Free Republic

Original title:The American Revolution began - Today in history On April 19,1775 the American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord. At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town's common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and...

....I see only two paths for America today. First, some miracle will happen in which a couple hundred constitutionalists like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Trey Gowdy will be elected to the House and Senate over the next few election cycles, and something resembling the Founder’s republic will be restored, but given the current climate of relentless progressivism, massive bureaucracy, government dependence, and voter ignorance, that seems like a very remote possibility. The second path is that complacency, ignorance, and indifference will allow more progressives and communists to be elected, the federal government will continue to grow and amass...

Photo: Alma E. Hernandez, For The San Antonio Express News Henry Vichique, shown with his pregnant wife, above, is the 19 year old man who was tased by police for carrying a WWII Russian rifle in a San Antonio residential neighborhood while walking home.  From the Houston Chronicle: San Antonio police arrested him March 30 while he was walking home with a loaded Russian World War II-vintage rifle slung across his shoulder. The event occurred after dark.   Police at the scene told Henry that people had reported that he had been pointing the rifle at others.   Henry replied that...

<p>The Southern Poverty Law Center, which spent a great deal of time monitoring Miller, would never have thought to watch an institute whose board of trustees include a former New York Times editor, a music industry executive and a president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.</p>

CONCORD HYMN ("Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836") ~Ralph Waldo Emerson By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set today a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone....

National Review Online took another gratuitous shot at me Thursday in an article defending Ayaan Hirsi Ali, saying: “Hirsi Ali is no Pamela Geller. On the contrary, for her whole life, Hirsi Ali has used anger as a catalyst to great good.” Is it necessary to smear me in order to defend Hirsi Ali? And this is not the first time that NRO has allowed insults and defamation against me and other freedom fighters to run unedited. I hardly know why. But I do know that NRO has no guts, no spine, and no conviction.

The recent Soviet-er, um, Russian annexation of the Crimea got me reflecting back on my youth. I'm a child of the 1970s and 80s. I'm not ashamed of that either. As I have grown older, I feel that the younger generations have grown soft, complacent, lazy, and unworthy of our 1980s legacy. Ironically our parents felt the same way about us (of course, we proved them wrong.) We had vinyl albums, not because they sounded retro but because that was all we had. Not to brag, but those of us alive in that period - we rocked. Literally. Our music...

Original Title:American Supersonic Airliners: Race for a Dream Boeing-2707 SST: a Supersonic Marvel, Largely Forgotten Today Capable of transporting 296 passengers across the ocean at 2900 km/h, developed 40 years ago, in 1968... The Sixties (or for that matter, the Fifties) were truly amazing years when it comes to development of fascinating - and often futuristic - technology. The automotive industry, for example, entertained public imagination with powerful full-size cars, a true embodiment of the "American dream" and sheer optimism of the times. In space exploration, we reached all the way to the Moon; in air travel, the dream of...

Data provided by the FBI The United States has one of the highest per capita numbers of firearms in the world.   It is estimated that there is about one gun for each man, woman and child in the United States, about 310 million firearms.   Every year, some of those firearms are stolen, breaking any official chain of ownership.   In any given year, the percentage of firearms reported stolen is fairly small.  In 2013, 191 thousand firearms were reported stolen to the NCIC.  That is about .06 percent of the total firearms in private hands.  Not six percent, but six...

Wednesday, April 16, 2014 From Slavery to Freedom Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog As another Passover begins, the echoes of "Once we were slaves and now we are free" and "Next year in Jerusalem" resound briefly and then fade into the background noise of everyday life. We can board a plane tomorrow and fly off to Jerusalem. Some of us are already there now. But will that make us free? Since Egypt we have become slaves again, lived under the rule of iron-fisted tyrants and forgotten what the very idea of freedom means. And that will...

Yesterday wasn’t just tax day, it was the 67th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the baseball color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. For those games not washed away by rain or snow, teams wore #42 jerseys in his honor. ESPN, as usual, used the anniversary to lament the dwindling number of black baseball players. The number of blacks playing major league baseball has gotten extremely low in recent years. It goes right along with a massive decrease in the number of black kids playing baseball and going to baseball games. In many ways the decrease in black interest...

