Free Republic

The newly released White House budget for 2021 proposes cuts to foreign aid, however aid to Ukraine is slated to remain at its 2020 level—a notable standout given how central a role military aid to Ukraine played in President Trump's monthslong impeachment trial. The Washington Post reported last week that the Trump Administration’s 2021 budget will contain $365 million in aid to Ukraine, including $250 million for military support. Though the White House has been accused of putting American security at risk for withholding funding to Ukraine last year, a comprehensive assessment exposes that the U.S. has no security interests...

The first confirmed case of the new coronavirus was detected in Egypt on Friday, a joint statement by the country's health ministry and the World Health Organization said, adding that the ill person was a foreigner, without giving further details. The person tested positive for the quick-spreading virus but had no symptoms so far, health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said, adding that he had been quarantined in a hospital. The health ministry said in a statement that it is taking all necessary preventative measures and had informed WHO upon the detection of the case. The spokesman said the case was...

Five years ago, Valentine's Day was marked in Denmark by murder - not a lot of murder by the standards of similar events before and after, but this one struck close to home: It would be the last time my old comrade Lars Vilks appeared in public. My closing remarks below on the shriveling perimeters of free speech and the popular support it requires have proven sadly true in the half-decade since. Here is some of what I had to say about the events of February 14th 2015: Today, Valentine's Day, a café in Copenhagen hosted a discussion on "Art,...

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg said in 2018 that shifting too much money from the rich and giving it to the poor posed a bigger problem than income inequality. During a Q&A session at a forum with International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, the former New York City mayor was asked about the future of job creation with the emergence of artificial intelligence. In a lengthy answer, Bloomberg said encouraging the movement of money away from the wealthiest people would slow economic growth. "I think income inequality is a very big problem. But the bigger problem is, you can...

President Trump’s appearance at the Daytona 500 on Sunday may feature a guest appearance from the presidential limousine known as “The Beast.” Trump is planning to take a lap around the track at Daytona International Speedway prior to the venerable NASCAR event, Fox News chief White House correspondent John Roberts reported on Friday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. Plans have not yet been finalized. NASCAR named Trump the grand marshal of the Daytona 500, marking the first time a sitting president has held the honor. He is the latest of several presidents to visit the historic race. Daytona...

Private health insurance companies routinely deny legitimate medical claims. Most denied claims for doctors are for in-network (so-called “contracted”) services. In these cases, patients never see a bill, and the doctor must separately try to resolve the dispute with the insurance company. For out-of-network (“non-contracted”) claims, however, the doctor is required by law to send the patient a bill while trying to resolve the billing dispute. Most of these denied claims are for legitimate emergency services. They are simply routine claims, not exorbitant or outlier charges as some folks lobbying for the insurance industry would have you believe.  Don’t take...

When Joe Biden left New Hampshire on Tuesday before the votes had been counted in the state’s primary and held an event in South Carolina, it was widely viewed as a sign of desperation by a faltering campaign. But while many have written off Biden’s presidential bid as being on life support, South Carolina political observers and insiders told Yahoo News that he’s still got a good chance of winning the Feb. 29 primary in the Palmetto State. “I think Biden could still win,” said Gibbs Knotts, chair of the political science department at the College of Charleston and the...

Willaim Barr assumed the reins of the Department of Justice (DOJ) a year ago, succeeding Jeff Sessions as attorney general (A.G.) of the United States. By universal consensus, the tenure of Sessions was an epochal shipwreck, disfigured as it was by Sessions, who infamously and needlessly recused himself from the entire Deep State Russia Hoax while simultaneously declining to root out Deep State operatives obsessed with removing Trump from office (to say nothing of maintaining and even extending legal protections afforded the likes of Hillary Clinton and Lois Lerner, among other Democrat-friendly government officials). Like Pontius Pilate, Sessions washed his...

HONOLULU -- A man who visited Hawaii was confirmed to have coronavirus when he returned home to Japan, Hawaii officials said Friday. Health officials were tracking down details about his travel in the Aloha State, including his flight information and people with whom he had close contact. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified Hawaii about the man having the illness known as COVID-19 on Friday morning, Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said. The man was in Hawaii Jan. 28 to Feb. 7. He first visited the island of Maui, where he had no symptoms, Anderson said. He...

America’s long-term national debt problem could lead to economic Armageddon. The misguided belief that we are actually paying down our debt is giving this administration a false sense of security. We can have all the growth we can muster in our GDP but if we are spending more than what’s coming in, the debt will only keep building. The days of growing our way out of debt were lost $5 trillion ago. This week the CBO announced that for the first four months of the government’s fiscal year ending in January we had created a deficit of $1.2 trillion. As a...

