Free Republic

Two top Republican chairmen stressed Friday that the final report from special counsel Robert Mueller "must be trusted by Americans." In closing out their joint committee investigation into decisions made by the Justice Department, Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., took a shot at their Democratic counterparts for playing up concerns that their probe was a campaign to undermine Mueller. "Contrary to Democrat and media claims, there has been no effort to discredit the work of the Special Counsel," Gowdy and Goodlatte wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., acting Attorney...

Senator Rand Paul thinks he knows where we could find the funding to build the wall. Instead of rebuilding Afghanistan, we could use that money for the wall and our own national security. Donald Trump Jr. agrees...

While speaking on the Senate floor on Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stated that the Senate will reconvene for its next scheduled session on Thursday, December 27th. McConnell said, “So, Mr. President, here’s where we are. The Senate will next meet for a pro forma session on Monday, that’s the 24th. The next scheduled session will be on the 27th of December.” He added that he is pleased that “productive discussions are continuing.” McConnell continued that there will be no votes on funding the government until a deal is reached that will pass the House and the Senate...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rejected President Donald Trump’s call to partially fund the border wall with a simple majority vote on Friday, suggesting not enough Senate Republicans support the measure. President Trump called on McConnell to use the “nuclear option,” or switch to a simple majority vote in the Senate, to pass the continuing resolution (CR) that would partially fund the border wall...

Detective Deidre Mengedoht was killed when her patrol car was struck by an impaired driver while conducting a traffic stop on I-64, between 4th Street and 6th Street, in downtown Louisville just after 2:00 pm. Her vehicle was stopped in the right lane with its emergency equipment activated when it was struck from behind by a Metropolitan Sewer District tractor-trailer. The patrol car was pushed into the vehicle she had stopped and became engulfed in flames with Detective Mengedoht trapped inside. The driver of the tractor-trailer was charged with driving under the influence and murder of a law enforcement officer....

MANY PEOPLE who viewed Donald Trump as unprepared and temperamentally ill-suited to be president initially reassured themselves that a sober-minded Republican majority in Congress would restrain him. Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s (R-Wis.) pitiable farewell this week spotlighted the emptiness of those hopes. Mr. Ryan allowed the president and his allies to corrupt the House Intelligence Committee and treat federal law enforcement as an enemy. Like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and most other ostensible GOP leaders, Mr. Ryan abetted the president as he sought, fruitlessly, to use fear and bigotry to preserve the House Republican majority in the 2018...

President Donald Trump and conservatives in Congress earned a historic victory this week by enacting the First Step Act. The landmark bill provides modest yet much-needed prison and sentencing reform modeled on successful reforms already passed in red states. On Tuesday night, senators passed the First Step Act with support from law enforcement professionals, the faith community, business groups, and the White House, by a vote of 87-12. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., deserves credit for bringing the bill up for a vote. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a former federal prosecutor and leading advocate of the legislation, said, “American...

Trump was quick to respond to Corker's comments on Sunday - calling the senator out on social media for poor polling numbers after the president failed to endorse him. Corker has denied this and has claimed Trump actually had called him to ask the Tennessee lawmaker to run again. "Bob Corker was responsible for giving us the horrible Iran Nuclear Deal, which I ended, yet he badmouths me for wanting to bring our young people safely back home," Trump tweeted. "Bob wanted to run and asked for my endorsement. I said NO and the game was over. #MAGA I LOVE...

On 'America's Newsroom' Senator Rand Paul backed President Trump in the face of harsh criticism from Republicans over his decision to withdraw the 2,000-strong U.S. force from Syria. RAND PAUL: This is a very bold move for President Trump. It is exactly what he promised the American people -- in fact it is one of the reasons he won the election. Because he is different from so many Republicans who want us to be everywhere all the time around the world. They want us to be the world policeman, that every war on the planet we have to have our...

This Christmas will be the third one I haven’t spent in my hometown. It’s a small town in southern Kentucky filled with more than its fair share of Donald Trump bumper stickers and Confederate flags. But even before Trump was elected president, it always made me feel claustrophobic. The end of this holiday season will also cap the second calendar year I’ve gone without speaking to my parents, and by extension, the rest of my family. My holidays are no longer spent at my grandparents’ house with my parents, sister, uncle and random cousins. My parents helping to put Trump...

