Free Republic

Remember “faithless electors” — those almost mythical rogues who Hillary Clinton fans once desperately hoped could save them from a victorious Donald Trump four years ago? Well, there is still such a thing as faithless electors, they are still an incredible longshot, and Trump fans too can now place the very slimmest of hopes in them. So what are faithless electors again?

(CNN)The last president facing re-election troubles like Donald Trump's was Jimmy Carter in 1980. Injured by recession and impotent against a national crisis, Carter lost big. To describe the current incumbent's predicament, substitute Trump's botched coronavirus response for Carter's inability to free American hostages seized by Iran. Then look at the numbers. Today, Trump's national polling deficit of around 10 percentage points matches Carter's popular vote deficit against Ronald Reagan -- who won a 44-state landslide while fellow Republicans seized control of the Senate.

The world’s doctors and public health officials are bracing for the fall and winter seasons, which could deliver the nightmare scenario that everyone is dreading: two infectious diseases could hit the same communities at the same time. Dual outbreaks of COVID-19 and the flu would place additional strain on healthcare systems and could put more people’s lives at risk. We’ve learned to live with the flu and tame it, but it’s endemic. We deal with flu epidemics every year, and they continue to take lives despite the availability of effective therapeutics and vaccines. The novel coronavirus is a different beast,...

Paul builds campaign on doomsday scenariosBy Andy Sullivan | Reuters – Mon, Dec 26, 2011 WASHINGTON, Iowa (Reuters) - The man who might win the Republican Party's first presidential nominating contest fears that the United Nations may take control of the U.S. money supply. Campaigning for the January 3 Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul warns of eroding civil liberties, a Soviet Union-style economic collapse and violence in the streets. The Texas congressman, author of "End the Fed," also wants to eliminate the central banking system that underpins the world's largest economy. "Not only would we audit the Federal Reserve, we may...

Before solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC went bankrupt, the U.S. Department of Energy — which had signed off on more than a half-billion dollars in loans — approved paying up to $1.1 million for an investment bank’s advice on restructuring Solyndra “both in and out of bankruptcy,” records show. (Snip) Six days earlier, the Energy Department signed a no-bid contract with investment powerhouse Lazard that foretold of a potential bankruptcy, though records show the effective date of the contract was even earlier, on Aug. 12. The contract was not competitively bid because the department said there was only one source for...

Janine Zacharia, the Washington Post's Jerusalem correspondent, spins a fanciful, sky-is-falling doomsday scenario for Israel: if you don't hurry up and bend over backwards to get a peace deal with Mahmoud Abbas on almost any terms, then get ready for a Hamas takeover of the West Bank and a third intifada that will rock the Jewish state to its foundations. ("Warnings in Israel of need for peace deal -- West Bank Crisis Feared -- Some in military foresee Hamas rise to power" Nov. 17, page A8). Zacharia attributes her dire warning to a couple of unidentified senior Israeli military and...

Republicans now hold a six-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely Voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 39% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. The survey data was collected on the seven days ending Sunday, August 29, 2010.   The Republicans have been consistently ahead in the Generic Ballot every week for over a year, but this is the smallest advantage the party has held since mid-July.. The GOP edge hasn’t fallen below five points since the beginning of December...

Think Tank Predicts Kim Jong-il's Death in 2012 North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may not survive the year 2012 and massive unrest is likely to follow his death, the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification speculates. A military coup, riots, massacres and a massive exodus could follow Kim's death, KINU said in its report. It is rare for a state-run South Korean think tank to go into such detail in forecasting changes in North Korea in a publicly issued report since such speculation is a red rag to Pyongyang. On Friday, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission vowed a "sacred...

An uncontrollable, deadly virus ravages America, shutting down civilian institutions and triggering martial law. Vaccinations are compulsory, and there are mass quarantines throughout the country. It's the stuff of Hollywood — but rumors that it could be real are spreading like the flu in the blogosphere, where some people are loudly expressing their fears that the federal government is seriously considering such measures as it maps out a worst-case-scenario response to the swine flu pandemic. During the bird flu scare of 2005, the Bush administration added novel forms of influenza — including the swine flu — to the official list...

