Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A Senate vote to end President Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings without calling witnesses should be considered “half a trial,” the president’s former chief of staff John Kelly said Friday. “In my view, they kind of leave themselves open to a lot of criticism,” Kelly said in an interview with NJ Advance Media in advance of his Feb. 12 appearance at Drew University’s Drew Forum speaker series at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown. “It seems it was half a trial,” Kelly said. Kelly said he believed former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s assertion that Trump withheld congressionally...

Everyone is made in the image and likeness of God. Every person has a purpose on this Earth. Do we believe this? "Sister Calling My Name" confronts these questions in the rawest of ways. How many people have no idea that they are amazing, that God created them for tremendous things that are sometimes small to the world, but so magnificently beautiful at the same time? "Sister" is a play by Buzz McLaughlin that is currently being performed by the Storm Theatre Company and the Blackfriars Repertory Theatre at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in Manhattan. I'm a...

Congratulations to Britain for its exit from the European Union yesterday. Next up: the United Nations perhaps? Trump should propose it, just to watch the media . . . what? Lose their mind? How can you lose something already lost? Speaking of lost, how’s that whole impeachment thing going? Coronavirus seems to be more popular. Strap in folks and order a double espresso, because we have extra special bonus video content at the end.,p>

Rep. Ilhan Omar brought her lover Tim Mynett to Iowa with her as she stumped for Sen. Bernie Sanders, her 2020 pick. The couple attended a canvassing kick-off Friday afternoon for the Vermont senator at one of his campaign offices in Des Moines. . . . At the Mynetts December divorce court date, Beth Mynett - who asked that her maiden name of Jordan be restored -. got up and announced that she had a statement to make, telling the courtroom her husband 'had an affair with Ilhan Omar.' With the divorce done, Tim Mynett left the downtown D.C. courthouse...

With the Senate impeachment trial dominating the headlines lately, there hasn’t been much room for other news to break through. Consider, for example, the Trump administration’s publication last week of the final rules that change which agency and which regulations oversee the export of firearms and ammunition. This is newsworthy because the change was initially proposed by the Obama administration and modernizes a Cold War-era export control regime that treated a small-caliber single shot hunting rifle the same as a military tank or jet fighter. These rules still subject the export of sporting firearms and ammunition products to stringent scrutiny...

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7 KJV).

Pop star Taylor Swift describes Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) as a “homophobic racist” and “Trump in a whig” in her newly released Netflix documentary Miss Americana. But Blackburn, perhaps anticipating the attacks, took the high ground this week and issued a statement in which she offers to work with the Grammy-winning singer. “Taylor is an exceptionally gifted artist and songwriter, and Nashville is fortunate to be the center of her creative universe,” said Blackburn’s statement. “While there are policy issues on which we may always disagree, we do agree on the need to throw the entertainment community’s collective influence behind...

A thread on Twitter by Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio is revealing on many levels for all of us impeachment watchers. It reveals a fairly conservative Senator who is aware of much that has been going on around him, but unaware of so much more. The thread reveals an awareness of the deceitful nature of his Democrat opponents, but a lack of awareness of exactly how deceitful they truly are. It reveals a generally well-meaning guy who will do the right thing on this impeachment scam in the end, but who has been making his decisions based on woefully incomplete...

If you're looking forward to watching President Trump's upcoming State of the Union address but don't know when it is, do not ask any Amazon Alexa devices. On Friday evening I experimented with an Amazon Echo (a second generation Echo Dot) in my house by asking it what I thought was a rather simple question. "Alexa, when is the next State of the Union?" I asked. "The next State of the Union will occur on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 9 p.m." Sorry, Alexa, but that is the wrong answer. The next State of the Union is actually on Tuesday,...

If Sanders wins decisively, the convention will have a collection of the most radical speakers ever to appear at a major party convention – and the most radical platform ever adopted by a major party. If Bloomberg can find enough establishment allies to stop Sanders, the billionaire will have virtually guaranteed a civil war within the party.

