Free Republic

Last week when I went to peruse the shelves at Barnes & Noble and used my educator card for a purchase, I was asked to show a photo ID. The next day, when I went for a planned medical procedure, I was required to display a photo ID. And finally, when I cashed a check at the local A&P, the cashier requested to see some identification. Even at a local Goodwill store, I had to show a photo ID in order to buy an item. In addition, I needed to show my driver's license to get a new library card....

Former Iraqi Defence Minister Sultan Hashim News / World US Seeks Help From Former Saddam Minister 23.08.2014 Nuwar FaqieBasNews, Baghdad In order to end the complaints and satisfy the demands in Sunni populated areas of Iraq, the US is seeking help from the former Defence Minister Sultan Hashim and Hussein Rashid, the General Commander of Iraqi Forces under Saddam Hussein. On Saturday former Deputy PM of Iraq, Salih Mutlag, claimed that Baghdad has promised to free Hashim. A source told a BasNews correspondent that recently a US military delegation held a meeting with Hashim and Hussein Rashid in jail....

Chinese chef Peng Fan died after the severed head of a spitting cobra bit him 20 minutes after being cut off A chef cooking a soup dish from cobra flesh died in China after he was bitten by the snake's head – 20 minutes after it was cut off. Peng Fan was preparing the rare Asian delicacy from the Indochinese spitting cobra when the snake's severed head bit him with venom as he was throwing it into the bin, The Mirror reported. Peng died before he could be treated in hospital with life-saving anti-venom, police said. "It is a highly...

Dial MSNBC for Murder . . . The Lean Forward network is the place to go if that's the way you want to hear the death of Michael Brown described. On August 12th, NB'S Ken Shepherd noted that Chris Hayes didn't utter a peep of protest when a Missouri state senator called Brown's death an "execution-style" killing. Three days later on MSNBC, Luke Russert called Brown's death "murder" before catching himself. It's happened again. On today's Up With Steve Kornacki, guest L. Joy Williams pointedly called the Brown death "murder." Did Kornacki challenge his guest's assertion in any way? Of...

I’ve shared horror stories about government thuggery and I’ve shared horror stories about government stupidity.Thanks to Mark Steyn, we have a story that exemplifies both the brain-dead nature of the public sector and the nasty nature of our bureaucratic overlords.You may have read about the federal milk police. Well, here’s some of what Mark wrote about the Kafkaesque legal regime the federal government maintains for people who want to cross the border with….drugs? no…weapons? no…biological agents? no, nothing like that. We’re talking about bagpipes. …17-year-old Campbell Webster and Eryk Bean, of Concord and Londonderry, New Hampshire – understood that if...

I just received an interesting phone call from "Credit Card Services". It wasn't the call that was interesting it was that they used my OWN phone number as the identifying number on the Caller ID. I'm not sure where this falls in the "legality' scale but from my own point of view if this company can use my own phone number on the caller ID to identify themselves then they or anyone else can use it also to conduct business that is truly illegal. Try explaining to the authorities that you didn't order that kilogram of 'drugs' when your home...

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the LORD and no longer served him,…Judges 10:6 The Marxists were having a field day using the St Michael body as a platform, declaring over and over how they were the only people standing between the poor helpless black man and his ultimate demise. They preened and posed claiming this country hasn’t moved...

commentary -- OBAMA: BEHEADING AND GOLF in graphics (not the beheading) and limerick

Man what’s a guy got to do to get a vacation in around here? George W. Bush went on vacation all the time and nothing ever happened, butt Big Guy can’t cut a break. Every time we try to get away, there’s fighting, aggression and rioting around the globe: Iraq, Ferguson, Gaza, Ferguson, Ukraine, Ferguson. Wait – what - Ukraine!? Again? I thought we had put that repartition behind us. “Ukraine accused Russia of invasion today, after Vladimir Putin ordered a controversial aid convoy into the country because he could 'wait no longer'.” Boy! That sounds familiar; I guess Putin’s...

Thursday, in Chicago, 9 year old Antonio Smith was killed in the backyard of an apartment building. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but then again, that statement applies to every black child in Chicago and any other city. There are many reasons for this, but a tweet this morning, from CBS-Chicago, gave a greater insight to why there’s a perpetuation of the slaughter of young black kids. “A 9 year old boy – the latest victim of gun violence in Chicago. His family’s message to his killer on @cbs-chicago” Twitter The nation has been griped...