..... .... Scenario No. 1: The Sideways Correction (Probability of 40%) I have previously suggested that a sideways correction remains the most likely market outcome this summer. As a metaphor, consider the market as a big bathtub with little new water (hedge fund and mutual fund inflows) being added into it. The bathtub market's water level remains stable, but the water swishes around from side to side as the bather moves. Industry rotation is the hallmark condition. The market, however, does not take a bath as, over the short term, extended sectors such as industrials, materials and energy will likely...

This animation is to reveal how demoralizing it must be to wildlife in hunting season’s first day.

Disaster Earthquake Scenario Unveiled For Southern CaliforniaShakeMap Intensity of an 7.8--Earthquake. (Credit: USGS)ScienceDaily (May 23, 2008) — Scientists have unveiled a hypothetical Scenario describing how a magnitude 7.8 Southern California earthquake -similar to the recent earthquake in China- would impact the region, causing loss of lives and massive damage to infrastructure, including critical transportation, power, and water systems. In the Scenario, the earthquake would kill 1800 people, injure 50,000, cause $200 billion in damage, and have long-lasting social and economic consequences. This is the most comprehensive analysis ever of what a major Southern California earthquake would mean, and is the...

*Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack. 1973: Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack. 2006: School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2006 – Military and political officials, foreign nationals and media observed yesterday as Army and Air National Guardsmen from five states and the District of Columbia responded to a mock disaster staged at the D.C. National Guard Armory. Members of the 34th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team, from Blackstone, Va., work through the decontamination site after having been in the "hot zone" of a fictitious nuclear incident. "Vital Guardian," held at the D.C. National Guard Armory, was an Army and Air National Guard training exercise to strengthen response to a catastrophic event. Photo by...

It's party time―again. It's time for all the good, little, right-wing boys and girls of the OC, Inland Empire, and Central Valley to strut their stuff at the California Republican Party convention―again. Seriously, how many of these things do these guys have every year? Still, this one ought to be interesting. The PPIC poll out today shows Schwarzenegger has failed to gain traction with the public, despite his infrastructure bond marketing tour. In fact, Arnold's approval rating has tumbled down to 35 percent among all adults, dropping five points since January. Arnold was hemorrhaging support from the left and the...

"What sort of assignments did you get?" I asked. "Well, there's one I probably shouldn't tell you about," he said. My reaction: I have to know. "We were asked to kill the president," he said.

SAN DIEGO (July 8, 2005) -- With cars exploding, improvised explosive devices detonating and rocket-propelled grenades screaming past your head, Marine life can be a horror flick — and Stu Segall is the Stephen King of military training. Segall’s Strategic Operations Studio recreates grisly, heart-stopping, tactical scenarios to prepare law enforcement and military personnel for “tomorrow’s threat.” That’s why Camp Pendleton-based 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company conducted their security and stabilization operations training at Strategic Ops — Segall’s movie set for producing mayhem and less-macabre modes of action-packed military training. Strategic Ops premiered its latest SASO production July 8...

>"Before dawn this morning I awoke with a sense of impending doom and > panic. At first I thought I had been awakened by a dream about my > deceased father but quickly realized that I was dreaming about a story > that he told me many years ago. > > > >During an interview in the early 1960's, Nikita Kruschev (of the old > Soviet Union) told a reporter that the Russian army didn't need to > attack the United States to bring it to it's knees. He said that America > would be destroyed from within. As a...

A Horrible Election-War Scenario October 17, This morning the newsreaders told us that George W. Bush was still ahead in the polls by a comfortable margin with at least 350 electoral votes squarely in his corner with the election just two weeks away. We are all a bit excited as we head into the final stretch and are really happy to see the news anchors looking so glum. Then during the middle of the day there was a breaking news story that Iraqi insurgents had captured several American civilians and soldiers. While heartbreaking this was not new, this had...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man who mistook a salami for an automatic pistol triggered a major police operation on Friday in southern Germany, involving 10 police cars and a helicopter. The man alerted police that he had seen three men handling a gun in a car at a motorway service area. Police cars, dogs and a helicopter chased the car and held up the men, only to identify the "weapon" as a salami. "Behind the dirty windows of the car, the man had mistaken the salami for a gun," a police spokesman in Traunstein said. "The men in the car...