On Thursday, a Texas court ruled in favor of Jeff Younger, the father of James Younger, the seven-year-old whose pediatrician mother was attempting to medically transition her son into a girl. Dallas Judge Mary Brown upheld an October decision that gave both parents conservatorship over their child and denied the mother’s request that the case revert to the October 21 11-1 jury decision that gave her sole managing conservatorship. That decision was later overruled by Judge Kim Cooks, who ruled that conservatorship would be split evenly between both parents. But then the mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, and her attorneys argued...

“Cuba is "prepared" for the possibility of Donald Trump's reelection and the continuation of crushing US sanctions against the island, according to Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel….The Cuban president's challenge to the Trump administration came during a tour of central Cuba last week, where CNN was given rare access to the Cuban head of state…CNN was one of three international outlets invited to accompany Diaz-Canel on parts of his trip.” (CNN, Havana, Jan. 29.) Gosh!  I wonder why a “journalist” for the “press agency” CNN should be honored in such a manner by a totalitarian Stalinist regime that has jailed, tortured and...

<p>Antifa and the radical left are trying to destroy our country!</p> <p>They’re doing it to Portland, Berkley, San Francisco, and other liberal cities. They’re ruining our once beautiful cities.</p> <p>Their latest protest came in NYC to be more precise at New York’s Grand Central Station.</p>

Billy Porter, a homosexual cross-dressing actor who is known to wear dresses on red carpets to posh Hollywood events, will be appearing on the PBS kids’ show ‘Sesame Street’ to warp the minds of the young viewers. The show made the announcement in a Facebook post on Thursday, claiming that Porter would bring his “fierce vibes” to Sesame Street. This deeply offended some of the show’s fans on social media. “That is pushing [too] much at little children, it makes no sense, kids have [too] much on their little plates as it is,” a commenter said. “Why add more?”

Rudy Giuliani’s indicted business associate Lev Parnas accused Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of being “in the loop” on the scheme to pressure Ukraine to launch an investigation into unfounded accusations against former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential candidate. Parnas, a Florida businessman who had donated to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, said he was “1 million percent” certain that Graham was aware of the Ukraine operation. “Rudy told me not once but on several occasions that he spoke to Lindsey Graham about the situation, that Lindsey was always aware,” he told Anderson Cooper in a CNN interview...

Paying the price for a failed impeachment takes a lot of though and planning. So please make your suggestions detailed. GRAPHIC COURTESY SERKIT

The United States carried out an airstrike in January that killed a leader of Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen after months of tracking him, according to current and former government officials. Qassim al-Rimi, 41, was killed in the January strike but officials had been waiting to confirm the information before making public statement, the New York Times reports. The Yemen branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has been keen to attack the U.S. and Europe. Confirmation of al-Rimi's death would mean a significant blow for the group.

"And we have a great party, the Republican Party. They know what's going on. They’re going to treat us very fairly. But the Democrats are trying to overturn the last election. We will make sure that they face another crushing defeat in 2020."

Abortion is good for business, according to a new report lauded by the media. But its argument fails to address a few key points, namely that a woman’s worth far exceeds her economic output and that abortion destroys millions of future employees and consumers. On January 21, Rhia Ventures released a report called Hidden Value: The Business Case for Reproductive Health. The self-described social investment company that promotes “Women’s Reproductive Health” partnered with consulting firm FSG in an attempt to stress the “link between access to reproductive health care and business performance” by showing “why and how access to comprehensive...

Image courtesy Dean Weingarten The claim has been made that the Marlin 39A has been in continuous production the longest of any rifle in existence. The rifle has been in production, in one form or another, since 1891. The model 39A appellation was given in 1939, according to a display at the Remington/Marlin exhibit at the SHOT Show in January 2020. My attention was attracted to a display celebrating 150 years of Marlin firearms production. On the display were a Marlin model 60 and a Marlin .444 lever gun. Both are iconic Marlin firearms.It seemed strange there was no Marlin...