Free Republic

Hagfish Haunts Darwin A zombie hagfish rises from the dead, and scares Darwin from two directions. January 24, 2019 | David F. Coppedge Hagfish are eel-like fish that look like creatures from a horror movie. Their tapir-like snouts are scary enough, but when threatened, they have a unique weapon: slime! They can spread a net of sticky slime around them that can clog the gills of an attacker. And they have been doing this for at least 100 million Darwin Years, perhaps 300 million.

EXCERPT: For instance, has anyone ever asked Ocasio-Cortez if, generally speaking, she believes a billionaire-free Cuban system that ostensibly offers free health care, guaranteed housing, a free education, and greater income equality is preferable to the United States’s vulgar, capitalistic model? If not, why not? After all, what guiding ideological principle stops Ocasio-Cortez from supporting confiscatory policies? Why not nationalize the fossil fuel industry? This is our last chance to save humanity, after all. If she really believes the fight against climate change is analogous to the war against fascism — a war that cost the lives of somewhere around...

As I noted yesterday regarding National Security Advisor John Bolton's and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statements, something is going on with Venezuela. Both Bolton and Pompeo told Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to get the heck out and suggested the U.S. was ready to recognize National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the country's president. They had perfect grounds for it, because Maduro illegally and unconstitutionally swore himself in to another term after a fraud election and didn't even show up at the right place for his inauguration. The statements coming from the U.S. were unprecedented - evidence of a true...

A former Democrat and current Trump supporter unloaded on Democrats. Jeffrey Peterson says the reason the Democrats will never support the border wall – the reason is that they are being paid off by the Mexican cartels. Jeffrey Peterson states in his profile on Twitter that he is a former Democrat who ‘walked away’. He now is a Trump supporter! He claims that the Democrats will never give in on a wall due to the Democrats being funded by the Mexican mafia. He says he has connections with Arizona politics and says Mexico is the main reason the wall is...

Realistically she only has two bites at the apple, 2024 and 2028. After all, by 2032 the world will be doomed, in which case there’ll be no point running for office.I hope she does well for herself over the next six years, as I’m looking forward to her inevitably primarying either President Beto, Chuck Schumer, or — please, God — Kirsten Gillibrand. Exclusive: A new Axios/SurveyMonkey poll finds that 74% of Democrats (and people who lean Dem) would consider voting for Ocasio-Cortez if she were old enough to run for president. (She’s 29; you have to be at least...

The Washington Post has had to issue yet another retraction after falsely claiming that far-left Native American activist Nathan Phillips served in the Vietnam War. He didn’t — but this lie was previously used to help raise money for a documentary about his life. On Monday, the Washington Post quietly issued a correction to their story about the activist, saying that while he served in the Marines, he was never deployed to Vietnam. “Correction: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972...

The vigilante group Soldiers of Odin has begun patrolling streets and public places in Oulu, in response to several cases of rape and sexual assault committed against Finnish children by migrant men. The patrol visits, among other things, shopping centres in the city, as these have been identified as places where foreigners are looking for victims to rape and molest. The initiative comes shortly after the police have warned the population against taking the law into their own hands, Ålands Nyheter reports. Soldiers of Odin (SOO) is an anti-immigrant group founded in Kemi, Finland, in October 2015. The group was...

Marine Le Pen delivered a speech in Paris to thousands of her National Rally party supporters, who chanted “Macron, resignation!” as she spoke. She denounced Macron and the EU as agents of globalisation with contempt for ordinary people. She also said the European Parliament elections in May ought to be a referendum on whether Macron stays in office. “If Macron does not have the wisdom to go back to the people by dissolving parliament, then let the political arbitrage come from European elections,” she said. “The European Union as it stands is a menace to our identity and to our...

Title had to be truncated: BREAKING: First Media Outlet to Report on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Cancer NOW SAYS She Contracted Pneumonia – Is Fighting for Her Life Now The Santa Monica Observer says Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pneumonia and is fighting for her life. And… That Ginsburg will retire in January.

