Free Republic

Yesterday we talked about an Associated Press report claiming that the United States has been in secret discussions with some of the most senior members of the Venezuelan socialist party. The suggestion was that we were offering some of these thugs assurances that they wouldn’t be prosecuted for anything if they turned their backs on dictator Nicolas Maduro and hastened his exit from office. Well, now that the cat is out of the bag, both Maduro and President Trump are confirming that the story is true. (AP) President Donald Trump said Tuesday his government is talking to “various representatives” of...

In the scientific community, there is still a great deal of energy devoted to “listening” for evidence or hints of intelligent, extraterrestrial civilizations out among the stars. Most of you are probably familiar with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and their decades of work in this field. They’re still at it and, in fact, are upping their game with a new generation of laser sensors. These projects drew fresh attention after the discovery of Tabby’s Star and the frantic speculation over whether or not some ancient civilization had built a Dyson Sphere around their own sun. This has led...

We’ve had more than 36 hours to absorb the news that President Trump was pulling our troops out of the way of an anticipated Turkish incursion into northern Syria. (And possibly out of the country entirely.) The response has been rapid and generally brutal across the board. Has any of this sunk in with the President yet, potentially leading him to reconsider this decision? As of last night, it certainly didn’t sound like it. (Associated Press) “I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars,...

Only one day after mayors and governors around the country stood in unison to support people breaking the law, the President has temporarily put on hold plans to have ICE detain and deport large numbers of illegal aliens in as many as ten cities. Is this a sign that he’s suddenly “seen the light” and decided that enforcing our immigration laws isn’t such a big deal? Not in the slightest. Instead, he might be angling for a better immigration bill out of Congress. And according to CNN, the change in plans was prompted by a call from Nancy Pelosi. House...

It was only a few weeks ago when outgoing Ohio Governor John Kasich said he was seriously considering a 2020 primary challenge to President Trump, if only to “send a message.” (Who that message was intended for remains unclear.) But hey… the guy is going to be unemployed come January so he needs something to keep himself busy.But now, with Christmas fast approaching, something seems to have changed. During an interview with the Associated Press, Kasich was striking a decidedly different tone. Clearly, if you’re going to mount a primary challenge, you need to believe that you at least have...

We knew (or at least feared) that this was coming, but Friday saw the finalization of the new biofuels – specifically ethanol – blending requirements for 2019 and 2020. And true to the promises that President Trump made to Iowa politicians, we did not see any significant reductions in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates. In fact, they went up, much the same as under Obama’s EPA. (EPA website)

Another scientific study has been released offering the controversial claim that there’s a decent chance the octopus (and the rest of the cephalopods) arrived on Earth in the form of frozen eggs 250 million years ago and actually evolved on another world. … This wasn’t the first group to suggest it. In 2015 another research group reached a similar conclusion. The more you read into it, the less crazy it sounds. As we’ve studied the various animals on the planet in ever deeper detail, the octopus really doesn’t seem to fit in with everything else. They’re an invertebrate, but they...

Preparations are underway for the grand opening of the new United States embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. While the President won’t be able to attend as he prepares for his summit with North Korea, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have arrived to do the honors along with a number of other delegates. But not everyone is quite so thrilled with this development, particularly in some parts of the European Union. They were preparing to put forward a resolution condemning the embassy move, delivering a statement which was explicitly designed to “embarrass and isolate the Trump administration” ahead of the ceremony....

Yikes. I’m probably as surprised as anyone else to hear myself saying it, but the producers might want to start cranking up the music and offer a subtle hint to Mitt Romney that it’s time to get off the stage. We’re busy getting ready for the convention in Cleveland and the pieces are pretty much set up on the board, yet it seems that the winner of the 2012 GOP primary can’t bring himself to step back and let somebody else get on message. This pattern of behavior was on display yet again this week when Mitt let everyone know...

A confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland is still far from a sure thing (Mark Kirk’s comments aside) and there still may not be a vote regarding his nomination to the Supreme Court until after the next election. But he may have one friend in an unexpected place no matter how the presidential race shakes out… John Kasich. Apparently unaware of Garland’s record of open hostility to the Second Amendment, the Ohio Governor went on Face the Nation this week and not only criticized his party’s stall tactics regarding the next SCOTUS justice, but admitted that Garland had such overwhelming...