Book excerpt from Stronger: The bomb went off at 2:49 on Monday afternoon. Within seconds, the man in the cowboy hat was leaping the barricade guarding the finish line and racing toward the carnage. The second bomb went off when he was half-way across the street, but he kept coming. They all kept coming to help us: police officers, race volunteers, bystanders. The first pictures came out almost immediately thereafter. They were long-shots of the scene: the concussion of the bomb shaking a camera filming the race. The force of the blast knocking down a runner about to cross the...

Ukraine appears to be on the brink of war. This after Russia more or less took Crimea and is staging anti-Ukrainian demonstrations in the eastern part of the country. Obama’s response to all of this has been economic sanctions on seven Russians and lofty rhetoric about the world’s position or something. In Syria, our President’s red line was ignored. The President’s response was to make threats and back down. Obama supported the Arab Spring in Egypt and cheered when the Muslim Brotherhood overthrew a long time ally. He has since done nothing despite his pals in the Brotherhood being thrown...

In the famous video Historic! Feds Forced to Surrender to American Citizens , I'm curious as to what sort of sunglasses that the "contractor" is wearing at the barricade (1:28 in the video). You can also see his gloves and his wristwatch. The gloves appear to be some sort of fancy fingerless Gear Queer stuff, also:

Call them “breast-obsessed” if you like, but more than 3500 years ago, Egyptian physicians documented breast cancer on papyri that survive to this day. Some authorities claim that these documents could date back much earlier than that. A key entry describes “bulging tumors of the breast that have no cure.” From Hippocrates on, causes of the disease were proffered by the leading minds of the day. These would include excess of black bile; lack of sexual activity; overly vigorous sexual activity; depression; childlessness, and sedentary lifestyle. Famed French physician Henri Le Dran was among the first to advocate surgical removal...

Have you Heard! Another true American Hero has tarnished his unblemished reputation as a superb Athlete, as an Achiever, and as a Role Model for millions of Americans; someone whose dream was big enough to overcome an apparent lack of opportunity. That man is our Hero, Hank Aaron, and the sad incident in question involves the unfortunate remarks taken from his speech given at an Official Anniversary Celebration of his remarkable achievements. On one hand, Hall of Famer Aaron’s political statements regarding blacks in America reveal his pain and perspective. But to what purpose? Have his comments advanced the dream...

Sunday, April 13, 2014 The Paranoid Party Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The Democrat may no longer believe in God, the Constitution or even motherhood and apple pie, but he devoutly believes with all the faith of a 9/11 Truther in the impermeability of steel and of a Neo-Nazi in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that somewhere out there Republicans are sitting in a sealed room and plotting to bring back the 50s. And if not the 50s, then at least the early 60s. The left accuses the right of being deeply paranoid. Meanwhile...

"Pretty close to to a bad day today...looks like cooler heads prevailed."

former assistant CIA-DI , Michael Morell should be tried for treason …..

Normally I don’t have any special affection for the TV show 60 Minutes. So trust me when I say I was overwhelmed by the show on March 30. I wish every student in middle school or high school could see this program. They would see heroism, genius, ethics, inventiveness, capitalism at its best, visionary talent, the future unfolding, all the things they need to see. The first segment was about a young manager of a brokerage firm. He saw trading irregularities he didn’t like, and did something about it. (Most of us won’t understand the math but you will quickly...

THE INFLUENCE OF HENRY GEORGE IN ENGLANDThe social philosophy of the "West-End club contains a doctrine of "agitation" which easily explains the influence of such a man as Henry George. "Agitation" thus interpreted implies neither a genuine grievance in the agitated, nor an honest purpose in the agitator; for the one is substituted an irrational discontent, for the other a mere lust for popularity and power. The agitator thus conceived is an uninstructed "spouter," who plays upon a natural fund of envy and cupidity latent in the masses, stimulating an attack upon the established order of things. By such foolish...

The reports, such as they are, from the Bundy Ranch have been confusing. The Feds have contributed to the dearth of verifiable information, suggesting that there are things it would be inconvenient for us to know.I don't know what's happening at the Bundy Ranch because, aside from conservative bloggers and occasionally Fox News, there is very little information, verifiable or otherwise. According to Mr. Bundy, on Friday he barely recognized the land during an airplane flyover earlier in the day."I flew down along the river here, and I'd seen a little herd of cows," he told a gathering of supporters....

