Free Republic

Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! Now that he has been forever acquitted, President Trump should put the failed partisan impeachment attempt behind him, then concentrate on winning the 2020 election with wide coattails. Then bide his time as the cases against the various coup plotters wind their way through the justice system. Highest priority political items: Win the election, hold the senate, take back the house!! And then continue the work of making America great again: Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all!! End DACA!! End sanctuary cities!! End anchor babies!! Continue cutting regulations, cutting...

Union Army troops under the command of Major General William T. Sherman enter the city of Columbia, South Carolina. The evening of the 16th, retreating Confederate cavalry set fire to cotton bales in the streets of Columbia. High winds spread the flames. Sherman’s troops, under orders set fire to government buildings, installations and war factories. In addition, drunk Union soldiers and civilians also started fires. These flames spread and by the morning of the 18th, a majority of Columbia had burned. Sherman in his memoirs says “Though I never ordered it and never wished it, I have never shed any...

... The visceral, retributive reactions to Mr. Madoff’s petition, including from liberals who claim to want to end mass incarceration, reveal the obstacles to transformational criminal justice reform. The truth is, there is only a small number of entirely “sympathetic” people in prisons who could be released without any scruples by the public or affront to their victims. Those incarcerated for violent offenses compose a vast majority of our prison population, in spite of a false narrative that most people are in there for nonviolent drug offenses. The pain and harm experienced by their victims is real, and that’s also...

DAYTONA BEACH -- The Daytona 500 has been postponed by rain for the first time since 2012, dampening NASCAR’s season opener that started with a ballyhooed visit from President Donald Trump. The race was postponed after two lengthy delays totaling more than three hours. The race will now begin at 4 p.m. Monday and be broadcast live on Fox. It’s the second time in 62 years that “The Great American Race” will finish on a Monday. The first delay of the day came moments after the presidential motorcade completed a ceremonial parade lap around the 2 1/2-mile track. Trump’s armored...

[snip] On Morning Joe today, Mika Brzezinski told Sharpton that he was in a position to grant Bloomberg a "pass" on racial issues. Saying that Bloomberg was "certainly looking for" such a pass, Mika wondered whether Bloomberg would "put his money where his mouth is?"What is she asking? That Bloomberg give money to Sharpton's National Action Network? As the MSNBC screen hinted about Bloomberg "buying" the presidency? Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

VIDEO These are very painful video clips of Mike Bloomberg awkwardly trying to act cool as a singing mermaid, a male Mary Poppins, and absurdly displaying a total lack of expertise on subjects such as guns and agriculture. After viewing these examples of Bloomberg's very dull personality that he laughably tries to make relatable, you will agree that he definitely needs to buy a new personality.

The former South Bend Mayor told the illegal immigrant he viewed her as an American, despite her illegal status. “So, first of all, this should go without saying but it’s important to say out loud that I regard you and all DACA recipients as American as I am or anybody else is in this room,” he said. In December, Buttigieg also expressed his desire that he would open up taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegals during a conversation with a voter in Spanish. “So the most important thing for me is that we offer the opportunity for health care to all in...

I have devoted my entire adult life to learning about money. That might sound like cruel-and-unusual punishment, but I’ve mostly enjoyed it. For more than three decades, I’ve spent my days perusing the business pages, reading finance books, scanning academic studies and talking to countless folks about their finances. Yet, despite this intense financial education, it took me a decade or more to learn many of life’s most important money lessons and, indeed, some key insights have only come to me in recent years. Here are 10 things I wish I’d been told in my 20s—or told more loudly, so...

Of all the pandering showcased during Democrats’ attempts to win back the presidency, wiping out student debt ranked at or near the top.“I believe that education is the future for this country,” socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders barked during the first round of Democratic primary debates, explaining that’s why we must “eliminate student debt and we do that by placing a tax on Wall Street.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke similarly. “I can tell you this,” the Minnesota senator demagogued, “if billionaires can pay off their yachts, students should be able to pay off their student loans.”There can be no serious...

A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that tracks carbon emissions worldwide dropped great news for the United States under the leadership of Donald Trump on Tuesday. "The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt. US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period."Not only is Trump leading the world in economic success but he's also doing exactly what the climate scolds all...

Just recently made the switch to iPhone and am pleasantly surprised. The learning of new tech always interests me ... however... I have found that browsers on the iPhone, regardless of which one I use, are not very mobile-friendly. Text appears very small unless I turn it sideways and do not have obvious options to resize. Any help in this regard would be very much appreciated.

