Free Republic

Earlier this week, we shared new reports about the investigation into Noah Harpham, who police say shot and killed three people before dying in a gun battle with officers. A neighbor, Naomi Bettis, said she’d called 911 after seeing Harpham with a gun but was told there was nothing police could do owing to open carry laws; see our previous coverage below.

At a campaign event in Springfield, Illinois, Donald Trump suggested a boycott of coffee giant Starbucks over the design of its Christmas coffee cups. The all-red design has angered religious conservatives who see it as part of an effort to undermine the meaning of Christmas. "Starbucks is taking merry Christmas off [their cups] no more merry Christmas," Trump said. "If I become president, we'll all be saying merry Christmas again," the candidate said to applause. Trump told a raucous crowd, "Maybe we should boycott Starbucks. I don't know." The real estate mogul also attacked his main rival, Ben Carson. "This...

On Election Day, I signed the Maine Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense petition to once again try to close the gun-show loophole that allows anyone with a fistful of dollars to purchase a gun without a background check. Many of the other people coming out of the polling place signed, too, but I despair of such a reasonable measure ever passing. Why? Because we live in a gun-sick society.

A mediocre team of subliterate football players is now running the University of Missouri. Maybe no one will notice the difference. The takeover occurred over the last week, when members of the sub .500 football team joined black activists in demanding the university president resign. They insisted there was lots and lots of white racism on the campus -- and the president's white privilege made him blind to see it -- or do anything about it. Lots of white students joined in, admitting they too were guilty of white racism. And because they could not quite figure out what it...

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany on Sunday honored a group of Nazi-era officers who tried to kill Adolf Hitler 70 years ago. The plot - portrayed in films such as the 2008 Hollywood movie "Valkyrie" - helped establish a principle under which German soldiers today are encouraged to defy orders if they would result in a crime or violate human dignity. In a somber ceremony, President Joachim Gauck called the July 20, 1944, bombing of Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in Eastern Prussia a "significant day in German history" for showing the world that there were Germans who opposed the Nazi regime....

History hasn't looked kindly on the Catholic Church during WW II. The conventional narrative is not the whole storyAt six in the morning on Sunday, 12 March, a procession snaked toward the bronze doors of St. Peter’s. Swiss Guards led the line, followed by barefoot friars with belts of rope. Pius took his place at the end, borne on a portable throne. Ostrich plumes stirred silently to either side, like quotation marks. Pius entered the basilica to a blare of silver trumpets and a burst of applause. Through pillars of incense he blessed the faces. At the High Altar, attendants...

“A modern day mass migration is taking place … that could change the face of Europe’s civilization,” warned Hungarian President Viktor Orban. “If that happens, that is irreversible. … There is no way back from a multicultural Europe,” said Orban. “If we make a mistake now, it will be forever.” Orban acted on his beliefs. He erected a 110-mile fence on the Serb border, redirecting hundreds of thousands of migrants away from Hungary to Croatia, thence to Austria and Germany. Sunday, after a third of a million had passed through, Croatia replaced a center-left with a rightist party. A fortnight...

"I am Cyrus" by Paul Charles Merkley In November 1953, just a few months after leaving the presidency of the United States, Harry S. Truman was brought to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York to meet a group of Jewish dignitaries. Accompanying him was his good friend Eddie Jacobson, a comrade from his Army days and former business partner in a short-lived men's haberdashery 30 years earlier. Jacobson introduced his friend to the assembled theologians: "This is the man who helped create the State of Israel." Truman retorted, "What do you mean, "helped to create"? I am Cyrus. I...

The more that Republican voters hear about Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the more they like them. Jeb Bush, not so much. A new McClatchy-Marist poll conducted from Oct. 29 through Nov. 4 found that Carson has the most appeal as voters are more exposed to him, with 67 percent expressing that favorable view, and 20 percent saying they have a less favorable view the more they hear about the retired neurosurgeon. Rubio comes in second at 58 percent to 27 percent, followed by Cruz with 51 percent to 31 percent. But the news isn’t as good for...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), who dropped out of the 2016 race in late September, will appear alongside his former primary rival Jeb Bush on Monday afternoon. Walker and the former Florida Governor will be joined by private and charter school students for an event touting the importance of school choice. It will be hosted by Hispanics for School Choice at La Casa de Esperanza in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The joint appearance marks the first time that Walker has shared the stage with a 2016 candidate since leaving the race. The press release put forward by the Bush campaign does not...

