Free Republic

Democrat Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) leads her Republican opponent Tiffany Smiley by under three points in deep blue Washington state. According to new polling from Trafalgar Group, Murray, who has been serving since 1993, only leads Smiley by 2.9 points.

Cupich criticises Texas governor in migrants statement The Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, has issued a strong statement of support for migrants and refugees who had been bussed to his city by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, with no provision made for their transfer or reception. In a rare move, Cupich criticised Abbott by name for his handling of the situation.“Wednesday night, Chicago received two busloads of migrants, including asylum seekers, sent from Texas on buses chartered by Governor Gregory Abbott. For weeks, the Texas governor has been sending migrant women, men, and children – including infants – to...

Sofia Ukraini on twitter did a Ukrainian verison of a English captioned version of a Russian military recruitment commericial.Transcript below. If you ever wanted to commit war crimes, If you ever wanted to see a HIMARS rocket coming at you,If you want to find out "what airdefence doing", Time to join the Russian Army.You're going to Ukraine. With the rest of the idiots we press-ganged,With guns older than your dad, With gear the quartermaster stole and then sold back to you.After two weeks of basic training,You'll be charging fortified Ukrainian positions head-on. Don't worry about things like logistics.It's a Western...

Explanation: Yes, but how many dark clouds have a multicolored lining? Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts. The featured image was taken last month in Pu'er, Yunnan Province, China. Also captured were unusual cloud ripples above the pileus cloud. The formation of a rare pileus cloud capping a common cumulus cloud is an indication that the lower cloud is expanding upward and might well develop into a storm.

I had a column on Monday analyzing Judge Aileen Cannon’s order, earlier in the day, granting former president Trump’s petition for a special master to review materials the government seized from Mar-a-Lago last month pursuant to a search warrant. That analysis focuses on what I believe is the main issue raised by Judge Cannon’s decision: the possibility that Trump, as a former president, retains not only some measure of executive privilege but also the authority to invoke that privilege against the executive branch of the incumbent administration. In this post, I want to focus on a couple of other aspects...

Russia typically supplies about 40% of Europe's natural gas, mostly by pipeline. Deliveries last year were around 155 billion cubic metres (bcm).... Germany, Europe's biggest consumer of Russian gas, which has halted certification of the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia because of the Ukraine war, could import from Britain, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands via pipelines. Norway, Europe's second biggest gas supplier behind Russia, has been raising production to help the European Union towards its target of ending reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Britain's Centrica (CNA.L) has signed a deal with Norway's Equinor (EQNR.OL) for...

The U.S. is experiencing an "exceptionally challenging" environment for the relationship between military and civilian parts of society, a large group of former Pentagon leaders warned in an open letter published Tuesday. Why it matters: The letter, which cited political polarization and other social changes, was signed by eight former defense secretaries and five former Joint Chiefs chairmen from both Republican and Democratic administrations. Among the signatories were two of former President Trump's defense secretaries, Jim Mattis and Mark Esper.

After averting blackouts Monday night, the managers of California’s electricity grid had to navigate a day when energy consumption in the state is expected to blow past the all-time record. SMUD issued a separate warning to the Sacramento region that blackouts could hit the area for the first time in 20 years. “We’re heading into the worst part of this heat wave,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a video posted Tuesday morning. “The risk of outages is real and it’s immediate.”

Myles Sanderson was ordered to stay away from alcohol, drugsLong before he became the main suspect in a mass killing and the subject of a multi-province alert, Myles Sanderson had a history of explosive violence, according to Parole Board of Canada documents from February of this year. Sanderson's contacts with the criminal justice system span more than two decades. As an adult, he racked up 59 convictions for assault, assault with a weapon, uttering threats, assaulting a police officer and robbery. Roughly half of the offences were for breaches or failure to comply with pre-existing orders. Because of his violent...

The 1619 Project’s Nikole Hannah-Jones does not accept correction. Instead, she attacks every critic as a racist or race traitor. In August, history professor James H. Sweet wrote that the 1619 Project illustrated the problem of “presentism” in history. In an American Historical Association essay, “Is History History?” he argued The New York Times’s 1619 Project looks at “the past through the prism of contemporary social justice issues—race, gender, sexuality, nationalism, capitalism.”Sweet almost immediately found himself attacked by a mob of historians for not adhering to the standards of “presentism.” He quickly groveled with a public apology and a...

