Free Republic

Post #33. With so many rats running for president in 2020 it's hard to keep up with who's in and who's out. Hopefully, this post will help. This thread will be posted each week, likely on Monday, with the dropouts from the previous week and newly declared candidates noted. Below is a list of declared candidates and their occupation. Below that is a list of dropouts, their occupation and the date they dropped from the race. Dropout(s) in the past week: Amy Klobuchar dropped out on Monday, March 2, endorsing Biden for president. Link.Mini-Mike dropped out the morning after Super...

T.S. Eliot, The Hollow MenIt’s all but official, the media has determined COVID-19 to be the tragedy we have been waiting for (Trump’s Katrina!!). We are all doomed.As James Lileks reflects, this could well mark the end of life as we know it…at least for a little while. I suspect this will seem, in retrospect, as the last “normal” week. The one in which there was other news. This doesn’t mean everything will be actually horrible. It means the news will be horrible, in that it gives a sense of a rapidly escalating catastrophe that produces mass unease and uncertainty....

You may have noticed a curious trend recently, usually exhibited by "moderate" progressive pundits, which involves comparing the candidacies of Donald Trump in 2016 and Bernie Sanders in 2020. The most recent I've seen is by Andrew Sullivan at New York Magazine, where he celebrates the Democratic establishment having consolidated power behind the embarrassingly senile Joe Biden, which effectively crippled Bernie's candidacy on Super Tuesday. "If only Trump's rivals had exercised that discipline in the GOP primaries four years ago," Sullivan playfully muses. Like the Democrats in 2020, he argues, the Republicans in 2016 faced an "insistent and ascendant insurgency...

Good Morning And Welcome!

By Cathi Chamberlain The big question leading up to the 2020 elections is who will be the tougher challenger for President Trump, Biden or Bernie? Democrats are deeply divided. That’s a good thing. Bernie Sanders’ message has a strong following, particularly among younger voters. For a generation, our universities have been teaching them a romanticized view of his socialism. Bernie’s ouster from the electoral process in 2016 to facilitate Hillary Clinton’s rise caused a major disruption in their party’s unity. Feelings of betrayal are still raw today. Should the Democratic establishment repeat that strategy in 2020, the party might not...

Good Morning And WELCOME!

Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week,” former Chicago Mayor and former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel sounded off on the 2020 presidential race amid the coronavirus outbreak. Emanuel said the coronavirus precautions preventing President Donald Trump from having his typical rallies and thus missing out on the admiration he craves will be “devastating” and will “psychologically torment him.

“Codswallop” is one of those interesting words that might have been used by Supreme Court justice Anton Scalia in a dissenting opinion, or by conservative intellectual William F. Buckley in describing some liberal policy. It’s a British expression that refers to words or ideas that are foolish or untrue, in other words, nonsense. While codswallop is a good description of the entire Democrat agenda, today I will restrict its use to the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus outbreak, media fearmongering, and resulting public panic. Big media is all about ratings, view, and clicks, hence their axiom, “If it bleeds, it leads.”...

Around the world, leaders and health authorities were struggling to try to get a handle on the rapidly spreading coronavirus. But in the United States, President Donald Trump seems to have thought it would be a great time to hit the links with professional baseball players. On Sunday, the commander in chief played golf with current and former Washington Nationals players at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. The White House doesn’t normally release details about the president’s golf outings but on Sunday, pitcher Patrick Corbin posted a series of photos on his Instagram of the game with...

Over 14 years later, former Congressman Rick Renzi is still fighting for his innocence. He was wrongly imprisoned during the Obama administration by prosecutors and FBI agents who are part of the deep swamp. They got him convicted of attempting to conduct a land trade while in Congress that would have allegedly benefited him — but he didn’t even propose the trade and the judge ruled the land trade was in the “public interest.” Renzi served a 3-year prison term and was released, but he is not giving up on clearing his name. A few months ago, his attorneys filed...

