Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Monday, Dec 9. THE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS. The caucus of the Republicans to-night was attended by about forty members. A large number have deliberately determined not to compromise themselves by engaging in a mere party movement in regard to the policy of the war. Of course the most ultra men of the party were present. All newspaper men and outsiders were carefully excluded, and I am consequently enabled to give to the public only a sketch of the proceedings. My informant in some cases declining to furnish me with the names of speakers, though giving me the substance of the...

One day after warning Russian President Vladimir Putin he would face "severe" economic sanctions, "like ones he's never seen," should Russia invade Ukraine, resident Joe Biden assured Americans that sending U.S. combat troops to Ukraine is "not on the table." America is not going to fight Russia over Ukraine. "The idea that the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards," said Biden. "We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies," but "that obligation does not extend to ... Ukraine." Anti-interventionists who have opposed bringing...

By the time Barack Obama left office, every branch of the military was smaller than it had been on September 11. But the change in size concealed the true impact of America’s most left-wing president in undermining our national security and weakening us in the face of our enemies. "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone,” Obama famously boasted. He used the pen to unleash a blizzard of executive orders and memorandums. Some led to outraged protests, but some of his most devastating penned assaults on our nation’s military flew under the radar. One of those took place...

Fourteen Senate Republicans on Thursday helped advance a deal negotiated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to set up a one-time exemption to the filibuster on raising the debt ceiling. Senators voted 64-36 to close debate on the bill, which also prevents automatic cuts faced by physicians and other medical providers under Medicare from taking effect. McConnell and GOP Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Susan Collins (Maine), John Cornyn (Texas), Joni Ernst (Iowa) Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), Mitt Romney (Utah), Thom Tillis (N.C.), John Thune (S.D.) and Roger...

he Omicron variant has been detected in at least 19 states in the U.S., and is striking mainly fully vaccinated people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Forty-three people in 19 states have tested positive for omicron, according to remarks made to the Associated Press by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75 percent of those cases are in people who are fully vaccinated, and one person has been hospitalized. One-third of those individuals had traveled internationally; one-third had received a booster. The cases so far have been “mild,”...

Brian Williams, dismissed as "NBC Nightly News" anchor in 2015 for serial embellishment and lying, has decided to walk away from his MSNBC show "The 11th Hour." CNN's Brian Stelter, from a competing network, previewed the last show: "There's no word on what the Thursday finale will entail, but here's hoping for a sendoff befitting his position." Williams should be sent off with a lump of coal. Stelter wasn't quite as bad as one of his favorite Sunday-show guests, journalism professor and former Baltimore Sun reporter David Zurawik. "I have separation anxiety about Brian Williams leaving at 11:00 because it...

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from...

In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary, decades of dissonance between the party's aggrieved grassroots and its blinkered elite spilled out into the open. For years, the chasm widened between the GOP's heartland base, the river valley-dwelling "Somewheres" from David Goodhart's 2017 book, "The Road to Somewhere," and the party's bicoastal "Anywhere" rulers. The foot-soldier Republican "Somewheres," disproportionately church-attending and victimized by job outsourcing and the opioid crisis, felt betrayed by the more secular, ideologically inflexible Republican "Anywheres." Donald Trump, lifelong conservative "outsider" and populist dissenter from bicoastal "Anywhere" orthodoxy on issues pertaining to trade, immigration and China, coasted to...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Wednesday suggested that standard mouthwash could treat COVID-19, and criticized federal agencies for telling people to "do nothing." "Standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus," Johnson said, according to The Washington Post. "If you get it, you may reduce viral replication. Why not try all these things?" "It just boggles my mind that the NIH continues to tell people to do nothing," he added of the National Institutes of Health, in a recording posted online by Heartland Signal. The mouthwash strategy has been refuted by both health experts and mouthwash brands themselves....

Source: Center for Industrial ProgressAuthor, philosopher, and speaker Alex Epstein isn’t afraid to make the moral case for fossil fuels. To him, coal, oil, and gas are essential for continued human flourishing and environmental progress. The Center for Industrial Progress founder has decried climate alarmism and radical decarbonization efforts for well over a decade. And he’s not slowing down anytime soon. The sought-after lecturer has previously presented at Google and before Congress. He also regularly lectures at college campuses and board rooms across the nation. And he has a New York Times bestseller, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (2014),...

But before we get underway, the thing you realize very quickly is that fake hate crimes occur in the wokest of woke places, such as high schools and colleges. It makes you wonder if maybe we should simply shut down the hate factories to stop the children from being scandalized by crimes they never even imagined before until someone made them up.

A mother is facing jail time after yelling at her daughter to hit another girl during a basketball game in a caught-on-video incident in Garden Grove last month, the Orange County District Attorney announced Thursday. The mother, 44-year-old Latira Shonty Hunt of La Puente, was in the stands on Nov. 7 watching her teenage daughter compete in a youth basketball game, when she allegedly yelled “you better hit her for that” after her daughter had an interaction with a rival player on the court. Viral video shows her daughter then sucker punching the other player, a 15-year-old girl, in the...

On Wednesday, Russia sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow “warning about the dangerous consequences” the U.S. would incur if it continued military flights and naval ship activity near Russia’s borders, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. She called the U.S. actions “provocations near Russia’s borders.”

The organization charged with exploring space is seeking to get a little justice and equity done at home. America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration, aka NASA, is a federal agency established in 1958 and dedicated to exploring space for “peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.” The act lists 8 objectives, all of which are related to space—that is, the enormous, uncharted region beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Over the years, NASA has managed to accomplish some pretty cool things. Its Apollo program saw the first human walk on the moon in 1969. It’s sent up shuttles and space stations, satellites...

From Russian collision to Covington to Jussie Smollette, the only question remaining is: What real stories does the media actually cover.

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The House voted 220-208 on Thursday to pass the Protect Our Democracy Act, which addresses presidential abuses of power and reinforces the checks and balances between the branches of government. One Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted with all the Democrats for the bill. The bill now faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where 60 votes are required for passage. The bill, which has support from the White House, aims to strengthen guardrails that were tested by former President Donald Trump, including limitation on presidential pardons, the requirement for candidates for president and vice president to submit their...

(CNN) - The 30 or so golf courses in the Salt Lake County of Utah drink up around nine million gallons of water a day to stay pristine green -- that's more than 13 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Managing the turf on golf courses also means using carbon-intensive fertilizers, plenty of mowing and, in many cases, clearing forests or trees that were soaking up carbon-dioxide to make way for long tracts of fairway. In other words, golf is a dirty sport that's wrecking the planet. But it doesn't have to be. The impact of golf on the climate and environment has...

American healthcare has lost its way. It has become a medical tyranny that takes away personal freedom. The system is focused on cutting costs; giving government insurance to everyone; and most assuredly, augmenting Washington’s power. Patients’ medical freedom -- “my body, my choice” -- has been lost amidst the financial games and political power plays. resident Biden’s “patience is wearing thin” with those Americans who exercise their right to choose, having decided not to inject themselves with an experimental gene therapy (mRNA “vaccination”) that has no long-term outcome data. Washington has literally taken away medical autonomy with coercive federal mandates...

A once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive cars, parties on yachts and Tiffany jewels was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison Thursday for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel. (SNIP) U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Honeywell in handing down her sentence expressed disgust with the DEA for its failings and said other agents corrupted by “the allure of easy money” also needed to be investigated.(SNIP) Dominguez has met with prosecutors for “endless hours” to provide information on the criminal activities of “fellow law-enforcement agents who initiated...