Free Republic

In a move that is certain to further escalate already stretched racial tensions in America's most cosmopolitan city, some 100 New York City buses will soon carry jarring anti-Islamic posters which feature photos of an ISIS beheading victim, his alleged executioner, Adolf Hitler, declare "Yesterday's moderate [Muslim] is today's headline" and proclaim "It's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism" as part of an "educational campaign." According to the NY Daily News, the ads, paid for by flame-throwing blogger Pamela Geller, at a cost of $100,000, are intended as an “education campaign” to warn of the “problem with jihad” and Islamic sharia law,...

In 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent dominated the Mediterranean, with intentions of not only taking Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, and southern Spain, but Rome itself. The only thing standing in his way was the small rocky island of Malta just south of Sicily, defended by the Knights of Malta. In March of 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sent Algerian Admiral Dragut to Malta with 200 ships and 40,000 Muslim soldiers, including 6,500 elite Janissary troops. .... Queen Elizabeth I of England is said to have remarked: "If the Turks should prevail against the Isle of Malta, it is uncertain what further...

In Beijing, the rally in support of the integrity of Ukraine ... pic.twitter.com/DBDva79sB0

Barack Obama will not be pledging any cash to a near-empty fund for poor countries at a United Nations summit on climate change next week, the UN special climate change envoy said on Friday. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has challenged the 125 world leaders attending the 23 September summit to make “bold pledges” to the fund, intended to help poor countries cope with climate change. The UN has been pressing rich countries to come up with pledges of between $10bn and $15bn. “We are putting a lot of pressure for them to do it at the summit on...

BOSTON (AP) — Federal immigration officials say a four-day enforcement operation in New England has ended with the arrest of 81 immigrants, including those convicted of crimes, fugitives and those accused of other immigration violations.

John Kerry has assembled a three-person team to lead the State Department’s efforts against ISIS. Two of the members — Gen. John Allen and Brett McGurk — seem unobjectionable. The third, Anne Patterson, is another matter. In announcing her central role, Kerry praised Patterson as “one of our nation’s top diplomats deeply respected in the region.” But Patterson is not respected in Egypt, where she served as ambassador during the period when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power. Bridget Johnson at PJ Media reminds us that Patterson stood firmly behind the Brotherhood as it persecuted opponents and attempted to consolidate...

The Postal Services created a stamp with a picture of President Obama on it. The Postal Service noticed that the stamp was not sticking to envelopes. This enraged the President, who demanded a full investigation. After a month of testing and $1.73 million in congressional spending, a special Presidential commission presented the following findings: 1.The stamp is in perfect order. 2. There is nothing wrong with the glue. 3. People are spitting on the wrong side.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill allowing local governments to impose a vehicle registration surcharge to pay for bike lanes and trails. The governor's office said in a statement that Brown signed the bill in Sacramento on Saturday. It lets cities, counties or regional park districts to impose an annual vehicle registration surcharge of up to $5 to pay for local bike lanes and trails. The surcharge can be imposed until Jan. 1, 2025. Democratic Sen. Mark DeSaulnier of Concord sponsored the bill that passed the Senate 24-9 in August. Opponents argued that drivers should not have...

Maybe the U.S. economy, a weakling for the last six years, is finally starting to flex some muscle. We’re referring to the return of King Dollar. For those who haven’t been paying attention, the greenback is in the midst of a rally not seen since the 1990s. It’s racing past the euro, the yen, and other currencies. Investors worldwide are buying the equivalent of stock in America, Inc. If the rise in the dollar’s valuation is sustainable, it’s welcome news for the stock market, for fighting inflation, and for U.S. growth prospects. Ronald Reagan said it best: A strong dollar...

