Free Republic

The rebels are falling apart. Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Assads have used their “de-escalation” zones into slaughterhouses by resuming attacks on pro-rebel civilians and any rebels they can catch. ISIL is rapidly losing it personnel and territory because of constant attacks by just about everyone (Turks, Kurds, Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies as well as the Americans and sundry other minor players). As ISIL is being put down everyone is thinking about the next phase of the civil war. The winners want to get rewarded for their service. The Syrian Kurds want autonomy in the northeast (mainly...

A male found burned Wednesday in a Billings West End neighborhood apparently caught fire while filling a car with gasoline, according to the Billings Fire Department.  Firefighters were dispatched to Concord Drive and Birchwood Drive at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, said Jeff McCullough, deputy fire marshal. It was still unknown Wednesday night how the fire started, McCullough said. The male was flown to Denver to be treated for his injuries, McCullough said. Neither the male's age nor the extent of his injuries have been released. "I just know he was trying to go fill up his car with gas and next thing...

When Kimberly Button drove her RV to Glacier National Park in Montana this summer, she expected relief from her muggy home town of Orlando. “We assumed that we’d have mild temperatures,” she says. “We couldn’t have been more wrong.” Instead, the Rocky Mountains baked in mid-90-degree temperatures. Button’s family camper, which didn’t have air conditioning, felt like a sweatbox. “We were looking at each other,” Button says, “and saying, “How is it this hot in Glacier National Park?” Earlier this year, Jessica Pociask, an ecologist and the founder of Wank Expeditions, a tour operator, had to cancel a tour to...

In May credit reporting service Equifax's website was breached by attackers who eventually made off with Social Security numbers, names, and a dizzying amount of other details for some 145.5 million US consumers. For several hours on Wednesday, and again early Thursday morning, the site was maliciously manipulated again, this time to deliver fraudulent Adobe Flash updates, which when clicked, infected visitors' computers with adware that was detected by only three of 65 antivirus providers.

This week, our oldest child Maggie turns 18. She and I traveled together this past week visiting potential colleges. Next year she will be out of the house and enrolled in college. I can't help but pause and reflect. Way back in 1999, my husband Jimmy and I were thrilled to welcome her. I had previously suffered a miscarriage, along with all the heartbreak, tears and uncertainty that went with it. It took weekly blood tests to ensure that my progesterone was in the right range, but it worked. My labor began in the middle of the night. Having heard...

When I first heard about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, my initial reflex was to see it through a Jewish lens: Oh no, I thought, not another Jewish scandal. As anti-Semitism reaches a tipping point, this is the last thing we need. And then I read The New York Times story detailing three decades of sexual misconduct, and the stories that have come out since then. Sickening stories that, as a woman and as a mother, make my blood boil. Stories that would make me sever ties with a man who was capable of just one of them, let alone dozens....

As Americans, we see tragedy and attacks and ask the question, how do we prevent it from ever happening again? We seek solutions. We want to feel like we are doing something about it. It is a natural response by an industrious people. Asking questions after a tragedy and starting conversations about solutions can be productive, but allowing ourselves to be swept away by fear can have lasting negative consequences and very likely will yield few benefits. Historically in America, nearly every loss of liberty we once possessed was exchanged for a perceived gain in “safety.”  Said exchange is almost...

The British Transport Police are disadvantaging white, male applicants by excluding them from recruitment workshops. The force is holding the workshops in London, Manchester, and Birmingham — but one would-be officer was turned away after being told they were for “women and black or ethnic minority” candidates only, reports The Metro. “I am a white heterosexual male and also a member of the armed forces, how can a public service blatantly support this kind of discrimination and inequality in 2017?” he told the newspaper. “I am going to withdraw my application due to having been treated in such a manner.” Metro’s correspondent Harley Tamplin seemed...

Developed by Norinco, the Chinese army’s new light tank is equipped with a hydropneumatic suspension system and is armed with a 105mm gun that can fire both shells and guided missiles. (Chinese Internet photo) China has confirmed the deployment of a new light tank, which observers say will suit combat operations on plateaus. A photo of the tank on snowy ground is on display at an exposition in the Beijing Exhibition Center, as part of a display showing achievements made by China over the past five years. The caption accompanying the picture says it is a new type of light...

It started out innocently enough. The internationally renowned pop star, Pink, wanted to project light and love into a world filled with a darkness that can be directly traced back to President Donald Trump. So, instead of tweeting obscenities at the American president, she chose to put this message out into the world: Unfortunately, it’s 2017 and if you don’t have anything mean to say, you probably shouldn’t say it at all. Instead of taking kindly to Pink’s message of hope and empathy, people became very angry, very quickly — much to Pink’s dismay and confusion P!nk ✔@Pink I've seen...

