Free Republic

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Standing in a stately Mayo Clinic library, Lilly Ross reached out and touched the face of a stranger, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless gap in a chin she once had known so well. "That's why he always grew it so long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin," she told Andy Sandness, as he shut his eyes and braced for the tickle of her touch on new nerve endings in the face that had been her husband's. Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that had belonged to...

Durham, N.C. — Charges for three people who are accused of toppling a Confederate monument in downtown Durham have been dropped, according to their defense attorney. According to defense attorney Scott Holmes, charges were dropped against Aaron Alexander Caldwell, Myles Spigner and Taylor Cook, citing that probable cause exists, but there was not enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. On Aug. 14, a group of protesters tore the statue of a Confederate soldier down after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., ended with one woman dead and almost two dozen injured.

Veterans' Day is a time for Americans to step up and honor those who have served in the armed forces. From the days of the Founding Fathers to today, those in the military, whether enlisted or drafted, made tremendous sacrifices for their fellow Americans. We should offer thanks, but the question is how we go about doing it. Today, many people will tell a veteran, "Thank you for your service." During the Vietnam War, those who fought gallantly for this country would have welcomed that greeting instead of being spat upon and called baby-killers. But for those who fought in...

Dose Jeff Bezos Need To Go To Prison? Maybe. Unless you live under a rock you know that Roy Moore, who is the Republican candidate to replace Jeff Session's Senate seat out of Alabama, has been accused of some extraordinarily-salacious and in one case illegal act. There's a problem -- the alleged act(s) occurred nearly forty years ago and yet not one allegation of same has occurred until now. I won't get into the actionability of the claim in the first place since with one exception all the so-called accusers were 16 or older and thus of the age of...

In the medieval legend made famous by the brothers Grimm, the German town of Hamelin is besieged by a plague of rats, until the mysterious pied piper appears and agrees, for a fee, to rid them of the infestation. The mayor then reneges on payment and the piper exacts a savage revenge on the town’s ingrates by luring away their children, who are never seen again. The tale could also be an allegory for today’s grim intergenerational smash-and-grab – the global economy. Like the hapless mayor of Hamelin, elected officials all over the world are today blindly pursuing growth-as-usual, while...

"The common greeting will be replaced with "non-gendered terms," such as "passengers," "riders," or "everyone." MTA spokesman Jon Weinstein said banning "ladies and gentlemen" would provide riders with "clearer information." "We're fundamentally changing the way we talk with riders to give them better and clearer information," he said."

LOS ANGELES — The number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer characters on U.S. television shows have reached record highs, and advocacy group GLAAD said on Thursday that their stories were more important than ever given moves in the United States to roll back LGBTQ acceptance. In it annual report on diversity on the small screen, GLAAD found 329 regular and recurring LGBTQ characters across all broadcast, cable and streaming TV platforms, including the first asexual and non-binary characters. GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said TV was a critical place for the portrayal of LGBTQ characters and their lives....

Since sexual harassment can be in the eye of the beholder, the only evidence that meets civil standards of proof, argues a university complaints investigator, can fairly decide what happened. https://academicmatters.ca/2011/10/false-allegations-of-sexual-harassment-misunderstandings-and-realities/

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the purported victim of the DNC's rigged 2016 primary, has jotted down some thoughts on the Donna Brazile bombshell in a new op-ed. Brazile, the former acting DNC chair, released an excerpt from her new book "Hacks" last week detailing how the DNC already had side fundraising agreements with Hillary Clinton. She recalled being sick to her stomach having to call Sanders and tell him how the DNC was seemingly working behind the scenes for his opponent. In his response, Sanders, who had an inspired run against Clinton that lasted months longer than expected (many young...

One of President Trump's judicial nominees is getting much-needed support from the Judicial Crisis Network. The network is throwing its support behind Kyle Duncan, President Trump's choice for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana.Duncan has quite the track record. He is a Constitutional lawyer and represented Hobby Lobby in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Hobby Lobby case tackled the question of whether or not the Religious Freedom Act of 1993 allows a business to not provide contraception to its employees based on the sincerely held religious beliefs of its owners. In a...

