Free Republic

Virginia Democrats mistake their legislative control as a mandate for extreme liberal social re-engineering — and it shows where the rest of the party is headed. For the first time in 26 years, Virginians voted a Democrat majority into both the state’s House and Senate. Four weeks into the General Assembly, the new majority is voting in laws restricting parents’ rights, removing religious protections, and disturbing rights traditional to Virginians.“The aggressive onslaught of hostile legislation is new this year,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia. “Virginia has never even had a public policy discussion about forcing...

Whither the Democrats? Will they lurch so far left that they fall off a cliff, dragging the entire party to ruin? Or will they listen to the voices from the middle of the country telling them to stop being crazy and get to work? With Joe Biden sinking into irrelevancy, Elizabeth Warren fading fast, and other candidates preparing their exit speeches after the New Hampshire primary is over, the Bernie Sanders juggernaut is ready to steamroll the opposition and ride Trump hatred and socialist delusions all the way to the Democratic convention in July. Can anyone stop him? The genuine...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., fired back at former CIA Director John Brennan for labeling him "beneath contempt" for reading the alleged impeachment whistleblower's name during the Senate trial. Brennan wrote on Twitter than Paul "typifies the worst" of President Trump's "craven enablers." "Any Senator excusing this dangerous behavior makes a mockery of public service," Brennan said. "History will revile all of you." Paul reacted by pointing to Brennan's service under President Obama, including his role in using the dubious anti-Trump "dossier" to launch a counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. "You want to know what’s a mockery of public service,...

As the Iowa Democratic Party sorts out the final results of their caucuses earlier this week, pollster Scott Rasmussen said that one thing is for certain — it was a real bad night for former Vice President Joe Biden. “Look, we have something at Ballotpedia, we call ‘pivot counties.’ These are the counties that went twice for Obama and then voted for Trump,” he explained. “In those 31 counties that contain people Democrats want to win back, you would think Joe Biden, having been on the ticket with Obama, would do really well,” said Rasmussen. “[Biden] won just one of...

Dr. Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist who first raised the alarm about the coronavirus in China, has passed away. When he tried to warn colleagues about the disease, he was arrested by the authorities for "rumor-mongering." "We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice — is that understood?" It is reported that he caught the disease from a patient or patients he was treating and died some days later. Do you believe this? Only about 2% of the people who contract this virus die from it....

President Trump has beaten his biggest political threat to date after being recently acquitted in the Senate’s impeachment trial. The latest Gallup Poll shows Trump reached a job approval rating of 49%, a record. Presiding over an economy that continues to expand during an election year will likely get Trump re-elected, according to Brad Neuman, director of market strategy at Alger, an investment management company. Although Trump’s approval ratings are high (relative to where they’ve been), his numbers aren’t as high as past presidents’ ratings were – Ronald Regan reached 68% in 1986 and Bill Clinton was at 56% in...

Because the American electorate is rather evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, turnout becomes the key to electoral success in November. While a lot can happen in nine months, there are five factors that I see discouraging Democrat turnout and helping the GOP. 1. The Biden family scandals Thanks to Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the impeachment lynch mob, the lid has been blown off the Biden family’s practice of trading on the patriarch’s position to enrich themselves. Biden’s campaign is imploding, so he won’t be on the ballot. But the investigations of Hunter and Burisma are heating up and...

Whether one is a Donald Trump supporter or not, it’s impossible to deny this has been one of the best weeks for the Trump presidency ever. Whether one is a Donald Trump supporter or not, it’s impossible to deny this has been one of the best weeks for the Trump presidency. With record-high approval ratings and a primetime address to showcase the administration’s accomplishments, Trump emerged exonerated from the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, ending a three-year effort to remove the president for the crime of winning the 2016 election while Democrats remain in chaos. The Iowa Circus To start,...

China's central government has ordered Wuhan to round up all suspected coronavirus patients as well as their close contacts in mass quarantine camps. The country's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called on a 'people's war' against the fast-spreading epidemic, which has killed at least 638 people and infected more than 31,520 globally. She demanded Communist officials of all levels take active lead in this 'wartime condition', or face being 'nailed onto the pillar of historical shame forever'. The city has around 14 million residents, but it remains unknown how many people would be quarantined or where they would be kept.

