Free Republic

T he invitation from Middlebury College to speak about my book The Demon in Democracy came last year. I was pleased to receive it, as it seemed to indicate that the book resonated in American academic circles. Middlebury was the sixth or seventh university in America to have issued such an invitation since the book appeared in 2016. The Demon in Democracy puts forward the rather strong thesis that, in many important respects, liberal democracy increasingly resembles communism. The argument is complex, but it amounts roughly to the following: Both communism and liberal democracy aim to politicize the whole of...

Senator Chuck Schumer has finally gone to the Southern Border with some Democrat Senators. This is a GREAT thing! Nearby, he missed a large group of Illegal Immigrants trying to enter the USA illegally. They wildly rushed Border Patrol. Some Agents were badly injured.... 10:16 PM · Jul 21, 2019 · Twitter for iPhone ....Based on the comments made by Senator Schumer, he must have seen how dangerous & bad for our Country the Border is. It is not a “manufactured crisis,” as the Fake News Media & their Democrat partners tried to portray. He said he wants to meet....

There's no way that China can give Washington the trade deal it wants. Tariffs are the only instrument left for addressing China's systematic and excessive surpluses on its U.S. trades. (please see link, for full article)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking your input concerning the construction of a levee/border wall system in Rio Grande Valley (RGV), Texas. CBP is accepting comments until Monday, August 26, 2019. CBP proposes to design and construct approximately 95 miles of new border and levee wall system in Starr, Hidalgo, and Cameron counties, including the design and construction of (1) approximately 52 miles of border wall system in Starr County, Texas; (2) approximately 24 miles of levee wall system in Hidalgo County, Texas; and (3) approximately 19 miles of levee/border wall system in Cameron County, Texas.

The circus is coming to town and the carnival barkers are working up a sweat trying to spark interest. So far, ticket sales are slow. Robert Mueller is slated to appear in Washington’s Big Tent Wednesday when he testifies to two House committees. The former special counsel threw a wet blanket on expectations by vowing he wouldn’t say anything beyond what’s in his report, but the hype machine still promises a sensational show. Naturally, the anti-Trump media are doing their best to pump oxygen into the dead-of-summer event, with NBC News running this screaming headline on a setup article: “Mueller...

The Democrats’ 2020 theme is that you are terrible and the party’s slogan will be “Americans suck, vote for us.” The precise candidate who will employ it is not important because they all embrace the notion that punishing the essential moral failure of you and me and every other Normal American is the key goal of the Donkey Party. That goes equally for the Handsey Old Prospector, the Socialist Squaw, Crusty the Commie, Spartacus Sharpton, Starchild, the Furry, Not Ms. Willie Brown, the Unfabulous Gay Guy, and the many Unfabulous Ungay Guys.They all agree that you are terrible because you...

Some Chinese companies are seeking new purchases of U.S. agricultural products, China's official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, citing authorities, as Beijing and Washington look for ways to end a protracted trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at last month's G20 summit in Osaka to restart trade talks that stalled in May. Trump said at the time he would not impose new tariffs and U.S. officials said China agreed to make agricultural purchases. But Trump said on July 11 that China was not living up to promises to buy U.S. farm goods. Chinese...

El Chapo rode a black SUV to the helicopter that transferred him to a plane for a journey to supermax prison in Florence Colorado.

.... Photos from Visoski’s now-deleted Instagram account likely shed some new light on what Epstein may have been up to over the past few years, detailing Visoski’s flights across the U.S. and to the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Caribbean, Europe, Mexico, and the Middle East. .... more, lots more Thanks to previously released flight logs ranging from December 1997 through November 2005, a fair amount is known about where the jet-setting financier and accused child sex trafficker was flying and who he was accompanied by more than a decade ago. Epstein was joined on those flights by tycoons, celebrities, employees,...

Former U.S Attorney Joyce Vance apologized after deleting a tweet falsely claiming that Fox News would not air former special counsel Robert Mueller's upcoming House hearing. Vance, who served under former President Obama, said the tweet was meant to be ironic, but deleted it to limit any confusion. "Y’all, a kind friend pointed out my goofy sense of humor doesn’t always translate onto Twitter. I know most of you get the irony by now. It will be interesting to see Fox’s coverage in light of Trump’s statement he won’t be watching the hearing. "I’ve deleted an earlier tweet I intended...