Despite popular belief, every culture of every nation draws a line in the sand against government tyranny. The problem is, many draw this line so close to total defeat that it rarely matters. For the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, for instance, it wasn't until the Germans had already herded millions onto railroad cars destined for death camps and cornered the rest into dilapidated central housing that the ZOB resistance was formed, only to be wiped out a month later. Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, but clearly too many freedom movements throughout history waited too long to respond to the trespasses...

Friday, April 11, 2014 Friday Afternoon Roundup - Hope and Fail Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 0 Comments THE ENLIGHTENED LEFT The left does not care about gay marriage. In most left-wing regimes, homosexuality was persecuted. It was illegal in the USSR. Gay men were locked up in Cuba and are still targeted in China. Nicolas Maduro, the current hero of the left, openly uses homophobic language without any criticism from his Western admirers. It goes without saying that homosexuality is criminalized throughout the Muslim world. Engels viewed homosexuality as a perversion born out of the...

Fifty-one years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King penned one of the most famous essays of the civil rights movement from a cell in the Birmingham city jail. It was in the form of a letter written to a group of clergymen who expressed their distaste for the kind of "direct action" in which King engaged. Jail has two effects on the human mind and spirit. While confinement seeks to crush the spirit, one who is jailed for their sacred cause typically experiences a greater focus and clarity, and is given the ample time in which to express and fortify...

A large budget, plenty of FX, and familiar biblical source material can’t make up for an awful script, and an overall twisted concept from helmer Darren Aronofsky. Ginned up by the controversy gained by its less than faithful adherence to the bible story, Paramount/Regency should see brisk business, at least at first. The Noah saga comprises Genesis 5:28 through 9:29, and runs around 2300 words. There is little dialog, of course, and it is all spoken by God—inexplicably called the “Creator”—in this movie. Yes, Aronofsky is an atheist, but a Creator with supernatural powers sounds a lot like God to...

Photograph_by_Jocelyn_Augustino_taken_on_09-18-2004_in_Florida.jpg/800px-FEMA_-_11135_ SB 296, the Florida bill that would remove restrictions on citizens carry of guns during an emergency, passed the Senate Community Affairs Committee on the  8th of April.  The bill reflects the philosophy of the second amendment, that guns in the hands of citizens enhance public safety.   Currently, the rights of Florida residents to carry arms are significantly restricted.   The open carry of weapons is restricted to certain activities, such as hunting, target shooting, fishing, and on a persons private property.  Concealed carry of weapons is restricted to people who have some training and who pay the fee...

Thursday, April 10, 2014 The Rise of Fakectivism Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog What do the forced departure of Brendan Eich from Mozilla and #CancelColbert have in common? They are both examples of Fakectivism. Fakectivism is social media activism by small numbers of people that is integrated into the news cycle because it matches the media’s political agenda. Every Tea Party member knows that media coverage of actual protests is unequal. Twenty students, most of them volunteers at an environmental non-profit, protesting Keystone will get media coverage that a thousand Tea Party members protesting ObamaCare won't...

The tide is turning on the Democrats’ voter fraud schemes; and MSNBC’s Joy Reid may just be beamed up into a UFO after all. Fortified by recent court victories, public sentiment and a determination to end the Democrats’ use of fraud to steal elections, Boards of Election across the country are purging the rolls of fake and dead voters. The latest trash can of Democrat voter fraud to be kicked over is in North Carolina. The Tar Heel State’s investigation found a mind boggling number of fraudulent and expired (due to death of individual) voter registrations. Using a 28 state...

As the world continues to fade to grainy black and white, Barry and his Democrats are bringing back a blast from the past, Blacklisting. In his zeal to root out communist ideology in America, Joe McCarthy used the force of government to ruin the lives of communist dupes in Hollywood and elsewhere. Finally, cooler heads prevailed and the witch hunts came to an end. Now the jackboot is on the other foot. The difference today is that there don't seem to be any cooler heads to put the brakes on this bunch who want to root out traditional American ideology....

