Free Republic

Casting himself as a key opposing figure to President Trump, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo invoked the name of Trump's immigrant grandfather in a Tuesday speech at Ellis Island. "This is the harbor where Fredrick Trump arrived from Germany, and whose grandson would become President of the United States," Cuomo said at his third inaugural address, rattling off a list of dignitaries whose parents and grandparents came through the island, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Vice President Mike Pence. "This is not a faded memory of yesterday, but rather a shining beacon...

They have already committed a criminal act by staying in the country illegally, yet a number of the illegal aliens attempted to compound their transgressions by buying guns. According to a new report of background checks, the FBI has rejected a record number of illegal immigrants trying to purchase guns this year. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System said that it has turned away 7,836,600 attempted gun purchases from “illegal/unlawful alien” this year. The record covers the 2018 period until November, which means it still did not include data for December. Christmas purchases of guns are always typically high....

There was a time that this was the second busiest shopping day of the year, as everyone went back to the stores to return the gifts that they didn’t like or that didn’t fit. This year, it’s projected to be the eighth busiest shopping day of the year. No, Really, We’re Talking about Literal ‘Fake News’ One more major journalistic scandal before the year closes out: Der Spiegel has announced that it will press charges against a former star reporter accused of systemically faking interviews and articles, in what might be the biggest journalism scandal in Germany since another newsmagazine...

In early November, gale-force winds whipped a brush fire into an inferno that nearly consumed the town of Paradise, California, and killed at least 86 people. By the second morning, I could smell the fire from one foot outside my door in Berkeley, some 130 miles from the flames. Within a week, my eyes and throat stung even when I was indoors. Air quality maps warned that the soot-filled air blanketing the Bay Area had reached “very unhealthy” levels. For days, nearly everyone wore masks as they walked their dogs, rode the train, and carried out errands. Most of those...

Despite the efforts of a miserable American media and liberal establishment to malign her, first lady Melania Trump continues on with work that endears her to the American public. Her agenda as first lady is expansive, focusing on children and the importance of all aspects of their lives, from self-esteem to education to health care. Our nation has a first lady who is smart, beautiful and a person of faith. She is committed to her family and to this nation. Her sense of self-worth is not reliant on whether or not she’s on the cover of Vogue or invited to...

Well, the liberal media is back at it again. What else is new? The Left hates Trump so much that were now re-litigating his bone spur diagnosis, which earned the young Donald Trump a pass from the draft during the Vietnam War. First, who cares? Whatever comes from this story won’t impact his presidency. He’s not going to resign over this, and his supporters surely won’t abandon him either. So, here’s the story, which cannot be verified in any way: the daughters of some podiatrist, who is now dead, say the bone spur diagnosis was a favor to Fred...

A nation devoid of grace immiserates its people. When you think of the sheer vindictiveness of what happened to Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, it takes your breath away. On the very night of his greatest career triumph, a reporter dug up his old tweets (composed when he was a young teenager), reported on the most offensive insults, and immediately and irrevocably transformed his online legacy. Now he’s not just “Kyler Murray, gifted quarterback and humble Heisman winner,” but also the man who was forced to apologize for his alleged homophobia. And for what purpose? Which cause did the reporter advance?...

“Gun deaths in US reach highest level in nearly 40 years, CDC data reveal,” blared Thursday’s headline on CNN.com. A press release from Everytown for Gun Safety noted that “39,773 people were killed by gun violence in 2017 — approximately 1,100 more than were killed by motor vehicle accidents.” The picture these announcements evoke is of mass shootings and random gun crimes that pose a mortal danger to every American. But that image is not quite accurate. The number of homicides actually declined last year — and is believed to have fallen again this year. Our streets have gotten safer....

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"... the tin cup is such a low-tech way to beg. There’s a better way. Meet Jovan Hill, digital beggar. Hill is an unemployed Brooklyn man who spends his days asking strangers for donations on social media and is now bathing in other people’s money ...

