Free Republic

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) announced Wednesday that she would not support the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget bill after Senate Republicans and Democrats secured a deal for her bipartisan infrastructure bill. Sinema told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that she does not support such an expensive infrastructure bill. In comparison, her and Republicans’ infrastructure bill costs $1.2 trillion. “I have also made clear that while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion — and in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues...

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) has reaffirmed her support for the filibuster, saying it “protects the democracy of our nation” and forces bipartisan solutions. Sinema’s remarks came during a press conference in Tucson, Arizona, on Tuesday as she explained why she missed a procedural vote to establish a January 6 commission to investigate the violence at the U.S. Capitol at the beginning of this year. “As folks in Arizona know, I’ve long been a supporter of the filibuster because it is a tool that protects the democracy of our nation, rather than allowing our country to ricochet wildly every two to...

(Video at Source)CNN political commentator SE Cupp scrutinizes the actions of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as the state deals with a surge of coronavirus cases. Noem is among a number of Republican governors in the Midwest and Northern Plains who have largely taken hands-off approach to the Covid-19 pandemic with poor results.

There was a shooting today in Denver, Colorado as patriots and Antifa-BLM mobs faced off. The shooting was caught on video. Potato video, but here is the person shooting the gun at the #Denverprotests, and the scene after (Denver, CO) pic.twitter.com/N1FksCXWiW— Kitty Shackleford (@KittyLists) October 10, 2020

A federal judge on Wednesday declined to grant special rights to volunteer street medics beyond that of general demonstrators who must disperse when police declare an unlawful assembly or riot. “Although Plaintiffs’ goal of providing aid to protesters is undoubtedly admirable, this Court has found no legal authority for affording protest medics, as defined by Plaintiffs, unique recognition under the First Amendment beyond that afforded any individual who attends a protest,” U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut ruled. “Protest medics may continue to protest, and provide medical aid during the protests. They simply have no unique status under the First...

On the Democratic National Convention’s second night, Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, took America inside her longtime marriage to the presidential nominee. These things usually strike me as schmaltzy and inauthentic — pre-packaged montages about political leaders and their families, their personal trials and triumphs, their “normal” lives, old photos of first starting out. But as much as we know Joe — indeed, he’s been in public office on and off for the past 50 years — we saw more of the Bidens than ever before. The life they rebuilt after the tragic deaths of Joe’s first wife and daughter, their...

Mega pop star and Democratic Party activist Taylor Swift is attacking President Donald Trump over the U.S. Postal Service, claiming that the president is trying to cheat his way to victory in November by “dismantling” the beleaguered federal agency. “Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly,” Swift tweeted Saturday. “He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president. He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.” Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly: He is WELL AWARE that we...

Seoul, South Korea (CNN)South Korea plans to start building its first aircraft carrier next year, and acquire fighter jets to operate on it, the country's Defense Ministry has announced. Last year, South Korea hinted at its interest in an aircraft carrier, saying it would build a "multi-purpose large transport vessel." But in its national plan for 2021-2025, published this week, the government for the first time explicitly committed to building the billion-dollar equipment. "The 30,000-ton level aircraft carrier can transport military forces, equipment and materials and can operate fighter jets that are capable of vertical take-off and landing," said...

(Video at Source)The lead sentence in an article in The New York Times on Tuesday was a bizarre, if fitting, encapsulation of the state of American politics today: "Conspiracy theorists won a major victory on Tuesday...."In some ways, it's as if the inmates are now running the asylum. Trump effectively turned the GOP into a padded-cell madhouse where up could be down, left could be right and blue could be green...if he decided so. And now the fringiest adherents have swiped the keys from the few remaining guards that were hoping to keep the place in order. That Trump has...

Dozens of Hong Kong citizens gathered in shopping malls across the city Tuesday to call for press freedom, one day after Hong Kong police raided the local Apple Daily newsroom and arrested its owner, Jimmy Lai, under the city’s new “national security” law. Lai, a Hong Kong media tycoon, is also a prominent pro-democracy figure in the city. He was arrested Monday along with nine other pro-democracy activists, news executives, and his sons for alleged offenses under the city’s new national security law, including “collusion” with foreign forces, Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported. Using the Telegram messaging app, organizers...

