Free Republic

The White House has told government agencies to start preparing for the transition should Donald Trump lose to Joe Biden in November as Democrats worry the president won't cooperate with a handover should one become necessary. Russell Vought, acting director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, issued a memo on Monday ordering 20 different agencies to appoint a transition director by Friday, in accordance with the Presidential Transition Act. Each agency's director will make up the Agency Transition Directors Council, which will meet on May 27, Vought wrote.

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has filed to run for President as a libertarian in what appears to be a new long-shot White House bid following his failed campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2016. Chafee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday to form the Lincoln Chafee for President campaign committee based in Wyoming. A website linked to Chafee's FEC filing states "Lincoln Leads with TRUTH" along with the phrase "Thirty Years, Zero Scandals." Chafee has spent most of his life as a Republican. He was nominated to his late father's Senate seat in 1999 and...

"It was clear that [President Donald] Trump will only have communications if they will discuss the Biden case," said Serhiy Leshchenko, an anti-corruption advocate and former member of Ukraine's Parliament, who now acts as an adviser to Zelenskiy. "This issue was raised many times. I know that Ukrainian officials understood."

When President Donald Trump visits the UN on Monday, many of his fellow world leaders will be participating in a summit meant to address climate change. Trump won't be there. Instead, the President is chairing his own session focused on worldwide religious persecution. It's the latest evidence of Trump's isolation on the climate issue with his fellow world leaders. During the G7 summit in France, Trump skipped a session focused on climate change that all the other world leaders attended.

New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently trashed the electoral college on her Instagram Live, saying that the system used to determine the president of the United States every four years is racist and disproportionately advantageous for white people. Tara Ross, author of Regnery's The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders’ Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule, broke down for Townhall just why AOC is so misinformed. "We’re coming to you live from the Electoral College," Ocasio-Cortez said, showing largely empty farmland. "Many votes here, as you can see. Very efficient way to choose leadership of the country. I mean...

In an Instagram post on Monday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said the Electoral College needs to be abolished. One of her main gripes with the system was its so-called "racism.""The Electoral College has a racial injustice breakdown," AOC explained. "Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the electoral college effectively weights white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a 'one person, one vote' system where all are counted equally."She addressed the biggest concern behind abolishing the Electoral College: with populous blue states making the decisions for the country as a whole."You may have heard this Electoral College...

The March for Our Lives “Peace Plan” — announced in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — calls for a gun registry, an assault weapons ban and mandatory buybacks.

Rachel Bitecofer, the assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University, created a unique prediction model that almost perfectly foretold in July 2018 the results of the 2018 midterm election. (The model concluded the Democrats would pick up 42 House seats; the Dems gained 40 seats.) Bitecofer’s model has concluded that it matters not who the Democratic presidential nominee is -- “unless it ends up being a disruptor like Bernie Sanders.” Whoever wins the Democratic nomination -- other than possibly Bernie, that is -- will defeat Trump in the general election. The only unexpected...

Big government overreach knows no bounds. The latest example of federal regulation that will threaten thousands of jobs and livelihoods of hardworking Americas comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA says that Maine's lobster industry is to blame for the killing of right whales, an endangered species, and has enacted regulations set to take place this September which will harm the already struggling industry. Yet, the evidence says that the proposed regulation will in no way actually help the whales and will instead only burden lobstermen.As reported by the Portland Herald Press, NOAA "has ordered Maine to...

A growing number of progressive House Democrats, frustrated with an ongoing spat between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), are taking the freshman New Yorker to task for accusing Pelosi of treating minority women unfairly. The critics say Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, crossed a line when she accused Pelosi of putting a target on “newly elected women of color” for their far-left policy positions. The remarks — and the media uproar they’ve created — led exasperated Democrats to sound off Thursday against the freshman social-media sensation, accusing Ocasio-Cortez of harboring unrealistic views...

California Sen. Kamala Harris got into a testy exchange with former Vice President Joe Biden at the first Democratic presidential debate on Thursday over racial issues. “You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bussed to school every day and that little girl was me,” Harris told Biden.

