Free Republic

President Trump has released a list of the people whose sentences he's commuted, such as former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, and pardoned, such as Eddie DeBartolo Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers. But there are a couple of names missing. The hashtag "Stone and Flynn" is trending on Twitter. Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter: Pardon Stone and Flynn. Commute Manafort. cc: @realDonaldTrump— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) February 18, 2020 In a filing today, General Michael Flynn is asking a judge to throw out the entire case against him due to "THE GOVERNMENT’S OUTRAGEOUS CONDUCT AND REPEATED BRADY VIOLATIONS...

It's hard to believe, but May 4, 2020, is the 50th anniversary of the tragic shooting at Kent State University, where Ohio National Guard troops fired on a crowd of students during a massive anti-Vietnam War protest, killing four students and injuring nine. Witnesses, military and law-enforcement experts, historians, and activists are divided on whether the shooting was justified (that's a discussion for another day), but it appears that Kent State is going all-in on pouring salt in the wounds of America's Vietnam veterans. In a move that surprised many in the Northeast Ohio area and beyond, Kent State President...

Given America’s deplorable history of slavery and segregation, all Americans should be proud that their country had the courage to elect its first black president. With invaluable assistance from a cheerleading media, a young and charismatic Barack Obama was swept into the most powerful job in the world with the enthusiastic endorsement of a sizable majority of the American electorate. More than three years after leaving office, he remains one of the most influential political figures in America. But is that plaudit warranted? These days, a look at his past suggests an exceptionally anti-American orientation, and as Obama's Democrats now...

Ed Morrissey wrote about the decision by the Sanders campaign to keep the rest of Bernie’s medical records under wraps a couple of weeks ago. At the time, I found myself wondering just how well that would fly with Democratic primary voters and if President Trump’s critics would hold Sanders to the same standard. Curiously, we haven’t heard much talk about that subject on cable news after the first few days. (Funny how that works, isn’t it?)But the topic hasn’t disappeared entirely. This week, our friend Andrew Malcolm pries open that can of worms once again. He highlights an...

North Carolina primary voters don’t go to the polls until Super Tuesday on March 3rd, but it’s definitely one of the states worth watching. The state offers the third-highest haul of delegates available on that day and it’s seen as another stop where the minority vote will have a large influence. The big problem for the Democrats is that there is no frontrunner in South Carolina at this point. The latest poll from WRAL News shows the race in a three-way tie. And as we’ll discuss shortly, that’s not the only place this is happening. Two weeks out from...

Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg “overstated” his partnerships with black-owned businesses in South Carolina as he tries to improve his standing with minority voters, according to a report. The former South Bend mayor wrote in an op-ed last week in The State, a South Carolina newspaper, that his campaign had “proudly partnered with local businesses like Diane’s Kitchen in Chester, Atlantis Restaurant in Moncks Corner and the Fair Deal Grocery on Charleston’s Eastside.” The problem, however, is that two of those businesses denied to ABC News that they had forged any sort of partnership with the candidate.

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina State University will be home to a new apprenticeship program in artificial intelligence as part of a federal push to train more workers in emerging fields. U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia announced nearly $100 million in grants would be awarded to 28 public-private partnerships to help fill the more than 6.4 million job openings in the country. "These grants aim to expand apprenticeships into industries that don’t have large-scale apprenticeship programs, currently industries that are often looking outside the U.S. for skilled workers using the H1B visa program," [NO, THEY'RE JUST LOOKING FOR *CHEAP* WORKERS]...

<p>Looking ahead to the Democrat Convention in July, I believe that a Bernie Sanders-StaceyAbrams ticket may come out of Milwaukee.</p> <p>"It would be doing a disservice to every woman of color, every woman of ambition...for me to say no," she adds. "Of course I want it—of course I want to serve America."</p>

Two green-dream fantasies are heading for a massive and costly collision. Firstly, they dream of generating all grid power from wind and solar propped up by battery storage (such as lots of giant Tesla batteries and pumped hydro). Secondly, they dream of replacing all petrol, diesel, and gas cars, trucks, and buses with electric vehicles, powered by more batteries. But wind farms do well if they can average about 35% of their rated capacity, with low predictability, while solar panels average just 25% of their capacity, produced intermittently. To generate zero emissions energy for Australia, we would need hills covered...

Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign is hiring hundreds of workers in California to post regularly on their personal social-media accounts in support of the candidate and send text messages to their friends about him. The effort, which could cost millions of dollars, is launching ahead of California’s March 3 primary and could later be deployed nationwide, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is one of the most unorthodox yet by the heavy-spending billionaire and blurs the lines between traditional campaign organizing and the distribution of sponsored content. Most campaigns encourage their...

A specter is haunting the Democratic Party: the specter of Bernie Bros. What is a Bernie Bro, exactly?  Where along the cline of various political creatures does one fall? The Bernie Bro's natural habitat is the internet.  In the wild — meaning on Twitter, or poking around in the depraved brush of Reddit — the stalwart of the socialist septuagenarian truffles for unconverted Democrats to their cause.  Spotting a Sanders skeptic, or Joe Biden–supporter, they descend with ravening ferocity, unleashing broadsides that recall Maoist struggle sessions. Mainstream journalists, despite their friendliness with the Democratic Party, have found themselves on the receiving end...

Up until now, Democrats have been focused on finding the right candidate who can Get Trump. For awhile, many were gravitating toward Joe Biden for this very reason, citing his Scranton roots and supposed common man demeanor. It wasn't based on any authentic affection for Biden. It was who could Beat Trump. As Biden fell apart over impeachment, with revelations about how he amassed wealth for himself and his relatives in public office, some moved over to Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar. Then Michael Bloomberg came on the scene, scarfing up a large part of the collapsing Biden vote by...

A top official at the Pentagon has been asked for his resignation, according to reports. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, has lost the support of senior national security leadership and has been asked to step down, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Wednesday. Rood was involved in certifying to Congress that Ukraine was eligible to receive $250 million in security assistance. The certification undercut the argument the Trump administration made for withholding the aid. Shortly after President Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, Rood emailed Secretary of Defense Mark Esper...

Michael Bloomberg has been taking flak from progressives lately because of his longstanding, enthusiastic support for New York City's "stop, question, and frisk" program, a position he renounced just a week before he officially entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The former mayor's support for stricter gun control laws, by contrast, is not very controversial among Democratic voters, although it reflects the same troubling readiness to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of public safety. During Bloomberg's administration, the annual number of SQF encounters septupled, from fewer than 100,000 in 2002 to more than 685,000 in 2011. Nearly...

Michael Bloomberg has qualified for his second Democratic primary debate as he prepares to take the stage and face his rivals for the first time Wednesday night. The former Big Apple mayor met the qualification requirements thanks to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll released Tuesday that placed him in third with 14 percent support behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden, respectively. In order to qualify for the Feb. 25 in Charleston, South Carolina, candidates need to reach 10 percent support in four national, DNC-approved polls or 12 percent in two South Carolina polls...

We have nothing against South Bend, Indiana. In fact, two members of our opinion staff were born and raised in that city. But we all know that it's no proving ground for the presidency. More generally speaking, service as a small-town mayor is not in itself sufficient training for the Oval Office. Pete Buttigieg, who served two terms as the mayor of Indiana's fourth-largest city, begs to differ. "Pragmatic and value-driven leadership — it's what mayors practice every day," he said in September. "We need a lot more of that in Washington right now.” The following month, Buttigieg said, "There’s...

Attorney General William Barr took aim Wednesday at a key legal protection for the tech industry, calling into question whether it is still needed as a small number of key tech players have reached a massive size and scale. Besides questions of anticompetitive behavior, Barr said at a Department of Justice workshop, the agency is considering what a concentrated tech market means for a legal immunity originally created to help small start-ups thrive. Barr convened the workshop to discuss Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says tech companies cannot be held legally liable for content posted by third-party...

Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight. His name is Dorsen and he is one of an army of children, some just four years old, working in the vast polluted mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where toxic red dust burns their eyes, and they run the risk of skin disease and a deadly lung condition. Here, for a wage of just 8p a day, the children are made to check the rocks for the tell-tale chocolate-brown streaks of cobalt – the prized ingredient essential for...

A U.S. attorney has been designated to oversee all Ukraine-related investigations by federal prosecutors around the country. The Justice Department revealed on Tuesday that Richard Donoghue, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, was assigned to the task by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Donoghue will “assist in coordinating … several open matters being handled by different U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department components that in some way potentially relate to Ukraine," according to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee. Donoghue, a St. John’s University School of Law graduate and Army Judge Advocate General Corps veteran,...

Michael Bloomberg's company is facing a lawsuit from a woman claiming she was subjected to a hostile and discriminatory work environment when she returned from cancer treatment -- and was ultimately fired and pressured to sign a nondisclosure agreement days after she was hospitalized for mental illness.