Free Republic

LINCOLN, Neb. — Self-identified liberal voters are less forgiving to Democratic politicians who cross party lines on certain issues than conservative voters are to Republican lawmakers doing the same thing, a recent study shows. Researchers at the University of Nebraska used MRI technology to examine the brains of 58 people when they face incongruent positions by politicians. The researchers wanted to see which parts of the brain lit up when people evaluated fictional politicians’ stances on key conservative and liberal issues.

The parents of a former Seneca Valley High School student claim in a federal lawsuit filed this week that their teenage son was terrorized by false accusations made by five "Mean Girls" at the school. ... The lawsuit alleges that the boy was further damaged by "gender bias" by school officials and Goldinger's office, which even after learning the girls' accusations were false "did not take any action against the females involved," said attorney Craig Fishman of Pittsburgh, who represents the Floods.

A robot punctured a can of bear spray. Now 24 Amazon workers are Twenty-four Amazon workers in New Jersey have been hospitalized after a robot accidentally tore a can of bear repellent spray in a warehouse, officials said. The two dozen workers were treated at five local hospitals, Robbinsville Township communications and public information officer John Nalbone told ABC News. One was in critical condition while 30 additional workers were treated at the scene. All of the workers were expected to be released from the hospital within 24 hours, WABC reported Thursday. The official investigation revealed "an automated machine accidentally...

U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter last year to an annual rate of just 2.2 percent. There are concerns that growth has slowed even more in the first quarter this year as global weakness, fading government stimulus and rising trade tensions take a toll on the economy. The increase in the GDP, the economy’s total output of goods and services, was revised down from an initial estimate of 2.6 percent growth in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The change reflected weakness in a number of areas. Consumer spending, business investment, government spending and housing...

A senior Justice Department official working in the Office of Justice Programs pressured one subordinate "into a sexual relationship with him in exchange for a promotion," "sexually harassed two other subordinates," "sexually assaulted" yet another subordinate, and then “lacked candor” with the Office of the Inspector General when the IG investigated these matters, according to an investigative summary published by the IG. The unnamed prosecutor or prosecutors to whom the IG referred this case, however, declined to prosecute the senior Justice Department official. Instead, the man was allowed to retire. When asked by CNSNews.com, the Justice Department would not say...

Northam was right. Also, the first slave owner in America was a black man: John Casor was legally declared a slave for life on March 8th, 1655, thus becoming the first person ever to receive this treatment. Indentured servants Britain’s first colony in North America was Virginia. There, the officials of this state offered land for free to those colonist who would bring more colonists to Virginia. Many people were ready to take advantage of this offer, but they couldn’t afford the cost of the trip across the ocean. In order to attract more people, the wealthy colonists of Virginia...

**SNIP** 2. You might not get as much money back, but that doesn't mean you'll pay more either. Accountants call this year's process easier for the average person. With the new tax law, everyone's filing on the same form. Most people's tax rate is less, too. But that's not all: Your refund check may be less may be less, a lot less, than last year. Instead of withholding as much throughout the year, the government gave it to the people to spend, which is something not everyone realizes. "They anticipated for the lower rates," said Tylor Katze of Bennett Tax....

This is a civil war. There aren’t any soldiers marching on Charleston… or Myrtle Beach. Nobody’s getting shot in the streets. Except in Chicago… and Baltimore, Detroit and Washington D.C. But that’s not a civil war. It’s just what happens when Democrats run a city into the ground. And then they dig a hole in the ground so they can bury it even deeper. If you look deep enough into that great big Democrat hole, you might even see where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. But it’s not guns that make a civil war. It’s politics. Guns are how a civil...

Earth’s magnetic field is what allows us to exist. It deflects harmful radiation. It keeps our water and atmosphere in place. But now it’s acting up — and nobody knows why. Planet Earth is alive. Deep beneath its skin, its life blood — rivers of molten iron — pulse around its core. And this mobile iron is what generates the magnetic field that causes auroras — and keeps us alive. But, according to the science journal Nature, something strange is going on deep down below. It’s causing the magnetic North Pole to ‘skitter’ away from Canada, towards Siberia. “The magnetic...

