Free Republic

I was a press secretary in the US Senate in 2006, and I smoked. I’d step outside for a cigarette from time to time and then Senator Obama, also a smoker, would come walking from the Capitol having a smoke and would finish it with us other smokers. Like you would with anyone, I would just shoot the breeze with him. It didn’t happen often, Senators have busy schedules. But he’d walk outside from the Capitol to the office buildings sometimes rather than use the tunnels for the same reason I did – because you wanted to have a smoke...

“Nothing could be more vicariously gratifying than Che Guevara’s disdain for material comfort and everyday desires,” read Time’s encomium to Che Guevara in 1999, hailing him among the “Heroes and Icon of the Century’ alongside, Anne Frank, Rosa Parks and Mother Theresa. In fact, the domicile Che Guevara “acquired’’ in Havana was among the most luxurious in Cuba,” wrote Cuban journalist Antonio Llano Montes about the mansion Che Guevara “nationalized” (stole at Soviet gunpoint from rightful owner and moved into) in January 1959. After a hard day at the office signing firing-squad warrants and blasting teenagers’ skulls apart with the...

Authorizing the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline to lower fuel prices and give the United States more leverage against Russia would amount to "galloping after permanent solutions to immediate short term problems," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with MSNBC late Wednesday. Amid skyrocketing oil prices accompanying Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Republican governors and lawmakers are urging President Biden to reverse his cancellation of Keystone on his first day in office and use some of the 9,000 untapped oil leases on public lands to counter dependence on Russian oil. MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle, the host of "The...

It's a universal truth that you can always count on evil people to do what evil people do, hence the reason they're called evil. This brings me to politicians and specifically the Erebusic apparatchiks with cloven hooves found in the ranking echelons of political parties, which brings me to COVID-19. This essentially routine flu – and anything with a 99% full recovery rate is routine in my book – is being weaponized for political gain. There's a zeitgeist of abject fear being manufactured by the lapdog mainstream media and political hacks to provide air support for the ground game needed...

A 2018 music video about the end of gasoline and fossil fuels that recently resurfaced shows Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm making a cameo. Discussing how the end of gas-powered vehicles has gone from a pipe dream to a serious goal in a short amount of time, NPR cited advocacy group Coltura and their previous efforts to draw attention to the issue, such as through music videos. The report comes shortly after Granholm laughed hysterically when asked for her plan to increase the production of oil in the U.S. “That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this,”...

The Biden administration abandoned an oil and gas drilling project in Alaska approved by former President Donald Trump, which it had previously defended. “Today’s affirmation of our legal victory against the Willow project is a win for the climate and for an irreplaceable Alaska landscape,” Jeremy Lieb, an attorney for the group Earthjustice, said in a statement Wednesday. “We are glad to see that President Biden is taking positive steps in his commitment toward a cleaner energy future.” While the administration chose against appealing a federal ruling that blocked the project, it previously vowed to defend the project and accused...

Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma defended the anonymous Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6 during a weekend conversation with C-SPAN. In a program that aired on Sunday, Mullin broke with other high-profile conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, who have condemned Babbitt’s death and the secrecy surrounding it. Mullin apparently not only knows the identity of the officer who killed Babbitt, but he told C-SPAN he actually hugged him immediately following the fatal shooting. “After it happened, he came over and he was physically and emotionally distraught. And I actually gave him a...

The so-called “squad” member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) is set to introduce a “Green New Deal for Public Schools” in the House on Friday, which would cost $1.43 trillion over ten years. The far-left Democrat’s proposal would spend $446 billion on Climate Capital Facilities Grants toward retrofitting the nation’s public school buildings. It would also give major investments in expanding social services and provide a curriculum upgrade in school districts with low-income communities. The proposal would also include: $250 billion in Resource Block Grants, to help “fund staffing increases, expanded social service programming, and curriculum development at high-need schools”; $100...

The annual Sun Valley conference among finance, tech, entertainment, and media kingpins, dubbed summer camp for billionaires, included an address by Bill Gates about climate change. But critics pointed out the hypocrisy of such concerns, given that so many flew into the resort in private planes. The congestion concerns were so bad that the Federal Aviation Administration had to put a temporary ban on planes taking off from the West Coast to Michigan and Canada, according to the Daily Mail. NPR reported that the manager of the nearby airport, Friedman Memorial Airport, said more than 90 private planes were expected.

