Free Republic

Happy New Year, everyone!! Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! President Trump should take the win in the Senate trial without dragging it out, 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. 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 government, cutting spending and...

Governments need to implement “draconian” travel curbs to stop a mystery coronavirus in China becoming a global epidemic, a team of experts mapping the outbreak said Monday. Scientists at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) presented a briefing warning that the spread of the deadly SARS-like virus that first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan was accelerating. “We have to be prepared that this particular epidemic may be about to become a global epidemic,” said Gabriel Leung, head of the team. “Substantial, draconian measures limiting population mobility should be taken sooner, rather than later.” Leung leads a group of...

When President Trump (tweeted) on Sunday that Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was a “CORRUPT POLITICIAN” who “has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!” the media and Democrats loudly protested, as they do, that this was a threat. “Schiff ‘has not paid the price’ for impeachment, Trump says in what appears to be veiled threat,” said a Washington Post headline. “Schiff, Calling Trump ‘Wrathful and Vindictive,’ Sees Tweet as a Threat” The New York Times headlined. “Trump makes ‘threat’ against Rep. Adam Schiff,” was the New York Daily News headline. “Adam Schiff: Trump Saying...

Senate Impeachment Trial LIVE - day 6

Oldest Scorpion Stings Darwin January 27, 2020 | Jerry Bergman Oldest Known Scorpion Tells a Lot about Science and Speculation: Much Promised, Little Delivered by Jerry Bergman, PhD In searching for data on the evolution of body organs and structures, one of the best sources is small organisms trapped in amber. Every now and then, though, fossilized creatures in rock contain soft tissue impressions, revealing evidence of organs or organ structures. The evidence is often indirect. Recently, paleontologists found what they call the oldest known scorpion ever uncovered: two fossil specimens of a scorpion named Parioscorpio venator. They claim it...

In about 30 seconds, one man in Iowa exposed a major weakness in the Democratic Party’s 2020 strategy. It’s a weakness, but it’s also a blindspot. After a Monday town hall in Grimes, population 13,562, a father confronted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a photo line. Warren, it should be noted, touts a higher education proposal that “cancels $50,000 in student loan debt for every person with household income under $100,000,” paid for by her 2 percent annual “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” on families worth $50 million and more. “My daughter is getting out of school. I’ve saved all my money. She...

The US government is rushing to evacuate Americans from the coronavirus-stricken Chinese city of Wuhan as officials warned the deadly strain's spread is picking up speed. A charter flight is scheduled to fly from the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport to San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday. The US consulate in Wuhan began reaching out to all Americans registered as living in the city - of which there are said to be roughly 1,000 - last week to offer them a seat on the plane. The State Department warned that the single flight will have 'limited capacity' to transport private US...

Sen. Mitt Romney said Monday it's "increasingly likely" there will be enough Republican senators to vote in favor of calling witnesses in President Donald Trump's Senate trial to compel their testimony after major revelations from a soon-to-be released book from former national security adviser John Bolton. "I think, with the story that came out yesterday, it's increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton," the Republican senator from Utah told reporters in brief comments. He said he hasn't fully made up his mind on calling witnesses, but what Bolton has to say is "relevant" and "therefore...

TACUN UMAN, Guatemala – Chanting “Hon-dur-as! Hon-dur-as! Hon-dur-as!” hundreds of migrants from the first U.S.-bound caravan of 2020 last week showed up at the Puente Rodolfo Robles International bridge in this violent smuggler’s town on Guatemala’s northwestern border with Mexico, always a symbolic turnstile to the American goal line. Mexican officials on the other side had let the hundreds of caravan migrants stacking up here by the hour know they would be allowed to cross in the morning. But visible excitement went negative, then dissipated into disbelief, as I explained to a dozen young male migrants surrounding me of the...

President Trump denied early Monday that he told then-national security adviser John Bolton the holding of military aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats. Trump said he “NEVER” had that conversation with Bolton despite a New York Times report that claims Bolton was told Trump wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance until officials in Ukraine helped with the probes. “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very...

