Free Republic

CELEBRATION - A LETTER FROM MOTHER AMERICA TO HER CHILDREN

Make no mistake about: President Trump has had a great week, and the Democrats had a lousy one. Not even the liberal media denies it. "Donald Trump is having a week that's frustrating a lot of Democrats," CNN's Jake Tapper conceded as early as Tuesday. And he wasn't the only one who noticed. "Democrats are reduced to hoping the president's luck finally runs out," wrote The Week' s Damon Linker. "It’s been a pretty good week for Donald Trump," wrote David Graham of The Atlantic. "In fact, it’s hard to think of a better week in the Trump administration." "Republicans...

(CNN) - In his 23 years with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Dan O'Kelly was one of the agency's top gun experts. He served for five years as the lead firearms technology instructor at the ATF National Academy, where he co-wrote the curriculum for incoming agents. These days, however, O'Kelly is using his formidable firearms expertise and institutional knowledge of the ATF to take aim at his former employer. He's at the center of a brewing legal dispute that federal prosecutors say has the potential to upend the 1968 Gun Control Act and "seriously undermine the ATF's...

The replica of a wooden Phoenician ship, which visited Lyme Regis last year, has completed its 6,000 mile voyage across the Atlantic. The Phoenicia visited Lyme Regis last July before setting out on its voyage from the old port of Carthage, Tunisia, in September. It called in at Cadiz (Spain), Essaouira (Morocco), Tenerife (Canary Islands) and Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) before arriving in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club on Thursday, February 4... The ship's trans-Atlantic voyage was part of the Phoenicians Before Columbus Expedition, designed, with the help of the US-based Phoenician International Research Center, to...

The latest employment report for the US economy has Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt) warning voters about “Trump’s insidious plan to coerce the working class into actually working for a living. The leisure gains painstakingly accumulated over decades of government’s expansion of welfare benefits are being cast aside for a reactionary return to wage-slavery.” Among the statistics assailed by Sanders were substantial “increases in labor force participation rates to highs not seen in decades, the disproportionate shift of the burden of production toward minorities, and the pitifully small boost in wages. These are not sufficient replacements for the...

A Commerce Department official warned Congress recently that China is raising billions of dollars in U.S. capital markets and the activity could undermine American security. Nazak Nikakhtar, assistant secretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, testified last month that Chinese companies raised $48 billion from American capital markets from 2013 through the end of last year. Ms. Nikakhtar told the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that 172 Chinese companies in September were listed on the three largest U.S. exchanges — Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and the NYSE American — with a total market capitalization of...

s of today, the first book in the Harry Potter series is available in Yiddish. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” — or “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” as it is known in the United States — was released in Yiddish by the Swedish publisher Olniansky Tekst Farlag on Friday. (Yiddish is an official language in Sweden.) It was translated by Arun Visnawath, 29, the son of an Indian-American father and Gitl Schaecter-Visnawath, author of the “Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary.” Her father was a professor of Yiddish at Columbia University. Yair Rosenberg chronicles the story behind the translation in Tablet...

LOS ANGELES—Orson Bean, the witty actor and comedian, was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles, authorities said. He was 91. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed Bean’s Friday night death, saying it was being investigated as a “traffic-related” fatality. The coroner’s office provided the location where Bean was found, which matched reports from local news outlets. A man was walking in the Venice neighborhood when he was clipped by a vehicle and fell, Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Brian Wendling initially told local stations. A second driver then struck him in what police say was the...

The Instagram model who jumped onto the football field – and flashed her undies – during Sunday’s Super Bowl is speaking out after she was tackled by security and eventually arrested for the stunt.

The office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that recent disclosures from the office Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) could interfere with the Senate Finance Committee’s investigation of Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Citing Wyden’s spokesperson, Yahoo News reported on Feb. 6 that the Treasury Department is “rapidly complying” with a request from Grassley’s office for financial documents on Biden. A spokesperson for Grassley criticized the disclosure in a statement to The Epoch Times. “It’s unfortunate that Democrats whom we’ve kept in the loop on our investigations would recklessly seek to interfere with legitimate government oversight,”...

Sen. Bernie Sanders called for an end to cash bail across the country at the Democratic debate on Friday night, saying there are hundreds of thousands of people locked up because they can’t afford a several-hundred-dollar fee. Sanders made his call to end bail as the candidates debated America’s criminal justice system and how it affects minorities in the United States. “Most people don’t know this. Tonight in America, 200,000 people are in jail without having been convicted of anything. Two hundred thousand people — because they can’t afford the 500 bucks they need to get out of jail,” Sanders...

All the networks that refuse to have White House guests change their priority seating at the next press conference. Put them in the back of the room

There was one big issue on the table when the Democratic candidates met for their debate at Saint Anselm College here on Friday: Was anyone on the stage capable of defeating a newly emboldened President Donald Trump?

The Democratic establishment may be gravitating toward Michael Bloomberg after Joe Biden finished a disappointing fourth in the Iowa caucuses and appears to be flatlining in New Hampshire. Fretting that liberals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too polarizing to defeat President Trump and concerned about the lack of support for Pete Buttigieg among minorities and seniors, Democratic operatives and elected officials who had pinned their hopes on Biden are taking a closer look at Bloomberg. In the former New York mayor, Democratic insiders see a contender with broad appeal who has the fortitude to handle Trump — and the...

Dr. Joseph Buttigieg was an avid proponent of the work of Antonio Gramsci, godfather of cultural marxism The late father of presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was a proponent of the work of Antonio Gramsci, considered the godfather of cultural marxism. Gramsci rejected violent overthrow of capitalist governments in favor of gradual revolution through communist infiltration of the culture and societal structures, implementing socialism through what his disciple Rudi Dutschke called "the long march through the institutions." Gramsci believed changing ideology in the ruling elite — whether in media, education, courts, politics or other structures — was more powerful and enduring...

... Mayor Bill de Blasio linked a recent crime surge in the Big Apple to the state’s controversial overhaul of bail laws Friday, after spending a week dancing around the matter. “We had, for six years, steady decreases in crime across the board. There’s not a whole lot of other environmental things that have changed recently,” Hizzoner told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on new CompStat data that shows crime has soared since the new laws took effect at the start of 2020. “It sort of stands out like a sore thumb that this is the single biggest new thing in the...

Two more passengers, including another American, have fallen ill on the Diamond Princess cruise ship thatquarantined off the coast of Japan, bringing the ship's total to 63 passengers who have been diagnosed with coronavirus.

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...

On Friday the Virginia state House committee passed a bill that would ban the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms, including the popular AR-15 style rifles. The bill is named “H.B. 961” and would also ban silencers and magazines that hold more than 12 rounds. It was passed out of the House Public Safety Committee by a vote of 12-9. The bill, which has the support of Virginia Gov. Ralph “Blackface” Northam will now make its way to the Democratic-controlled House of Delegates. Pro-Second Amendment patriots packed the committee room for the vote, and when it passed, the crowd went ballistic...

The current presidency has been one of the biggest political roller coasters of modern times. Terms like “emoluments” that have not been bandied about in several hundreds of years have become verbatim. Seldom is there a time when the cover story in any major news media does not involve President Trump. While calls for impeachment have ebbed and flowed since Trump took office, they appear to have grown in tenor in recent weeks since a whistleblower described Trump’s interaction with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attempting to direct the Ukrainians to investigate political rival Joe Biden’s son, Hunter’s role working with...