Free Republic

A wooden statue mocking U.S. President Donald Trump was burned to the ground Thursday in Slovenia, the birthplace of his wife Melania, authorities said. The nearly eight-meter (26-foot) high construction, erected last year in a village in northeast of Slovenia, showed Trump with his trademark hair style, blue suit, white shirt and a long red tie. His right arm — fist clenched — was raised high like that of New York’s Statue of Liberty. Slovenian police are looking for the arsonist. When triggered, a mechanism inside the statue opened a red-painted mouth and shark-like teeth used to appear.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is facing rising pressure to transmit articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate, as members of her own party signal they are losing patience with her delay tactics. Pelosi, D-Calif., indicated to Democratic colleagues — first on Tuesday in a memo, and again on Thursday during a press conference — that she plans to continue to hold onto articles of impeachment, at least until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., releases a resolution outlining the terms for a Senate trial. “We need to see the arena in which we are sending our [impeachment] managers....

The Democrats can’t stop their only concern is how to bring in more illegals into their so-called sanctuary cities! We all know that means more voters for them because real Americans don’t trust them and they have to rely on these votes to get elected! The city of San Francisco will now allow non-citizens to vote in the area’s regional school board elections. Cities like Chicago, Illinois, and Cambridge, Massachusets also allow non-citizens to vote in regional elections. Giving the illegal alien population the right to vote would almost ensure Democrat dominance in statewide and national elections, as foreign populations...

In his address to the nation this morning, Donald Trump asserted that the ballistic missiles that targeted the al-Assad and Erbil bases in Iraq yesterday were paid for using “funds made available by the last administration.” Few things irritate media fact checkers more than Trump’s accusation that Obama helped fund the Iranian regime and its terror apparatus. Probably because it’s completely true. Now, we don’t really know that Obama’s ransom payments to Iran in 2016 subsidized those specific ballistic missiles, but we do know that money is fungible — especially when you have access to small denominations of European cash...

WASHINGTON—President Trump proposed a major overhaul of federal environmental permitting, responding to business complaints of bureaucratic delays that have bogged down infrastructure projects such as roads and energy pipelines. “We want to build new roads, bridges and highways bigger and faster,” Mr. Trump said from the White House, adding that the proposal would help create new jobs. But environmentalists assailed the changes to rules tied to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, saying they would weaken standards at a time when climate change is making federal review even more critical. “Forcing federal agencies to ignore environmental threats is a...

Written and directed by Albert Brooks. A successful Los Angeles advertising executive (Brooks) and his wife (Julie Hagerty) decide to quit their jobs, buy a Winnebago, and follow their Easy Rider fantasies of freedom and the open road. Then things take a turn in Las Vegas..."Twenty Two!!" - scene from Albert Brooks' "Lost In America" (1985)

A federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration can divert $3.6 billion in military funds to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Multiple reports indicate the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to temporarily stay a lower court ruling out of Texas. Reuters reports the stay is pending an appeal by the Trump administration of the ruling by a federal judge that prevented the transfer of funds. El Paso County, Texas, and the Border Network for Human Rights have been challenging the funds transfer. The panel noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had issued a stay in...

Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen, who is accused of running a human smuggling operation that paid pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to give up their babies in the U.S., has resigned from his position... Thousands of files related to his adoption business were discovered on his government laptop, cementing the board's push to remove him. Content recovered on the laptop included text messages of pregnant women being threatened when they changed their minds about giving up their newborns. Prosecutors say for several years, Petersen was paying women to come to the United States to give birth and give their...

The Ukrainian Airlines flight which crashed in Tehran killing 176 people on Wednesday was shot down by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile system, Pentagon and US intelligence officials believe. Three security officials said that Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was struck by a Russia-built Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile system as it left Tehran on the way to Kiev, according to Newsweek. Two of the officials said the aircraft was likely targeted by mistake by Iranian missile systems that were active on Wednesday night as Iran launched rockets at two US basis in Iraq, waiting for a possible counter-strike. The plane, a Boeing...