Wagging a finger at what it considers overt political correctness, WAKY Louisville (103.5) has vowed to play “Baby, It's Cold Outside” on repeat as a reaction to radio stations banning the Christmas classic amid claims it contains a predatory message. The controversy began at the beginning of the month, when Entercom AC “Star 102” WDOK Cleveland decided to yank “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” off the air. In a blog post, afternoon host Glenn Anderson explained: “We used to play the song, but you told us it's no longer appropriate. I gotta be honest, I didn't understand why the lyrics were...

. . . . “Trump represents everything they should be against,” said Bolin, who has switched from Southern Baptist to Episcopalian. He meant the fact that the president is a double-divorcee with a penchant for prevaricating, talking dirty and, apparently, adultery. Trump’s a Presbyterian. Presbyterians aren’t big on churchgoing; I know, I grew up one of the “Frozen Chosen.” It seems Trump seldom warms a pew. He evidently prefers Sunday golf to Sunday worship. Yet the president’s worldly pursuits on the sabbath also don’t seem to trouble the souls in his evangelical flock. Never mind that most of them are...

"The very definition of deep state is when the intelligence community withholds information from Congress." --US Senator Rand Paul, Dec 4, 2018

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California announced on Saturday that she will make a decision about whether she will launch a presidential bid in 2020 by the end of this year. “It’s a very serious decision,” Harris told “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski during an onstage conversation at the Know Your Value conference in San Francisco. “Over the holiday, I will make that decision with my family.” Harris, whose husband joined her in the audience, said she is keenly aware of the challenges a barrier-breaking campaign will entail. “Let’s be honest. It’s going to be ugly,” Harris said. “When you...

Via Mediaite, indeed they have — and this isn’t the first time that point has been made by a reporter to a State Department mouthpiece. Shep is correct in the precision of his terms, too. Although lazy people like me refer to the Bush/Cheney approach as “preemptive” war, preemption really describes a case where you have reason to believe your enemy’s about to land a punch on you. You’re preempting the blow by hitting him first; the imminence of his attack is key. The Bush/Cheney approach vis-a-vis Saddam was really one of preventive war. It wasn’t a matter of Saddam...

Defying President Trump, senators sent a strong signal Wednesday they want to punish Saudi Arabia for its role in the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Senate voted 63 to 37 to move forward with legislation calling for an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The vote was a rebuke not only to Saudi Arabia but to the Trump administration, which has been clear it does not want to torpedo the long-standing U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia over the killing.

It is a general rule of negotiations that you don't negotiate with yourself. This advice is intended to prevent one side from being the only party that offers bridging proposals or compromises, and continues to offer more even after every offer is rejected as inadequate by the second party. In such cases, the negative party simply waits to see how far the offering party will go, and whether it will eventually come around to fully accepting every demand. The offering party proves, by its succession of improved offers and its unwillingness to give up on the negotiations, to be the...

If President Obama seems less worried than Israel that Iran will obtain nuclear weapons as a result of his administration’s negotiations with the regime, maybe that’s because he’s less worried than Israel about Iran having nuclear weapons. “I think Iran is like North Korea,” Obama told David Brooks when he was running for president in 2007. “They see nuclear arms in defensive terms, as a way to prevent regime change.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagrees. “The ideology of Iran’s revolutionary regime is deeply rooted in militant Islam, and that’s why this regime will always be an enemy of America,”...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul blocking codification of Obama-era military deal with Israel. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is blocking U.S. military aid to Israel. Paul, who has previously called to cut defense assistance to Israel, recently put a hold on the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, which codifies into law the $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over 10 years that was negotiated in the final days of the Obama administration. A hold is a parliamentary procedure that allows senators to prevent a motion from reaching a floor vote. The Senate passed the act in early...

Long-time Bay Area journalist and radio host, Ray Taliaferro, is still missing. The 79-year-old was reported missing in Paducah, Kentucky where he was last seen on Nov. 10. Taliaferro is said to have met with his manager at a pizza restaurant in Paducah earlier that day. He's a man many people listened to on KGO Radio in the Bay Area for many years. Friends said Taliaferro was also the president of the Arts Commission, Leukemia Society, and the San Francisco NAACP chapter. "Millions of people spent the night with Ray Taliaferro Monday through Friday 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.," said...