Free Republic

Donald Trump is impulse-driven, ignorant, narcissistic and intellectually dishonest. So you’d think that those of us in the anti-Trump camp would go out of our way to show we’re not like him — that we are judicious, informed, mature and reasonable. But the events of the past week have shown that the anti-Trump echo chamber is becoming a mirror image of Trump himself — overwrought, uncalibrated and incapable of having an intelligent conversation about any complex policy problem. For example, there’s a complex policy problem at the heart of this week’s Iran episode. Iran is not powerful because it has...

Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said died on Friday evening, state media said early on Saturday. Qaboos, 79, had ruled the Gulf Arab state since he took over in a bloodless coup in 1970. Qaboos had no children and had not publicly appointed a successor. A 1996 statute says the ruling family will choose a successor within three days of the throne becoming vacant. If they fail to agree, a council of military and security officials, supreme court chiefs and heads of the two assemblies will put in power the person whose name has been secretly written by the sultan in...

When Dave Cassidy was asked to help a group of women train for the 2010 Walt Disney World Half Marathon, he readily accepted. Cassidy worked in the sports rehabilitation department at what was then Florida Hospital, but he likely never had done something like this before. Neither had the women, nearly 20 in all, competitive to their core but with little experience running, much less that far. "He really became the center of why we were there,'' said Kari Conley, one of the runners. "I don’t know if we could have achieved it without him.'' Cassidy helped 16 of the...

Here is my impression of the much anticipated movie, 1917.

A divorced mother-of-four who arranged a deadly 'medieval duel' between her ex-husband and her lover to see which of her two admirers would win her hand is facing life behind bars. Asta Juskauskiene, 35, left her husband Giedruis Juskauskas, when she started seeing Mantas Kvedaras, after meeting the 25-year-old online following his release from prison in Lithuania. Both men claimed her as their own so she decided to settle the argument with a fight to the death in an alleyway in Stratford - a duel that she meticulously arranged while at home looking after her children, the youngest of which...

Ilonka Deaton was trafficked into sex slavery at the age of 12. She suffered for six years before finally getting free. Now, her brother, Jaco Booyens, runs a film company that brings the darkness of sex trafficking into the light. He’s out with a film called “8 Days.” Read the lightly edited interview, posted below, or listen on the podcast: . . . Rachel del Guidice: We are joined today on The Daily Signal Podcast by Jaco Booyens. He’s the president and CEO of the film company After Eden Pictures. He is also the founder of SHAREtogether, a nonprofit organization...

Clips tagged #Swamp Judicial Watch: FBI finds new Clinton emails that include classified information Judicial Watch today released 37 pages of new Clinton emails recently found by the FBI that show former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her unsecure, non-government email to transmit classified information. The new emails also show Clinton used text messages for government business. Jeffrey Epstein suicide attempt video accidentally deleted, prosecutors say Surveillance footage taken outside Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell on the day of his first apparent suicide attempt has been permanently deleted, federal prosecutors say. Pelosi: Articles of impeachment will be sent to Senate...

UPDATE 8:20 A.M. Margaret Rudin, 76, was just seen being released from a prison in Las Vegas after serving nearly 20 years. Attorney Greg Mullanax gave a statement on behalf of Rudin, saying that she is happy to be out of prison and plans to go to Illinois to be with her family and is looking forward to getting to know them. Her attorney also talked about Rudin's trial, calling it a fraud and a sham and insisting that his client is innocent. He also said that they are hoping that the federal court will grant her a new trial...

I've taken a lot of flack here on FR for the past few weeks claiming that Buttigieg and his former employer McKinsey & Company were CIA. Mark Stein is filling in for Tucker Carlson and just spent the first ten minutes of the show talking about this.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan repeatedly steered state transportation development money to projects that would increase the value of his real estate holdings, according to a lengthy investigation by Washington Monthly’s Eric Cortellessa. Cortellessa reports that Hogan, who ostensibly left his brother in charge of his real estate brokerage firm when he was elected, has, in fact, maintained ownership and control while serving as governor; the trustees he handpicked to run his company have continued to keep him apprised of its business dealings. And as governor, he has advanced highway and road construction projects that directly boosted the value of land...

