Free Republic

I am in awe of our president. I was not a big Trump fan before the election. In the end I did vote for him and have never looked back. With everything against him, no other man would ever be able to do what this man does. He fights the media. He fights the courts. He fights the democrats. He fights the republicans. The economy is at unheard of heights. When he wins he gets no credit for winning. He has won on immigration. He has won on foreign policy. I am truly awed watching him announce a Middle East...

The ink was barely dry on headlines announcing Kobe Bryant’s sudden death in a helicopter crash Sunday before Twitter started buzzing with reminders about the 2003 rape allegations against him.Just hours after news broke about the crash, which also killed Bryant’s 13-year old daughter and seven others, Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez tweeted a link to a 2016 Daily Beast story recounting the 17-year-old rape case.In a series of follow-up tweets (now deleted) Sonmez unintentionally captured the depressing zero-sum spirit of woke cancel culture, writing, “Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality even if that public figure...

A federal court has ruled Arizona Republicans’ ban on mail-in ballots is illegal and unconstitutional, calling it intentionally discriminatory toward people of color, who already face increased barriers to voting. The ruling is a major victory for the Democratic party, which filed the suit, and will likely make it easier for minorities to get their ballots counted in the largely red state. Four years ago, Arizona Republicans made it a felony, punishable by prison time, for third-party groups to collect mail-in ballots during elections – a process often called “ballot harvesting.” Marginalized communities in the state may rely more on...

A leftover from late last week that's worthy of some extra attention, if only to demonstrate the gulf separating the elite media from much of the country over the issue of impeachment.  Interest is low, as a deeply-polarized and evidently-exhausted electorate remains torn over Democrats' partisan maneuvering and the president's conduct.  The Bolton development we covered yesterday represents a dramatic curveball in DC, which may have an unpredictable impact on the trial and public opinion, but a fresh (pre-Bolton) national survey from the Washington Post and ABC News -- a consistently Trump-unfriendly polling series -- finds that as the president...

Retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz gave what may be the most persuasive case against impeaching President Donald Trump while in the well of the U.S. Senate on Monday evening. Speaking as a representative of Trump's defense team, the lifelong liberal Democrat urged senators to not "let the feelings about one man, strong as they may be, cause irreparable damage" to the fate of other presidents. "Passion and fears of the moment must not blind us," he pleaded. Giving a clinic on the history of impeachment in a matter-of-fact and understandable way, Dershowitz explained the derivation of the idea of...

In the former Vice-President's addled brain, "drunk driving isn't really a crime we should be deporting people for. Many members of Congress have gotten behind the wheel of a car when they shouldn't have. Fortunately, we have immunity from arrest going to and from our duties in Congress. I don't see any good reason why newcomers from foreign lands shouldn't have the same right. That would be the democratic thing to do. I mean, it's not as if they are any worse than the average American citizen." However, statistics do not support Biden's perception. The so-called "dreamers," for which President...

A flight carrying U.S. diplomats, family members and other Americans out of Wuhan, China, as a potentially deadly form of coronavirus continues to spread is expected to land at Ontario International Airport Wednesday. About 240 U.S. citizens, including nine children, will be screened for symptoms of the Wuhan coronavirus before boarding the plane in China, according to a statement from David Wert, a public information officer for San Bernardino County. The flight, chartered by the U.S. government, is expected to leave Tuesday night before stopping in Anchorage, Alaska, to refuel. Passengers will again be screened before the plane continues on...

Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders' White House bid and some Democratic National Committee members are frustrated with some initial appointments made by DNC Chairman Tom Perez to the crucial committees that will oversee the rules and party platform at this summer’s presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wis. Their frustration comes after Perez named former Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts – who was a surrogate for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign -- as co-chair of the convention’s Rules Committee. And Perez picked John Podesta – who served as Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager – to have a seat on the committee. The...

During the 2016 presidential election, I had the feeling that Barack Obama was not very enthusiastic about the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. His rare rallies in support of Hillary were not energetic enough and were held in the same style. Obama told the audience about the successes of his administration, and in the end, he casually introduced Hillary and asked supporters to vote for her in the election. It seemed that he was simply fulfilling his duties to the party but would have preferred to spend time elsewhere. A hypothesis was formed in my head that, in reality, Obama did...