CNN contributor Van Jones reacted with emotion Friday on “Newsroom” to the 22-and-a-half year sentence of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Discussing how with good behavior, Chauvin is likely to serve closer to 15 years, Senior legal analyst Elie Honig said, “Justice is imperfect. This is a serious sentence. Derek Chauvin will be in prison for 15 years. He’s 45 now until he’s 60. That said, I think this is light. I think the judge should’ve sentenced him more. Minnesota guidelines say you can double the 15 years if there is one aggravator. This judge found four...

Amy Handleman was upset about Vice President Harris. "It's bad enough that the previously friendly mainstream media have been hectoring her about her alleged failure to visit our border with Mexico," she wailed, "but it has been even worse to learn that poor Kamala hasn't even been to Europe!" Amy paused briefly for breath, then continued, "It is essential that she go to Europe because she needs to fill out her presidential credentials by meeting with our NATO allies and taking tea with Vladimir Putin. "She needs to show she can hold her own with that despot … maybe tell...

"Good evening my fellow Americans. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about where we are as we mark one year since everything stopped because of this pandemic." Stop the tape! Everything did not stop because of this pandemic. "A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tripped over his words during a Friday speech from the Senate floor. After announcing that the article of impeachment was expected to be delivered by Monday, Schumer said that the Senate would take it up and proceed with a trial. “Senators will have to decide if Donald John Trump incited the erection,”.....

During a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Wednesday, President Trump spoke proudly about America’s accomplishments and future goals—including in space. He vowed to make the United States the first country to send an astronaut to Mars, suggesting perhaps it should be a woman, too. And while Republicans are eager to win back the House and get Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi out of the speakership, some apparently would like to see her off Earth altogether. “Make it Nancy Pelosi!” one rally attendee yelled back at the president. “Who said that? That’s pretty good! Stand up please, look at this...

On January 10, 2019, convicted criminal Kevin Limbaugh gunned down Natalie Corona, only 22 and a rising star in the Davis police department. Officers from across the country, joined by thousands of locals, attended a memorial service for Corona. Over at UC Davis, on the other hand, one professor openly supported the murder of police officers. That would be Joshua Clover, professor of English and comparative literature, whose publisher Verso Books describes him as a communist. Born in Berkeley in 1962, Clover (pictured above) is an alumnus of the prestigious Boston University and the Iowa Writers Workshop. He once bagged...

(Search showed nothing) It's fun to be a mob leader until the mob turns on you, as Nancy Pelosi is finding out. A socialist challenger is gunning for her San Francisco district and got #PelosiMustGo to trend on Twitter all day Sunday. Trending on Twitter is a big deal when you're trying to influence the Left's low-information voters. Pelosi's opponent, Shahid Buttar, is a left-wing activist, lawyer, DJ and poet. Among other impressive things, Buttar boasts about his trips to Burning Man, his "socially conscious music" and "outdoor poetry" jams. Buttar finished second in the primary and represents Pelosi's first...

Former Vice President Joe Biden said on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Wednesday that President Donald Trump as promoted racism. Noah said to Biden: “Talk me through how you would plan to undo systemic oppression, how you would plan to undo systemic racism, and how you think you will address the needs of the African-American community.” “Well, first of all it’s going to take time,” said Biden.

Becoming, the new Michelle Obama documentary on Netflix, seems like the kind of left-wing hagiography that mainstream media critics would lap up in Pavlovian fashion. Instead, the movie has fallen flat with reviewers who have called it “bland,” “self-celebratory,” and a “paper-thin” account of the former first lady. The documentary is the latest collaboration between Netflix and the Obamas, who struck a lucrative production deal with the streamer in 2018. Former Obama national security advisor Susan Rice currently sits on Netflix’s board of directors.

Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski went on an unhinged, emotional rant about Fox News on Friday, decrying the network as full of “puppets” who need to rediscover the “goodness” and “objectivity” inside them. Yes, someone on MSNBC said this. Apparently angry because Sean Hannity mocked her husband, Joe Scarborough, on Thursday night, Brzezinski fumed, “We often try and sort of stay away from our colleagues in the business, but Fox News has several puppets for this President constantly going on the air, constantly repeating what he says verbatim.” Claiming that she doesn’t really want to trash her competitor over at...

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was set to speak at a criminal justice forum at Benedict College, a traditionally black college in Columbia, South Carolina, but decided to cancel. Her reason? She was upset the college recognized President Donald Trump for the FIRST STEP Act. The bi-partisan piece of legislation reduces prison sentences for non-violent offenses, like drug felonies, and allows inmates to receive "good time credit" when they participate in educational and/or training programs that prepare them for life outside prison. Harris' team said she's the only 2020 presidential candidate who has attended a historically black college, she knows "that...