Free Republic

The American judicial system, based on British Common Law, presumes accused people innocent until they are proven guilty. The burden is on the accuser or prosecutor to prove guilt, rather than mandating the accused prove their innocence. English jurist William Blackstone described it this way, as has now been coined Blackstone’s Ratio, “Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” In other words, the greater wrong is that an innocent person be wrongly convicted, rather than vice versa, hence “innocent until proven guilty.” Those wrongly accused or convicted are righteously indignant and outraged over losing their freedom...

The Democrats control the House, and while those in the party’s “old guard” like Pelosi and Schumer counsel caution, the new leadership (Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Tlaib, et al.) are avid proponents of impeaching “the motherf*@ker.” The media will love it, and so will the base. Frankly, it’s difficult to envision another move by the Democrats that would be more popular with the media, academia, celebrities, and the rabid Democrat base. Besides, for years Democrats have lived and breathed, “Trump colluded with the Russians and stole the 2016 Presidential Election from the sainted Hillary Clinton.” It’s no stretch to go from...

We are witnessing a radical, major shift in American politics, unlike any you've ever seen. The new, far-left, extreme Socialist Democratic Party is hitting new levels of radicalism. Robert Mueller didn't deliver on their collusion fantasies, and now that the Trump agenda is succeeding, that is driving them off the rails. It was on full display Monday night. Fake news CNN put the 2020 Democrats on stage, one after another. It was hour after hour of hard-core socialism, where they completely tried to out-socialist the other socialist on stage, from the impeachment of Trump, open borders, guns, oppressive taxes, and,...

I'm Stuart Varney and this is “My Take.” Well, well, well! It appears we're feeling a lot better about our personal finances. What a switch! For years we've been harangued about not having enough money saved, or not being able to meet a financial emergency, or we're going to have to suffer in retirement. Well, thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you for the stock market rally, which you helped along, because it has made an enormous difference to our retirement years. The Employee Benefit Research Institute finds 82 percent of retirees are "optimistic" they can live comfortably. That the highest...

Yale President Peter Salovey announced a major expansion of the school’s diversity bureaucracy this month, providing a case study in how not to lead a respected institution of higher education. The pretext for this latest accretion of bureaucratic bloat was a May 2018 incident in a graduate student dorm. Sarah Braasch, a 43-year-old doctoral candidate in philosophy, called campus police at 1:40 a.m. to report someone sleeping in a common room, which she believed was against dorm rules. Yale administrators knew Ms. Braasch had psychological problems and that she had a history of bad blood with the sleeping student, Lolade...

It is not now clear whether the Democrats’ pathological attachment to the fantasy that they have some chance of destroying the Trump presidency legally is based on continuing hysteria …, or addiction to continued harassment of the president even as the credibility of doing so plummets, or is an attempt to forestall the investigation and exposure of … the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign in producing the fraud of Trump–Russian collusion. … there is no chance of removing this president from office by impeachment. It requires considerable perseverance … in canvassing the American media to elicit this fact, but...

As “Avengers: Endgame” gets ready to suck up all the money on the planet earth, I throw down the gauntlet of honesty and fairness at the feet of Liberal Captain America. The Captain America in this case being liberal Hollywood actor Chris Evans. Or, as The Hollywood Reporter recently titled him: “The Political Avenger.” Political indeed. His politics of late, being to bash President Trump as often as possible on his Twitter account in-between cashing his $15 million checks. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from his $3.2 million Ivory Tower in the Hollywood hills, Evans mentioned that the...

Editor's note: This column was authored by Ryan Khurana.The White House has had a change of heart on innovation in 5G technology. In January, it mulled over a plan to nationalize next generation wireless networks, but on Friday, April 12, the Trump administration announced a series of initiatives to accelerate the private sector’s development of 5G, with a greater focus on removing regulatory barriers than on increasing state aid or control. 5G technology is vital to economic development and national competitiveness, and President Trump finally realizes it. His new push for a National Spectrum Strategy would update management of radio spectrum,...

Stiff FDA regulation imposes high costs on development of new and innovative drugs in the United States. But stiff competition in America’s free markets still enables America to lead the world in development of new, cutting edge, breakthrough drugs, leading the world in treatment and care especially for America’s seniors, most in need of the world’s best health care. Foreign countries often free ride on America’s free market system, gaining access to the drug breakthroughs after American patents run out, without allowing the freedom for the innovators to recoup the cost of their heavily regulated innovation. That is one reason...

Presidential contender Elizabeth Warren's strategy is to win the Democratic nomination by promising the most free stuff. Monday, she upped the ante. She's offering a whopping $50,000 student loan forgiveness for nearly everyone who borrowed for college or graduate school. That's old-fashioned Tammany Hall-style bribery -- handing out dollars to buy votes. Warren's proposal is designed to buy a lot of them. One in 6 American adults are saddled with college debt. It's bigger than credit card debt or auto loans. Magically erasing student debt is Warren's ploy to win over college students, adults in their 20s and 30s struggling...