Project Veritas President James O’Keefe Interviews Former New York Times and Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter Judith Miller [Well-worth watching!] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1cB5x8j7To

Just how loaded is the phrase "gun control" to Americans? A new Quinnipiac University poll would suggest that the word "control" makes a difference in whether Americans support stricter gun laws. Pollsters asked half of respondents whether they'd support "stricter gun control laws" and the other half whether they'd support "stricter gun laws." The group that heard the word "control" was less likely to support tighter gun laws.

Of all the growing divides in America—red-blue, conservative-liberal, Republican-Democrat, white-nonwhite—none is sharper than that between city and country. The nation’s urbanites increasingly govern those living in the hinterlands, even as vanishing rural Americans still feed and fuel the nation. At the nation’s birth, it took nine farmers to feed one city dweller. Today, one farmer supports 99 urbanites—evidence, supposedly, that almost everyone has been freed from the drudgery of agricultural work. City and country are not coequals by any demographic, political, or cultural measure. The urban is growing and ascendant; the rural shrinks and becomes increasingly culturally irrelevant. California is...

In August of 2014 Michael Brown, 18, 6-foot-4, 290 lbs., robbed a store in Ferguson [1], Missouri. Brown (who apparently had recently used marijuana) assaulted the clerk, then walked down the middle of the street before being stopped by city police officer Darren Wilson, who tentatively matched Brown as one of the possible suspects in the recent robbery. Brown almost immediately assaulted Wilson and went for his gun, which discharged. He then ran, but reversed course and charged the officer, who shot Brown numerous times until he collapsed and died. Nearly a year later, 32-year-old Kathryn Michelle “Kate” Steinle was...

Who lost the libertarians?” It’s a question you hear a lot from conservatives of late. The reason should be obvious to anyone who has followed the conservative movement’s internecine intellectual frictions over the last decade — or decades. Self-described libertarians are a minority, even among the ranks of people one could properly describe as libertarian. On many, or even most, contentious public-policy issues — economics, gun rights, health care, free speech, regulation, constitutional interpretation — most support for the libertarian position actually comes from people who describe themselves as conservatives. In other words, conservatives tend to be libertarian, but libertarians...

Farewell Address to the Nation Dwight D. Eisenhower January 17, 1961 Three days from now, after a half century of service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen. … We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own...

Susquehanna University is the latest institution whose mascot, the Crusaders, must go due to concern over potential offensiveness and negative connotations. The school president is leading several discussions among SU students, alumni and staff to determine what the new nickname and mascot will be. In a recent poll of students, a squirrel mascot won over 50 percent of the votes.

“Workers of all lands unite,” reads the marble engraving atop Karl Marx’s grave in London. But if said workers were to congregate at the tomb of their advocate, they’d have to part with some of their capital: It costs about $6 to enter the portion of Highgate Cemetery where he lies. Some modern-day admirers of Marx who want to abolish private property are understandably upset that it’s not free to get in. “There are no depths of irony, or bad taste, to which capitalists won’t sink if they think they can make money out of it,” whined one 24-year-old Marxist...

After Barack Obama’s totally predictable cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline project (for now, at least) there was great celebration among the environmental brigade of the Social Justice Warriors. The evil pipeline was dead, along with all the jobs it would bring and the opportunity for us to capture and process much of Canada’s wealth of energy rather than it being shipped to China. (Which it will be anyway when the Northern Gateway Pipeline is complete, whether we get some of it or not.) But as with all things in the liberal enclaves of the country, one victory is...

Unemployment hit 5 percent in October and the economy added 270,000 jobs in an unexpectedly strong showing that is good news for the White House. But wages are stagnant, more than 95 million Americans are not working, and the federal debt is soaring. President Barack Obama recently boasted he and his Democrat allies have “pulled the United States and the world out of an economic crisis” and “stabilized the financial system” since he took office, when unemployment was in double digits and the economy was tanking. That may be true, but these nine charts inspired by a recent Zero Hedge...