Free Republic

Nineteen Eighty Four is the name of a book warning of the dangers of Soviet Communism and totalitarianism in general. It was also the year the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua was bombing and shooting the indigenous Miskito Indians to steal their land. Nineteen eighty four was also the year that Bernard Sanders, then Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, went to Nicaragua to show his support of the Communist dictator, Daniel Ortega. That was also the year Sanders made Burlington a sister city to the Nicaraguan port city of Puerto Caveza.

John Franzese, who emerged as one of the deadliest, most prosperous and longest-living Mafia chieftains while basking in the company of celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Rocky Graziano, died on Monday, almost three years after he was released from prison because of his advanced age. He was 103. His son Michael said Mr. Franzese, who was known as Sonny, died in a hospital in the New York area but gave no further details. He had recently lived in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, his son said. Well into his 90s — an age when most mobsters are retired or...

Harvey Weinstein was rushed to hospital by ambulance on Monday, shortly after being found guilty of raping and sexual assaulting two women. The disgraced Hollywood producer, 67, was said to have been redirected to Bellevue Hospital Center after suffering chest pains. A rep later confirmed he was suffering from high blood pressure and having heart palpitations. Judge James Burke had initially ordered Weinstein to be taken to Rikers Island prison immediately, until his sentencing on March 11. Weinstein was convicted by a New York jury of sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in his apartment in 2006 and raping...

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court is denying author Jon Krakauer's petition to force the State of Montana to release more records related to the University of Montana rape controversy of a few years ago. Krakauer has been fighting for the past several years to force the Montana Office of Higher Education to release full records of the 2013 investigation into reported sexual assaults at UM. Those incidents formed the basis of his book, "Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town."

For the past month, the centrist Democrats running against Sen. Bernie Sanders have begged Democratic voters not to nominate him. Former Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have argued that putting a socialist atop the ticket would help President Donald Trump and hurt Democratic candidates down the ballot. These warnings are well-founded, but they haven’t worked. Sanders has won the popular vote in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Why, despite the warnings, is Sanders still winning? One reason is that a lot of people like him and what he stands for....

The Trump administration announced Monday night that it will ask Congress for "at least $2.5 billion" in additional funding to fight the coronavirus. The request indicates that the administration is seeking to step up its response to the virus as it spreads to more countries. However, the request met quick resistance from Democrats. Just $1.25 billion of the request is for new funding, with the rest requested to be taken from existing health programs, including $535 million from fighting Ebola. "The Trump administration’s request for emergency funding is woefully insufficient to protect Americans from the deadly coronavirus outbreak," said House...

Andrew Yang and the 'Yang Gang' built his candidacy up to be a last ditch effort against a technological apocalypse. Now he's a CNN talker. What a sad ending to the Andrew Yang saga. Andrew Yang just signed on to CNN as a political commentator. He follows in the footsteps of many flunked presidential candidates. CNN finally has a Don Lemon for smart people. Presidential aspirant Andrew Yang threw in the towel after the New Hampshire primary. He conceded that as “the math guy” in the race, he had to acknowledge his numbers don’t look good in Super Tuesday states.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews apologized Monday to Bernie Sanders for comparing the Democratic senator's win in the Nevada caucus to the Nazi takeover of France.

... Back in 1989, Sanders wrote, “Cuba — the one country in the entire region that has no hunger, is educating all of its children and is providing high quality, free health care — is hated with a passion by the Democrats as much as Republicans.” Besides the moral obtuseness of arguments like this, the factual basis for such claims is dubious. Cuba was already doing well on measures of health care and education prior to the revolution. By one estimate, Cuba’s per-capita income in 1955 was about half that of the most advanced Western countries and on par with...

India can help solve the accessibility problem of breakthrough cancer treatment CAR -T Cell therapy, according to American physician scientist Carl June. CAR-T therapies have been effective against certain types of blood cancer. However, the treatment remained inaccessible to most patients due to its cost. The CAR-T therapy costs about $1 million - $1.5 million, including administration and hospitalisation costs in US. Novartis charges Kymriah - its CAR-T therapy about $475,000 for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). ALL is type of childhood blood cancer. Novartis guarantees refund of money if the therapy doesn’t work after one month. It charges $373,000 for...