When you have a record of the radical Democrat Party caucus clamoring for impeachment of President Trump immediately after the election and continuing to the present day (and even warning that they will impeach him again and again), it's sort of hard to take them seriously. Yet here we are. Adam Schiff promised he had irrefutable evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election. Trump-haters were waiting breathlessly for the Mueller report so impeachment could finally proceed. But even after Mueller's impartial team of Hillary-supporters "issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants and...

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib retweeted a claim that “Israeli settlers” had “kidnapped and executed” a Palestinian boy. In fact the boy was found by Israeli emergency services dead in a cistern on Saturday morning after going missing on Friday. Nevertheless, some Palestinian social media accounts incited against Israel, with small clashes resulting in East Jerusalem. A Twitter account called “Real Seif Bitar” tweeted that the boy had been kidnapped and executed and showed a video of the boy’s body being found by emergency services. The tweet claimed that the boy was kidnapped by “Israeli settlers, assaulted and thrown in a...

Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg told a pro-life woman in Iowa she had no place in the Democratic Party. The comment came during a town hall with Fox News' Chris Wallace in Des Moines, Iowa when a voter asked Buttigieg if he supported a change in the party's language. "I am a proud pro-life Democrat, so do you want the support of pro-life Democrats, Democratic voters? There's about 21 million of us," voter Kristen Day asked Buttigieg. "And, if so, would you support more moderate platform language in the Democratic Party to ensure that the party of diversity...

In the 50 years since the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was enacted, it has been regularly used to force most federal agencies to routinely consider the environmental implications of their actions. But there is one great exception. Despite the many environmental reviews conducted by federal agencies over 50 years, not one includes any examination of...the "actions" that permit large numbers of foreign nationals to enter and settle in the United States...

Deep state players in the Obama administration wove an elaborate tapestry of collusion, subterfuge, and electoral chicanery. While better suited for a Robert Ludlum novel, it played out in real time over the past four years. Stars of the drama include familiar names such as James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, and Andrew McCabe. Supporting actors played an unwitting role, namely Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. The victim was then candidate Donald Trump. Heroes of the saga include Attorney General William Barr, U.S. Attorney John Durham, and a mysterious group simply called Q. The plot was simple. The Obama administration,...

Hong Kong (AFP) - Governments need to implement "draconian" travel curbs to stop a mystery coronavirus in China becoming a global epidemic, a team of experts mapping the outbreak said Monday. Scientists at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) presented a briefing warning that the spread of the deadly SARS-like virus that first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan was accelerating. "We have to be prepared that this particular epidemic may be about to become a global epidemic," said Gabriel Leung, head of the team. "Substantial, draconian measures limiting population mobility should be taken sooner, rather than later."

Hard to say what fired and now former National Security Advisor John Bolton is up to these days now that the Senate impeachment trial is on. The latest news is here on the front page of the New York Times, reporting an anonymous "leak": WASHINGTON — President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton. The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton...

A sharp rise in citywide crime since 2020 began was sparked by New York’s new bail reform laws, which took away a judge’s discretion to hold repeat and possibly violent offenders behind bars, NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a press conference Friday. “In the first three weeks of this year, we’re seeing significant spikes in crime. So either we forgot how to police New York City, or there’s a correlation,” Shea told reporters in reference to the new laws. “If you let out individuals that commit a lot of crime, that’s precision policing in reverse and we’re seeing...

New Jersey will become the first state to require that builders take into account the impact of climate change, including rising sea levels, in order to win government approval for projects, Gov. Philip D. Murphy plans to announce on Monday. The move by Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, is part of a widening effort by states to use regulations to address worsening climate conditions and to aggressively counteract the Trump administration’s push to roll back environmental regulations. “This is not abstract for us,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview. “This is real. The dangers are there.” New Jersey’s initiative is believed...

It's been about 10 years since the public discovered Fast and Furious, the gun walking operation conducted by the ATF under the Obama administration. The ATF arranged for straw buyers to purchase guns from American gun stores and transfer them to arms traffickers who would give them to drug cartels in Mexico. Ostensibly, the ATF would then track down the cartels. But they lost track of the guns, and some were used to kill Americans. Yet where are the prosecutions of the Obama officials who ran it? The victims and their families have never received justice. But they're looking into...