Free Republic

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been playing games with people's livelihoods this year. How else can she explain why she rejected earlier, bigger COVID relief deals offered from the White House, such as the $1.8 trillion deal presented by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin this fall? CNN's Manu Raju told Twitter that he tried to ask the speaker about her confounding rationale, but she completely ignored him.

While the U.S. Congress seems likely to push through a massive $900 billion stimulus plan as soon as today, researchers are starting to crunch the numbers when it comes to the total damage done to the U.S. economy due to the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California, the U.S. economy lost between $3.2 trillion and $4.8 trillion in real gross domestic product (GDP) over the course of two years.

Another open season has come and gone in which eligible Americans could choose from a narrow array of federally subsidized health care plans under the Affordable Care Act. Despite the ACA’s manifest gaps and failures, a recent poll from the left-leaning Kaiser Family Foundation found that a solid majority—55%—of respondents have a favorable perception of the law. That result may be due in part to a feature of the law most have heard about and support: its ban on private insurers denying coverage for preexisting conditions. The ACA is much more than that provision, however. By almost any measure, the...

The House and Senate on Friday night passed a two-day extension of government funding to keep federal agencies fully operational through Sunday night. President Trump signed the legislation to avert a shutdown.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t do enough for black lives, according to militant proponents of the woke revolution. In October, the San Francisco Unified School District School Names Advisory Committee suggested a list of school names to be replaced in the city. On that list was a school named after Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. In just a few years, the discussion about history and monuments has gone from whether we should keep Confederate monuments to erasing the president who orchestrated the Confederacy’s destruction. Regarding Lincoln, it seems the woke and John Wilkes Booth are now in alignment.

NPR was roasted on social media Wednesday after fawning over Pete Buttigieg, President-elect Joe Biden's pick for transportation secretary, after famously refusing to cover the Hunter Biden scandal. "Pete Buttigieg, President-elect Biden's pick for transportation secretary, said he has ‘a personal love of transportation,’ recounting train trips on Amtrak while in college, and said he proposed to his now-husband, Chasten, in an airport terminal," NPR Politics sent from its verified account.

The D.C. mayor’s office is only a half-mile from the National Archives. If Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser ever made that trek, she might have a better grasp on the U.S. Constitution. It’s right there for everyone to read, including the First Amendment, which warns leaders like her against infringing on the free exercise of religion—something her COVID-19 rules have done to every believer in the nation’s capital. Now, one of the holiest days of the year approaching, Catholic leaders are done with the unfair treatment. And they’re taking her to court to prove it. The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, like...

The press is our chief ideological weapon." —Nikita Khrushchev ... A Biden presidency could cement a state-controlled media establishment that fulfills Khrushchev's vision. 2. "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." —Benjamin Franklin. ... 3. "Indeed, you won the elections, but I won the count." —Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. ... as implied by Somoza, Trump may have won the election, while Biden won the count. ... 5. "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." —George Orwell. The founding of our country — "the past"...

Are you going to pay my rent ? says owner Anton Van Happen of 'Nick The Greek' to public health inspectors issuing him a citation for staying open after being issued a closure order.

Two months into fiscal 2021, the federal government has spent nearly twice as much money as it has taken in through revenue after posting a 14th consecutive month of deficit spending.

Montgomery County, Maryland is a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C. Like many such jurisdictions, Montgomery County remains tightly locked down. Its public schools are closed, and all students are required to participate in “distance learning.” The results have been disastrous –particularly for minority students. Since the advent of the great “War on Poverty” liberal educators in Montgomery County and elsewhere in the nation have trumpeted their efforts to close the “achievement gap” -the yawning chasm that exists between the performance of white students and minority, particularly black, students. Quite rightly educators have focused on the fact that in an increasingly...

To whom it may concern,On Thursday, I provided you a call to action letter, urging you to confront the fraud that has enormously tainted this election. I thought it was best to make haste in conveying my message to you due to the gravity of the situation. Nevertheless, the message stands true – a fraudulent election must not stand.Furthermore, I suggested to you that the events that have transpired to date have given new life to an American Patriotic spirit. It’s my belief that we’re beyond the point of accepting the conventional status quo. It’s no longer adequate to merely...

