Free Republic

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz may be able to avoid a 50-state scramble for presidential ballot access by seeking the Libertarian Party’s support. Members of the large national third party, which took more than 3 percent of the vote in 2016, are intrigued by Schultz and might be willing to give him the party nomination in 2020, meaning he would not have to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures as an independent. Schultz has branded himself a “centrist independent” as he teases a potential challenge to President Trump. But he has Libertarians swooning over his concern about the national debt...

A recent article in the New Yorker extolling the (probable) next Governor of California reveals that Gavin Newsom helped his mother commit assisted suicide.

A recent article in the New Yorker extolling the (probable) next Governor of California reveals that Gavin Newsom helped his mother commit assisted suicide. From the article: Newsom’s sister, Hilary, said that when their mother had breast cancer, in her fifties, he was difficult to reach. “Gavin had trouble explaining to me how hard for him it was to be with her when she was dying, and I had trouble explaining to him how much I needed him,” she said. “Back then, he seemed like the kind of guy who would never change a diaper.” In May, 2002, his mother...

NYU Psychology professor Eric Knowles and doctoral student Sarah DiMuccio queried 300 men on Amazon's crowdsourcing platform Mechanical Turk to discover whether they had or would search for terms such as "erectile dysfunction," "how to get girls," "penis enlargement," "testosterone," and "Viagra," among others. They discovered a high level of concern about masculinity "was strongly associated with interest in these search topics." They then correlated the geopgrahic dispersion of these search topics in 2016 with how such areas voted in that year's election, finding "that support for Trump in the 2016 election was higher in areas that had more searches...

MALAD, Idaho––Severo Luera, 39, the only person arrested in connection with a 2013 triple murder linked to pit bull breeding, dogfighting, and growing marijuana, “has struck a deal with state prosecutors that could get him out of prison in less than 10 years,” reported Madeleine Coles of the Idaho State Journal on February 8, 2019. Apprehended in Utah in February 2015, Luera was initially charged with three counts of aiding and abetting a murder in the first degree plus one count of conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree. Two-year-old & two-month-old survived The victims, Brent L. Christensen, 62,...

....As journalists, we’re supposed to sort through press releases, talking points and propaganda, using them only to the extent they enlighten us as to what special interests want to believe: Is it true? Is it the whole story? Who wants you to think it and why? Are they trying to deflect attention from other facts or a more important story? Finding these answers is a basic part of our job. Instead, we’re willing repositories for all kinds of narratives. We report — as if news — press releases from the government, corporations, special interests or nonprofits (that are often undisclosed...

(CNN)"The legislature finds that the cigarette is considered the deadliest artifact in human history." So begins the text of a new bill introduced in Hawaii's State House, calling for a phased ban on cigarette sales in the state by 2024. Hawaii has some of the most restrictive cigarette laws in the nation. In 2016, it became the first state to raise the age to buy cigarettes to 21. Now, its new bill calls for raising the cigarette-buying age to 30 by next year, up to 40, 50 and 60 in each subsequent year, and up to 100 by 2024. That...

Maybe you’ve heard the warning: The country is beset by a menace. A fringe conservative minority is holding Congress hostage, extracting radical policy concessions over the will of the majority. And it’s leading the nation to fiscal, environmental and moral ruin. Maybe you haven’t heard this part: These dangerous conservatives are Democrats. “I am talking about the radical conservatives in the Democratic Party,” said Saikat Chakrabarti. “That’s who we need to counter. It’s the same across any number of issues—pay-as-you-go, free college, “Medicare for all.” These are all enormously popular in the party, but they don’t pass because of the...

MEXICO CITY — An American anarchist who went by the name John Galton was shot dead at his home in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, sending shivers through a tightknit anti-establishment community of expatriates that organizes events in the violence-torn retreat with seminars on topics such as how to make money via cryptocurrencies. A woman describing herself as John’s partner, Lily, said via social media that she saw the gunmen go straight for John and his friend Jason Henza, 43. Henza made it to a private hospital with bullet wounds in an armpit, leg and hand. The hospital said he...