Rapid shifts in the Earth’s north magnetic pole are forcing researchers to make an unprecedented early update to a model that helps navigation by ships, planes and submarines in the Arctic, scientists said.

Hustle, a text-messaging startup that worked closely with several Democratic candidates in the 2018 elections, fired a third of its staff this week. CEO Roddy Lindsay announced the move via a blog post on Thursday. "While we are incredibly proud of our impact in the 2018 midterms, delivering more than 200 million text messages to and from voters, it was an enormous operational challenge supporting such an effort; one that required a team size that is not yet sustainable for us on an ongoing basis," Lindsay wrote. "And while we have an exciting set of initial commercial customers using Hustle...

The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move. On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones. The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. The problem lies partly with the moving pole and partly...

Liberal abuse of Facebook to manipulate elections didn’t stop in 2017. A new Washington Post report indicated the same strategy was widespread in 2018 and earned as many as 16 million views in just a two-week span. Liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and member of the board of directors for Microsoft, was exposed last week for funding a project that created fake Facebook pages to manipulate the 2017 Alabama special election between Roy Moore and Doug Jones. A new Washington Post article has revealed that the group that created the project, News for Democracy, had created 14 fake...

One prevalent theme of 2018 was the further deterioration of the mainstream news media. The meltdown began in late 2016, after President Trump won the election. The media went into full assault mode, bashing Trump and churning out fake news at a breathtaking speed. They could not handle this new type of Republican president who aggressively went about a conservative agenda and frequently attacked the press. But Trump fought back, taking to Twitter to speak directly to the American people. He got his message out first, before the media could report on it. The media was forced to report afterwards...

There is considerable skepticism among Democratic leaders, and even some of Mr. Bloomberg’s close allies, that he will actually pursue the presidency, because he has entertained the idea fruitlessly several times before, and shown little appetite for the rough-and-tumble tactics of traditional partisan politics. A campaign would require him to yield his imperial stature as a donor and philanthropist, and enter a tumultuous political and cultural climate that could make him a highly incongruous candidate for the Democratic nomination. Though he has received a hero’s welcome from Democrats for his role in the midterms, Mr. Bloomberg is plainly an uncomfortable...

Aside from the Washington hysterias, 2018 was a most successful year for Americans. The year 2018 will be deplored by pundits as a bad year of more unpredictable Donald Trump, headlined by wild stock-market gyrations, the melodramas of the Robert Mueller investigation, and the musical-chair tenures of officials in the Trump administration. A quarter of the government is still shut down. Talk of impeachment by the newly Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is in the air. Seemingly every day there are sensational breakthroughs, scandals, and bombshells that race through social media and the Internet — only to be forgotten by the...

The year 2018 could never have achieved its record-setting level of political chaos and sheer inanity without the help of the many people and few governments that weren’t killing people, making war on their neighbors or just being annoying. January On New Year’s Day, California became the ninth state to legalize recreational marijuana. Shortly after that, several cities created affirmative action programs meant to help minority would-be pot sellers into the business. Criminals, who usually can’t get liquor licenses, are favored. While the East Coast was being battered by a “bomb cyclone,” a winter storm so severe that frozen iguanas...

Here's my take on some of those who left us these last twelve months. It's not a comprehensive list, because, as the late Diana Mosley used to say to me with rueful weariness, "People die non-stop", which is very true. But here's some of the passings we noted, with more at the links - from furniture salesmen to superhero godfathers to make-believe presidents, first ladies to Bond girls to Pigeon sisters: CHARLES AZNAVOUR, troubadour On September 19th the 94-year-old Charles Aznavour was on stage at the NHK Hall in Osaka, Japan. After a triumphant concert he returned to his home...

We can summarize 2018 in two words: It boofed. We’re not 100 percent sure what “boofing” is, despite the fact that this very issue was discussed in a hearing of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. All we know for certain about boofing is that it is distasteful and stupid. In spades. What made this year so awful? We could list many factors, including natural disasters, man-made atrocities, the utter depravity of our national political discourse and the loss of Aretha Franklin. Instead we’ll cite one event that, while minor, epitomizes 2018: the debut of “Dr. Pimple Popper.” This is...