Tensions boiled over in the Oregon Capitol this week as Republican state senators vanished in an effort to delay a vote on a climate change bill they oppose. On Thursday, Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, ordered the state police to find them and bring them back. It was only the latest chapter in a season of partisan division and frustration in the nation’s statehouses, where, for the first time in more than a century, all but one state legislature is dominated by a single party. In Oregon, where Democrats dominate both chambers, Republicans were unapologetic about their efforts to slow...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attempted to make a case for universal health care on Thursday after a tense confrontation over the HIV prevention drug known as PrEP. During a congressional hearing, Ocasio-Cortez pressed Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O'Day on why his company's drug -- Truvada for PrEP -- cost so much more in the United States than in Australia. She later answered her own question on Twitter, saying that the U.S. health care system was to blame. "Spoiler: Because Australia has universal health care," she tweeted. During the hearing, O'Day responded to Ocasio-Cortez by noting how the drug was under...

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy reacted Friday to former FBI Director James Comey's appearance at a CNN town hall this week, saying that Comey believes he always "gets to write the moral script." "Saint James Comey," Gowdy, R-S.C., said on "Hannity," gave "pretty much the same as any other interview. He is always right. He gets to write the moral script." During the town hall, Comey said that people like outgoing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are not of "strong character." “I think people like that, like Rod Rosenstein, who are people of accomplishment but not real sterling character, strong character,...

Mastercard, Microsoft to Advance Digital Identity Innovations https://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-microsoft-join-forces-to-advance-digital-identity-innovations/#__prclt=IarCgTyK Mastercard, Microsoft Join Forces to Advance Digital Identity Innovations PURCHASE, N.Y. and REDMOND, Wash. – December 3, 2018 – Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) today announced a strategic collaboration to improve how people manage and use their digital identity. Currently, verifying your identity online is still dependent on physical or digital proof managed by a central party, whether it’s your passport number, your proof of address, driver’s license, user credentials or other means. This dependence places a huge burden on individuals, who have to successfully remember hundreds of passwords...

Roughly 80 LGBT caravan riders traveling from Central America to the United States broke away from the main group and headed towards Tijuana separately. When they got to Tijuana, officiants from the Unitarian Universalist delegation on Saturday threw a mass wedding where at least seven LGBT couples wed, The Hill reported. Baja California, where Tijuana is located, is one of a handful of states that recognizes same-sex marriages in Mexico. “This is really a dream come true, because you don’t see this in our home countries and this is something that we’ve always wanted to do, and today we had the opportunity...

An intern for Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has been arrested and charged with battery after she threw chocolate milk on a group of College Republicans tabling on campus. The far-left student activist who had the profanity-laced meltdown, Shelby Shoup, is listed as an intern for the Andrew Gillum for Florida Governor Campaign on LinkedIn and a member of FSU Students for Justice in Palestine. Shoup threw her drink on SFU College Republicans Chair Daisy Judge, and when another student passing by tried to de-escalate the situation, she threw the remainder of her drink on him. “You are supporting...

Senator Ted Cruz has been called Lyin’ Ted Cruz, by his campaign opponents due to the frequency of his telling outright lies. The frequency of falsehood is so excessive Politifact actually did a story about 90 random Cruz assertions which were checked and only 6% of his statements are actually TRUE, only 16% had SOME TRUTH. Yesterday Senator Cruz appeared on Fox News Sunday (full video here) and was caught in several more lies to add to his abysmal record. .... http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/03/28/senator-ted-cruz-caught-blatantly-lying-on-fox-news-sunday/

<p>Some Russian soldiers are quitting the army because of the conflict in Ukraine, several soldiers and human rights activists have told Reuters. Their accounts call into question the Kremlin's continued assertions that no Russian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine, and that any Russians fighting alongside rebels there are volunteers.</p>

Lately many have characterized this administration as socialist, or having strong socialist leanings. I differ with this characterization. This is not to say Mr. Obama believes in free-markets by any means. On the contrary, he has done and said much that demonstrates his fundamental misunderstanding and hostility towards the truly free market. But a closer, honest examination of his policies and actions in office reveals that, much like the previous administration, he is very much a corporatist. This in many ways can be more insidious and worse than being an outright socialist. Socialism is a system where the government directly...