The longtime leader of the Marijuana Policy Project says that after helping legalize pot in 10 states, he’s decided to spearhead a national push to legalize prostitution. Prostitution is against the law in all 50 states, with the exception of some Nevada counties. Rob Kampia, a savvy political campaigner who grew the MPP from a low-profile nonprofit organization into a well-funded vehicle for designing state political campaigns, “came out” in an interview with the Washington Examiner as a someone who has paid for sex himself. “It’s important, like the gay rights movement. ... If everyone knows someone who is gay,...

WASHINGTON — Democrats are furious at former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz for announcing that he may launch an independent campaign for president. They fear he will split the anti-Trump opposition and help re-elect the president. But what angers them even more is that Schultz is calling Democrats out for how radical their party has become. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, recently floated her new wealth tax, Schultz called it "ridiculous." When Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, said we should "eliminate" private health insurance, Schultz said, "That's not American." When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, proposed a 70 percent marginal tax...

On Monday evening in Houston, a dozen armed men broke into the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, a middle-aged couple who had lived in the house at 7815 Harding Street for at least two decades. The first man through the door, who was armed with a shotgun, used it to kill one of the couple's dogs. Tuttle responded to the home invasion by grabbing a revolver and shooting the man with the shotgun, who collapsed on a sofa in the living room. As Nicholas tried to disarm the intruder, his accomplices shot her. Tuttle returned fire, and by...

Despite the backlash against New York's new abortion law across the country, more blue states intend to adopt similar measures. Pro-abortion lawmakers in Vermont introduced a bill last week to allow abortion on demand up to birth and hope to eventually enshrine abortion rights with an amendment in the state's constitution. More than 90 members of Vermont's House co-sponsored a bill that recognizes abortion as a fundamental right. If passed, the legislation would make it illegal for any state or local law enforcement to prosecute licensed professionals for performing abortion procedures regardless of the stage of pregnancy. “The General Assembly...

A new nonprofit, Them Before Us, aims to defend children's rights in the family. We use story to highlight the true victims, and we critique all practices and policies that prioritize adult desires above children's rights. Unfortunately, in 2015, the Supreme Court redefined marriage for the entire country, transforming an institution that used to bring together the two people to whom children have a natural right into just one more vehicle of adult fulfillment. [body of article] Them Before Us wants to transform the narrative around marriage and parenthood. We believe that every conversation about family structure should recognize and...

The New York Senate passed a radical pro-abortion bill Tuesday that would allow unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth. Metro reports the bill passed after abortion activists pushed it for more than a decade in New York. Until now, it failed to pass the state Senate because of Republican lawmakers, but the November election put pro-abortion Democrats in control of both houses. The vote was 38-24. A New York Public Radio reporter said she heard a voice shout, “May almighty God have mercy on this state!” in the Senate soon after the vote. The...

Neoconservatives, the architects of the War on Terror, are the political version of Jason in Friday the 13th: You can never bank on them being completely dead. They just hide under a log until the next funder appears. The neocon media tribune, the Weekly Standard, did indeed fold recently. In no time they had a new voice: The Bulwark, edited by former Weekly Standard and current NBC/MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes, with Weekly Standard founder

Here's the video - There's some pretty interesting discussion at CFP https://youtu.be/yRaylhZ0GEQ

Former White House political strategist Karl Rove warned Senate Republicans in a meeting this week not to become overly reliant on their conservative base as they head into what could be a tough 2020 presidential election. Rove, who served as former President George W. Bush’s top political strategist, was brought in by Senate GOP leaders to speak to the 22 Republican incumbents up for reelection at an all-day planning session Thursday hosted at Nationals Park in southeast Washington, D.C. GOP lawmakers are getting nervous about next year’s election as polls show President Trump’s approval rating dropping during the 28-day government...

'Climate change could destroy the whole world and kill everyone on it,' he said. 'It's frustrating that a lot of people don't understand that.'

As society continues to evolve – and some critics might argue 'devolve' – into a more progressive understanding of gender and sexuality, the stakes couldn't be higher. To the dismay of many parents, this societal tug-of-war over transgenderism is playing out on today's college campuses like never before – and is hitting young women particularly hard. One mother, Katherine Cave, recently called attention to the issue, telling The College Fix, "I am writing to you on behalf of parents who have lost their kids at college to the transgender craze." "Many liberal colleges have significant percentages of students suddenly identifying...