Free Republic

The political world was stunned on July 24, 2019, when Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller testified before the House and Senate. It was not anything Mueller said that shocked observers — it was his demeanor. The 74-year-old special counsel appeared confused at times. He sometimes had difficulty answering the most basic questions. He had difficulty forming complex sentences. The Mueller at the witness table was a far cry from the Mueller who took over the FBI 18 years earlier. Colleagues remembered a man who was super sharp, on top of everything, a micromanager. Now, many of those watching were concerned....

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Democrats are Rigging our 2020 Election! Embedded video 3:09 89.7K views 10:09 PM · Sep 24, 2020

Busy week, with a LOT to catch up on. Stay tuned; I will. In the meantime, two important videos about California and Texas. First up, the great J.P. Sears. The COVOD-19 lockdown is probably bad for his touring act, but it has meant that he’s producing more videos for us to enjoy. Although he lives (I think) in Colorado, he turns his attention here to California, or as he puts it, “the world’s largest prison” (or, in one of his better formulations, California’s “homeless-industrial complex”):

Gov. Tom Wolf is accusing the GOP-controlled General Assembly of acting irresponsibly in ways that will harm Pennsylvanians at a time when he is trying to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. At a Thursday news conference that was billed as focusing on government reform and COVID-19 mitigation efforts, the governor spent a good part of the time criticizing lawmakers for pursuing “dangerous legislation” this week. He was referring to the House’s failed attempt on Wednesday to override his veto of a bill that would have allowed local school officials to set attendance limits at sporting events and extra-curricular activities....

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to watch a physicist try to explain quantum mechanics to a room full of delinquent kindergartners, we finally have a pretty good idea. Most of our readers probably already know that Trump appointed Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford University’s prestigious Hoover Institution to his COVID-19 task force last month. As I noted when the good news broke: Dr. Atlas is one of the thousands of medical experts the Democrats and their media enablers don’t want you to know about who’ve been trying to put the breaks on the suicidal, anti-science response...

President Trump said that his opponent Joe Biden will “do fine” at Tuesday’s presidential debate because his team will give him a “shot of something” before he comes on stage. “Biden will do fine," Trump told supporters at a rally in Jacksonville, Fla. "He's been doing it for 47 years. They'll give him a big shot of something before he has to go out there, he'll be full of energy. He'll be fine." He then turned to hit his opponent for failing to campaign just five weeks before the election. “He did a lid again this morning, I’m working my...

In a bombshell new report Attorney General Bill Barr and his prosecutor, John Durham are probing the Clinton Foundation, long thought to be a corrupt slush fund for Hillary and Bill. From the report: “Mr. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut assigned by Mr. Barr to review the Russia inquiry, has sought documents and interviews about how federal law enforcement officials handled an investigation around the same time into allegations of political corruption at the Clinton Foundation, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Durham’s team members have suggested to others that they are comparing the two investigations as...

Twenty years ago today, Warren McCleskey died in Georgia’s electric chair for the murder of a police officer. Yet the “question reverberates: Did Warren McCleskey deserve the chair? For the question to outlive him is a damning commentary on capital punishment in the United States.” The most reverberating commentary on this case was the 1987 Supreme Court decision McCleskey v. Kemp — a landmark 5-4 ruling that still shapes the way judges handle purported racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. McCleskey (the decision, not the man) “marked the end of an era in death penalty jurisprudence … reject[ing] the...

ENSURING BETTER CARE: President Donald J. Trump is improving care for the American people, especially the most vulnerable. Today, President Trump signed the first Executive Order in American history to declare it is the policy of the Federal Government to protect individuals with preexisting conditions and ensure they have access to care they can afford.President Trump will improve access to direct primary care arrangements that cut out the middleman and cut red tape to enable patients to spend more time with their doctors.President Trump will also invest in critical areas, including pediatric cancer, Sickle Cell Disease, and Alzheimer’s research....

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.  Purpose.  Since January 20, 2017, my Administration has been committed to the goal of bringing great healthcare to the American people and putting patients first.  To that end, my Administration has taken monumental steps to improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare in the United States.(a)  My Administration has been committed to restoring choice and control to the American patient.On December 22, 2017, I signed into law the repeal of the burdensome individual-mandate penalty, liberating millions of...

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....