No disrespect to Mr. Mike Lindell, but the My Pillow commercials are becoming quite monotonous. He needs some fresh material. Also, disappointed that he has to go to Egypt for his cotton. What’s wrong with home grown American cotton?

NEW YORK, NY—A gleeful Joy Behar reported to the audience of The View the startling revelation that Adolf Hitler never voted for Trump, causing the crowd to cheer wildly. "This just in: it seems that Adolf Hitler never voted for Donald Trump!" Behar cried in ecstasy, causing the crowd to begin screaming in rapturous joy. "Shove that in your pipe and smoke it, bad orange man! Ha! You can't even get an evil Nazi dictator to fall for your shenanigans."

FULL TITLE: Whistleblower Provides Attkisson New Details to Name Rod Rosenstein and Shawn Henry (Crowdstrike) as Defendants in Lawsuit… A very interesting development in the ongoing effort of former CBS investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, to resolve the issue of who spied on her, planted spyware and infiltrated her computer systems for illegal surveillance. [Attkisson website here] According to a recent court filing [Source Here] a person who was engaged in the “wrongful activity” has come forward to provide Ms. Attkisson with details about the operation. As a result of those whistle-blower revelations Attkisson is able to name specific individuals who...

Impeachment articles will supposedly be on their way to the Senate as soon as next week after Speaker Pelosi finally gets around to doing what she claims she’s been doing all this time — picking managers to formally present the articles of impeachment on the Senate floor. “I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler [D-N.Y.] to be prepared to bring to the Floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate.” Pelosi writes in a letter to Democrats on Friday, The Hill Managers could have been picked before articles of impeachment were...

Texas has a lot going for it—low unemployment, population growth, and a favorable regulatory environment. People want to come here, and it’s not just for our brisket and breakfast tacos. But our prosperity is unevenly distributed, with some regions experiencing a disheartening “tale of two cities” dynamic. Port Arthur is one such place. With the enormous growth in the petroleum sector along the Gulf Coast, one might expect Port Arthur’s unemployment rate to be low. Instead, Port Arthur’s unemployment is 8.7%, compared to the statewide rate of 3.1%. One culprit is the striking mismatch between high school career and technical...

Since 1969, "Virginia Is for Lovers" has been the tourism and travel slogan of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Advertising Age called it "one of the most iconic ad campaigns in the past 50 years." But the Virginia of 2020 seems to be another country than the friendly commonwealth to which this writer moved four decades ago.

With The killing of Qassem Soleimani, Iran supreme leader Khamenei lost his most important handler and lever in the middle east region. Khamenei did not say anything at the funeral, he just cried. Khamenei, at great expense, tried to drive around the casket of this butcher of people, who also made 6 million Syrians homeless, in the city of Mashhad, Ahwaz, Qom, Tehran, and Kerman. Government propaganda for the funeral of this criminal is reminiscent of Hitler’s fascist propaganda in June of 1942 for Reinhardt Heidrich, the main organizer of the Holocaust. Like Heidrich, Suleimani was a cruel executioner and...

Attorney John Huber is expected to conclude that there was no criminal conduct by the Clintons regarding the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal. www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-winds-down-clinton-related-inquiry-once-championed-by-trump-it-found-nothing-of-consequence/2020/01/09/ca83932e-32f9-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html#comments-wrapper This result means that numerous cases of blatant self-dealing by the Clintons, which were cited in Peter Sweitzer’s book, Clinton Cash, are without merit according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Apparently, Huber managed to waste two years and millions of taxpayer dollars to produce the politically-driven forgone conclusion that the Clintons are criminally faultless, which any informed observer knows is total nonsense. Even Captain Obvious is appalled at this whitewash, which comes...

An interesting perspective on a visitor's view of life in Iran observed over 14 days.

Before becoming one of the most influential women in the United States, Melania Trump enjoyed a low-key life on the streets of Slovenia with a wealth of family, friends, and dreams of a bigger future.(snip) BBC News interviewed some of her former acquaintances in her hometown, and each revealed amazing things about the fashion icon's personality. One of the 49-year-old's former playmates, Jerca Santej, explained how Melania figured she wanted to be a designer right from the age of sixteen. Jerca added: "She had a straight idea what she would be, and that's unbelievable for such a young girl, so...