Free Republic

Warfare is no longer the exclusive business of the state, and our weak and weary national governments are going to need all the help they can muster…but don’t expect them to rally to your defence against all the warriors who might be coming after you Forward to the Past The dark web, terrorism, hacktivists, intruding drones, transnational organized crime – a dizzying array of problems are growing but these are only the froth of a growing wave of instability. The order we knew in past decades is no longer assured. In a world menaced by significant population growth, environmental stresses,...

The Paris climate talks have mostly wound to an end. There are still a few details to clean up over the weekend, but we’re being told that representatives from hundreds of nations have come together and are prepared to release their final agreement on how to save the world from climate change. Or maybe not: even as of this morning nobody seemed to be able to agree as to whether or not there was an agreement. (CNN) “Obviously, nobody will get 100% of what they want,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday as he discussed the “balanced and as...

A significant majority of the country recently spoke up in a NY Times/CBS poll saying that they had essentially given up hope that the President was going to figure out what to do about the JV Team. These perceptions were likely buttressed a bit when the White House informed us that ISIS was largely “contained” just hours before they lit up Paris like a pinball machine. So maybe we need a new approach? Anonymous apparently declared war on the terrorists recently, though aside from ruining their credit rating I’m not sure exactly what they’re going to accomplish. But lo and...

In the early morning hours of October 31 the tranquility of downtown Colorado Springs was interrupted by multiple shootings in which three innocents were killed before Colorado Springs Police were able to kill the gunman in a shootout. The Colorado Springs Gazette reported that just before 9 a.m. residents who heard the gunshots looked out their windows to see a man with a rifle. A 21-year-old witness named Matt Abshire said the gunman “shot a person on Prospect Street and two more near El Paso Street.” Police had been called and arrived to confront the gunman just after he had...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Flashing lights pierced the black of night, and the big white letters made clear it was the police. The woman pulled over was a daycare worker in her 50s headed home after playing dominoes with friends. She felt she had nothing to hide, so when the Oklahoma City officer accused her of erratic driving, she did as directed. She would later tell a judge she was splayed outside the patrol car for a pat-down and then made to lift her shirt and pull down her pants to prove she wasn't hiding anything. She described being ordered to...

To the many gullible souls out there who truly think that Barack Obama is "legacy building" in his all-out assault on America, I implore you to bow out of the conversation because you are not seeing clearly. The term legacy carries positive connotations of something bequeath that is to the receiver's benefit. Everything that Barack Obama does is calculated to destroy America, which he despises. This man no more cares about legacy than he fears being properly prosecuted by the white political leaders whose responsibility it is to remove him from office. I focus on white leaders, because whites are...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the huge number of Muslim migrants flooding Europe and Germany represent an "opportunity". Here's what that opportunity looks like now. A mass brawl occurred between refugees from Afghanistan and Albania. Some 60 refugees went after one another in the camp in the Wilhelmsburg district on Tuesday evening. Some were armed with iron bars, also witnesses had testified that a refugee had a firearm, a police spokesman said. In Lower Saxony in Braunschweig there was also an altercation between 300 to 400 refugees between Algerians and Syrians from a dispute over stolen goods. In the...

Harry Reid Suing Exercise Equipment Firm Over Eye Injury By Niels Lesniewski Posted at 3:44 p.m. today Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and his wife, Landra, are suing the manufacturer of the exercise band that slipped or snapped, leading to the Nevada Democrat’s eye injury. According to court documents filed in Clark County, Nev., Reid alleges that the injury resulted from a faulty exercise resistance band, causing more than $50,000 in damages. “As a result of the TheraBand breaking or slipping out of his hand, Plaintiff Harry Reid has suffered and continues to suffer from severe pain and injuries including,...

Over the last 10 months, the U.S. Coast Guard and partners from the Navy, federal law enforcement and allied nations worked together to apprehend 215 suspected smugglers in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and more than 119,000 pounds of cocaine. The drugs have an estimated street value of about $1.8 billion...The impact of the seizures will be felt far from U.S. streets, however. "The cultivation, trafficking and distribution of narcotics fuels violence and instability throughout the Western Hemisphere, leaving a path of destruction directly to the door step of the U.S. We must continue to make progress in our effort to...

San Francisco’s mayor was accused by the FBI of taking bribes in exchange for favors, attorneys for a defendant in an organized crime case centered on San Francisco’s Chinatown said Tuesday. In a court filing, Curtis Briggs, an attorney for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, cites as the source of the FBI’s allegation documents turned over to him by the government as part of the process of mounting a defense for his client. Briggs is seeking to dismiss the indictment against Chow on the grounds that the government is selectively prosecuting him while letting other people caught in its probe go....