Holy hovering aliens, Batman! An image that was snapped on the personal cellphone of the backseat weapons systems operator of what appears to be an F/A-18 fighter jet has leaked and it shows a straight up UFO hovering motionlessly over the ocean. The image has apparently been circulating among the intelligence community since it was taken in 2018 and nobody knows what the heck this thing is. While details are difficult to make out, the image appears to depict an inverted bell-shaped object, which is not readily identifiable given the photo's context. The object appears to possess ridges or other...

WASHINGTON — The architects of a newly unveiled 10-year, $600 billion climate plan to revitalize Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley region are moving forward with a difficult task of building political willpower in Washington while gaining the trust of rural communities tied to the coal and natural gas industries, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto told a group of sustainable development advocates Tuesday. That coalition-building — a communications strategy to be forged over the next six weeks among academic institutions in Pittsburgh and seven other cities — is a critical step toward executing the plan Mr. Peduto described as both idealistic...

In my recent Townhall article, "What if the Deep State Has No Bottom?" one of the commenters issued a brief roster of 12 deep state layers and below is my take on each of them. 1. Ignorant Youth – A blameless group indoctrinated to either hate America or over-focus on her faults. Students rarely hear about the greatness of America and what we've done for the world, let alone our own citizens. These youth eventually join the Democrat/progressive machine that seeks to rewrite our history and to make our populace subjects of the state and not much more. 2. Brainwashed...

All in-park overnight lodging will be closed for incoming arrivals beginning on Monday, December 7, 2020 and will remain closed until further notice. All overnight camping within Yosemite National Park will be prohibited beginning on Monday, December 7, 2020 until further notice. This includes all park campgrounds, wilderness camping, and overnight use along climbing routes. Overnight backpacking trips into Yosemite’s wilderness will also be prohibited. All visitors planning trips to Yosemite are asked to be our partner in recreating responsibly. Yosemite National Park conducts hundreds of search and rescue missions each year, many of which could be avoided with visitors...

It was in June 1996 that I picked up a book that, for all intents and purposes, changed my life: R.J. Rummel’sDeath by Government (Transaction, 1994). After purchasing the book, I devoured it on a flight from Houston to Indianapolis. Every anti-Communist thought my mother had so rightly drilled into me as a child, every viewing of The Killing Fields (the work of art that inspired my entrance essay for and into the University of Notre Dame), and every Goldwater-esque aspect of my very soul seemed justified by the very existence of Death by Government. All my firms were confirmed.Through...

America's big cities and habitually blue states have suffered a pre-existing condition for a long time: their left-leaning government control.America’s big cities might be the ultimate victims of COVID-19. Leftist policies have raised their spending beyond self-sustaining levels, making them increasingly dependent on external revenues. Beyond interrupting these external revenue streams, the Wuhan virus threatens a long-term disruption that might be irreversible. A recent border budget battle in leftist New England demonstrates COVID-19’s growing strain on America’s big cities. In October, New Hampshire filed suit with the Supreme Court to stop Massachusetts from continuing to tax 80,000 of its residents...

Dear [Congressman/or Senator________],This election has been tainted by fraud. The government works for us, the people and we insist you stand up and call out this grossly fraudulent election. You must stand up and support our beloved president and the constitution.We the people are paying close attention. From what I've gathered and I could be wrong but the GOP has been silent in the matter which is leading me to believe either they are a part of the "establishment" and on par with the deep state and democrats or they do not have the courage to stand up for the...

At the time of Watergate, the French were completely mystified about what it was all about. "Of course, an incoming Administration rewards its supporters and prosecutes the prior Admin as much as it can", numerous French heads have civilly rolled. It's a fine tradition, in Pakistan, if you're a former head of state but haven't got the death penalty, you're a nobody. In the late 1960s, a newly-dead American Congressman was found to have $3.3 million under his bed. It was considered a grievous travesty; and even the fact that he didn't set up a foundation to garner $billions by...