Free Republic

Regardless of whether or not the U.S Senate votes to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment, as they are expected to do, former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said that the "jury" will still be out. .

The Des Moines Register has not yet signed off on our reader poll of whether we should institute a regular Mid-Week in Pictures, but this is one of those weeks where a special edition, which we have done several times in the past, is fully justified. We’re already overloaded with TWiP material, and by Saturday a lot of it will seem like last year. Has there ever been a 72-hour period with more fun? As I’ve been saying for a while, Trump years are like dog years: a week can seem like six months. John Bolton? Who’s he??

Romney said that had it been anyone else other than Biden, he wouldn't have asked Ukraine to investigate the allegations of corruption, which proved, according to Romney, that this was a purely political move on Trump's part. I disagree. First, Romney doesn't know what was in Trump's mind and secondly, I think that had this been say, a high ranking government official for example, someone in the State Dept, not a political opponent, or even a CEO of a major corporation (such as a large defense contractor) with the same allegations against him or her, Trump would still have asked...

... So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent? ... Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out. Then there's the fact that Sanders was...

... Working with Sanders’ own website, experts project an increase in spending far greater than that required by FDR’S New Deal or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society—roughly $60 trillion over 10 years. Such an explosion in spending requires a massive increase in the federal deficit and/or significant tax increases on the middle class. Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics estimates that the taxes on the wealthy proposed by Sanders cover only between 40 percent and 45 percent of his programs. The rest would be paid, directly or indirectly, by Americans at large. Imagine, if you will, Sanders trying to explain to ordinary...

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told Fox News' Chris Wallace Wednesday in an exclusive interview that he "had to follow my conscience" in deciding to vote to convict President Trump on abuse of power, a decision that's likely to ignite serious blowback from Trump and others in the Republican Party. "I believe that the act he took, an effort to corrupt an election is as destructive an attack on the oath of office and our Constitution as I can imagine," Romney said. "It is a high crime and misdemeanor within the meaning of the Constitution, and that is not a decision...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Chinese man infected with the Wuhan coronavirus has drawn fire from netizens over his alleged reckless behavior that has resulted in the quarantine of more than 4,000 people who may have come into contact with him over the past weeks. A resident from Jinjiang City in Fujian Province reportedly concealed his travel history to Wuhan, the epicenter of the 2019-nCoV outbreak, deceptively claiming he returned from a trip with his family to the Philippines, wrote Liberty Times. Rather than conduct self-quarantine, he moved around the city, attending one gathering after another. According to online accounts,...

As Democrats and the media remain fanatically obsessed with assembling some form of a “quid pro quo” from the infamous Trump-Zelensky phone call, new details have emerged regarding Burisma, the company for which Hunter Biden worked and the company that Ukraine’s top prosecutor had been investigating before Vice President Joe Biden had the prosecutor fired via a months-long pressure campaign. According to web archives, top Mitt Romney adviser Joseph Cofer Black, who publicly goes by “Cofer Black,” joined Burisma’s board of directors while Hunter Biden was also serving on the board. According to The New Yorker, Hunter joined Burisma’s board...

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee pushed back Wednesday on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for downplaying President Trump's honoring of conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh at Tuesday's State of the Union address. “First of all, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is an extraordinarily sacred award," Ocasio-Cortez said. "We’re talking about putting someone on the same level as Rosa Parks, for example, in terms of their contributions to American progress. Rush Limbaugh is a virulent racist.” “For her to complain about a person with State IV cancer who for longer than she has been alive has actually saved AM radio...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., warned Wednesday that investigations into President Trump's dealings with Ukraine may not end after the Senate's afternoon vote in the impeachment trial, and that he may issue a subpoena for former national security adviser John Bolton. Bolton, who was said to have referred to dealings between the Trump administration and Ukraine as a "drug deal," received a request from House Democrats to testify during the impeachment inquiry. After the White House instructed him not to cooperate, however, House Democrats opted not to issue a subpoena and said the president's instruction -- based...

