Free Republic

The chief rabbi of Belgium had some startling comments for the future of Jews in Europe. Amid a terror crackdown in Brussels, where police arrested at least 16 terrorists, and after an attack in Paris that took the lives of 130 people, Rabbi Avraham Gigi said: "There is a sense of fear in the streets, the Belgians understand that they too are targets of terror. Jews now pray in their homes [as opposed to at synagogues] and some of them are planning on emigrating," Gigi said. "Since Shabbat the city has been paralyzed. The synagogues were closed, something which has...

This is news from Louisiana on Sunday. Seventeen people were shot but survived when gunfire erupted on on a playground where a block party was going in New Orleans. If you did not hear about it, do not be surprised. It was barely news. It is amazing to think that there was not a huge media blitz, that there were not the standard outrageous, grandstanding tweets, or the ridiculous parade of pseudo-experts on CNN and MSNBC to spend hours talking about gun control. The endless blog posts, the overwrought editorials. None of those. And why is that? Here is a...

Georgetown has one of the nation's most upscale shopping areas. (iStock) A large group of juveniles robbed a designer store in Georgetown Tuesday evening and stole $13,000 worth of items, according to D.C. Police. The incident happened just before 6 p.m. at the Diesel store in the 3000 block of M Street NW. More than 20 people, police said, went into the store and grabbed several items off the racks, according to a police report. They stole four leather jackets, costing about $800, and an additional $12,000 worth of merchandise. One person who worked at the store was said...

A large group of juveniles robbed a designer store in Georgetown Tuesday evening and stole $13,000 worth of items, according to D.C. Police. The incident happened just before 6 p.m. at the Diesel store in the 3000 block of M Street NW. More than 20 people, police said, went into the store and grabbed several items off the racks, according to a police report. They stole four leather jackets, costing about $800, and an additional $12,000 worth of merchandise. One person who worked at the store was said to have been pushed from him behind by someone in the crowd....

During the terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali last Friday, there were reports that hostages who could recite the Muslim profession of faith were set free; those who could not were killed. That the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, the Taliban or other fanatical Islamist sects measure the worth of a human life according to his or her religious belief is barbaric. Yet the impulse among American politicians like Jeb Bush and Senator Ted Cruz and Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, to offer refuge only to Christians fleeing war is as appalling.

In 1990 former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told me in an interview that massive Islamic immigration into Europe kept him awake at night. Between pinches of snuff, Schmidt said he worried Muslims wouldn’t assimilate, and that this would become a big problem for the continent.Schmidt’s ruminations are worth remembering following French President Francois Hollande visit to President Barack Obama Tuesday to ask for help in what he has called France’s war on ISIS. Hollande, who has been much more assertive than his host on defeating ISIS, to say the least, has been candid that “complicity from the inside” is...

YOUR REPUBLICAN UNCLE The holiday season is filled with food, traveling, and lively discussions with Republican relatives about politics sometimes laced with statements that are just not true. Here are the most common myths spouted by your family members who spend too much time listening to Rush Limbaugh and the perfect response to each of them. Want to stay in the know all year round? Sign up to have the latest updates on how Democrats are fighting back against Republicans.

Muslim women can no longer wear the full-body garment in shops, restaurants or public buildings and anyone caught flouting the ban could be struck with a £6,500 fine. The local government of Ticino approved the referendum after the Swiss Parliament ruled that the ban did not violate the country's federal law. Two in three voters in the canton backed the move in an overwhelming result for a referendum, in the wake of heightened terrorist alerts across Europe. The law which MPs voted for only applies to veils which covers the body from head to foot worn by the 40,000 Muslim...

SOMEONE MASKED OUT THE MUSIC AND OTHER PERIPHERALS

Eminent British scientist Richard Dawkins has sparked a firestorm of criticism on social media by comparing Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teenager whose school project was mistaken for a bomb, to a young ISIS killer. Dawkins, a leading voice in the atheist movement, was reacting to news that the Mohamed family was demanding $15 million in damages and an apology from city and school officials in Irving, Texas, over their treatment of the teen.

Less provocative and deadly incidents than the latest Paris terror massacre and the November 24 Turkey-Russia aerial incident have ignited very large and destructive wars. Both incidents are serious, both involve U.S. NATO allies and both have already produced chain reaction political consequences. Review the headlines. On Nov. 13, NATO member France suffered a devastating terror attack by terrorists connected to an enemy organization, which claims it is a state. France has mulled invoking NATO Article 5. On Nov. 24, NATO member Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 fighter-bomber that had violated its air space. In response, Moscow ordered a...