Evangelist Franklin Graham released a statement Monday after an entertainment venue in the United Kingdom canceled his event due to objections over his views.Graham rejected the claim that he was “coming to the UK to bring hateful speech to your community.”“This is just not true. I am coming to share the Gospel, which is the Good News that God loves the people of the UK, and that Jesus Christ came to this earth to save us from our sins,” he stated.“The rub, I think, comes in whether God defines homosexuality as sin. The answer is yes. But God goes...

[snip] Scarborough, repeatedly calling the team a "confederacy of dunces," saved his most repellent comments for Ken Starr. They included this repulsive morsel, so sickening it had even Mika Brzezinski begging Joe to stop [see screencap]: "He literally dragged the corpse of irony out of the grave... He meticulously tied the corpse's neck bone to the back of a tractor, and he ran that tractor throughout the graveyard of stupidity and ran over every headstone! This, before once again kicking dirt on the corpse of irony, again... And the putting its bones back in the grave, one by one by...

Perhaps no other topic tends to be more polarizing or politicized in America than healthcare. Here at Medi-Share, one of the nation’s leading nonprofit Health Care Sharing Ministries, we often find ourselves in the middle of conversations or news articles regarding our unique approach to meeting the healthcare needs of Christians. One such article was recently published in The New York Times under the headline, “It Looks Like Health Insurance, but It’s Not. ‘Just Trust God,’ Buyers Are Told.” We appreciate the interest in the unique and growing alternative of health care sharing, but we believe the article left readers...

Much has been spoken and written lately regarding the evangelical community's feelings toward President Trump, especially since the Christianity Today editorial calling for his removal from office was published last month. Many evangelicals continue to support him wholeheartedly because he has proven repeatedly that he can be trusted to keep his campaign promises and to govern faithfully and conservatively. Others vow never to support him because they feel that he "embodies the anti-Christian ethic." President Trump certainly has a "colorful" past, and that is the key reason why I did not support him in the Republican presidential primary of 2016....

The chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday on allegations that he did not disclose Chinese government funding he received, in an escalation of U.S. efforts to counter what officials describe as Beijing’s aggressive recruitment at U.S. universities. The professor, Charles Lieber, allegedly lied to the Defense Department and the National Institutes of Health about his participation in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, the complaint said. U.S. authorities have raised alarms in particular about the so-called talent programs run by the Chinese government, which officials say create conflicts of interest and offer incentives to...

A South African billionaire businessman has apologized for telling U.S. President Donald Trump that “Africa loves you” during the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. A video of Patrice Motsepe’s remarks to Trump went viral on social media and sparked outrage from people who disagreed with Motsepe and lambasted him for speaking on Africans’ behalf. In the video, Motsepe can be heard telling Trump during a group dinner that “Africa loves America. Africa loves you. It is very, very important. We want America to do well. We want you to do well. The success of America is the success...

One of the last things Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna did before they died in a fatal helicopter crash on Sunday was attend church. Father Steve Sallot with Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Newport Beach, Orange County, spoke to a local media outlet about the father and daughter attending mass. "He was here before the 7 a.m. mass and that's our first mass of the day," Father Sallot told KABC in an on-camera interview. "So he would obviously have been in the prayer chapel before that and he was leaving about 10 to 7." CBS News...

Meet the stentorian six: - Lamar Alexander, a folksy leader from Tennessee whose plain talk has become a Senate staple, and plaid shirts a presidential campaign trademark. - Cory Gardner, a first-term Coloradan representing a rapidly-changing state in a rapidly-changing environment whose poll numbers still keep Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. up at night. - Susan Collins, a Mainer whose fierce independence in a state known for it has been deemed unforgiven by partisans objecting to her vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee under fire. - Martha McSally, a right-of-center, McCain-like, pro-defense leader appointed to fill a Senate...

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger‘s launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle...

Ethan Ralph’s had trouble with big tech for a long time, being one of the early conservatives to get purged from YouTube. Now, Spotify has followed suit in taking Ralph’s messages down.

COOL SPRINGS, TN—Popular financial guru Dave Ramsey announced Tuesday that he has teamed up with financial services corporation Visa to offer an exciting new credit card with a credit line of up to zero dollars for everyone. “What’s great about the official Dave Ramsey card is that it always gets declined,” Ramsey said on his radio program. “Try to buy a new fishing reel? Declined. Try to book a family vacation you can’t afford? Declined. Replace a shredded tire you failed to budget for? Yup, you guessed it—declined.” According to Ramsey, the new card also offers rewards points, giving 0%...