Free Republic

A pledge to investigate the Bidens and Ukraine once the impeachment trial wraps is sparking divisions among Senate Republicans. SNIP “I know there’s been some discussion about the Judiciary Committee taking a look at that. I think what I would like to see happen around here is a return to normalcy,” said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Republican senator, in response to a question from The Hill about talk within the caucus about investigating the Bidens. “People just kind of put their spears down and let’s get back to work and focus on I think what most people...

White House Pondering Shrinking the NSC, Starting With Firing the Pudgy Fat-Ass "Lieutenant Colonel" Vindman This article starts off all right... The White House is reportedly weighing options to dismiss Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council (NSC) in an effort to shrink its foreign policy bureaucracy, a report said. Bloomberg reported that the White House plans to frame it as part of an NSC staff downsizing, not a retaliation. Then the article starts spinning for #The Resistance: Vindman had drawn applause from spectators during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee -- after expressing his love for...

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report found that the Trump economy is continuing to pump jobs into the market. And yet, still no evidence of the recession the liberal media have been howling about. The most recent jobs report found that the U.S. economy added 225,000 nonfarm payroll jobs for the month of January, destroying economists’ expectations of 158,000 jobs. Predictions were off by roughly 67,000 jobs. Notable job gains occurred in construction (+44,000), in health care (+36,000) and transportation and warehousing (+28,000).

If your name is Karen, Becky, or Chad, you may have noticed a growing trend of people using your name as an insult. Increasingly, “Karen” in particular has emerged as the frontrunner for the average “basic white person name” — a pejorative catchall label for a wide range of behaviors thought to have connections to white privilege. And the recently trending Twitter hashtag #AndThenKarenSnapped has further shifted the “Karen” meme from its nebulous origins toward becoming a mainstream trope. Where a similar insult like “OK Boomer” stereotypes a specific generation, calling someone a “Karen” draws on associations people have built...

A factory to make Roman fish sauce about 2,000 years ago has been found in Ashkelon -- about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) outside the ancient city. The location of the vats on the southern city's outskirts shores up the supposition that the fish sauce, called garum, had to be manufactured out of town because the process was an olfactory abomination. The fish farms that provided the raw material for this ancient industry were no joy to live next to either, it seems. Being a reeking concoction that begins with drying fish guts and then a fermentation stage, adding spice and...

Very easily the president's finest and most inspiring speech to date. Get ready for a LANDSLIDE in 2020!! Here's to the FUTURE! #TRUMP2020

Glad to hear Rush is back...

eter Strzok says he is ready to respond to President Trump's "attacks." The former FBI agent reviled by Trump and his allies tweeted Thursday evening, something he rarely does, to respond to the president who mocked him and fellow FBI alumna Lisa Page hours earlier at the White House. He shared a message from his lawyer, Aitan Goelman, who said: "Angered by the disclosures of yet more instances of his betrayal of our national security in the service of his own political advantage, President Trump raged and threatened those public servants tasked with investigating or testifying about his serial misconduct."...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied multiple appeals to rehear a decision upholding the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) repeal of the Obama-era net neutrality rules. The 2015 net neutrality rules classified internet service providers as common carriers, similar to telecommunications providers, who are not allowed to discriminate against various forms of traffic. The FCC under Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai repealed those rules in late 2017 and also barred states from passing their own net neutrality regulations. Pai's action faced legal challenges but was upheld by a district court and then by the D.C. Circuit in October. The...

Due to severe demand amid the coronavirus outbreak in China, the world is now facing a “severe disruption” of medical masks and other protective equipment, according to the World Health Organization. The current supply chain of medical masks, respirators, and other related equipment is facing a four-to-six-month backlog, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday. “The world is facing a chronic shortage of personal protective equipment,” he remarked before adding that the demand for masks is about 200 times higher, tantamount to a “severe disruption” of the market. The health official...

