Free Republic

Seemingly everyone watching 2018’s race in Texas’s 7th Congressional District felt the same way about Lizzie Fletcher. Her Democratic primary opponent Laura Moser called her “Republican-lite.” When Fletcher won the primary, the Huffington Post called her an “establishment-backed moderate.” The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott saw Fletcher’s campaign as “less a collection of partisan talking points and more a commentary on local issues….” Once Fletcher prevailed that November against incumbent Rep. John Culberson, The Houston Chronicle said “Lizzie Fletcher looks to legislate the way she won: in moderation.” This year, Fletcher needs a new campaign playbook; her moderate self-portrayal can’t hold up...

Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson offered Nancy Pelosi some souvenir acquittal pens after the Senate voted ‘not guilty’ on articles of impeachment Wednesday. Johnson, a member of President Trump’s impeachment defense team, can apparently troll with the best of them. “Just in case Speaker Pelosi is too torn up to hand out acquittal pens, I went ahead and picked some up for our exceptional impeachment defense team,” Johnson tweeted. First off – a ‘torn up’ pun referencing the House Speaker’s staged temper tantrum at the State of the Union is a thing of beauty. Second, Johnson is subtly blasting Pelosi for...

A massive firework launched over a Colorado ski resort town has set a record for the world's largest aerial firework. The 2,800-pound (1,270-kilogram) shell flew 2,200 feet (671 meters) above the Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival before it burst, turning the sky bright red and drawing gasps from the crowd,

Three people were arrested Saturday after a demonstration in downtown Portland, Ore., turned "violent" and a war memorial was vandalized, according to officials. The Portland Police Bureau said the protesters gathered to counter a demonstration outside the Multnomah County Courthouse that was abruptly canceled. Police did not provide details about the previously planned demonstration, but Oregon Live reported it was rumored to be a Ku Klux Klan white supremacy rally at a downtown park. Counter-protesters, including members of Antifa, still showed up even though police said the original event was scrapped. "While the rally was being held and was peaceful,...

HAMPTON, N.H. — Madison Moore warned Joe Biden that the question she was about to ask was going to be a bit mean. Then the 21-year-old student at Mercer University in Georgia launched into a version of what’s been asked of the former vice president since his disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses: “How do you explain the performance in Iowa, and why should voters believe that you can win the national election?” What happened next left her a little shaken, Moore said. Biden said it was legitimate question, but then turned the spotlight back on her, asking: “Iowa’s...

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Pope Francis has called tax cuts for the wealthy a 'structure of sin' before telling a conference at the Vatican the 'rich world can and must end poverty'. At a seminar on economic inclusion hosted by the Church on Wednesday, Francis insisted that poverty could be beaten if the world's rich play a full part in ending inequality. 'Today’s structures of sin include repeated tax cuts for the richest people, often justified in the name of investment and development,' Francis told the meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. 'We are neither condemned to inequality nor to paralysis...

MANCHESTER, NH - For the past year, Democratic voters have been anxious to settle on a savior capable of defeating President Donald Trump. The first week of primary balloting was supposed to speed the winnowing of an outsized field of candidates and showcase Democrats’ readiness to take back the White House in November. But an embarrassing meltdown in the Iowa caucus vote count, and a dismal showing by Joe Biden, once seen as the safest choice to unseat the Republican incumbent, have only heightened fears among some Democrats that their party isn’t up to the task. The early strength of...

The Credibility Crisis of America’s Institutions And there’s only way one out. Mon Feb 10, 2020 Daniel Greenfield 2 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. The nation’s credibility crisis didn’t arrive overnight. It’s been coming down since the sixties. That was a time when 4 out of 5 Americans believed that they could trust the federal government. These days it’s more like 1 out of 5. Congress enjoys the trust of 1 in 10 Americans. The presidency, 4 in 10. (That’s up...

Deep thoughts with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez… AOC speaks to Congress: “Ms. Hutchinson, I also want to thank you about bringing up the poverty draft and this idea of a bootstrap. You know, this idea and this metaphor of a bootstrap started off as a joke because it’s a physical impossibility to lift yourself up by a bootstrap, by your shoelaces? It’s physically impossible. The whole thing is a joke.” __________ 'It's a physical impossibility to lift yourself up by a bootstrap': Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argues everyone needs help to succeed The progressive lawmaker argued nobody succeeds alone, and some people have...

