Free Republic

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) extended absence from the Senate has stirred speculation among Republican senators over how much longer the 81-year-old senator will lead the Senate GOP conference. There’s no word yet on McConnell’s date of return, but some lawmakers expect he may not come back to the Senate until mid-April, after the two-week Easter and Passover recess. “I’ve heard senators say, half-jokingly, I wonder if the people who want to be leader are starting to count votes,” one Republican senator said. “People are thinking this is probably good reminder that he’s not going to be leader in...

If you find comforting the understanding that George Bush lied to the country and the world about Saddam Hussein possessing WMD’s to enable him to start the Second Iraq War, please read no further.The war began with the United Nations Security Council passing Resolution 678, which reaffirmed and recalled eleven prior resolutions concerning Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Resolution 678 did not order the coalition to simply expel Saddam’s forces from Kuwait but used a more expansive term for which precedence existed. The term” restore international peace and security in the area” used language the UN and our Congress understood from the...

(March 17, 2023)- On March 16, 2023, at approximately 9:11 p.m., officers from the Cape Coral Police Department responded to a call for service at 2100-Block of SW 45th Terrace, Cape Coral, Lee County, Florida, in reference to a boating hit and run. The call notes stated that a male, later identified as Kurt James Snowden (W/M 8-25-1971, 2517 SW 52nd Street), was highly intoxicated and was operating a boat inside the canals, causing a scene. Mr. Snowden played music loudly, screamed, disturbed the peace, and struck several docks in the area with his boat. Contact was made with witnesses...

Vulcan Materials, a U.S.-based construction firm, says that armed Mexican forces took over its marine terminal in southeast Mexico. Former Trump intelligence official Cliff Sims tweeted a video Saturday of the alleged illegal seizure earlier this month. "This is insane," he wrote in the post, which shows Mexican military officials, police officers and others entering the facility. VIDEO AT LINK..................... In a letter Thursday to Esteban Moctezuma, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., Vulcan Chairman and CEO J. Thomas Hill said the seizure that occurred early in the morning of March 14 was "illegal." He said the Mexican company CEMEX joined...

Donald Trump Jr. and others criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for dismissing the rumors of a looming indictment of former President Donald Trump at the hands of leftist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as a “manufactured” circus that he wants no involvement in, concluding that the governor is displaying “weakness.” DeSantis weighed in on the news of the looming indictment during Monday’s press conference, stating that he is aware of the rumors of the indictment but has not seen any “facts” yet.

Independent reporter Breanna Morello published Soros-backed Alvin Bragg’s email to staff concerning safety before the arrest of Donald Trump. Bragg seems to suggest the Right are the dangerous ones who won’t follow the law. This is in Black Lives Matter-dominated New York City. The Email …Please know that your safety is our top priority. We have full confidence in our outstanding security staff and investigators, along with our great OCA and NYPD colleagues, and will continue to coordinate with all of them. We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York....

President Joe Biden has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against pursuing judicial reform — after his own administration considered a radical proposal to pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices. The Times of Israel reports that Biden “raised his concerns with the judicial overhaul being advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government during a ‘candid and constructive’ phone call” on Sunday. The article fails to note that Biden entertained his own, far more radical, proposals to change the U.S. judiciary after Democrats grew irate at the increasingly conservative composition of the Supreme Court after 2018. For months, Democratic Party...

The Associated Press attempted to blame Twitter owner Elon Musk and “pro-Russian” Twitter accounts for Americans’ distrust of Big Daddy Government and liberal media gaslighting about the toxic Ohio train disaster. Talk about a ridiculous attempt at a stretch. AP whined in a Mar. 18 story — “Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate” — that “anonymous pro-Russian accounts” used “Elon Musk’s new verification system” to spread “misleading claims and anti-American propaganda” about the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment. The train’s derailing led authorities to create a controlled explosion that released toxic fumes into the atmosphere. “The accounts,...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) teed off on President Biden’s decision earlier on Monday to veto a bill that would have nixed a Labor Department rule on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Manchin, who was one of two Senate Democrats to vote with Republicans to overturn the rule on March 1, called Biden’s decision “absolutely infuriating” in a statement and panned the administration for putting its “radical” and “progressive agenda” ahead of the country’s needs.

They might not want to hear it, but it’s true: Students assigned to teachers with tougher grading policies are better off in the long run, research suggests. According to a paper released last fall through Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform, eighth- and ninth-graders who learned from math teachers with relatively higher performance standards earned better test scores in Algebra I. The same students later saw their improved results carry forward to subsequent years of math instruction, and — contradicting fears that high expectations might cause kids to resist or give up — they were less likely to be...