SHANGHAI/PARIS - An elderly Chinese tourist infected with the coronavirus has died in France, Paris said on Saturday, becoming the first fatality in Europe and the fourth outside mainland China from an epidemic that has rattled the world. Thought to have originated from a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the outbreak has dented the world’s second largest economy and presented a huge challenge to the ruling Communist Party. In the French case, the 80-year-old Chinese man died at the Bichat hospital in Paris of a lung infection due to the flu-like virus, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said.

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the...

... The practice of government taking land for recreational uses—typically bike lanes, hiking paths and fashionable “rail trails” and “greenways”—is spreading across the country, marking a sharp and troubling expansion of eminent domain. The Takings Clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment grants government the authority to seize property to be used for the public good, as long as government pays “just compensation” to the owner. Over the years, the Supreme Court has consistently expanded what is considered a “public good” to justify government seizures. In 2005, for instance, the high court upheld the taking of Susette Kelo’s waterfront home by...

The New York Times pointed out that there were as many commercials for electric vehicles during Super Bowl LIV as there had been between 2011 and 2019 combined. GM teased the upcoming GMC Hummer EV, Audi promoted its e-Tron Sportback, and Porsche showed off its new Taycan. While these commercials highlighted the new vehicles getting ready to hit the road, they did not acknowledge a much less flashy but still critically important issue: transitioning to this greener future will require charging infrastructure that can fuel the nation as effectively as gas stations currently do. And as a nation we are...

Posted on 9/10/2016, 10:40:12 AM by nikos1121 I am proud to stand and say unashamedly and unabashedly that I am deplorable. Who else is deplorable? Stand up and be counted! I will always believe that the turning point of the 2016 Election occurred during the week of 9/10/2016 when Hillary Clinton called us all here Deplorables. I’m reposting this today to see how many of here are still deplorable, and proud of it.

... Mr. Sanders wouldn’t be this close to the White House if not for the complicity of Democrats and the liberals who dominate the academy and media. Rather than fighting the ideas that animate him and his millennial voters, they have indulged and promoted them. They created the political environment in which he could prosper. Consider the intellectual currents he is riding: • The attack on capitalism and markets. Like Tony Blair in Britain, Bill Clinton’s New Democrats accommodated the economic lessons of Ronald Reagan. By the Obama Presidency, all that had changed. The left blamed markets for the 2008...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- There were women weeping in a chapel here. One named Veronica was something like inconsolable. She was talking about the crucifixion of Christ as if it was happening right then and there. She was feeling it. She was overwhelmed by the love of a God who would save humanity from the misery of sin and finality of death by coming into the world as a baby and dying such a brutal death. Through their tears, women were giving thanks to God for a successful three-day mission here at America's largest Catholic parish, St. Matthew's, led by a...

The Las Vegas Raiders have been rumored to be interested in Tom Brady, and a report emerged indicating they may pay handsomely to land the future Hall of Fame quarterback. Veteran NFL reporter Larry Fitzgerald Sr., the father of the Arizona Cardinals receiver, provided this interesting nugget on Friday: I’m told Las Vegas is prepared to offer @TomBrady $60 million over 2 years. Now, $30 million a year isn’t exactly top dollar these days, and there are reports that $40 million a year could soon be reached for another top QB.

... Mr. Bloomberg’s giant spending isn’t just buying ads, it’s driving up ad rates to make it harder for other Democratic candidates to get their messages out, it’s buying up campaign talent so they can’t, it’s corralling Democratic Party influentials to endorse his candidacy or at least mute any noisy criticism of his effort. When a recording leaked of Mr. Bloomberg defending stop-and-frisk in New York, Andre Fields of the liberal voting-rights group Fair Fight Action rushed out a tweet hitting him as a “true terrorist” but promptly deleted it. Fair Fight Action had received $5 million in funding from...

Defense attorneys for Roger Stone demanded a new trial Friday, one day after President Trump suggested that the forewoman in his longtime political confidant’s case had “significant bias.” The legal motion could affect Stone’s Feb. 20 sentencing date on charges of witness tampering and lying to Congress. The basis for the request was filed under seal Friday, but its existence was disclosed in a court order by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who gave U.S. prosecutors until Feb. 18 to respond.... The Supreme Court standard for juror qualification is that they need not “be totally ignorant of the facts...