Its Swingin' Monday and we have Chicken Reel Stomp by the Tune Wranglers. The tune was recorded in San Antonio on Feb. 24, 1937. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Bernie Sanders’ campaign plans to ask for a “partial recanvass” of the results of last week’s Iowa caucuses. A campaign aide confirmed the plans on Sunday night, ahead of a Monday deadline for candidates to ask the Iowa Democratic party to recanvass the results. A recanvass is not a recount, but a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly. The state party released updated results on Sunday showing Pete Buttigieg leading Sanders by two state delegate equivalents out of 2,152 counted. The Associated Press remains unable to declare a winner because it believes the results...

The hiring of a top presidential candidate’s staff member to a position within the Nevada Democratic Party has increased scrutiny of the party as it works to put together a contingency plan for its Feb. 22 caucuses. Dozens of Twitter users — most identified as supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders — on Sunday accused the Democratic Party of corruption and hurled insults at Emily Goldman, who was hired as the party’s Voter Protection Director in January. Many called for Goldman and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez to be fired. Screenshots of Goldman’s Linkedin account noted she worked as an...

I’m an unabashed American. That’s an American without hyphens. Snowflake objections to our past don’t concern me. I’m proud of it all. All men are born equal, but not all nations. America is #1, every other nation is not, and that is that. I look down my nose just a little at foreigners, not as 1930s Untermensch, but more in pity along the lines of our homegrown 1980s P.J. O’Rourke.1 Americans are simply unequally better than the rest of the world. Thanks to extra-ordinary good luck, I hold a jewel that much of the rest of humanity wants and I...

“One of the ugliest political spectacles I have ever witnessed” FEBRUARY 8, 2020 BY DAN PETERSON From a recent article by the superb conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg: I have criticized—and defended—Mitt Romney many times. But the effort, admittedly mostly from the worst goons, buffoons, and satraps of Trumpism, to describe him as a person of low character in defense of President Trump is one of the ugliest political spectacles I have ever witnessed. Has Romney at times been calculating? Of course. He’s a politician. But the suggestion that he is not an honest or decent man because he was “disloyal”...

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Republicans sense momentum after impeachment win BY JULIE GRACE BRUFKE - 02/08/20 05:08 PM EST 13,30 House Republicans believe they are gaining momentum after a terrible week for Democrats and a strong one for President Trump. GOP lawmakers are becoming optimistic they have a chance to pick up seats or even win back the majority in November. Taking back the House would require picking up at least 18 seats and would be a tough climb, but Republicans say the turmoil in the Democratic Party and a strong economy bolstering Trump give them reasons for optimism. Spirits were running high during...

House Democrats say even though President Trump was acquitted in the Senate, that doesn’t mean they are going to ease off their investigations into his administration. Democrats are weighing whether to pursue new leads of possible wrongdoing or press forward with probes that were already underway when an anonymous whistleblower's allegations last year sparked the impeachment inquiry. But no matter which route they take, Democrats are confident there is more wrongdoing to be uncovered — it’s just a matter of when and how grave. “Donald Trump, I still believe, is a one-man crime wave, and we can’t let him get...

WORLD NEWS FEBRUARY 8, 2020 / 10:35 PM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO Insider attack in Afghanistan kills two U.S. soldiers and Afghan serviceman Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Idrees Ali KABUL/WASHINGTON ) - Two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan soldier were killed when an individual in an Afghan uniform opened fire on them with a machine gun in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military and two senior Afghan officials said on Sunday. The shootout on Saturday wounded six U.S. service members and three Afghan soldiers. The firefight broke out after a combined U.S. and Afghan force completed a “key-leader engagement” at the...

It is no secret that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), despite being a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention, regards the development of bioweapons as a key part of achieving military dominance. The vice-president of China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, He Fuchu, said in 2015 that biomaterials were the new “strategic commanding heights” of warfare. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general Zhang Shibo went even further in his 2017 book, “War’s New High Land,” claiming that “modern biotechnology development is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability,” including the potential for “specific ethnic genetic attacks.” To be perfectly...