Free Republic

Learning the lessons of Mount St Helens. How its eruption backs biblical history by Tas Walker It was not until I visited Mount St Helens volcano in Washington State, USA, that I fully appreciated the immensity of its 1980 explosion. Over many years, I had learned a lot about the eruption, watching videos, listening to lectures, and reading reports. When the mountain blew up physically, it also blew away many false ideas about geology, ideas that were wrong, but had been believed for more than a century. After decades of inactivity, Mount St Helens coughed to life in March 1980,...

Chris Parker was there, reportedly, because it was a good place to beg. Stephen Jones, 35, was sleeping nearby. Now, both homeless men are being praised as heroes after the Manchester Arena bombing. As Manchester and the rest of Britain were trying to come to terms with the country’s deadliest terrorist attack in more than a decade, the two men are being hailed on social media for their selflessness and courage.

A recent Harvard study confirms that there has been record-breaking reporting bias against President Donald Trump. An astounding 80% of the stories about Trump by the mainstream media during his first 100 days in office have been negative. The real story, however, is how Trump’s base remains solid, unfazed by the persistent media negativity. Trump’s approval rating has not fallen to the low ratings of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the prior Republicans in the White House. For many of Trump’s supporters, the unrelenting bias against him simply confirms the nature of the problem facing...

So called liberals, supposedly dedicated to the advancement of women, attack the first lady of the United States while forgetting the stoning of women in Islamic countries.  Unbelievable.First Lady Melania Trump was recently subject of one of the most repressive articles against an American woman.  The fake and failed Clinton News Network (CNN) opinion hit piece essentially said that of course Mrs. Trump is getting accolades from the Saudi Arabian press because she is “conservative” in her dress and manner.  Please.Maybe CNN should run some more articles about Islamic genital mutilation, stoning of women, sodomy of minors, or the oppressive judicial...

We’re used to hearing politicians vow to cut spending. We’re also used to them not following through. So it’s hard to blame voters for feeling cynical. Year after year, their elected representatives kick the can down the road. They pass continuing resolutions -- Washington-speak for “business as usual.” Then the next campaign starts, and so do the promises. Meanwhile, the sky doesn’t fall. Should they even worry? In a word, yes. As the annual budget battle in Washington gets underway, it’s time to remind ourselves (and the politicians) about the price of inaction. President Trump inherited a national debt of...

Bill would create 500,000 new visas, include path to citizenship, and be open to current aliens. A bill introduced this month by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) would increase foreign guest workers by up to 500,000 a year and offer a back-door amnesty for illegal immigrants. The legislation, the State Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act of 2017, has attracted support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute. The bill would represent a massive increase in the number of non-immigrant visas issued each year by the United States. Unlike the myriad of existing visa programs, Johnson’s proposed program...

.....During their appearance, Jimmy also asked Bono to comment on President Donald Trump. "Everything's different now. It really is, the game has changed," Bono expressed. "I have so much respect for a lot of the people who voted President Trump into office. I really understand, I understand the anger, I have some of that anger myself coming from where we came from. I understand people being disillusioned in the political process. I don't think he's the cure for this problem and I think he might even make it worse. I don't think that there's any evidence in his life that...

It happened again last week. Two Turkish nationals in Schwerin, Germany were arrested for raping a 13-year-old girl after forcing themselves into her home.Recently, a judge in Germany acquitted a Turkish drug dealer of raping one of his customers last August. He had forced himself on her for four hours and left her incapacitated for weeks. He told the judge that in the culture from where he came, what she "had experienced as rape" might be considered merely "wild sex."What "culture" is this?According to the Turkish women's rights organization "We Will Stop the Murders of Women," which publishes monthly reports,...

For almost a year, Donald Trump has been complaining that FBI Director James Comey gave Hillary Clinton "a free pass for many bad deeds," as the president recently put it on Twitter. Trump thinks his opponent in last year's presidential election should have been prosecuted for her loose email practices as secretary of state, even if she did not deliberately expose classified information. The president might want to reconsider that hard line attitude. The reason Comey cited for not recommending charges against Clinton -- a lack of criminal intent -- could prove crucial in rebutting the allegation that Trump obstructed...