We have just received information that one of the women accusing Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore of soliciting dates from her when she was a teenager and he was in his 30’s is not only a passionate progressive, but she has actually worked for the DNC and is actively campaigning for Moore’s opponent, Doug Jones. Deborah Wesson Gibson, aka Debbie Gibson, was named in the Washington Post article accusing Moore, and social media evidence makes clear that she is a fervent supporter of Jones and Democrats in general, and has even worked for the DNC. Wesson Gibson is a sign...

...The New York Times marked the same anniversary in a different way: by running a series of articles extolling the virtues of communism. The irony of the series’ title, “Red Century,” seems lost on the Times’s editors. The 20th century was “red” indeed — red with the blood of communism’s victims. The death toll of communism, cited in “The Black Book of Communism,” is simply staggering: In the USSR, nearly 20 million dead; China, 65 million; Vietnam, 1 million; Cambodia, 2 million; Eastern Europe, 1 million; Africa, 1.7 million; Afghanistan, 1.5 million; North Korea: 2 million (and counting). In all,...

An ad from a pro-Obama super PAC suggests that Mitt Romney is responsible for a woman's death. The TV ad by Priorities USA Action has Joe Soptic, who has been used in Obama campaign ads, telling the story of what happened to his wife after Mitt Romney’s company, Bain Capital, closed the GST Steel plant where Soptic worked until 2001. On the screen are these words: "Mitt Romney and Bain Capital made millions for themselves and then closed this steel plant." Soptic says "I lost my health care. And my family lost their health care. And a short time after...

President Trump delivered a robust and forceful speech on international trade in an address Friday afternoon at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Da Nang, Vietnam. Trump told Asian leaders the U.S. "will not tolerate" trade abuses and lashed out at "unfair practices." Trump said he does not blame countries for "taking advantage" of the U.S. in trade deals, for that is their job, but he said it will no longer happen. He said the U.S. "did not do their job, but I will." "I do not blame China or any other country, of which there are many, for...

The casual visitor, stopping in Zamboanga or Jolo (holo) between boats, sees the Moro as a slightly grimy individual with a bad reputation. Faintly disturbing stories of the prowess of this villain with the razor-edged kris (creese), sometimes reach the tourist's ears. Most of the stories are true. The visitor may also hear something of the enmity which exists between the Filipinos and the Moros. This is also true, as the Filipinos may discover when America leaves the islands.

The University of Connecticut is recruiting 20 male students for an 11-week program to help them stop “mansplaining” and “interrupting others.” The Men’s Project is hosted by the school’s Women’s Center and vows to train men to “positively influence their peers by challenging social norms that promote gender based violence.”

A prominent advocate for the irreligious says there are at least 30 "closeted" members of Congress who don't believe in God, and that he hopes a California congressman's Thursday admission of disbelief will encourage others to come forward. The advocate, an advisory board member of the Secular Coalition for America, has for more than a decade plied private admissions of atheism from members of Congress with the promise of confidentiality, and said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., is in good company. Huffman said in an interview published Thursday that “I suppose you could say I don’t believe in God,” though he's...

Many people have tried to explain away the mass shootings in Texas and Las Vegas as mental illness. I can assure you that 99.9 percent of mentally ill people could never kill anyone. People are ruling out a spiritual component to these shootings. The mass shooters reflect the classic behavior one should expect of armed people who are demon-possessed. I invite Freepers who are mature Christians, and who have developed the ability to do spiritual discernment, to comment on this issue. Then there is the issue of Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, the most committed Christian to be a Senate...

[snip]"October 1. A 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Tunisia stabbed two women to death at the central train station in Marseille. Witnesses heard the assailant shout "Allahu Akbar" as he lunged at the women with a 20-centimetre (eight-inch) knife...Why he was never deported remains unclear.""October 2. Five people were arrested in Paris after police found four makeshift bombs at a building in the 16th arrondissement, one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods. Police said there was no one living in the apartment block who might be considered a target for jihadists."" In March 2012, Mohamed in March 2012 had gone on...

ESPN is learning a hard lesson about politics after needlessly dragging itself into the fray: you can’t please everyone. If the network panders to one side of the political aisle, it alienates the other half of its viewership. The backlash over politicized sports coverage has ESPN reeling. The network is finding itself forced to layoff 100 employees, the Hollywood Reporter found. What makes this worst for the heads of the Disney-owned company is that the layoffs come after they delivered a mass firing of 300 employees–five percent of the ESPN workforce–in 2015. The now-frequent large-scale personnel cuts are indicative of...