A number of cases of rape and abuse of children, with foreign perpetrators, have been revealed in Oulu in the northern parts of Finland since last autumn, Fria Tider reports. The police are investigating another four cases with girls under the age of 15, where three perpetrators of foreign background have been arrested suspected of rape and serious sexual abuse of children. In all cases, the suspects have background as refugees or asylum seekers. And now the police in Helsinki have arrested several migrants suspected of serious rape and serious sexual abuse of children. The crimes have been committed in...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has canceled a planned public appearance in Los Angeles set two weeks from now on January 29 due to her recuperating from lung cancer surgery. Ginsburg was scheduled to appear at the Skirball Center as part of a celebration of her career. An exhibit being shown at the center through March 10 is called “Notorius RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Has President Trump suckered Democrats and the Deep State into a trap that will enable a radical downsizing of the federal bureaucracy? In only 5 more days of the already-“longest government shutdown in history” (25 days and counting, as of today), a heretofore obscure threshold will be reached, enabling permanent layoffs of bureaucrats furloughed 30 days or more.

More than 84,000 people took part in the protests in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, and other French cities on Saturday. Clashes eventually erupted at the iconic Champs Ulysses and Arc de Triomphe, with police using tear gas and water cannons to calm the angry crowds, RT reports. In Paris alone, 156 people were arrested during the standoff, with most of them put in custody, the law enforcers said. In Nimes, protesters attempted to storm City Hall and police deployed tear gas against them. Clashes were also reported in Bourges in central France, where the local authorities said that 5,000...

A 25-year old asylum seeker from Afghanistan stabbed a pregnant woman in the German city Bad Kreuznach so badly, her unborn baby died. The incident took place in a hospital in Bad Kreuznach Friday night. The man and the woman, a 25-year old Pole, had a dispute. He stabbed her several times with a knife. The victim was life-threateningly injured, but could be saved during operation. Her unborn child didn’t survive.

French interior minister Castaner and the yellow vest movement are on the warpath. The French yellow vest (‘gilet jaunes’) movement is entering its ninth edition Saturday 12 januari. And instead of cooling down things seem to be heating up and spreading. While the gilets jaunes are calling for a massive bankrun, in an effort to damage or even collapse the French- and eventually the EU banking system, the government dispatches 80 thousand police and army personnel to try and contain the protests. French Interior Minister Castaner today even heightened the tension by saying that protesters will be held accountable for...

A young man sits behind a piano and plays the first few notes to the beautiful ballad “Somewhere over the Rainbow” from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. His silver-haired grandma sits in a wheelchair near him, ready to add the magic with her golden voice. Mind it; the music they create will take you to a wonderland in no time! Doug Manor, of Travelers Rest, South Carolina, shared this music video of his son Trevor and the young man’s granny Gwen Gustafson on YouTube in July 2017. Perhaps Gwen knows the melody all too well; after all, she...

First off, the Why. The left has wanted DJT gone since election night. The hatred and contempt for DJT and his supporters is psychotic. But more importantly, the reason they MUST remove him now is because of the story about RGB that surfaced today.

Tensions increased between Paris and Rome this Tuesday as Italy showed support for the yellow vest movement. Luigi Di Maio, Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister said “Macron compared our government to leprosy!” in response to being told to “butt out” by the Minister of French European Affairs, Nathalie Both Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, have given their backing to the yellow vest movement with Di Maio saying his 5-Star Movement (M5S) was ‘ready to provide support to the Yellow Vests’, and later responding to Loiseau “Maybe she is forgetting that her president, (Emmanuel) Macron), compared us to leprosy...

The Trump administration has downgraded the diplomatic status of the EU in Washington, without informing Brussels, officials confirmed on Tuesday. The downgrade reverses an Obama administration decision in 2016 to grant the EU an enhanced diplomatic role in Washington, and is being seen in Brussels as a snub reflecting a general antipathy to the EU in the Trump administration. The change, potentially means that the EU mission would have less clout and access to US officials

In 1988, a US warship shot down an Iranian commercial plane, killing all onboard. The American captain and his crew were hailed as heroes, Scotland suffered, Libyans were punished, and we are still living with the effects today. It began when Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. America sided with Iraq, and by the time it ended on August 20, 1988, about a million people were dead. What ended the war, however, was an event that took place in the Strait of Hormuz. As the world gets 20% of its oil through this maritime route, the Iraq-Iran War extended...