Texas middle school kids asked to role-play as ‘seducing hooker’ in bizarre classroom game: mom Texas mom Laura Maria Gruber always considered herself a “woke” liberal in favor of progressive causes, even sending her young daughter to a charter school that celebrates “diversity, equity and inclusion,” according to the school’s web site. But she never thought her 13-year-old would be asked to play a “seducing hooker” in a bizarre classroom game. “I picked my daughter and her best friend up from school and my daughter said ‘We played this game at school, Mom, and you’re going to be upset,'” Gruber...

Americans are pretty happy compared with the rest of the world. That’s according to the latest World Happiness Report, published Monday, which ranked the United States 15th on the list of the world’s happiest countries in 2023, up from 16th place in 2022. The report compiled data from more than 150 countries on average life satisfaction, and findings offer some good news for a world struggling with a years-long pandemic. “Average happiness and our country rankings, for emotions as well as life evaluations, have been remarkably stable during the three COVID-19 years,” said John Helliwell, an editor of the report,...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “political persecution” of former President Donald Trump as “utter and complete crap.” “The case from the Manhattan District Attorney, if they bring an indictment and charge him, is utter and complete crap…It is flimsy. It is weak,” Cruz said on his latest Verdict podcast episode. “It has been rejected by prosecutor after prosecutor after prosecutor. And it is obviously political retribution and a political persecution. “[Bragg] hates Donald Trump. Now he has a right to hate Donald Trump. But he doesn’t have a right to abuse and corrupt the justice...

A Muslim woman has revealed the “rude” question she claims an elderly man asked her at an aquarium. Savannah, who was wearing a black-and-white hijab, claims the man asked her: “Are you dressed up as a penguin?” The woman, who works at the aquarium in Sydney, explained what happened in a video posted on TikTok. “Once he pointed that out, I was thinking ‘do I look like a penguin?’” “I didn’t know what to say, so I was like ‘yeah, I’m a penguin’, cause like I thought he was joking, but he was dead serious.” Savannah says the man...

Even if Democrats really were concerned about our convoluted election regulations, no serious person thinks New York’s district attorney has a case against Trump. As the saying goes: If even Never Trump Jonah Goldberg doubts your wisdom in bringing criminal charges against the former president, then you know it’s a stupid case. Nobody actually says that, but it’s one of many indicators that the indictment potentially coming this week from Democrat New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg (yes, that’s his actual name) is so absurd as to make anyone wonder if our justice system really is a joke. Trump on...

Banking is an inherently risky business. It's assets are mostly long term--loans, mortgages, and bonds. It's liabilities are mostly short term--checking and savings deposits. This timing imbalance relies on the faith of its depositors that the bank is sound. This faith can be shaken by the unwise or unlucky decisions made in how the bank invests the money entrusted to it. This past week, the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) suffered a loss of faith. Instead of investing $73 million of its deposits in income earning assets, it gave this money away to Black Lives Matter-related social justice groups. It made...

Shocking surveillance video captures the execution-style killing that sent throngs of Miami spring breakers bolting Sunday — the second deadly shooting that erupted at the popular party destination over the weekend. The terrifying footage shows crowds of vacationers walking underneath umbrellas around 3:30 a.m. when a gunman starts firing off rounds. Startled tourists can be seen covering their heads as they run from the shots. The victim is then seen falling to the ground as the gunman continues firing at him. The shooter then runs from the bloody scene. Miami Beach police later identified the suspect as Dontavious Leonard Polk,...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, when asked about rumours of former President Donald Trump's impending indictment, denounced the man in charge of the investigation, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg. What the man who might be Mr Trump's most formidable presidential rival said next, however, was telling."I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair," he said. "I just I can't speak to that." He went on to mention "porn star hush money payments" a second time, before pivoting back to criticism of what he called a "high-profile...

Dr. Anthony Fauci and Mayor Muriel Bowser went door-to-door to speak with D.C. residents. It did NOT go well for them!

VIDEO AT LINK................... March 20 (UPI) -- An angler who found a camera in a Colorado river was able to retrieve the photos from the device and discovered it had been underwater for 13 years. Spencer Greiner said he was fishing recently in the Animas River when he spotted a camera at the bottom of the shallow water. "I was walking along and saw it sticking out of the sand," Greiner told KDVR-TV. "It was in rough shape, so I really didn't have any hopes of getting anything off of it, I was just planning to throw it away, and...