Count the state of Georgia as yet another this year moving to shine much-needed light on how pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) operate. On Thursday, Georgia’s state Senate unanimously (52 – 0) passed SB 313, a bill that restricts the business practices of PBMs just a day after the House voted 165 – 1 to pass other consumer-friendly PBM measures. The Georgia House approved bills that would penalize PBMs for violating the state’s department of insurance regulations and direct them to expand generic and lower cost drug options for consumers.  SB 313 compels PBMs to report the rebates they receive from...

In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act. As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020. ~ Something has to happen this week The Senate is scheduled to recess March 13, 2020. Additionally, the DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court order (due February 5th) has still not been made public....

In February of 1862, Ulysses S. Grant forced the surrender of Confederate forces at Fort Donelson in Kentucky. His demands shocked his Confederate opponents and military observers from across the world accustomed to more chivalrous commanders. That demand was for a simple unconditional surrender. Turn your army over to the mercy of the victor with no guarantees of treatment. Two years later General Grant turned his two most celebrated subordinates, William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan, loose on the remaining sources of supplies in the South. By 1865, the heart of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, plus Georgia and the Carolinas were...

Benjamin Jakes-Johnson was a rising Albany Democrat before he was arrested twice for watching child pornography.

WASHINGTON - - Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. Booker announced on Twitter early Monday that Biden will “restore honor to the Oval Office and tackle our most pressing challenges.” Booker ended his own presidential bid in January, pledging to do “everything in my power to elect the eventual Democratic nominee for president.” “The answer to hatred & division is to reignite our spirit of common purpose,” Booker tweeted. His decision follows recent Biden endorsements by several failed Democratic presidential candidates, including Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former...

Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein injured himself in Rikers Island jail when he fell while trying to walk on his own, according to a Page Six report. Weinstein spokesperson Juda Engelmayer told the New York Post Post gossip section that Weinstein fell on his head Saturday and may have suffered a concussion as a result. Weinstein, 67, had a heart procedure last Wednesday during which doctors inserted a stent, Engelmayer told CNN. He was moved Thursday to the infirmary unit at Rikers Island, New York's main jail complex, Engelmayer said. He's expected to be sentenced March 11 in New York State...

A year after the “London Patient” was introduced to the world as only the second person to be cured of H.I.V., he is stepping out of the shadows to reveal his identity: He is Adam Castillejo. Six feet tall and sturdy, with long, dark hair and an easy smile, Mr. Castillejo, 40, exudes good health and cheer. But his journey to the cure has been arduous and agonizing, involving nearly a decade of grueling treatments and moments of pure despair. He wrestled with whether and when to go public, given the attention and scrutiny that might follow. Ultimately, he said,...

... The race to replace Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, after its traumatic defeat in December’s general election, has largely been conducted in the spirit of bury-the-hatchet pragmatism, to the point of tedium. The three candidates have promised, however sincerely, to maintain the general thrust of the party’s policy platform; divisions have mostly been a matter of tone, style and subtle implication. Rancor and controversy have been restrained among the candidates as well as the 500,000-strong membership. Except in one area: trans rights. A contentious row began last month, when the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights announced...

Steve Hilton spent much of his opening monologue Sunday slamming Democrats and the media, saying they've been stoking the flames of coronavirus panic with the country at risk of a "catastrophic overreaction." "Of course, no one should minimize it, and we must do all we can to stop preventable deaths -- but it seems to me that we’ve got a bunch of people in leadership positions in the media and business and Congress who are running around maximizing coronavirus without a thought for the harm they may be causing," Hilton said on "The Next Revolution." Hilton pointed to a recent...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Psalm 119 Psalm 119[a] ת Taw 169 May my cry come before you, Lord;     give me understanding according to your word. 170 May my supplication come before you;     deliver me according to your promise. 171 May my lips overflow with praise,     for you teach me your decrees. 172 May my tongue sing of your word,     for all your commands are righteous. 173 May your hand be ready to help me,     for I have chosen your precepts. 174 I long for your salvation, Lord,     and your law gives me delight. 175 Let me live that I may...