My friend, Venerable Phuoc Tan, was a refugee from communist oppression in Vietnam and is a Buddhist Abbot. He has established a magnificent temple on a clifftop above the Maribyrnong River near Melbourne. VPT is a custodian of conservative, traditional values which nations like Australia desperately need, but are tragically destroying in a process that I describe as insane, suicidal self-destruction (cf Pat Buchanan “Suicide of a Superpower”) How have Vietnamese refugees contributed to American life? If you look at the little video clip here (https://tujuhbelasan.com/2019/12/17/sustainable-development-1-spiritual-control/) you can see an Australian World War Two Veteran, Trooper Al Godfrey, chatting with...

Police said Monday that they are investigating a video of an elderly man being robbed and assaulted while collecting recyclables on a San Francisco street.

Pete Buttigieg, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke at a Sunday service at the First Baptist Church in James Island, South Carolina, yesterday and cited a verse from Proverbs 3 in his address to the congregation. . . . Proverbs 3 closes—in a part that Buttigieg did not quote—with a statement that “the Lord detests the perverse.”

Pope, Italian Prelates Tight-lipped on Role of Islam in Persecution Crisis "Don't mention the war," is one of those droll British witticisms. It refers to well-meaning people who don't want to offend. It originates from a classic episode of the much-loved British sitcom "Fawlty Towers." When a group of German tourists stay at his shambolic hotel, Basil Fawlty, the bungling hotel manager, keeps repeating the phrase to his staff while managing to be extremely rude to his shocked guests from Deutschland. Inebriated by his cognitive dissonance, Basil's insults culminate in a goose-stepping impersonation of Adolf Hitler.  Egyptian Christians are facing severe persecution At the Bari conference...

Nothing can stop Ethan Hunt ... except the coronavirus. That's right ... Tom Cruise and co. are gonna be sent packing from Italy after Paramount announced Monday they were putting a pause on production for their latest installment in the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise -- and it's all because of the worldwide outbreak. The studio says, "Out of an abundance of caution for the safety and well-being of our cast and crew, and efforts of the local Venetian government to halt public gatherings in response to the threat of coronavirus, we are altering the production plan for our three week shoot...

JPMorgan Chase announced Monday that it is planning to end loans to companies pursuing fossil fuel drilling in the Arctic Circle, according to reports. The Washington Post reported that the bank said that it will soon complete a 2017 commitment to help fund $200 billion in projects to help meet the U.N.'s sustainable development goals, as well as $50 billion for "green initiatives." The bank also plans to phase out all existing and future loans to the coal industry by 2024, and end the financing of oil and gas extraction projects in the Arctic, a region vulnerable to the effects...

Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighborhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid. No more. 'You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,' he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighborhood to show how long the lines got. But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside. With new...

Ocasio Cortez Close To LOSING Her Seat In Congress, Bail Reform BACKFIRED And Democrats Declare War. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has been waging a massive battle against establishment Democrats for some time now and they have responded in kind. The far left candidate has seen her popularity collapse in national polls and swing state polls and her recent push for bail reform in new York has backfired tremendously with a massive 43 point swing from favorable to unfavorable. Now she is facing a major challenge in the upcoming primary which is in only 4 months and Democrats are poised to...

US President Donald Trump has addressed a huge rally at a mega cricket stadium on his maiden official visit to India ... The two leaders then headed to a new cricket stadium - the biggest in the world - where Trump heaped praise on Modi as an "exceptional leader, a great champion of India" in front of a crowd of nearly 100,000. "America loves India. America respects India, and America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people," Trump told the ecstatic crowd, many in Trump-emblazoned baseball caps. Name-checking Bollywood films and Indian cricketers, Trump - with...

Pakistan sees itself as a major regional power but recent events show that Beijing considers Pakistan little more than a subordinate colony to be exploited but not heard. Inside Pakistan, India is an obsession. Communal violence surrounding the 1947 partition of India claimed up to two million lives. India and Pakistan subsequently fought three wars: In 1965, when India retaliated for Pakistani efforts to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir, in 1971 against the backdrop of the Bangladeshi War of Independence, and again in 1999, when Indian forces pushed back against a Pakistani offensive in Kargil, along the line-of-control. As...