<p>ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will take action as soon as Saturday to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok from the United States.</p> <p>Trump made the announcement to reporters Friday on Air Force One as he returned from Florida.</p>

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its final environmental impact statement on Friday which found gold and copper mining in Alaska “would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers.” That clears the final hurdle for the Corps to issue a permit this year to Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., the Canadian company that has proposed the mining operation in the state. Environmentalists oppose the project and the Obama administration did what it could to keep the Alaskan wilderness off limits to energy production. “In a scientific review conducted under the Obama administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection...

Amazon India will reportedly abide by new government requirements that all its products indicate where they were manufactured, reports indicated on Wednesday, a policy implemented following the surge of a national movement to boycott Chinese products.Indian activists organized boycott campaigns, protests, and burnings of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in effigy after a clash last month in which Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers attacked Indian troops with rocks and sticks wrapped in barbed wire. The Indian soldiers had confronted the Chinese about their illegal presence in Chinese territory. Indian authorities confirmed the deaths of 20 soldiers, while the Chinese Communist...

The New York Times has set its sights on Mount Rushmore as protesters demand the removal of historic monuments in the name of racial justice, citing its location on “Indigenous land,” the sculptor’s purported ties to white supremacy, and two of its subjects’ slave ownership.“Mount Rushmore was built on land that belonged to the Lakota tribe and sculpted by a man who had strong bonds with the Ku Klux Klan. It features the faces of 2 U.S. presidents who were slaveholders,” the New York Times wrote, linking to a news article detailing complaints against American landmark: Mount Rushmore was built...

Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner is protesting President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota next week, saying the monument should be “removed” because it is on land claimed by Native Americans. The Argus Leader reported Thursday that many — though not all — local Sioux “want the monument removed,” seeing the faces of four white leaders as an affront — including Abraham Lincoln, who was president when U.S. soldiers executed Indians. Several groups are planning to protest Trump’s visit, and Bear Runner has written a memorandum to Trump opposing his visit. Trump is planning to...

Ivanka Trump condemned “cancel culture” in a tweet published on Friday after Wichita State University revoked its invitation for her to speak at the school’s spring commencement ceremony. According to a report by the New York Post, Ivanka Trump is speaking out after being disinvited from Wichita State University’s spring commencement ceremony. Trump shared her pre-recorded commencement remarks with her social media followers on Friday. “Our nation’s campuses should be bastions of free speech. Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Listening to one another is important now more than ever!” Here is the...

ROME — The director general of the Vatican bank, Gian Franco Mammì, confirmed this week that the institution holds no investments in the fossil fuel industry, apparently in response to challenges from climate change activists.Mr. Mammì told the U.S.-based National Catholic Reporter that the Vatican bank follows the same practices as other European banking institutions, investing in treasury instruments rather than private equities. In recent months, the Vatican has been plagued with a series of financial scandals, a number of which involved questionable investments.The Italian daily Corriere della Sera revealed in December that the Vatican’s Secretariat of State had invested...

Comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan has signed a multiyear licensing deal with music streaming service Spotify reported to be worth more than $100 million to move his podcast exclusively to Spotify’s platform. Variety reports that Joe Rogan, popular comedian and host of the Joe Rogan Experience, has signed a deal with Spotify to move his podcast exclusively to the Spotify platform. The podcast will debut on Spotify on September 1 on a non-exclusive basis but will become exclusive to the Spotify platform later in the year under the multiyear licensing deal. Rogan’s podcast currently ranks as the second most...

(Video at Scource)..Schmidt said, “With regard to his polling numbers with women, they are well earned over three years. We have seen his belittlement of women. We have seen his misogamy, his condescension. He’s a credibly accused sexual assaulter in at least a dozen cases probably more. But I think you’re going to see deterioration with women voters because women voters are looking out at the totality of the situation the country finds itself in. The death, the suffering, the economic collapse, and devastation, and women are saying, ‘This guy did not protect my family.’.....“With regard to the Lincoln Project...

MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, compared the lockdown protestors in Michigan to the Nazi Party’s original wing...Melber said, “You have Michigan state Senator Dayna Polehanki, ‘Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bulletproof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today.’ Your view of this, Steve?”Schmidt said, “This is appalling. Someone needs to explain to me what the difference is between those guys and a bunch of brown-shirted Stormtroopers in 1925 is. I’m very serious about this. This is about the...