An American woman, her Canadian husband and their three children have been freed from captivity by Pakistani security forces, nearly five years after being taken hostage by the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani Network in Afghanistan. The initial word came from a Pakistani Army statement and was confirmed by US officials. The couple, American Caitlan Coleman, 31, and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, 33, were kidnapped in 2012 while they were traveling as tourists in Afghanistan and were held in captivity since. Coleman was pregnant when she was kidnapped. The couple had two more children born in captivity. In a statement, the Pakistani...

Over half of all police killings in 2015 were wrongly classified as not having been the result of interactions with officers, a new Harvard study based on Guardian data has found. The finding is just the latest to show government databases seriously undercounting the number of people killed by police. “Right now the data quality is bad and unacceptable,” said lead researcher Justin Feldman. “To effectively address the problem of law enforcement-related deaths, the public needs better data about who is being killed, where, and under what circumstances.” Young black men again faced highest rate of US police killings in...

With all these negative gun news, did you know that full-auto BB Guns are legal? Cheap and easily available full-auto BB Guns are pretty awesome. These replica (MP40, Beretta, Uzi) full-auto BB Guns are so much like the real deal, but without the annoying federal paperwork. Backyard fun has never been so awesome. These certainly are not the same Daisey BB Guns from your childhood. Watch see why full-auto BB Guns are worth checking out.

If it were a plague, the government would rush to quarantine the infected, as occurred during Europe's Black Death in the 14th century. An immigration debate at Seattle University School of Law is a plague of a different sort, but deadly in a different way. The victim here is the right to free speech. The Washington Free Beacon reports that Annette Clark, the dean of Seattle University's Law School, has revoked the school's sponsorship of a Federalist Society event. The reason? The proposed debate on immigration, hosted by the school's Access to Justice Institute, might be "harmful" to minority students...

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Nagasaki shipyard held the launch ceremony for the second (and last) 25DD/Asahi-class ASW Destroyer. The vessel, named "Shiranui" (hull number DD-120) will join first ship of the class "Asahi" in Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) service. Asahi started sea trials in July 2017. The Asahi-class is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) class of destroyers based on the existing Akizuki-class (19DD) of destroyers which is more focused on AAW. The vessel displaces over 5,000 tons for a length of 151 meters, a width of 18.3 meters and a draft of 5.4 meters. Shiranui Destroyer DD25 Asahi class...

Hurricane Ophelia is the latest weather system to whip up winds and rain in the Atlantic. But the storm is heading east toward the northwest coast of Spain and then up to Ireland instead of crossing the Atlantic toward the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean. Ophelia officially gained hurricane status on Wednesday evening, according to the National Hurricane Center. As of Thursday morning, Ophelia was moving northeast at about 3 mph and was expected to continue on that path for the next day or so. The storm has picked up strength, with sustained winds of 90 mph and higher gusts. Some of...

Looking for streaming solution. Currently paying for DirecTV, 3 TVs and all premium packages except sports. I am thinking of going Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. MY wife lives on HGTV and Lifetime. She can do without the rest. My read into download HGTV to computer or TVI have to register my provider (cable, satellite) which means I have to stay with direct or cox. I want to stream and provide my wife with her favorites from those two stations. Have smartvs and chrome cast hooked to one of them.

One of the worse effects of sentencing someone to prison time is what it does to that person’s health. Which is why anyone on the cusp of a term of imprisonment is really much, much better off seeing a dentist and a doctor before they go in. Another problem that anyone who has spent any time in a jail or prison knows — even in a lawyer visiting room — is that prisons underspend on HVAC systems, if they spend at all. In the summer, jails and prisons are sweltering. In the winter, people in federal prisons often have to...

A rapidly spreading invasive pest now threatens crops across the continent. The fall armyworm is closely related to the African armyworm, which is native to the continent. Both pests feed not just on corn, but also on other cereal crops like rice, sorghum, and wheat. Kenneth Wilson of Lancaster University has studied the African armyworm for 25 years and is now part of a working group with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization that is examining how to deal with the newly arrived pest. The fall armyworm comes at a time when farmers throughout rural Africa are grappling with...

I saw the strength of America this past weekend, her will, her goodness, her compassion, her unity and her greatness. It was in Payson – a small town in Arizona I’m sure most of you have never even heard of – when the residents of the area came together on a Saturday night to honor their veterans. Farmers, cowboys, merchants, clerks, truck drivers and Americans of all professions, put aside their beliefs and political persuasions, their differences and banded together to pay homage to those who had put their lives on the line for the liberty of our beloved America....