Within Sri Lanka's multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, the Easter Sunday terror massacres have stirred embittering memories of suicide terror atrocities perpetrated during the nation's 26-year-long civil war (July 1983 to May 2009). The Easter bombings killed at least 321 people and injured over 500. Understand that the stark and numerous differences between 2019's horror and the terror campaigns waged by ethnic Tamils during their secessionist insurgency are historically and politically salient. When it comes to capturing and/or eliminating 2019's perpetrators, the differences will be determinative. I'll sketch the key ones in a moment. However, the terrorists' callous, suicidal commitment to...

The Mueller report is out, and Donald Trump's summary got it right: "no collusion, no obstruction." Mueller could also have labeled him the next iteration of St. Teresa, but it still wouldn't have made a lick of difference. The left wants him impeached -- period. No one on the left is more upset than pretty much everyone in the press. MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski insists Democrats have to do their "patriotic duty to step up for the country." That's lipstick-on-a-pig talk. Their obsession may require medical treatment. It's becoming pathological. NBC's Chuck Todd thinks that if there were no impeachment push,...

With all the attention the national debate between socialism and capitalism is getting, a new book has arrived on the scene that casts valuable perspective. The book is "Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement," written by Forbes Magazine publisher Rich Karlgaard. Karlgaard takes on the cult of youth that is capturing so much of our popular culture, particularly on the left. He reminds us in this important book that life is about learning, accumulation of wisdom, self-renewal and, in the best cases, prevailing against adversity. These are all the fruits of age and...

"Are you a U.S. citizen?" Only in self-defeating, sovereignty-eroding America is the idea of asking whether people living in America are American citizens for the American census a matter of controversy. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the Trump administration can include a citizenship question on the high-stakes 2020 Census questionnaire. Thank goodness, the conservative majority indicated support for allowing it. There's already such a question on the annual American Community Survey administered by the Census Bureau. It was asked in long-form questionnaires sent to a sample of households in 2000. And it was regularly asked...

The Green New Deal's goal is to move America to zero carbon emissions in 10 years."That's a goal you could only imagine possible if you have no idea how energy is produced," James Meigs, former editor of Popular Mechanics magazine, says in my latest video."Renewable is so inconsistent," he adds. "You can't just put in wind turbines and solar panels. You have to build all this infrastructure to connect them with energy consumers."Because wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, "renewable" energy requires many more transmission lines, and bigger batteries.Unfortunately, says Meigs: "You have to mine materials for...

George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School hired Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh to co-teach a course this summer called Creation of the Constitution. The course will be held 3,668 miles away, in Runnymede, England, where the Magna Carta was sealed 800 years ago. Some George Mason University students and faculty have become triggered. One student told George Mason's Board of Visitors, "It has affected my mental health knowing that an abuser will be part of our faculty." Another said, "The hiring of Kavanaugh threatens the mental well-being of all survivors on this campus." The Washington Post reports that...

"Judicial Watch: FBI Admits Hillary Clinton Emails Found in Obama White House" https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-fbi-admits-hillary-clinton-emails-found-in-obama-white-house/ Wow they buried the money quote... "Priestap testified in a separate lawsuit that Clinton was the subject of a grand jury investigation related to her BlackBerry email accounts." "HILLARY CLINTON" and "GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION" would've been in my headline. Read that quoted line carefully and tell me what it reveals. 1) Hillary is the subject of grand jury investigation 2) GJ is investigating MULTIPLE EMAIL ACCOUNTS she had on her Blackberry device 3) I'm pretty sure this Blackberry device was NOT gov't issued/secure/encrypted 4) Blackberry's email servers...

It’s a good thing that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is opening a presidential headquarters in Charlestown. At the rate she is lagging in the race among the posse of panderers running for the Democrat nomination for president, she will need all the support she can get, beginning in her home state. So, maybe she should consider also opening headquarters in Worcester, Springfield, Lowell and New Bedford. If she can’t dominate the field in Massachusetts, where can the former “American Indian” win? She has not only fallen behind in the polls; she is behind the leaders in raising campaign money as well....

Netanyahu said there “is a need to express our appreciation by calling a community or neighborhood on the Golan Heights after Donald Trump." If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has his way, alongside Katzrin, Ramot and Ramat Magshimim on the Golan Heights, there may someday soon be a community named Kiryat Trump. Netanyahu, who on Tuesday toured the Golan with his wife and sons, said a community or neighborhood on the Golan Heights should be named after US President Donald Trump in appreciation for his decision last month to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. PM Netanyahu: "a new community...

RUSH: There is an ongoing — supposedly, supposedly in the Drive-By Media, the Democrats are being walked back on their desire to impeach Trump by Pelosi. Pelosi is saying (paraphrasing), “I don’t think you got it yet. Keep digging. But we’re not there yet.” Meanwhile, all these other Democrats, Swalwell and all these other people are out there, “Oh, no, we’re gonna impeach, we’re gonna remove Trump.” Swalwell is predicting that Trump is gonna be removed from office. Now, one of the prevailing theories on this is that if they impeach Trump, they go through the motions. And impeachment is...