Call it the political equivalent of supply-side economics: The supply of scandal in the news always rises to meet the demand. But as in the economy, inflation soon sets in and each scandal seems to have less effect on a public grown insensitive. For if everything is a scandal, then nothing is. And what's supposed to shock no longer does. Especially when a president at the center of the supposed firestorm seems to be enjoying it as he tweets merrily along. Nothing seems to amuse Donald J. Trump like the impotence of his critics; he appears to revel in it....

he deadliest superbug yet -- Candida auris -- is invading hospitals and nursing homes, killing a staggering 60 percent of patients it infects. Some exposed patients don't succumb to infection but silently carry the germ and infect others. So far, the lethal germ has sickened patients in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts, with 122 cases reported so far this year, up from only six last year. The germ -- a fungus -- lingers on bedrails and on the uniforms and hands of doctors and nurses, ready to attack the next patient. Once it gets inside a catheter...

"It balances in the 10th year." That is what White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters about President Donald Trump's budget proposal in a briefing Monday. He was talking about fiscal 2027. That year, Trump will be two years out of office -- if he serves two terms -- and a child who turned 8 the day Trump was elected will be 18 and old enough to vote. To maintain control of Congress until 2027, the Republicans must sustain their majorities through the next five elections. At another press briefing on Tuesday, Mulvaney boasted...

Sophisticated American and Canadian energy industries have given the Free World an economic boost and a powerful diplomatic weapon. The North American "fracking" revolution -- hydraulic fracturing to tap vast reservoirs of "tight" natural gas and oil -- has altered the world's strategic calculus. U.S. and Canadian firms began experimenting with advanced oil and gas recovery techniques well before the "shale oil boom" made headlines. However, the development of fields in North Dakota and Texas helped develop techniques, technology and expertise. Fracking has opened previously untapped reservoirs. Frackers use improved drilling and production techniques to exploit existing fields. Information technology...

RED BLUFF, Calif. — A farmer faces trial in federal court this summer and a $2.8 million fine for failing to get a permit to plow his field and plant wheat in Tehama County.

Intolerance, at times exploding into violence, is spreading throughout our society. And it's coming from the political left. It's happening on college campuses. Most recently, students walked out on Vice President Mike Pence's commencement address at Notre Dame University. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was interrupted by boos and jeers at her commencement address at historically black Bethune-Cookman University. Conservative scholar Charles Murray was met with violent protests and physically assaulted at Middlebury College. Another conservative scholar, Heather MacDonald, was violently shut down in a presentation she was giving at Claremont McKenna College. These are just a couple examples. Now...

More than six million asylum seekers are waiting to cross into Europe, a leaked intelligence report warns. There has been a huge increase in the number of migrants hoping to reach EU countries, it says – contradicting claims from Brussels that the situation is under control. The confidential report, leaked to German newspaper Bild, claims 6.6million migrants are waiting in countries around the Mediterranean sea to cross into Europe, including 2.5million in war-torn North Africa.

Middlebury College has disciplined 67 students after its investigation into the disruption of a March 2 lecture by controversial author Charles Murray, the school announced Tuesday. The sanctions range "from probation to official college discipline, which places a permanent record in the student’s file," the school said in a statement. Murray attempted to lecture in the McCullough Student Center about his 2012 book, Coming Apart. Murray is better known for his 1994 book, The Bell Curve, which sought to correlate social inequality to genetics. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled his work "racist pseudoscience."

LONDON The Latest on the bombing at a pop concert in Manchester that left 22 people dead (all times local): 3:00 p.m. A former Libyan security official says the father of the alleged Manchester arena bomber was allegedly member of a former al-Qaida-backed group in Libya.

The father of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi has said son is innocent, and has confirmed UK police have arrested a another son. Talking from Tripoli, he said: 'We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us.'

Liberals might yawn at the prospect of yet another study showing overwhelming media bias against a Republican president but this report does not come from a right-wing think tank. Instead, it comes from one of their favorite think tanks. Harvard University's Shorestein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy released a report last week that indicated there is anti-Trump liberal media bias. They analyzed the news media coverage in the U.S. and in Europe, and found that the U.S. liberal media did not publish positive coverage of President Trump by a large margin. How large? Eighty percent of news coverage...