This is a quick post, and I'm hoping perhaps a FReeper has the ability to assemble a rough video draft of my idea as follows for submittal to the Trump 2020 Campaign.. VIDEO STARTS: Excerpt from Trump's SOTU speech: (Trump speaking) "..and the great Tuskigi airmen.." CUT TO: Snippet of Pelosi ripping the SOTU speech with LOUD AUDIO OVERLAY sound of pages ripping Excerpt from Trump's SOTU speech: (Trump speaking) "..lowest African-American, Asian American and Hispanic American unemployment in history" CUT TO: Snippet of Pelosi ripping the SOTU speech with LOUD AUDIO OVERLAY sound of pages ripping Excerpt from Trump's...

It really, really bothered Washington Post deputy editor of the "Morning Mix" feature, Timothy Bella, that Rush Limbaugh received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday during President Donald Trump's State of the Union address. It irked him so much that in his long article he kept returning over and over to the theme that Limbaugh was somehow not worthy of the award in comparison to others who received it. The very title of Bella's article, "Rush Limbaugh joins the likes of Mother Teresa and Rosa Parks as recipient of highest civilian honor," even suggested that he was not as...

Morning "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." 1 John 4:14 It is a sweet thought that Jesus Christ did not come forth without his Father's permission, authority, consent, and assistance. He was sent of the Father, that he might be the Saviour of men. We are too apt to forget that, while there are distinctions as to the persons in the Trinity, there are no distinctions of honour. We too frequently ascribe the honour of our salvation, or at least the depths of its benevolence, more to Jesus Christ than we do the Father....

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS), UW Hospital and Clinics, the local health department, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have confirmed the first case of 2019 novel coronavirus in Wisconsin. The case was confirmed at the CDC. The immediate health risk to the general public for contracting this virus is low. The patient is an adult with a history of travel to Beijing, China prior to becoming ill and was exposed to known cases while in China. The individual is isolated at home, and is doing well. Out of respect for the privacy of the...

Barack Obama has endorsed Gretchen Whitmer for governor. The former president said he's proud to endorse Whitmer because Michigan’s middle-class families need a governor who knows how to get things done. “Gretchen has spent her whole life getting real results for hardworking Michiganders, whether it was raising the minimum wage, or working to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act to cover more than 680,000 people," said Obama.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told Fox News' Chris Wallace Wednesday in an exclusive interview that he "had to follow my conscience" in deciding to vote to convict President Trump on abuse of power, a decision that's likely to lead to serious blowback from Trump and others in the Republican Party. "I believe that the act he took, an effort to corrupt an election is as destructive an attack on the oath of office and our Constitution as I can imagine," Romney said. "It is a high crime and misdemeanor within the meaning of the Constitution, and that is not a...

Reporters at the Chicago Tribune are trying to find a new owner for their newspaper. They're doing it because they're afraid of Alden Global Capital's plans for all of the papers owned by Tribune Publishing. Alden, a New York-based hedge fund, recently became the largest shareholder in the struggling publishing company. Alden has a terrible reputation in the newspaper industry due to its history of slashing jobs and sucking up short-term profits from other papers it controls. "We're doing everything in our power to try to stop them," Gary Marx, a 31-year veteran of the Chicago Tribune, told CNN Business....

Astract fantasies are the new Reality. Get Real – before you get sectioned. Right from the outset of the Trump impeachment fiasco, all voting in the Congress has been on partisan lines. It now ends the way it began, with the Senate set to acquit the President tomorrow in something of a formality. It was predictable, and it is going to leave the Democrats, just as with Labour in Britain, all over the place – unprepared, and unable to field candidates other than geriatrics, those with dodgy credentials or those who look too young to vote. Is anything real (or...

You may have heard of the 7-year old boy, James Younger, of Dallas, Texas.  His parents are divorced, and he has a twin brother named Jude. James’ mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, has been trying with all her might to make James become a girl. Luckily for James, his father, Jeff, stood up and fought for him.  Even luckier for James, a judge finally did, too. Ann started asserting, coincidentally right around the time she and Jeff were divorced, that James was actually a girl.  Ann took the twin boys to McDonald’s, where James requested a “girl” toy for his happy meal.  When...

The US government is airlifting people to military bases in three American states from Wuhan, China, the suspected starting point of the novel coronavirus now spreading globally, and will quarantine them upon arrival. Two flights are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday and another two will land on Thursday, said Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases at the US Centres for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). The flights will arrive at military bases in California, Texas and Nebraska.