Free Republic

Steve Garvey is sitting in the backseat of his Hyundai Genesis outside Ruben’s Bakery & Mexican Food in South Los Angeles; Ryan, his son, sits in the driver’s seat. Inside await a gaggle of TV cameras and on-lookers, eager for their chance to brush up against California baseball history. It’s nothing Garvey, 75, hasn’t seen before. Since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers more than half a century ago, fans from all parts of the world have flocked to his side for a handshake or an autograph. But today is different. Garvey is on the campaign trail, promoting his Republican run...

The death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday night has left California Gov. Gavin Newsom with the job of appointing a replacement to serve the remaining 15 months of her term — a choice he hoped never to have to make. Newsom initially promised in 2021 to pick a black woman to replace Feinstein if she was unable to remain in the Senate through January 2025. That was in response to the outcry from some quarters after he appointed then-California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to replace Sen. Kamala Harris after her election as vice president. After Feinstein announced earlier...

DiFi has died.

Blum made headlines last March when The New York Times reported that he was eyeing an ambassadorship. The wealthy financier was reportedly interested in a position in a European capital. Blum served as the chairman of Blum Capital Partners, an equity investment management firm. Feinstein’s office said Blum’s “true passion was outside the office,” noting his involvement with the people of the Himalayas, having founded the American Himalayan Foundation. [snip]

Saturday Night Live took aim at the Congressional hearings against social media giant Facebook in its latest episode Cast member Heidi Gardner played Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower who testified before Congress on Tuesday In the sketch, she has to field questions from Congressmembers about how social media works Sen. Diane Feinstein, played by Cecily Strong, asks her if 2,000 friends on Facebook is a high number Sen. Neely Kennedy also asks her where the algorithm is located and how big it is, while Sen. Ted Cruz asks how he could stop being cyberbullied Lindsey Graham also says he is...

Many journalists and political commentators have been pessimistic about the possibility of statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This seems to be primarily because, despite the recent Democratic victories in Georgia, moderate senators like Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif), and Angus King (I-Maine) continue to support the legislative filibuster. It is impossible to imagine Republican senators voting to give Democratic-leaning areas full representation, so the issue must be dead on arrival in the upper chamber. But in a recent CNN interview, Manchin himself provided evidence for why this thinking is all wrong......."

There are few conclusions that can be drawn from Joe Biden’s refusal to answer whether or not he supports packing the courts other than he’s in favor of it. The Democratic Party’s mouthpieces, as if through backchannels, have suddenly flipped their talking points to the same page – it’s Republicans who’ve packed the courts, it’s Democrats who have to “reform” the system in order to save it. This play is a power grab of Hitlerian proportions.  It started off as a sort of joke, Democrats whining about President Donald Trump getting to appoint a third Justice to the Supreme Court....

For the last 30 years, Republican nominations for the Supreme Court have faced personal, ugly, defamatory attacks from Democrats. We’ve been hearing a lot from Democrats and the media this week about how President Trump and Senate Republicans are “violating norms” with their plans to nominate and confirm a Supreme Court justice before the November election. Of course, the clear historical norm in this situation is for a sitting president to nominate and, if his party controls the Senate, for the Senate to confirm a new justice — even in an election year.The norm Republicans are following isn’t the one...

In November of last year, a glittering array of world statesmen gathered in Beijing for Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum. At the top of the list was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He was worried. With China skeptic President Donald Trump imposing huge tariffs on Chinese goods, the most famous living diplomat was concerned about the future of the United States’ relationship with China’s Communist government. That seemed unlikely, according to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. “China will be a big part of the global financial picture in decades to come,” said the former George W. Bush cabinet...

Irony is almost always lost on abortion activists, especially when they are talking about how important it is to protect people’s lives. They never see that it’s intellectually inconsistent to talk about how much they want to save people’s lives after birth when they are perfectly fine with taking people’s lives before. That’s exactly the issue with comments from Diane Feinstein yesterday. She condemned states that have issued orders stopping abortions, along with other medically unnecessary procedures in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In so doing, she said it’s perfectly fine to save peoples lives from COVID-19...

The coronavirus death rate in the US is just over 1.25 percent of cases but first.... North Korea firing two short range missiles Saturday morning local time.... Saying the fight against Islamic State has made progress and out of concern for the coronavirus pandemic the US-led coalition in Iraq is reducing its military presence... At least two dozen Afghan police and military killed with others missing following an attack by Taliban connected forces.... The troubled US aircraft maker Boeing is getting a bailout from the federal government.... Moving to distance herself from the situation is the former UN Ambassador and...

