Free Republic

Confederate, as outlined in HBO's initial release, “chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War. The series takes place in an alternate timeline, where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution." But constructing an alt-timeline centered around the continuation of slavery for another 150 years requires a certain significant assumption, says writer Steven Barnes, whose 2002 novel Lion’s Blood imagines an alternate history in which Africa is the dominant colonizing civilization and slaves are of European descent.

The sidebars are missing when I access Free Republic with my laptop and desktop. Checked the laptop my wife uses, and no problem there. The settings on all three appear to be the same. Anyone else experiencing this? Free cheese to anyone who can help me. Thanks in advance (thanks also from my sister and her moose).

The United States is currently the world's oldest democracy. But America is no more immune from collapse than were some of history's most stable and impressive consensual governments. Fifth-century Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Florence and Venice, and many of the elected governments of early 20th-century Western European states eventually destroyed themselves, went bankrupt or were overrun by invaders. The United States is dividing as rarely before. Half the country, mostly liberal America, is concentrated in 146 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties -- in an area that collectively represents less than 10 percent of the U.S. land mass. The...

Several dozen protesters gathered Thursday morning outside a state senator's South Florida district office, calling on him to resign. "Resign now," protesters chanted while holding signs aimed at Florida Sen. Frank Artiles, R-Miami. ....he used a variation of the "n-word" during a Monday night conversation....

Sen. Frank Artiles (R-Miami) , faces a cacophony of calls for him to resign or be thrown out of office after he made racist and sexist remarks while arguing with black lawmakers Monday... [He] and called several Republican senators “n------,” though he explained that he actually said “niggas” and thought the slang word was not insulting. He also referred to state Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, as a “b-----” and a “girl” and called Sen. President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, “a p----.”

Muhammad Ali Jr. was detained by the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, weeks after he was detained at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted out, Friday. Wasserman Schultz’s tweet read, “On way home on DOMESTIC FLIGHT Muhammad Ali Jr. detained AGAIN by @DHSgov. Religiously profiling son of ‘The Greatest’ will not make us safe.”

A D.C. restaurant is suing President Donald Trump, saying the Trump International Hotel, which sits just blocks from the White House, represents unfair competition for other businesses in the District. The owners of Cork Wine Bar, in the Logan Circle area, filed the lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court this week against Trump and the company Trump Old Post Office LLC, which operates the hotel. “This is a claim by a local business who is being competed with unfairly by another local business,” said attorney Scott Rome. “That other local business just happens to be owned by the president.” Khalid Pitts...

REMINDER – One of the larger hurdles President Trump faces is a need to re-educate an entire generation on a fundamentally new vision of the U.S. economy. A return to a Pro-Main Street, goods-based, manufacturing, technology, innovation and industry driven economic model. Interestingly, many people have referenced a 1991 (25 years old) video of Donald Trump testifying before congress – as evidence of him being tuned in to political consequences of economic activity. The entire video is well worth watching because it gives you insight into a very specific moment in time as they discuss the ‘Reagan era’ 1986 tax...

Shortly after Donald Trump won the presidency in a historic and unprecedented Election Day upset over rival Hillary Clinton , many on the left took to the streets in protest. The situation escalated when protesting turned to rioting in a number of cities, injuring police officers and damaging property. A week later, Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced she was launching a recount, but only in the typically blue states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which Trump had won. Clinton’s campaign team joined in on the effort, which resulted in finding more votes for Trump in Wisconsin. Despite the...

Washington state's attorney general says he is suing President Donald Trump over an executive order that suspended immigration from seven countries with majority-Muslim populations and sparked nationwide protests. Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced his lawsuit Monday, becoming the first state attorney general to announce a legal action against the Trump administration over one of its policies.

<p>When I got up this morning, I noticed that FR is back up but couldn't find a thread explaining why this latest outage on such a big day. If the reason for the outage has been mentioned on another thread, please link it.</p>

A coalition of 25 student groups at the University of Maryland have issued a letter to the school’s administrators containing 64 demands to help “marginalized student populations” feel more welcome on campus. Among the demands is a ban on public screenings of the film “American Sniper.” The group, who call themselves ProtectUMD, sent the letter in the wake of President-Elect Donald Trump’s victory, according the Diamondback student newspaper Monday. In response to Trump’s election, the student coalition demanded additional support and protection for minority groups — particularly the Muslim, illegal immigrant, pro-Palestinian, and LGBT communities. The Muslims students especially wished...

A privacy group that has dealt with a wide range of Web secrecy and other privacy issues has heard enough talking: It wants to see the evidence regarding the alleged Russian hack of the U.S. presidential election. “The U.S. intelligence community has officially attributed the attacks [on Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee] on the Russian government, yet questions have been raised about the failure of the FBI to investigate that attacks on the political parties of the United States,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “The FBI is entrusted with protecting the cybersecurity of the public and...

Clinton’s fallout is interestingly causing an internal revolution among Hillary’s big donors. At her New York bash to “thank” her big donors of $1 million or more, she took no blame and pointed the finger at Comey and Putin. Her spin did not work and she has lost a lot of credibility according to confidential sources. They were smart enough to realize that even if Russia “hacked” the DNC and Podesta emails, there would be no release if there had been no wrongdoing to begin with. Now Clinton’s biggest backers want a “campaign autopsy,” which could expose Clinton’s entire operation....

Count your blessings much, Mrs. Grinch? Nope. All Barack Obama's bitter half really wants to do, she told Winfrey, is "drop into Target. I want to go to Target again." Funny that. The last time Obama shopped at Target, she turned the outing into a fake news narrative to stoke racial division in America. It is worth reminding the public about the noxious lie one last time before the grumbling FLOTUS leaves office because I consider her exploitation of the incident a perfect metaphor for the Obama years -- faux populism bolstered by elitist Hollywood enablers, and then cynically transformed...

Alec Baldwin is blasting Donald Trump's call for "equal time" on "Saturday Night Live," telling the president-elect that the election is over. Baldwin reprised his impersonation of Trump on the show for the first time since Trump won the election. “I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show - nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?” Trump tweeted on Sunday morning. Baldwin responded by telling Trump the election is over and there is no more equal time.

"Total nightmare. And that was when DU went down. The night just got worse from there. Walked around in a daze, pressure washing things outside and steam cleaning inside. Then realized this country is dead."

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign implied that F.B.I. Director James Comey was meddling in the presidential election, after he sent a letter to Congress informing them of new information in Clinton’s investigation into her private email server “It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election,” Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta said, in a strongly worded statement to reporters.

Is there a restaurant that you'd love to go to, but you don't like the kind of food it sells? No? Well of course not, because if you don't like the kind of food it sells, you just go somewhere else. You don't go to Chick-fil-A if you don't want to eat chicken, just like you don't eat at a Chinese food place if you want tacos and you don't eat Mexican if you have a hankering for sushi. That isn't stopping one group of brain-dead morons from trying to force In-N-Out Burger to offer "meat free" options on its...

Dubai Municipality has, for the first time in the Middle East, launched a robot as a rescuer on public beaches for the security and safety of beach-goers in the emirate. Alya Al Harmoudi, Director of the Environment Department at DM, said: "The move is also in response to Dubai government directives to keep up with the latest technologies and innovations in this area as well as to ensure that all the necessary requirements and precautions are in place to enhance the rescue operations on the public beaches of Dubai." The robot, which can reach a speed of 35 Kph, or...