Sometimes the two parties just aren’t that far apart during campaign season, and in a populist moment such as the one we’re experiencing right now that axiom is being proven true on the subject of free trade and job outsourcing. Currently, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders seem to be in a battle to see which one of them can sound the most like Donald Trump when it comes to offshoring American jobs, but Clinton is being hit with yet another vignette from her long history of paid speeches. Fox News dredged up an old clip of her from 2005 speaking...

There’s been a growing sense of desperation among the #NeverTrump forces for a few weeks now, and as we move closer to largely winner take all states in the primary line-up it was inevitable that full blown panic would set in. One side effect of this increased feeling of urgency is that critics of The Donald have increasingly given up on critiquing the business mogul’s record and frequently mystifying comments, choosing to focus their attacks on his supporters instead. While a seemingly self-defeating strategy, that movement has hit its full stride this weekend with National Review’s endless fountain of Trump...

Earlier this year we talked about some of the initial flight testing of the new F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter which was largely completed between January and April. After more than a trillion dollars in development costs and constant questions from critics both inside and outside the aerospace industry, the early look by the military was promising. The testing lined the fighter up against some of the current fleet of similar planes and tested basic operations and “basic fighter maneuvers.” With a few minor exceptions the plane seemed to be getting a thumbs up.But there was a second, more...

Over the weekend the former president of Mexico took a rather scoffing tone when he said that Mexico wasn’t going to pay one cent for Donald Trump’s “stupid wall.” This is a knock we’ve heard from plenty of The Donald’s critics back here at home as well, coming from Democrats and Republicans alike. I mean… it’s crazy, right? How could anyone expect that to happen?There’s an article this week over at The Last Refuge which might be worth a look if you’ve got an open mind on the subject. One of the less commented on aspects of international relations...

I was watching some of the Iowa interviews coming out of Senator Joni Ernst’s event on CNN this morning where several presidential hopefuls were strutting their stuff for primary voters. None of them really jumped out at me, but the interview by Dana Bash with the senator herself was definitely worth the price of admission. The reason dates back to last October when Hillary Clinton decided to dip a toe into the Iowa senate race in support of Democrat candidate Bruce Braley. The subject wasn’t anything to do with the issues of the day, but yet another ride on the...

We've spoken about Ta-nehisi Coates a few times previously. Widely considered to be the voice of the Social Justice Warriors, the author of Between the World and Me seems to be the go-to philosopher of everyone from the Black Lives Matter movement to the most hard core liberal enclaves of the media. Given how poorly Bernie Sanders has been doing with black voters in recent polls, it's no shock that Coates might be rushing to the defense of Hillary Clinton as she struggles to stay to the left of the Vermont socialist. And true to form, he seems to be...

Trump's support is nearly the strongest in New York. Now, I can already hear what you're thinking: That's crazy, Jazz. Republicans don't carry New York. It's owned and operated by the Democrats. Well, that's generally true, but if you spend any amount of time watching Empire State politics you know that things have been changing a bit of late. Remember that Governor Andrew Cuomo actually lost the vote in upstate New York in 2014. And he didn't lose by a little, either. It was a wipe out. In fact he only carried eleven of the state's 57 counties outside of...

Just because you’ve been doing something for decades, that doesn’t mean that you need to keep doing it. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the roughly forty year old ban we have on crude oil exports, enacted back when the Middle East oil barons decided to kick off an embargo, leading to skyrocketing gas prices and long lines at service stations. Congress seems to slowly be getting the message on this subject, and yesterday the House finally passed a bill to end the ban. (Yahoo News) A bill to repeal the U.S. oil export ban passed...

Back when Ohio Governor John Kasich first announced his presidential bid I asked a number of questions regarding his candidacy. While understanding that he likely had a greater chance of carrying Ohio – still important – there seemed to be two big arguments against him. First, he didn’t seem to be taking up a very different lane than some of the other establishment candidates in the race who also had gubernatorial experience and fairly standard, mainstream party positions. Second, he had obvious hits on his track record, including a budget which raised taxes on tobacco and energy as well...

Springer Publishing, one of the world’s leading publishers of Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) books and journals, issued an announcement this week that 64 different professional articles, primarily in the medical field, had been retracted. It turns out that the vaunted peer review process, designed to ensure that multiple sets of experts evaluate the quality of the work before it hits the presses, had fallen apart. The peer reviews in some cases were found to be “highly suspicious” with bogus email addresses and questionable credentials. Springer confirms that 64 articles are being retracted from 10 Springer subscription journals, after...