Free Republic

South Lawn3:05 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. So we’re going to Charlotte — the Charlotte area. We’ll be talking about healthcare. We have a lot of good things happening with respect to healthcare and very positive on preexisting conditions, very positive on the fact that we got rid of the individual mandate, which was the single-most unpopular thing having to do with Obamacare, the Obamacare disaster. And — but we have a lot of incredible things, positive things, and very good things, and money-saving things on healthcare.And then we’re going to Florida. We have a big rally, and it’ll be...

LEONARDO DA VINCI's masterpiece the Mona Lisa has captivated art lovers for centuries - but now, a scientist who analysed every inch and layer of the famous portrait has discovered hidden details beneath the painter's brushstrokes.The early 16th Century painting is arguably one of da Vinci’s most famous works and currently resides in the Louvre, in Paris. It’s estimated that 80 percent of their annual 10.2 million visitors attend to see the Mona Lisa. Scientist Pascal Cotte was asked to digitise the painting using a specialist camera, which was able to capture hidden layers beneath the portrait. From his multispectral...

Four people in Texas including a county commissioner were charged with felonies Thursday in an alleged ballot-harvesting scheme, while the Justice Department opened an investigation into discarded mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. The developments came as President Trump voiced renewed concerns about the potential for fraud in widespread mail-in voting in the presidential election. “We have to be very careful with the ballots,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s a whole big scam.” Texas officials announced charges in what they called a vote-harvesting scheme during the state’s 2018 primary election, accusing four people of arranging to have people mailed absentee ballots even though...

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room 1:23 P.M. EDT  MS. MCENANY:  Good afternoon, everyone.  The radicals are in control of the Democrat Party.  Make no mistake, Democrat radicals want to shatter norms and disregard precedent for the sake of the very norms and precedent they claim must be safeguarded.They’ve proposed court packing — an egregious idea.  They’ve entertained impeachment as punishment for the President exercising his lawful Article Two, Section Two authority to appoint — nominate, rather, a justice to the Supreme Court.  They’ve advocated for the abolition of the Electoral College.  These are all the tactics that they’re...

As a Republican whenever you hear the words “ballot harvesting” you know you’ve lost the race.Democrats just stole the 2020 election in North Carolina and Republicans did not even put up a fight. President Trump may be leading in the polls but it doesn’t matter.  It won’t matter when the final votes are counted two weeks after the election..Democrats passed new rules this week to accept ballots 9 days after the election and allow illegal ballot harvesting. If you are not willing to fight the Communists you will be ruled by the Communists.Update from a trusted friend in North Carolina…..A...

Most of us are familiar with Martin Luther’s heroic statement at the Diet of Worms when he was called upon to recant. “Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture, or by evident reason, I cannot recant, for my conscience is held captive by the Word of God, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.” Today, we rarely hear any reference to the conscience. Yet throughout church history, the best Christian thinkers spoke about the conscience regularly. Thomas Aquinas said the conscience is the God-given inner voice...

"I was never an evil monster until you decided that I was... I never cared if you were 'gay' until you started shoving it in my face, and the faces of my children. I never cared what color you were, until you started blaming my race for your problems. I never cared about your political affiliation until you started to condemn me for mine. I never cared where you were born until you wanted to erase my history and blame my ancestors for your current problems. I never cared if you were well-off or poor, until you said you were...

It’s the most popular park in Monterey County, but Toro Park, which was under a partial shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now closed to all visitors indefinitely due to extensive damage from the River Fire. The park, which measures more than 5,500 acres in size, saw as many as 4,000 acres burned from the fire. Its extensive maze of hiking, biking and equestrian trails have been damaged. Advertisement “A vast majority, 80-90% of the trail network was destroyed, so it's a lot of environmental damage,” said Brian Lopes, operations manager for Monterey county parks. Thursday morning, Lopes led...

President Trump has said the health of the American people is his primary concern when considering new FDA guidelines on a vaccine. On Wednesday, the President announced the White House may not approve tougher guidelines on the emergency use authorization of a coronavirus vaccine. According to reports, the FDA was gearing up to announce the stricter standards ahead of the election. As part of the new guidelines, manufacturers seeking authorization would have to follow trial participants for at least two months after a second vaccine shot. The new standards would also reportedly ask developers to identify a specific number of...

Here’s what the settlement would do: Extend the deadline for local election boards to receive mailed absentee ballots. Allow an absentee ballot to be counted if it’s either a) received by the county board by 5 p.m. on election day, Nov. 3; or b) the ballot is postmarked on or before election day and received by nine days after the election. Direct the state election board to create a process to resolve errors on absentee ballots that could be fixed with an affidavit from the voter. Examples include a mailed absentee ballot lacking a voter signature or a witness signature....