Cairo -pictured above- is (like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs) a Belgian Malinois...The breed is similar to a German Shepherd but a bit smaller/more compact -adult male cca 65 lbs- and is therefore considered better for various parachute jumping and rappelling operations with the USN's SEAL teams.  This particular dog was the one who first entered the Abbottabad compound the night night that SEAL Team Six got Bin Laden. He even got to meet President Obama afterward, although it's doubtful the dog was impressed... these things can smell weakness a mile away- Like their human counterparts, the K9 SEALs are highly...

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said the Office of Congressional Ethics is reviewing him after reports in December about a $1 million grant his non-profit organization received more than a decade ago. Rush told the Chicago Sun-Times he has been cooperating fully with the review and has asked others around him to do the same. He said he has not yet been interviewed by the independent panel. “I have been just totally, totally cooperative, open and cooperative and I encouraged anybody they wanted to talk to [to be] honest and frank about it,” Rush said. He said he hoped the OCE...

What, if anything, do "we" now stand for and why?An article published on April 9th by the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council is titled U.S.: The Great Problem that Needs to be Solved. Written by Elliot Abrams, it contends that the problem has at its center the world view of President Obama. His world view is based primarily on ideology rather than reality; its bases are evident in all that He and His minions do and fail to do. The problem also impacts domestic policy, implemented by Executive Decree when He "won't wait." If the Democrats control neither house of the Congress following the November elections, there...

Liberals think their desire to have unfettered proliferation of social welfare makes them the charitable ones. Imagine my surprise to see that even the founding fathers had to combat this sort of foolishness.

In his video, Pat Condell defines the religion of peace as “the most racist ideology on the planet.” Responsible for destroying the once great nation of Britain, Islam is now spreading its poisonous talons of hatred and intolerance across the United States. Condell does a masterful job of exposing the ” mind-blowingly, soul-witheringly, unforgivably offensive,” practices of Islam by the simple method of telling the truth. How can the so-called “religious” practices of this group of sub-human thugs be beneath contempt while remaining above criticism or condemnation? The 6 minute video offered by Condell is guaranteed to...

Though we've discussed this before, I discovered some new evidence and thought it would be fun to bring this topic up yet again. Nearly every American has seen this painting. In fact, it has become one of the best selling pieces of art in recent years. Thousands of homes, churches, office buildings, etc. have adorned their walls with this extremely powerful portrayal of America's first president kneeling in prayer. As is common with the legacy of our Founding Fathers, Americans today gain a sense of pride, reverence, and even patriotism when witnessing poignant recreations such as this painting. But how...

In 2012, the voters of Louisiana approved a constitutional amendment to the state Constitution that removed the constitutional provision that gave the State the power to regulate concealed weapons.   It added the requirement that the court use the strongest level of judicial review, strict scrutiny, for Amendment 2 cases.   There is a a good discussion of the history behind this amendment at the Volokh Conspiracy, by David Kopel.  The amendment passed with over 73 percent of the vote. The court has already upheld bans on the possession of handguns by minors without parental approval and on felons on...

149 years ago today, the Civil War all but came to an end with the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to Union forces headed by Ulysses S. Grant. While a few battles were still to be fought and many other Confederate units or forces would surrender over the following weeks and months, Lee's surrender marked the end of the war in the Eastern Theater.

Former President Jimmy Carter championed racial equality Tuesday evening, saying "there's no difference with people in the eyes of God" during a 50th anniversary celebration of the Civil Rights Act. Carter, 89, hailed the landmark 1964 law that outlawed discrimination against minorities and women as a stepping stone, but insisted there's still more work to do. "We're pretty much dormant now. We accept self-congratulations about the wonderful 50th anniversary — which is wonderful — but we feel like Lyndon Johnson did it and we don't have to do anything anymore," said Carter, the first president to speak at the three-day...

Tuesday, April 08, 2014 Islam Is What Happens When Civilization Loses Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Saudi Arabia and Qatar aren't talking to each other. Syria and Turkey are shooting at each other. Not only are the Shiites and Sunnis killing each other in Syria, but the Sunni groups have been killing each other for some time now. There are even two or three Al Qaedas fighting each other over which of them is the real Al Qaeda while, occasionally, denying that they are the real Al Qaeda. There's something about Syria that splits down everything...