In a surprising op-ed, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who has announced she is running for President, called out fellow Democrats for fomenting “religious bigotry” during the confirmation of some of President Trump’s recent judicial nominees. Although she did not call them out by name, Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) were undoubtedly in Gabbard’s crossfire, as both Democrat Senators recently (and repeatedly) asked Brian Buescher, a nominee to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, about his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, a faith-based, service organization that supports the Catholic Church’s historical teaching on marriage, abortion, and human sexuality. With around two...

Vice President Pence’s wife Karen has come under withering attack in recent days from many in the media. From this “reporting,” one might think she has transgressed some obvious social boundary of a civilized society. In reality, the big “scoop” is that this Christian wife and mother, whose Christian beliefs are important to her, is teaching at a Christian school, which being Christian, holds to Christian beliefs about marriage. Yet you wouldn’t know that from reading the headlines about her, which lead the reader to believe that the driving force of Karen’s actions is the targeting of those who identify...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — China's propaganda machine has taken aim at American soybean farmers as part of its high-stakes trade war with the Trump administration. The publication last month of a four-page advertising section in the Des Moines Register opened a new battle line in China's effort to break the administration's resolve China regularly disseminates propaganda in the West through its China Daily newspaper to try to influence public opinion. But the advertorial in the Register was unusual for deploying not a national publication in New York or Washington but a newspaper in the farm state of Iowa. Trump tweeted...

"I can't think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United States Senate since the McCarthy hearings," said Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn as then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the afternoon of Sept. 27, "and the question was asked, 'Have you no sense of decency?'" Cornyn was quoting Joseph Welch, the Boston lawyer who represented Sen. Joe McCarthy's targets in the June 1954 hearing, responding to McCarthy's charge that a young lawyer of Welch's was a communist. Six months later, the Senate censured McCarthy by a vote of 67-22, and his name became a synonym...

“Justice Brett Kavanaugh” – isn’t that music to your ears? It certainly was to VSGPDJT who celebrated with a few of his homies in Topeka last night where, according to Alyssa Milano (American actress, activist, and former singer) he cast some sort of a spell on the unwitting crowd: Alyssa Milano says President Trump may be using cult-like powers to communicate to his followers and fill them with misinformation about the #MeToo movement. “Do they agree with him or is he using some sort of like cult-like force to try and make them see that?” asked Milano. The question prompted...

Rush has been telling us for years that if you wish to know who the Left fears most, watch who they seek to destroy. By that standard it’s clear they fear Brett Kavanaugh more than anyone other than Donald Trump himself. They are so enamored with what they’ve been able to conjure against President Trump with their simple made-up, paid for dossier that they’ve deployed the same game plan against his Supreme Court Justice nominee. This is a long game the New Left Socialists have been working on a long time. They officially launched it for the 2012 election –...

The Michigan Wolverines, the Florida Gators, the LSU Tigers and the North Dakota Bison (no ‘s’ – see I do learning!) all won yesterday. Hope I didn’t miss anyone’s favorite team. But yes, we are still winning despite repeated fumbles, turnovers, mistakes, rain delays and plain bad calls. It ain’t always pretty but a win’s a win. Sometimes the suspense nearly kills you.So as a potential stress reliever I thought maybe we should do Sunday comics, like everyone did once upon a time in America.You know, back before the advertising industry determined that the country was predominantly minority, and possibly...

When you turn a Supreme Court confirmation into a national political campaign don’t be surprised when a circus breaks out. Circus MaximusA few random thoughts from yesterday’s performance:Poor, poor Christine Blasey, I believe that something happened to her sometime, somewhere; perhaps that explains why she seems such a seriously disturbed woman for her age. But those bleary glasses can’t possibly help her see the truth any better. I don’t think she should be teaching college at all let alone psychology. Sheesh. Fog of whores?And everyone seemed surprised that a righteous man unjustly accused of despicable acts could get righteously angry....

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina questioned who financed the polygraph test that Christine Blasey Ford reportedly took to corroborate her allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. “If Ms. Ford really did not want to come forward, never intended to come forward, never planned to come forward, why did she pay for a polygraph in August?” Graham asked Monday on Fox News’s “Hannity.” “And why did she hire a lawyer in August if she never intended to do what she’s doing?” “And who paid for it?” Graham continued.