Once you age an Old Fashioned or martini for 60 days, you’ll never go back.... __________________________________________________________________________________________________ If you want a truly exceptional cocktail at home, you might need some patience. How does 2-3 months sound? If you’re barrel-aging your cocktails, the extra time might be worth it. You’ve probably seen (or ordered) a barrel-aged drink at one of your city’s finer cocktail establishments. These aren’t just drinks thrown into the same casks that will up a distillery’s warehouse; these are tinier, often countertop-sized vessels that can imbue your drinks with a unique character. “In a barrel, the cocktail tends to...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she will send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate "when I'm ready," rebuffing calls from top Democrats to submit them. “No, I’m not holding them indefinitely," Pelosi told reporters during a press conference at the Capitol. "I will turn them over when I’m ready, and that will probably be soon.” Some Democrats in the House and Senate have joined Republicans in recent days in saying it's time for Pelosi to send the articles to the Senate. After initially saying in an interview Thursday morning that he thought...

Once upon a time, hen and duck decided to make a cake to celebrate their longtime friendship. Hen was a great baker and duck had a deft beak for frosting, and between the two of them they created a magnificent cake. They were just about to partake of their creation when up ambled fox. “Wait, wait!” said fox. “A friendship cake should be divided exactly equally. Would you like me to cut the cake for you to make sure you each get your fair share?” Hen and duck agreed that this would be a good idea, so they handed the...

Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) claimed Tuesday there were no embassy protests or deaths of American contractors under the Obama administration. Speaking with Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom,” the lawmaker disagreed with President Trump for arguing that President Obama had an opportunity to take out Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.“The president took on former president Barack Obama in an interview, saying, ‘Knowing what we know today and knowing what had been going on, there was an opportunity before to take out Soleimani,'” host Sandra Smith said. “Do you think there were any missed opportunities in the past that would have prevented Iran from...

U.S. officials are confident Iran shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in the hours after the Iranian missile attack on U.S. targets earlier this week, CBS News has learned. The Ukrainian International Airlines plane crashed Wednesday soon after takeoff from Tehran's airport, killing all 176 people on board. This is a developing story and will be updated.

Happy New Year, everyone!! Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! President Trump should take the win in the Senate trial without dragging it out, then concentrate on winning the 2020 election with wide coattails, then bide his time as the cases against the various coup plotters wind their way through the justice system. Win the election, hold the senate, take back the house!! And then continue the work of making America great again: Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all!! End DACA!! End sanctuary cities!! End anchor babies!! Continue cutting regulations, cutting government, cutting spending and...

In the 1973 movie “Soylent Green,” Earth is grossly overpopulated and broiled by global warming. “How can anything survive in a climate like this?” asks Thorn, a New York cop played by Charlton Heston. “A heatwave all year long. A greenhouse effect. Everything is burning up.” It’s a fable, not a forecast, but it gets some things disturbingly right. As for “burning up,” 2014-2018 were the five hottest years in observed weather history, and last July was the hottest month. In the last decade Greenland melting has doubled, Antarctic melting tripled, sea-level rise accelerated. Civilization won’t end tomorrow, but its...

Will Mika Brzezinski be in touch with Nancy Pelosi today to recommend the addition of a new article of impeachment—the high crime of blackmail? The question arises because on today's Morning Joe, Mika strongly suggested that President Trump is blackmailing Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. She first wondered out loud what Trump "has on" Graham. She later suggested that the President has dug up "dirt" on Graham and Rubio, and has them "under his thumb," coercing them into saying positive things about him. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Interview with MP Andriy Derkach for Interfax-Ukraine (two months old but not seen on FR or any US media outlet) Q: Earlier you were the initiator of the case on the interference of senior officials of Ukraine in the U.S. elections, in particular on the Regions Party's "black ledger." Now comes National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the U.S. Embassy and Biden. Why do you need this? A: Since 2016, Ukraine has been at the center of domestic politics and the political confrontation of its strategic partner, the United States. Today the situation has become threatening: in the United States,...

The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activist group, announced on Thursday that it will endorse Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic presidential nomination. The endorsement could provide Sanders a political boost among a crowded field of Democratic White House hopefuls competing for young and environmentally focused voters in the primary race, while reinforcing criticism among moderates that his proposals are too radical. The youth movement, founded in 2017 by college students upset that politicians were not doing enough to combat global warming, now claims to have around 10,000 members. "Senator Sanders has made it clear throughout his political...

The head of the largest U.S. energy industry group on Tuesday warned that Americans risk choosing the “wrong path” in the 2020 presidential election if they vote for a candidate seeking to fight climate change by banning drilling. The chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute said such proposals from Democratic candidates seeking to unseat Republican President Donald Trump pose a threat to the economy, and urged a room filled with nearly 800 energy executives to push back against them. The industry group also announced a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, focused on U.S. political swing states, that bills the oil...