Truck driver Anthony Plummer remembers when he was in the middle of the country on a long-haul delivery when he learned his daughter was sick in the hospital. “I was told to get back [home] as soon as possible. But there are a lot of rules that limit how much I can drive, so I told them I would get back as soon as I could.” It was after this incident that Plummer decided to make a career shift to become a regional truck driver. “It blew my mind if something were to happen and if I was way across...

Parents sending their three- and four-year olds to preschool are facing increasing pressure to use government schools, as secular, elitist educators use government funding as a back door to remove parental choice from pre-school options. Alabama’s First Class program is growing quickly, using federal funds from the popular Head Start program to extend restrictive government regulations to preschools who agree to accept public money.  Hiding under the blanket of “ensuring quality”, these regulations cover every aspect of pre-school education. First Class funding casts a net over preschool programs, supporting those that agree to restrictive government regulations. An extensive list of...

For the knave, perception is reality. Americans are preconditioned to respond to narratives emotionally. The establishment media tells America what to think and the public school system, dominated by progressive hacks, indoctrinates instead of encouraging students to think critically. Therefore, most Americans react instinctively--if it looks aggressive, military, scary then it must be. Our rational faculty is purposefully short circuited by a deluge of amusement. Our ability to analyze is atrophied like a limb withered by a palsy. Television, movies, and music are all passive and are, for most, an exclusive pursuit. It is no wonder then that when law...

Georgia Democrat Michelle Nunn won't commit to voting for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) if she wins her Senate race. "I look forward to changing the composition in the leadership of the Senate. The way that we’re going to change Washington is to bring more people to recognize — to have the humility to recognize — that there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle," Nunn told reporters following a forum with her opponent, businessman David Perdue (R). "I will vote for the Democratic leader that I think best represents our capacity to get things done and...

The number of dead in Syria’s civil war more than doubled in the past year to at least 191,000, the United Nations human rights office said Friday. The agency’s chief, Navi Pillay, bluntly criticized Western nations, saying their inaction in the face of the slaughter had “empowered and emboldened” the killers. In its third report on Syria commissioned by the United Nations, the Human Rights Data Analysis Group identified 191,369 deaths from the start of the conflict in March 2011 to April 2014, more than double the 92,901 deaths cited in the group’s last report, which covered the first two...

The misguided attempt to increase the minimum wage can almost be passed off as institutionalized economic illiteracy. Many people, however, have argued that it’s more than simple ignorance that drives the Left to ignore fiscal sanity and push for a $15 per hour burger-flipping wage. Well, if the latest attempt to institute mandated-minimum-pay illustrates anything, it shows that the Left isn’t that fond of the effort/reward relationship of hard work. Labor groups are now aiming to snuff out the system of tipping servers because… well… because it’s “unfair”.There is a movement to bump the minimum wage for tipped servers (often...

The Center for Immigration Studies has used information provided to the office Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) to map out the locations of where convicted killers were let go by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in 2013. The killers were booked out in 24 states and were associated with 96 different cities, according to the CIS report.

Most Austrian economists argue that the best response to the 2008 financial crisis was to “do nothing.” By refusing to bail out the banks, investment firms and insurance companies, the government would be sending a clear message that Wall Street and the private markets must avoid irresponsible decisions in the future.A few make an exception for the banking system itself, defending the government’s guarantee of money market funds, for example; otherwise, the whole system would have collapsed.I just finished reading Tim Geithner’s book, “Stress Test,” which makes the case for the opposite — he justifies almost every decision by the...

Over the past six years, Chicago has become a top potential target for international terrorists, a top security expert said Friday, making the posting of a veiled threat by Islamic radicals on Twitter a higher cause for concern. “Many terror organizations refer to Chicago as Obama Town,” said CBS 2 security expert Ross Rice, a former FBI agent in Chicago. Under President Obama, the U.S. took out Osama bin Laden, and used repeated drone strikes to weaken terror networks. In the meantime, the U.S. government on Friday issued a security bulletin to all U.S. law enforcement in light of the...

Aug 22, 2014 7:22PM ET Non-Profit Run by a Missouri Police Union Is Now Handling Fundraising for Darren Wilson Arit John The GoFundMe crowdsourcing fundraiser for the Ferguson police officer who killed Michael Brown has been taken over by Shield of Hope, a charity run by the local police union. Since Shield of Hope is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, all donations from here on out will now be tax deductible. The original fundraiser had raised over $235,000 before passing on the torch to Shield of Hope. The new Shield of Hope-run page has raised over $11,000 on its own. Originally...