When Syria’s civil war erupted, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) recruited, trained, and deployed thousands of Shi’ite fighters to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Among them was the Fatemiyoun Brigade, comprised mainly of Afghans from the country's Shi'ite Hazara minority. From 2011, the IRGC recruited thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees within its own borders and covertly drafted hundreds of Shi'a inside Afghanistan. The majority of Muslims in Afghanistan are Sunni, but around 15 percent of its population -- mainly Hazara -- are Shi’a with religious links to the Shi'ite majority in Iran. With the...

An Airbus A320 airliner with 172 passengers on board has made an emergency landing in the Russian-controlled Khmeimim air base after Syrian air defenses nearly hit it, Russian news agencies have quoted a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying. The Syrian air defenses were trying to repulse an Israeli attack near Damascus, Igor Konashenkov was quoted as saying on February 7. According to Konashenkov, after 2 a.m., four Israeli F-16 fighter jets fired at targets in the suburbs of Damascus without entering Syrian airspace. During the attack, a passenger plane with 172 passengers on board en route from Tehran to Damascus...

Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! Now that he has been forever acquitted, President Trump should put the failed partisan impeachment attempt behind him, 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. Highest priority political items: 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...

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is currently withholding approval for at least six commercial orders for arms and ammunition from U.S. companies to Ukraine, BuzzFeed has reported. "The Trump administration is currently withholding approval for at least six commercial orders for arms and ammunition from US companies to Ukraine, together worth roughly $30 million, according to three current Ukrainian officials and a former senior U.S. official who have direct knowledge of the sales, straining an already fragile relationship between the two countries," says the article posted on the BuzzFeed's website on Thursday. All four officials said that five of the...

The Democrats will continue a steady stream of investigations into President Trump, said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Friday, advising the president to focus on his accomplishments while the far-left continues to "trap" Nancy Pelosi into pursuing unpopular policies. "They want to shoot at Trump as often as they can until they finally get him and they'd like him to be nice while they're doing it," Gingrich argued on "America's Newsroom." Well, they've got the wrong guy because Trump is gonna counter-punch every time and as president, he's got a bigger punch than they do." Gingrich said in the...

The White House plans to transfer Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, whose testimony in the House impeachment hearings infuriated President Trump and his allies, out of the National Security Council staff as early as Friday, two senior administration officials said. It was not immediately clear where he would next be sent within the Defense Department, one administration official said, but Colonel Vindman is on active duty in the military. The action comes just days after Mr. Trump was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial that turned in part on the testimony of Colonel Vindman and other administration officials who described...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore on Friday raised its coronavirus alert level and reported more cases not linked to previous infections or travel to China, a move that sparked panic-buying of essentials in some shops across the island. As Singapore’s infected tally hit 33, the alert level was raised to orange - a level reached during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak and the 2009 H1N1 influenza which indicates the virus is severe and passes easily between persons. With the disease reviving memories of SARS which killed more than 30 people in Singapore and hundreds worldwide, shoppers started clearing shelves...

What does Mitt Romney stand for? Not what is he against — we know that — but does he stand for.It’s a serious question: What motivates Mitt? Why did the junior Republican from Utah come to Washington? Was it for the military? Families? Business? Abortion? Guns? The old Reagan-Republican way? It’s truly hard to say.He’s generally toed the line on the military, failing to distinguish himself as either a hawk or a dove. He sure likes his family, but he voted to shut down Catholic adoption in Massachusetts a full 13 years before President Barack Obama followed suit. He’s...

NASHUA, N.H. —Outside the castle-themed Radisson Hotel where Joe Biden has been staying, his campaign bus was parked and ready for events. But on Thursday, just five days before the crucial primary here, the candidate was nowhere to be found. Biden spent Thursday gathered with his top advisers at his home in Wilmington, Del., seeking a reset and perhaps a last-ditch effort to save his candidacy, beginning with a debate Friday night. He held no public events.

[snip] Vindman currently works in the White House, and his term on the NSC was set to end in July. He had already told senior officers that he planned to leave his posting early, The Washington Post (Trump lambastes his critics.....)