Post #30. With so many rats running for president in 2020 it's hard to keep up with who's in and who's out. Hopefully, this post will help. This thread will be posted each week, likely on Monday, with the dropouts from the previous week and newly declared candidates noted. Below is a list of declared candidates and their occupation. Below that is a list of dropouts, their occupation and the date they dropped from the race. Dropout(s) in the past week: Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet (who?) and Deval Patrick (who?) dropped out after poor showings in the New Hampshire primary...

In a first since the Reformation era, Protestants are set to receive communion during a Catholic mass at a historic Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin's adopted home. The historic Swiss church, Saint-Pierre Reformed Protestant church, will hold a Catholic mass on Feb. 29, leap day, and Protestants have been invited to attend and take part, including in receiving communion. Although open communion is forbidden by Catholic doctrine, the practice is reportedly common in Geneva, according to Protest Info, a Swiss Protestant news outlet. The church became the home of French Protestant Reformer John Calvin, whose famous triangular chair continues...

If we’re different colors we deserve different languages! Right Amy?I see where Amy Klobuchar has changed her mind (aka pandering if you’re a politician) and now does NOT think English should be the national language of the United States. I wonder what she thinks SHOULD be our official language, Yiddish? Navajo? Aramaic?How about Esperanto?  The artificially constructed language created in 1887 by Polish ophthalmologist and linguist L. L. Zamenhof. He had hoped that his language - which he saw as a tool to gather people together through neutral, fair, equitable communication - would lead to a world free of war....

A report says that Sony plans to feature Spider-Man as a bisexual in an upcoming movie.The entertainment blog We Got This Covered said, citing anonymous but reliable sources, that Sony is developing a live-action Spider-Verse movie that would unite Holland with his predecessors, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, and that the studio is “particularly keen on getting Garfield back, as they want to portray his version of the hero as bisexual and give him a boyfriend in the film.”In an interview with The Sunday Times last year, Holland, who currently plays Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was asked...

Florida enacted its red flag law in the spring of 2018 and they didn’t lose any time in putting it to use. And I mean a lot of use. But as this report from the Associated Press indicates, use of the law is not consistent from county to county and there are serious questions remaining as to how fairly it’s being applied. The law, supported by legislators of both parties , has been applied more than 3,500 times since, with the pace accelerating during the last half of 2019. Even so, an Associated Press analysis of the law showed...

While Bernie Sanders was speaking at a rally in Nevada, those watching the live feed saw a woman storm the stage and seize the microphone from his hands. She turned out to be an activist from Direct Action Everywhere, an animal liberation movement. After castigating Bernie for daring to support those American farmers who raise animals for milk and meat, the live feed cut off. That’s a shame because it was when the video cameras were gone that the fun really started. What you see watching the video is a young woman with long black hair and scarlet lipstick jumping...

All of their predictions are based on the conventional wisdom and assumptions of an insulted and excluded D.C. intelligentsia, and all are wrong. Media bias is an old constant. It has never and will never go away. A reporter or host can use all the proper, sanitized words he wants, but behind the scenes lie the decisions that went into which stories to pursue and which to drop; where to pull back and where to push forward; who to interview, who to skip; what is most important versus what can be buried or even cut.And then, of course, there’s the...

If you really want to shock leftists, tell them that Europe does not have, and has never had, socialized medicine or, indeed, socialized anything. European nations certainly had government-controlled medicine. They also boasted short work weeks, long vacations, year-long maternity leaves, early retirement, fully-paid-for old-age care, all sorts of other things that made them feel superior to Americans. However, contrary to Europeans’ self-satisfied faux-socialist vision of themselves, Europeans didn’t fund their so-called “soft socialism.” Instead, for the most part, Americans did. During the Cold War, government collected taxes from Americans to pay Europe’s defense costs, allowing Europeans to spend their...

Having discredited itself with utter (and very public) incompetence in tallying up the Iowa caucuses, the Democrats are reportedly on the verge of another disaster in Nevada. Politico headlines, ‘A complete disaster’: Fears grow over potential Nevada caucus malfunction  Anxiety is rising over the possibility of another tech-induced meltdown at the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Saturday. In interviews, three caucus volunteers described serious concerns about rushed preparations for the Feb. 22 election, including insufficient training for a newly-adopted electronic vote-tally system and confusing instructions on how to administer the caucuses. There are also unanswered questions about the security of...