Mary Wilkerson is aware there's a governor's race on the November ballot, but "it's not on my radar,'' says the 60-year-old from Jacksonville. Wilkerson, a black Democrat and reliable supporter of Barack Obama, is the kind of voter who is pivotal to the candidacy of Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor turned Democrat. His campaign has put a premium on building a field operation aimed at turning out the vote in key communities and has crafted a careful message of inclusion that aims to avoid the mistakes that imperiled Alex Sink, the Democrat who lost to Gov. Rick Scott four...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In advance of a global synod in Rome next month, Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin said Thursday that the church should consider simplifying its annulment process and lifting the ban on Holy Communion for Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried. Bishop Tobin addressed the issue in his column in the Rhode Island Catholic, the Diocese of Providence newspaper. He noted that bishops from around the world will examine the subject at the synod on “Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization,” with Pope Francis, next month and again next year. Catholic Church...

In the emotionally charged conversation about rape, few topics are more fraught than that of false allegations. Consider some responses to the news that singer-songwriter Conor Oberst had been falsely accused of sexual assault. Last December a woman writing in the comments section of the website xoJane, going by the name Joanie Faircloth, claimed Oberst raped her when she was a teenager. The charge spread across the Internet; Oberst denied it and brought a libel suit against Faircloth when she refused to retract the story. In July she completely recanted, admitting that she had made it all up to get...

As war in Syria and Iraq attracts a growing number of Muslim extremists from Europe, intelligence officials in Germany believe a former gangsta rapper has joined the inner circle of Islamists fighting there. Denis Cuspert was once a modestly successful member of Germany's hip-hop scene going by the stage name Deso Dogg. Now he calls himself Abu Talha the German and is a top propagandist for the so-called Islamic State (IS) caliphate, which is blamed for several wartime atrocities. His ascent into the upper IS ranks is raising concerns that such "homegrown" Islamists could embolden Muslim extremists in Germany or...

Video of Live Insect in New Jersey High School Lunch Investigated By Checkey Beckford A student at North Bergen High School sent this video of what appears to be an insect crawling around in what he says was the school lunch. Saturday, Sep 20, 2014 A New Jersey high school's food vendor says it's investigating after several students began circulating video purporting to show a live insect squirming inside a taco salad school lunch. Video taken by North Bergen High School students show what appears to be a small worm on the lunch plate. One girl posted the video on...

On Thursday evening, what was touted as a nail-biter of a vote in Scotland which would determine if the country would break away from the United Kingdom turned out to not even be close. By a vote of 55 to 45 percent, Scotland decided that it would remain a member of the union of which it has been a part since 1707. Americans were… unimpressed. First, the lack of exit polling and the methodical counting of votes ensured that those watching the coverage of the independence ballot had to wait until the late hours of the evening to get...

      FROM ONE MEAN MOM We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too. Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She...

These individuals under surveillance, 'being tracked' by the FBI.Rep. Tim Bishop (D., N.Y.) warned during a recent speech that up to 40 radicalized U.S. citizens who have fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) have already returned to the United States, where they could pose a terrorist threat. Bishop claims that of the 100 or so Americans who have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL’s ranks, some 40 have returned and are currently being surveilled by the FBI, according to his remarks, which were filmed and uploaded to YouTube last week. “One of...

According to the Secret Service, the incident started earlier Saturday afternoon when a man walked up to a gate on foot. He later showed up at a different gate in a car and pulled into the vehicle screening area. When the man was asked to leave and refused, he was placed under arrest and charged with unlawful entry. "He didn't actually break through the barricade, but he has been taken into custody," Elizabeth Prann said on America's News Headquarters this afternoon.

Looking back, perhaps it really is no surprise that Ferguson, Missouri became the latest site in this long war against black lives, given the state of Missouri’s peculiar relationship to slavery in US history.During the hot summer days of August, all eyes were on Ferguson. Hour after hour, journalists on the scene described the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was getting ready to start college in just a few days, and the unrest that exploded as “shocking,” but for so many black Americans, the scene in Ferguson was all-too-familiar. The ghost of Ferguson appeared earlier in Sanford, Florida on...

The government has begun invalidating the passports of Canadians who have left to join extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander revealed in an interview on Friday. The minister told the National Post his department had also revoked the passports of several Canadians who had not yet left the country but who had intended to travel to the volatile region to enlist as foreign fighters. He would not disclose the number of passports...