Free Republic

In October 1989 people in the community of Reston, Virginia went about their daily lives not realizing that a serious crisis was developing right in their back yards that would not be entirely resolved until March 1990. It was a serious calamity that could have wiped out the entire population. This dire emergency was described twenty years ago by Richard Preston in his non-fiction book, “The Hot Zone.” The “hot zone” refers to an “area that contains lethal, infectious organisms” also dubbed “hot agent,” an “extremely lethal virus, potentially airborne.” (Richard Preston, The Hot Zone, Random House, New York, 1994,...

Saudi Health Ministry confirms a Saudi man suspected of having the #ebola virus has died in a hospital in Jeddah

Bill Buckley regretted his column indicting Israel’s invasion of Jenin, because that Israeli “massacre” of Palestinians in 2002 never occurred. Indeed, to limit Palestinian casualties, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) had lost many soldiers going door to door. Even Bill was seduced by the mainstream media, which relied on graphic footage, some doctored, and on bogus numbers. Absent Iron Dome (which, incidentally, like many Israeli military achievements will tutor our Pentagon with real-time validation), we would see horrible images of mass Israeli casualties. Do we need to quantify the deaths and injuries that would have occurred in Israel without the...

"..........Many of the reporters, pundits, and commentariat class have married or slept their way into the status quo and have no real problem with preserving it. They see that most Americans hate them and they only fret because of their superficial desire to be liked. Very view pieces of commentary out of Washington these days mention voters or constituents except to note they are pissed off. Instead, we get articles about what the Chamber of Commerce wants, what unions want, what conservative groups want, etc. What about what the voters want? Often, the press doesn’t know or understand. They misread...

On Tuesday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer hosted Hamas spokesman Osama Hamden. The week before, Hamdan labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a new image of Hitler” on the network. But now, for some reason, Blitzer stumbled into a random act of journalism: He asked Hamdan about comments he had made suggesting that Jews used Christian blood in matza. Hamdan stumbled around and blamed the Jews for their action in Gaza. Blitzer called Hamdan’s comments an “awful, awful smear.” The very fact that this represented a unique moment in the media coverage of the Israel-Hamas Gaza war demonstrates the malpractice of the...

There are no silver bullets. The price of freedom is hard work and vigilance. Hours before Israel accepted the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire deal on Monday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu traveled to the south to try to allay the fears of area residents. It’s not at all clear how successful he was. Residents of the communities bordering the Gaza Strip who evacuated their homes are skeptical of the IDF’s claims that it is safe for them to return. In an interview with NRG website, Yael Paz-Lahiany, a mother of three young children from Kibbutz Nahal Oz just across the border from...

A Newfoundland woman says she is baffled by the actions of a local Walmart after it confiscated a pair of “inappropriate” photos of her eight-month-old daughter clutching an empty beer bottle. “When I saw the images I kind of chuckled to myself because they seemed so innocent that I was in disbelief that they were being flagged as inappropriate,” said Robin Walsh, a Gander mother of two. Store staff also seized a bare-bottomed photo of her daughter and five-year-old son as they prepared for a bath. “I thought it was such a cute photo,” she said, noting that the image...

“The war had already had an impact on Palestine. Not a single gunshot had yet been heard, but hundreds of lives had already been claimed by the contagious diseases introduced by the Turkish forces. The crisis had only just begun, and the ‘sick man’ (Turkey) had already demonstrated its state of rottenness, its lack of culture, its lack of organizational skill.” These words were written by Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem, at the time of the outbreak of World War I. Later, at the height of the war, he added, “All of the disease,...

Word For The Day, Wednesday, August 6, 2014-- interregnum ; In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". interregnum [in-ter-reg-nuh m]hear it pronounced noun, plural in•ter•reg•nums, in•ter•reg•na 1. an interval of time between the close of a sovereign's reign and the accession of his or her normal or legitimate successor. 2. any period during which a state has no ruler or only a temporary executive. 3. any period of freedom from the usual authority. 4. any pause or interruption in continuity. Origin:...

I like exploring abandoned buildings, especially old houses, with their sagging floors, peeling wallpaper, and malevolently drooping staircases. But some abandoned places are creepier than others, because of what happened there—where the silence doesn’t seem to quite fit. That’s what an abandoned abortion clinic feels like. In April of last year, I travelled with one of my colleagues to Philadelphia to witness “The Abortion Trial of the Century” as it was dubbed, where late-term abortionist and infanticide enthusiast Kermit Gosnell was being tried on multiple counts of murder and some 250 other abortion-related charges. After the closing arguments, my colleague and...

LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — After losing his first bid for Tennessee governor 40 years ago, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander shed his blue suit and buttoned-up appearance for a plaid shirt, hiking boots and a 1,000-mile walk around the state. The goal was to connect with voters on a personal level, to make sure he could never be accused by any rival of not being one of them. "I think Tennesseans and I know each other pretty well," Alexander said. "It's hard for me to come to Tennessee without meeting one or two families in whose home I spent the night when...

Just to recall a basic fact: Intercourse/PIV is always rape, plain and simple. This is a developed recap from what I’ve been saying in various comments here and there in the last two years or so. as a radfem I’ve always said PIV is rape and I remember being disappointed to discover that so few radical feminists stated it clearly. How can you possibly see it otherwise? Intercourse is the very means through which men oppress us, from which we are not allowed to escape, yet some instances of or PIV and intercourse may be chosen and free? That makes...

If I drive across a U.S. border, I expect to stop at a Border Patrol checkpoint. But imagine driving to the grocery store, or Mom's house, well inside America, and being stopped by the Border Patrol. Many Americans don't have to imagine it -- it's how they live. Even as the federal government fails to control the southern border, it sends the Border Patrol farther into the interior, where Americans complain that agents harass people who are already U.S. citizens. It's legal. The Supreme Court ruled that the Border Patrol can set up "inland" checkpoints anywhere up to 100...

Pat Roberts won his primary, with more of the Republican electorate voting against him than for him. And his opponent was a virtual unknown. If conservative legislator or congressman had stepped up to the plate, Roberts would have been crushed! And look at the Establishment victory trend this year: Cornyn and McConnell: 60% Lindsey Graham: 56% Thad Cochran: 50% (with democrats) Pat Roberts: 48% The Establishment grip on the US Senate is weakening, with LOTS of RINOS up for reelection in 2016. I'm predicting a number of retirements. But let's deal with Lamar Alexander first!

Our local Maine affiliate, WABI TV Bangor has blacked out all Dish customers. They are demanding 6 times more money than Dish pays other networks to broadcast. This means no CBS NFL games and no New England Patriots games. I have voiced my concern on their Facebook page (WABI TV) only to have been blocked..imagine, a news outlet blocking someones opinion and views, just unreal. I'm sure that WABI TV has not reduced their adverting fees to correspond with the 1/3 less viewing audience. When I stated that on their Facebook page that's when I got blocked and that's when...

Jenny Kutner, who is the Assistant Editor of the pro-abortion website, Salon.com, announced in an August 1st article that she was having an abortion this past weekend. In the article, Kutner explains how she took measures to prevent pregnancy by placing a copper IUD in her uterus one year ago.She writes, “I don’t want to have an abortion, which is why I got an IUD — to give myself a 99 percent chance of not having to consider the procedure for a decade, or ever. (Clearly the IUD failed, so I guess I’m the 1 percent.) What I definitely, definitely...

CAIRO — Battered by a month of Israeli assaults on its fighters, rockets and tunnels, the militant Palestinian group Hamas is turning its attention to surviving the peace. As both sides prepare for talks about extending a three-day truce, Israel is coming to the negotiating table emboldened to demand that Hamas surrender its weapons completely — what Israel calls the “demilitarization” of Hamas’s stronghold, Gaza. Without disarmament, Israel says, it will not ease its blockade of the territory. Egypt, the broker of the talks and once a friendly face to Hamas, has now joined Israel in pushing to cripple the...

A few weeks ago the Dublin Girls had gathered inside the local mall for an evening power walk. They formed a small circle and as they had done many times before, they bowed their heads to petition the Almighty. But before one of the runners could say, “Lord Jesus,” she was interrupted by a mall cop barreling down a corridor. “The security guard came running toward us and said, ‘You are not allowed to pray at the mall. That’s against the policy,’” Tammy told me. The ladies were aghast. “I told him we’ve been praying since last November and no...

The White House budget office launched USASpending.gov in 2007 to track federal spending after scores of lawmakers, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, successfully pushed through a bipartisan bill to ensure greater transparency with the funding. At last check, less than 8 percent of the site’s spending information was accurate, and federal agencies had failed to report nearly $620 billion in grants, loans and other forms of assistance awards, according to a recent report from Congress’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.

When Jared Polis arrived Tuesday evening to host a small town hall-style meeting in Boulder, he was met by dozens of furious constituents demanding answers about the congressman's part in a new compromise on state oil and gas drilling. On Monday, Polis, D-Boulder, stood by Gov. John Hickenlooper for a joint news conference announcing the dissolution of four measures, two of which Polis had helped garner nearly 300,000 petition signatures for. The first would have required drilling rigs to be set back at least 2,000 feet from homes. The second aimed to increase local control by adding to the state...