To take our minds off politics for a bit who was your favorite TV Gangster? I can't seem to find much stuff to watch on Network TV anymore and I find that I have a short attention span with most shows I do see. So last week I was trying to think what I would like to see that I had not seen in a long time and I thought of the TV show "Wiseguy" with Jonathan Banks and Ken Wahl. I found it via my Roku on Amazon Prime and I bought the first season which I consider the...

The first time I saw “GoodFellas,” on a rented Blockbuster videotape in 1991, I was in a daze as the final credits rolled. If I had been a cartoon character, I would have had stars dancing around my head like Wile E. Coyote. I turned to my girlfriend and said, “What’d you think?” “Boy movie,” she declared — and I knew our relationship was doomed. Just kidding. (We split up because I was a jerk.) But women don’t get “GoodFellas.” It’s not really a crime drama, like “The Godfather.” It’s more of a male fantasy picture — “Entourage” with guns...

In America, you have the right to remain silent, the right to rise—and soon the right to work. At least that is if you live in Wisconsin, or one of the other right-to-work states that allow private sector workers to opt out of union membership. Next week, it is expected that Gov. Scott Walker will sign legislation making Wisconsin the 25th state to pass right-to-work legislation. Interestingly, Walker didn't actively push for this legislation, but his signature will nonetheless guarantee one more feather in the cap of a Republican governor who has helped transform his state in recent years. You...

"As some of you know, I'm an avid reader. Read lots and lots of books, even some good ones during the break. So because -- I have not been able to read. They have told me if you have an eye that's healing and you try to overwork your good eye, it puts too much pressure on it. So I haven't been reading. I'm now on rehab so last night for example I was able to read. But I've been listening to audio books--I've quite enjoyed it, to be honest. I never thought I would. So I've finished a couple...

Complete Headline: Top Democratic Senator Harry Reid returns to US Capitol with eye bandages and bruises after exercise injury, but will skip State of the Union address Reid, 75, broke ribs and fractured bones in his face when an exercise machine broke and send him flying into cabinets at his new Nevada house He may lose sight in his right eye but is talking about running for a sixth term next year The Democrats' top senator will not attend the State of the Union address He has been taking meetings at his house in Washington, D.C. but hadn't been seen...

The Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors’ former ties to Hollywood’s unions are coming into question in light of its recent decision to stand by its award to ultra-conservative presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz. The decision to give the Texas Republican its American Spirit Award had polarized the caucus’ membership, with internal objections leading to an emergency meeting of the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors executive committee Monday, which upheld the decision to honor Cruz. The caucus traditionally hands out American Spirit Awards to a Republican and a Democrat (California Governor Jerry Brown appears to be the choice on...

NYPD sources confirm that Eric Garner was a player in an organized crime cigarette smuggling syndicate, Gotnews.com has learned.(snip) “Garner was setting up shop in front of the local stores and shaking down business owners and patrons as they entered,” says Cardillo. Garner would use his considerable size to strong arm largely ethnic shopkeepers and was “on the radar” of local law enforcement who had arrested him previously.

HUIMANGUILLO, Mexico — The big-time gasoline thieves had already come and gone during the wee hours, filling their tanker trucks with stolen fuel and then fleeing. Then dawn broke, and word spread that a crime gang had again tapped into a gasoline pipeline, and it was spewing fuel into a ditch. At first, only a few farmers showed up, carrying plastic jerry cans. Then dozens. Then even more. All were eager to collect what spilled fuel they could. (...) Mexico is plagued by rampant energy theft. In the first eight months of this year, 7.5 million barrels went missing, a...

To those who buy the romanticized image of labor unions - those brave champions of the working man who work day and night to protect the best interests of just plain folks against the robber barons in the boardrooms and the plush corporate offices - it’s hard to conceive of why anyone would not want to join the United Auto Workers. Democrats who hate right-to-work laws in states that have them deride said laws as “right to work for less.” You dumbasses! Why would you not join the union when it’s going to get you more money and protect you...

Warner Bros. has filed a lawsuit against a small bar from Amityville, New York, for playing one of their songs without permission. The track in question is not a recent pop song, but the 80-year old love song "I Only Have Eyes for You" which first appeared in Warner's 1934 movie "Dames." giacomoMany bars, pubs and restaurants like to entertain their guests with live music, with bands often playing covers of recent hits or golden oldies. As with all music that’s performed in public, the bar owners are required to pay the royalties, even if there are just handful of...