The federal judge’s 24-page order further calls into question the DOJ’s targeting of Trump. A federal judge on Monday granted former President Donald Trump’s request for the appointment of a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago home last month. Presiding Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, further held that the Department of Justice cannot review or use for criminal investigative purposes any material seized pending the review process. Besides handing Trump a victory in his battle for some oversight of the Biden administration’s digging into his documents, Cannon highlighted several...

Hillary Clinton lies with the recklessness of someone who’s gotten away with countless acts of corruption in her career. Who can really blame her? Here she is today:I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails…As Trump’s problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again. There’s even a “Clinton Standard."The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified.— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 6, 2022None of what Clinton says in her thread is even remotely true.Hillary contends that “Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails.” Even...

The new British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Tuesday selected a cabinet where, for the first time, a white man will not hold one of the country's four most important ministerial positions. Truss appointed Kwasi Kwarteng – whose parents came from Ghana in the 1960s – as Britain's first Black finance minister while James Cleverly is the first Black foreign minister. Cleverly, whose mother hails from Sierra Leone and whose father is white, has in the past spoken about being bullied as a mixed-race child and has said the party needs to do more to attract Black voters. Suella Braverman,...

'Trump fills stadiums, Biden has to count his security detail as part of his crowd'

Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr said Tuesday on FNC’s “The Story” that a federal judge agreeing to a special master in the Trump Mar-a-Lago FBI raid saga was “wrong” and would be overturned if the Department of Justice appeals. Barr said, “The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal that. It was deeply flawed in a number of ways. I don’t think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up. Even if it does, I don’t see it fundamentally changing the trajectory. In other words, I don’t think it changes the...

“John Fetterman is either healthy, and he’s dodging the debates because he does not want to answer for his radical left positions, or he’s too sick to participate in the debates,” Oz said at a news conference in a small room at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel on City Avenue. “What happens if a U.S. Senator in an important state like Pennsylvania is elected, never having answered a legitimate question?” Oz asked. Joining Oz was the man he’s seeking to replace, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. Toomey said, if Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke he experienced in May, is...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is running for the state’s at-large congressional district in November, has pleaded with her Republican challenger to drop his bid to avoid splitting the state’s GOP votes. Nick Begich III, a businessman and member of the politically prominent Begich family, was a GOP candidate alongside Palin in the Aug. 16 special election to fill the House seat, which became vacant after longtime Republican Rep. Don Young died in office in March. State law required that a special election for the seat be held within five months of an intra-term vacancy, even as the 2022...

Germany's biggest gas company has refused to rule out energy rationing following Russia's decision to indefinitely halt gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.Uniper said it is considering legal action against Moscow's giant Gazprom to compensate its shareholders for a 90% drop in their market value following a sharp drop in Russian gas supply since June.Europe's gas prices surged on Monday after Russia stopped pumping via Nord Stream 1, a major supply route to the continent."We cannot rule out that Germany might look at rationing gas as something that might have to be considered," CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach said during...

He was astronaut Ken Mattingly in Apollo 13, detective Mac Taylor in CSI: NY and Vietnam War veteran Lt. Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump. But the role he's most proud of is that of a real-life philanthropist. Sinise has been helping wounded veterans and first responders for decades and created the Gary Sinise Foundation in 2011. "I've met some inspirational people that have motivated me," Sinise said. "And if I can give back to them by helping them with their efforts, then that's a way that I can continue to serve."

Gay men will now be able to donate blood after equipment was purchased from abroad which can test blood. The news was green during a press conference by the Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne and the Secretary for Reforms and Equality, Rebecca Buttigieg. An amendment to the National Transfusion Service protocols has meant that gay man can now donate blood. (snip) Dr Fearne explained that now, the only criteria is that the person needs to have been in a stable sexual relationship with the same person for at least four months and explained that this restriction applies...