I kept looking at him suspiciously, because I remembered our neighbour who stated (OK he was completely drunk) that he had brilliant plan to end this siege. When we asked him how, he explained that he will shoot at the airplanes, and when they respond to that they will bomb whole area and everything will end. One of most stupid things that I ever heard. It was like shooting the man who brings you sandwich when you are hungry but desperate folks will talk lot of nonsense. “I am just thinking how funny and how far away we are to...

All three can be good or bad depending on how much, how and for what used. That a little bit might be good does not mean that a lot more will be better.RadiationMany years ago, in the mid to late 1940's and early 1950's when I was a young boy, shoe stores had X-ray machines permitting one to view images of the bones in one's feet. Health hazards were recognized but generally ignored. Although most of the dose was directed at the feet, a substantial amount would scatter or leak in all directions. Shielding materials were sometimes displaced to improve image quality, to make the machine...

A massive 3,800-year-old fortress that protected the Gihon Spring was uncovered in the City of David. Photo: Eli Mandelbaum, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.Excavations around the Gihon Spring in the City of David have uncovered a massive 3,800-year-old fortress. Called the “Spring Citadel” by archaeologists, the discovery is part of a 15-year excavation led by Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukrun of the Israel Antiquities Authority. This enormous 18th-century B.C.E. structure that isolates and protects the Gihon Spring is believed to be the fortress described in the Book of Samuel that King David...

Title is the subject, link is to the results. Go to slashdot.org if you want to take the poll, it changes every day, but the results should hang around alot longer than the poll.

And, I do have a sensitivity toward people in the military as well as civilians who have developed some sort of "nervous condition." I was medevaced out of Vietnam after 16 months there while serving  in the Marine Corps. At that time, if an enlistee even looked cross-eyed at a superior officer, or showed any sort of deviance - they would be "quickly and efficiently" jailed, hospitalized, or just booted out of the military. IOW soldiers like the most recent Fort Hood killer Ivan Lopez would have stuck out like a sore thumb in yesterday's military, but not in...

Sunday, April 06, 2014 Government Power and Evil Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog We are not a violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends  time wondering what kind of man would murder people. They probably live next door to him. If your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to war criminals all the way from Eastern Europe to Africa. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on...

From Kim Kardashian’s butt to Miley Cyris’ obscene gyrations, clearly our American culture has popped, exploded, gone to hell in a hand basket, and is just plain offensive and out-of-control. Once again, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER tells it the way it is by featuring the re-release of the iconic art book WHITE TRASH UNCUT by outstanding photographer Christopher Makos. (1). His first edition is available for a whopping $500 a copy, but this second release is selling at $50 each and includes 40 new pix of the decline and fall of Western Civilization in full disgust. Makos is “the first photographer...

In swift reaction to North Korea's most recent flouting of international law, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced today from Japan that the U.S. will deploy two additional AEGIS ballistic missile defense ships to Japan by 2017 as part of an effort to bolster protection in the region. The response comes in wake of Pyongyang's repeated provocations, including recently test-firing two ballistic missiles, as US President Barack Obama hosted a landmark Japan-South Korea summit. The move is meant to send a strong signal, not only to Kim Jong-Un, but Russian leader Vladamir Putin as well. Hagel, in Japan to meet...

The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division is very proud to announce the release of more than 20,000 cartographic works as high resolution downloads. We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions.* To the extent that some jurisdictions grant NYPL an additional copyright in the digital reproductions of these maps, NYPL is distributing these images under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. The maps can be viewed through the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections page, and downloaded (!), through the Map Warper. First, create an account, then click a map title and...

Safety Breifing Before Eureka Springs Constitutional Carry/Act 746 walk Open Carry Walkers in Eureka Springs As has become the norm in Arkansas, the open carry/constitutional carry/ celebrate Act 746 walk in Eureka springs did not cause any drama or trauma. Dozens of people participated in the event on 29 March.  In spite of concerns, and some hostility expressed during a city council meeting prior to the event, there did not appear to be any significant opposition to the walk.   No one protested the open carriers.   One of the event participants actively looked for signs in businesses banning guns or...