A large, prominent evangelical Capitol Hill church late Tuesday filed a legal challenge to the District, alleging the city government is violating the First Amendment by facilitating and tolerating massive anti-racism protests but forbidding worship services — indoor or outdoor — of more than 100 because of covid-19. The complaint filed by the 850-member Capitol Hill Baptist Church is the first legal challenge by a religious organization to the capital’s coronavirus restrictions. There have been two others in the region — one in Virginia and one in Maryland — since quarantine measures began, and final decisions are pending in both....

Jim's Wife, Sheila, is in need of all our prayers. She has not been doing very well and has gotten very weak. She eats very little. Jim has nurses coming in 3 times a week and senior helpers coming in every morning. Senior helpers help with cooking, cleaning and anything else where help is needed. In adition to chcking her vitals, they make sure she takes her medication and they give her bed baths. John and Chris are working around the clock to make sure she is turned every two hours. Marissa helps as much as possible Please join...

Political Polls @SurveyMonkey Poll (RV, 9/1-21): IOWA Trump 51% (+5) Biden 46% TEXAS Trump 50% (+3) Biden 47% NEVADA Trump 49% (+2) Biden 47% ARIZONA Trump 49% Biden 49% NEW MEXICO Biden 50% (+2) Trump 48%

The confirmation battle to fill Justice Ginsburg's seat could be apocalyptic. Here's the strategy behind some of the president's top contenders. President Donald Trump will make his third nomination to the Supreme Court on Saturday. The initial plan was to make the nomination very quickly following the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last Friday, but it has been delayed so that the country may properly mourn the justice known for her support of liberal social causes. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton 27 years ago. A reliable vote for the left block of the court, she was...

Police in Moscow, Idaho, arrested three people Wednesday for violating social distancing rules as their church sang hymns and Bible psalms outdoors — an event held, in part, to protest the city mayor’s mask mandate, which runs to January 2021. Officers arrested Gabriel Rench, Rachel Bohnet, and Sean Bohnet, according to Moscow Report, a local independent news outlet. A video uploaded to social media shows Bohnet, a local music teacher, and his wife telling officers they refused to comply with an inaudible order. Moscow Report says the apparent infraction is that they refused to show identification. Footage of the couple’s...

A priest in Crete was sentenced to 9 months in prison with a 3-year suspension last Friday for inciting disobedience against the National Public Health Organization’s directive on the mandatory use of face masks, which includes the use of masks in all closed spaces and schools. The incident with the 47-year-old priest occurred last Monday, September 14, during the blessing ceremony of a local kindergarten. Video shows the priest emphatically telling parents that “they will destroy their children” if they send them to school in masks, and criticized them for not holding a rally in protest of masks, reports Keep...

Police are searching for a man who broke into a Catholic church in Florida on Friday and tried to burn it down. The church’s pastor in a Sept. 20 video urged prayers for the man and thanked God that the church survived the attack. Surveillance video shows a young man, shirtless and wearing a surgical mask and white gloves, breaking into the church and pouring a jug of clear liquid on several of the wooden pews before setting them alight. He fled as the flames erupted, apparently without stealing anything. The incident happened around 10:36pm Sept. 18 at Incarnation Catholic...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, University of California Regent Richard Blum, has been named by the state auditor’s office as one of the regents involved in an admissions scandal where UC wrongly admitted dozens of students as favors to well-connected people. California auditor: UC schools wrongly admitted 64 wealthy students as ‘favors’ over past 6 years In one case, a regent unidentified in the report sent an inappropriate letter on behalf of a student with only a 26% chance of getting in. The applicant was admitted. Auditor’s spokeswoman Margarita Fernandez confirmed to The Associated Press that Blum was the regent. Blum...

The Pac-12 is joining the rest of the Power Five for fall football. A week after the Big Ten reversed course on postponing the 2020 season because of the coronavirus, the Pac-12 is following suit, the conference announced Thursday. Teams with “necessary state and local health approvals” are set begin a seven-game season on Nov. 6 after voting to play. The conference’s schedule will be released “in the coming days” and no fans will be allowed at games taking place on campuses. The Pac-12 championship game will be played Dec. 18, and the conference says teams will be eligible to...

FBI analysts working on the Michael Flynn Russia investigation originally planned to end the inquiry in fall 2016 and eventually bought liability insurance fearing they could be sued after their bosses continued to keep the investigation open based on "conspiracy theories," explosive new text messages showed Thursday. "We all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one analyst texted on Jan. 10, 2017, just 10 days before Trump took office. "Holy crap," a colleague responded. "All the analysts too?" "Yep," the first analyst said. "All the folks at the Agency as well." "Can I ask who are the most likely litigators?"...