new-deal-carbon-tax-first-of-its-kind/

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News in an interview Wednesday that the Senate will take up President Trump's impeachment trial next week shortly after he crafted a resolution that called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Graham, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Sean Hannity that Pelosi's "dam is about to crack," and cited recent reports that show emerging fissures in her own party. Several Democratic senators have publically called on the articles to be delivered. "You said it was urgent," Graham said. "If you believe it to...

An Ukrainian Airlines plane carrying 180 passengers and crew crashed tonight just minutes ago after takeoff from Tehran, Iran! This comes on the same night that Iran fired a dozen missiles at US bases in Iraq. Al Hadath Dubai News reported a missile took down the Ukrainian flight. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/breaking-dubai-news-iranian-missile-took-down-ukrainian-plane-that-exploded-after-takeoff-from-tehran-airport/

The death rate from cancer in the United States saw the largest ever single-year decline between 2016 and 2017 since rates began declining in 1992, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society. The increased survival rate was mainly due to advances in the treatment of lung cancer. This deceleration in lung cancer deaths spurred an overall drop in cancer mortality of 2.2% from 2016 to 2017, according to the report. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer in the United States, accounting for about 27% of all cancer deaths — more than breast, prostate,...