A federal appeals court in Washington threw out a lawsuit accusing President Trump of illegally profiting off his private businesses while in office, ruling that the Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit lack standing to bring the case.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Cuba) couldn’t be bothered to attend the 2020 State of the Union address, but she somehow managed to find the time to record a short message harshly criticizing President Trump’s decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh in the wake of Limbaugh’s recent announcement of having advanced lung cancer.   On Instagram live, @AOC hits Trump for awarding "virulent racist" Rush Limbaugh a medal of freedom #SOTU2020 pic.twitter.com/p8ZBGq02HC — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 5, 2020   Instagram video screen grab via Twitter She begins her video reaction to Rush Limbaugh receiving the...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Mark Steyn. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Mark Steyn, America's Undocumented Anchorman, is Rush Limbaugh's primary guest host. He is best known for his humorous quips behind an unrelenting defense of the Constitution.Welcome back, Rush! All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the...

Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020? *SNIP* Bitecofer has already released her 2020 model, and is alone among election forecasters in giving the Democrats—who, of course, do not yet have a nominee—the 270 electoral votes required to claim the presidency without a single toss-up state flipping their way. She sees anyone in the top tier, or even the second tier of candidates, as strong enough to win back most of the Trump states in the industrial Midwest, stealing a march in the South in places like North Carolina and Florida, and...

Today’s doozy CG is from The Arkansas Gazette. AGH SLGB MIDBH, JRUO DUO ELGP RUHL IFIU SLGB EJDPPIEH DWHE. HMRE RE HMI EIWBIH LC EGWWIEE.---ETDJR ERFDUDUOD You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and...

A federal appeals court in Washington threw out a lawsuit accusing President Trump of illegally profiting off his private businesses while in office, ruling that the Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit lack standing to bring the case. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said in a 12-page decision that the dispute centering around the Constitution's emoluments clauses has no place in the court system. "The Members can, and likely will, continue to use their weighty voices to make their case to the American people, their colleagues in the Congress and the President himself,...

Nothing reveals the character of the Democratic Party more clearly than the Democrats' vote to convict based on the second article of the impeachment of Pres. Trump — an article that was about legal disputes over subpoenas, which would normally be settled through the courts. Instead of doing that, however, the issue was sent to the Senate, where, instead of making legal arguments, Democrats simply cried "cover-up!" to Republican opposition to their demands. For this, because Trump adhered to the legal process, Democratic senators voted, and voted unanimously, to remove...not themselves, but President Trump from office. (Were they kidding?) The...

Former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh ended his Republican primary challenge to President Donald Trump on Friday, abandoning an effort that faced long odds and financial struggles from the start. ”I’m suspending my campaign, but our fight against the Cult of Trump is just getting started. I’m committed to doing everything I can to defeat Trump and his enablers this November,” Walsh said in a tweet. Walsh faced fundraising hurdles and obstacles from the Republican Party from the start. Walsh also failed to get his name on the ballot in some states, including Vermont, Mississippi and Walsh’s home state of Illinois....

"Climate chaos" has caused widespread losses of bumblebees across continents, according to scientists. A new analysis shows the likelihood of a bee being found in any given place in Europe and North America has declined by a third since the 1970s. Climbing temperatures will increasingly cause declines, which are already more severe than previously thought, said researchers. Bumblebees are key pollinators of many fruits, vegetables and wild plants. Without them, some crops could fail, reducing food for humans and countless other species. Dr Tim Newbold of University College London (UCL) said there had been some previous research showing that bumblebee...

The other two are duds who were on this week. Ken whats his name and the other guy. Or maybe Rush is back today.

The chairmen of two U.S. Senate committees are disputing claims made by an FBI official to the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG), saying the claims are contradicted by four classified footnotes in a recent OIG report that delved into FBI’s surveillance of Trump 2016 presidential campaign aides. The report, released Dec. 9, 2019, found “17 significant errors or omissions” in a surveillance warrant and its three renewals the FBI took out on one of the aides, Carter Page, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 2016 and 2017 (pdf). The senators, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) of the...