Stop me if you've heard this one before."This is the most important election of our lifetimes!"Washington politicians have been selling us that snake oil for as long as we can remember. And yet year-after-year, election-after-election, the parties in power may change but the results stay the same — the Washington Cartel wins and the American people lose.Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.The debt limit rises regardless of who wins. Middle class wages are stagnated regardless of who wins. Amnesty is championed regardless of who wins. The sanctity of life and marriage are abandoned regardless of who wins....

Why did the Marxist atheists who controlled the Soviet Union tear down the Berlin Wall? Did the Western leaders who forced Soviet communism to collapse shrink from proclaiming the truth of the Bible or the fact that free societies are based on a rule of law rooted in the natural law that God engraves on every heart? In 1983, when President Reagan told the National Association of Evangelicals that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire," he described the conflict with communism as a religious one. He did not argue that America was perfect or deny the wrongs of our...

A group of roughly 40 Capitol Hill residents gathered Friday morning at a local coffee shop to discuss the recent surge of violence in the area. As the meeting kicked off, another shooting occurred just two blocks away. According to a Metropolitan Police Department alert, a shooting occurred at the corner of 13th and Pennsylvania Ave SE, and the suspect fled toward downtown D.C. in a blue or black car. The meeting, and most recent shooting, came on the heels of what some calling the “Reign of Terror” that occurred Wednesday night. Five people were mugged in the neighborhood within...

Several black teenagers approached a woman in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington Monday, shortly after she secured her baby in her car, and smashed out her windows with a large rock. The incident began around noon when the woman picked her daughter up from music class. She later gave a detailed first person account of what happened on a neighborhood listserv. She had just strapped her child in the car and was looking for snacks in her diaper bag when she looked up and saw a group of teenagers rushing up on her and trying to surround her car. According...

District police are searching for a group of teenagers who they said attacked a woman and her child in their sport utility vehicle in Georgetown earlier this week and smashed the sun roof with a rock. The incident occurred about 10:30 a.m. near Wisconsin Avenue and Q Street Northwest, near the Georgetown Library and moments after the woman had strapped her daughter into a car seat after the child's morning music class. The victim gave a first-person account of the attack on a neighborhood Internet newsletter, and D.C. police confirmed the Monday incident on the department's Internet mailing list. D.C....

Four in 10 young Americans have no idea what America is. That's the takeaway from a new Pew Research poll showing that 40 percent of Americans aged 18-34 say that the government should be able to prevent people from making "statements that are offensive to minority groups." This same group of young people has granted broad awareness to the culture of "microaggression" -- unintended slights taken as grave insults by their victims; they've also called for "trigger warnings," alerts that certain communications may dredge up unpleasant past memories or ideas. With such ghoulish cruelties haunting the most privileged generation in...

...Two demands specific to the campus were the implementation of the Survivor Bill of Rights and mandatory adherence to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which were introduced by the Coalition to End Rape Culture and Students for Justice in Palestine, respectively... Going from an issue such as rape culture and the problems associated with it at UMass and bettering our accommodations for transgender students, I just couldn’t understand how BDS fell into the same category... Attending the Million Student March was the first time I’ve ever personally felt uncomfortable being somewhere because of my identity. As a pro-Israel student...

...While we call to combat mental illness, we must take the same approach in examining gender and deconstruct what it means to be a man. To be a “man” means to be straight and cisgender because masculinity is constructed to be heteronormative and cisnormative. Any signs of ‘femininity’ or diverging from a man’s gender role is discouraged, often invoking the use of derogatory terms. Men are emasculated for not conforming to our culture’s masculinity through the use of terms that are violently misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic. The violence that is encouraged in masculinity isn’t only physical or verbal, but systematic......

The flood of refugees from Syria and other Middle East countries that the Obama Administration is preparing to distribute to communities across the nation raises very real and understandable security concerns among government officials at the state and local levels, and among the citizenry generally. It is, of course, facile for President Obama to proclaim piously that he "is not a afraid." With the full protection of the U.S. Secret Service, the armed forces, and every law enforcement agency in the country protecting him, why should he fret? The rest of us are not quite so lucky. Whether we, or...