Vice President Pence's daughter, Charlotte, announced her engagement on Saturday. Charlotte Pence, 26, "said yes" to boyfriend Henry Bond, she wrote in her Instagram announcement. "I said 'yes,' and then I said 'thanks' a lot because I didn’t know what else to say," Charlotte Pence wrote in her caption. "I love you. Let’s do this." Her younger sister, Audrey Pence, announced her own engagement earlier this year. Charlotte Pence is an author who has written a series of children's books about "Marlon Bundo," about the Pence family rabbit. She co-wrote "Where You Go: Life Lessons From My Father," published in...

This week’s much-anticipated hearing with former special counsel Robert Mueller promises to be full of high political drama. But election security — a key focus of the Mueller report — isn’t likely to garner much attention from lawmakers. Mueller is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees in back-to-back hearings Wednesday to discuss the findings of his 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The first volume of the report was devoted to Russian efforts to interfere in the elections through social media and hacking operations, with Mueller later emphasizing in rare public remarks...

President Trump made small talk with the Irish prime minister as they sat in the Oval Office in mid-March, accompanied by a handful of senior American and Irish officials. Trump, who wore a green tie and filled his jacket pocket with a clump of shamrock to honor the Irish leader's annual St. Patrick's Day visit, turned with a half-smile to his hawkish national security adviser John Bolton, according to two sources who were in the room. "John," Trump asked, "Is Ireland one of those countries you want to invade?" Behind the scenes: The joke captured how Trump often privately interacts...

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said he has “no doubt” President Donald Trump is a racist following the president’s recent attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color in which he told them to “go back” to other countries. “What I’m hearing over and over again from my constituents is, please save our democracy,” Cummings told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “They say, ‘Im scared.’ And I have never in my total of 37 years in public service ever heard a constituent say that they were scared of their leader,” Cummings said, referencing Trump. Asked if he believes Trump is a racist,...

Would you have charged Trump if it weren’t for the OLC opinion? Democrats want to know if Mueller would have charged Trump with obstruction of justice in the absence of an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion from the Justice Department that says a sitting president can’t be indicted. Why did your office write a letter to Barr objecting to his March 24 memo? Mueller wrote to Barr on May 27 objecting to the attorney general’s four-page memo from a few days earlier outlining the Russia report’s principal conclusions, a revelation that sparked a firestorm in Washington on the eve...

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is revising the current naturalization test with improvements to ensure it continues to serve as an accurate measure of a naturalization applicant’s civics knowledge and that it reflects best practices in adult education assessments. The goal is to create a meaningful, uniform, and efficient test that will assess applicants’ knowledge and understanding of U.S. history, government and values. This spring, the former USCIS director signed the Revision of the Naturalization Civics Test Memorandum (PDF, 202 KB). This memorandum announces the revision of the naturalization test and formalizes a decennial revision schedule of the naturalization...

President Trump made a surprise appearance at a wedding reception Saturday night that took place at his New Jersey golf club, prompting the bride, groom and attendees to break into chants of “USA! USA!” Video circulating on social media Sunday showed Trump walk out to the reception and the bride and groom rush over to join him. The crowd then erupted in the patriotic chant. Groom P.J. Mongelli later told CNN that Trump showing up at the wedding “was a complete and utter surprise.” He said that he and his then-fiancée Nicole Marie Mongelli sent Trump multiple invitations to...

Don't you just love it when the hackers get hacked?According to BBC Russia, the Russian intelligence agency's computer systems have been penetrated by an outfit calling itself "0v1ru$" and 7.5 terabytes of data has been stolen. 0v1ru$ then passed the data along to the larger, well known group Digital Revolution who then disseminated the information to various media outlets.BBC Russia also says no state secrets were exposed by the hack.The hackers were able gain entry to FSB systems through a contractor, SyTech.Forbes: BBC Russia  broke the news that 0v1ru$ had breached SyTech's servers and shared details of contentious cyber projects, projects that included...

Lost in the kerfuffle over Houston Congressman Al Green’s failed attempt to get an impeachment vote on President Donald Trump and the “send her back” chants is a rather interesting piece of news regarding Google’s censored search engine for China.It’s deader than Jacob Marley.Google’s Karan Bhatia told a U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday the company was no longer working on the project using the phrase, “we have terminated that,” when asked by Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley. A Google spokesperson provided a little more context to Buzzfeed. A company spokesperson pointed to its statement in a March 2019 story...

Congrats on finally becoming a capitalist, Bernie.If you missed Ed’s post on Friday about Team Bernie’s crash course in real-world economics, read it now for background. The campaign’s field organizers realized they’ve been working an average of 60 hours a week at a rate of $36,000 per year, which shakes out to a bit less than $15 per hour — the magic number Bernie himself has demanded be set as the new federal minimum wage. He can’t pay us less than what he wants every American to be paid, his staffers rightly reasoned. So they’ve complained to management and...