New York (CNN Business)The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of President Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, its owner Clarity Media Group announced Friday morning. The magazine will publish its final issue on December 17. * * * Employees were told at an all staff meeting, which CNN obtained an audio recording of, that they would be paid through the end of the year, and that afterward they would receive severance which would range in scale depending on factors like seniority. To receive severance, however, employees would need to sign...

11-Year-Old Bullied Simply Because His Last Name is TrumpIt’s time to take a quiz… Are you ready? Question # 1: Who is the most bashed person in the United States today? Answer # 1: President Trump is the most bashed person in the U.S. today. You guessed correctly! Question # 2: What happens when you happen to have the same last name as the President? Answer # 2: You get bashed! You answered correctly again! Congratulations! With President Trump taking a daily dose of criticism from the media and his supporters dealing with a ton of nonsense from leftists, I...

Donald Trump continues to suffer from upside-down job ratings as his second year as president winds down. In addition, views of the economy remain divided, voters feel the administration’s economic policies have not helped them -- and fewer are optimistic about future economic conditions than two years ago, according to the latest Fox News poll. Forty-five percent of voters think the economy will be in better shape a year from now, down from 56 percent who felt that way in December 2016. Although the question has been asked at irregular intervals on the Fox News poll over the past 20...

Truepundit.com is reporting this story: Full headline: Fox News goes full MSM; informs top reporters to cease & desist investigations of FBI and Obama- era corruption Fox News in recent days told its top reporters to cease and desist working on any investigative stories that expose FBI corruption and probes of wrongdoing during the Barack Obama administration. “This place has gone downhill fast,” a well-placed Fox insider said. “Basically we all have been told all Fox wants is to cover breaking news and have pundits talk about breaking news live from news published by other outlets. So the format Fox...

What they call "cable news" these days often is a repetitive exercise in speculating that the worst for Donald Trump is always right around the corner. On Monday, the doomsaying ghouls of Morning Joe reveled in Trump's troubles, prematurely dancing on the President's political grave. But not even the prospect of Trump being hounded from office satisfied them. No, they gleefully predicted that even as an ex-President, Donald Trump would be beset with problems "for the rest of his life." [snip] Donny Deutsch then delivered the coup de un-grace, proclaiming that the President's current predicament is: "Just the beginning. This...

The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures. Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions...

The City Council on Thursday put its political clout behind a proposal in Albany to overhaul state health care by creating a “Medicare for all” program that would raise taxes by $139 billion a year. The single-payer plan would extend coverage to the roughly 1 million uninsured New Yorkers — including undocumented immigrants — and eliminate all co-pays and deductibles.

Born on December 7, 1928, Noam Chomsky was raised by Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia. Though his father was a Hebrew scholar who studied medieval grammar, Chomsky lacked direction through school and university and only committed to the study of linguistics when he took up a post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955. It wasn't long, however, before the young unknown scholar single-handedly revolutionized the field of linguists, his book Syntactic Structures (1957) kickstarting his concept of "transformational grammar" that argued — contrary to the behaviourist fad of the time — that our linguistic capacity is genetic...

Shortened title. Full title: NYT Editorials About Deaths of Reagan, Bush Called Them Fortunate in Foreign Policy, Slammed Current Republican Presidents The New York Times editorials about the last two elected Republican presidents to die, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, have strong similarities, calling them both fortunate in their foreign policy victories, comparing them positively to the current GOP office-holders, and bemoaning the negative state of politics under the current commanders in chief. Reagan, the 40th president, died in 2004 at the age of 93, and Bush, his vice-president who succeeded him as the 41st president, died Friday at...

The Environmental Protection Agency acted again Thursday to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry, this time scaling back what would have been a tough control on climate-changing emissions from any new coal plants. The latest Trump administration targeting of legacy Obama administration efforts to slow climate change comes in the wake of multiplying warnings from the agency’s scientists and others about the accelerating pace of global warming. In a ceremony Thursday at the agency, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposal to dismantle a 2015 rule that any new coal power plants include cutting-edge techniques to capture...