Free Republic

Not two hours after New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio gave a ringing defense of freedom of the press, his goons hauled away a reporter for the New York Post who had dared ask him a question in public. On a national TV show Sunday morning, DeBlasio said  “I believe in a free, strong media with diverse views — I’ll defend it with all I’ve got.” Apparently, he doesn't have much to defend it with. Just two hours later, after de Blasio cut a ribbon to kick off the parade and was posing for photos near West 37th Street and Sixth...

The number of Russians residing and working in the Czech Republic has been steadily growing in recent years. Today Russians are the fourth strongest foreign minority in the country, after Vietnamese, Slovak and Ukrainian nationals. In the last decade their number rose from 23,000 to 37,000. For young Russians, Prague is an attractive city free of the constraints of the Putin regime, and a good place for business and entertainment. The language barrier is easily surmountable due to both nations speaking a Slavic language. However there is one barrier that is harder to cross and that is the stigma of...

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Delilah Cassidy's tweet thread was building to a climactic ending. At 1:37 p.m. on May 30, Cassidy, a law student at Arizona State University, began tweeting about her experience at an airport gate en route to Phoenix from a European trip. By now, the story is internet lore. But that afternoon, she was unveiling it to the digital world tweet by tweet. She was about to board an American Airlines flight when the gate agent told her she needed to pay $50 to bring her carry-on with her. If she didn't want to pay, the agent said,...

"Love is patient" (1 Cor. 13:4). Love does not retaliate. We usually think of patience as the ability to wait or endure without complaint—whether it's with people or circumstances. But the Greek word translated "patience" in 1 Corinthians 13:4 refers specifically to patience with people. It literally means "to be long tempered," and speaks of one who could easily retaliate when wronged but chooses not to. That kind of patience is a spiritual virtue reflective of God Himself (cf. Gal 5:22). It can't be duplicated on a purely human level. But for Christians, it's to be a way of life....

Bicycles and illegals don't mix on busy city streets in Chicago. No, wait: They actually mix a lot, and that's a problem. A Chicago bike-safety activist, who made it her business to erect bicycles spray-painted white on city streets where cyclists were killed as a reminder to drivers to look out for cyclists, decided that that issue wasn't all that important in cases where the driver is illegal. Which turned out to be her own assault by an incautious illegal alien driver. In her mind, being illegal trumped the very bike safety she spent time erecting monuments to. One set...

“‘Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven’” (Matthew 6:20). The believer is to be generous in his giving. The early church was not interested in accumulating great wealth for itself. In Acts 2, for example, thousands of pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. When Peter preached the gospel on that day, 3,000 persons became believers, and soon afterward thousands more were added to the church. The pilgrims who became believers didn’t want to return to their former homes since they were now part of the church. So the believers in Jerusalem had to absorb them. Since many...

Like Coke and Pepsi, Oreo and Hydrox have been engaged in a century-long retail product feud. Released in 1908, four years before the first Oreo rolled off the factory lines, Hydrox has long had to contend with the perception they’re the knock-off. Oreo became the preferred chocolate-and-cream cookie snack, with most citing Nabisco (and now Mondelēz) as having the marketing muscle to smother their smaller competitor. But according to a new Federal Trade Commission complaint filed by Hydrox, Oreo’s success isn’t strictly the result of deeper corporate pockets. Leaf Brands, the current owners of Hydrox, are alleging that Mondelēz is...

Twitter is asking an appellate court to immediately review a trial judge's decision allowing white nationalist Jared Taylor to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that he was wrongly banned from the microblogging service. "Twitter’s decisions on what or whose content to distribute are quintessential editorial judgments protected by the First Amendment," the company writes in legal papers filed this week in California's First Appellate District. "A private-sector communications platform cannot be compelled to disseminate a message it finds objectionable solely because its decision to exclude the message would deprive another of a private platform from which to speak." The company...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding reports that FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok was fired: The firing of Peter Strzok is another body blow to the credibility of the Mueller special counsel operation. Strzok, who hated President Trump, compromised both the Clinton and Trump investigations that saw Hillary Clinton protected and Donald Trump illicitly targeted. Strzok’s anti-Trump texts show the Russia investigation he helped invent with Clinton campaign operatives is irredeemably compromised. As Mueller’s operation is founded on Strzok’s corrupt activities, it must be shut down. Judicial Watch recently uncovered documents showing that...

**SNIP** “One night I confronted him very calm about a lie he had just told me straight to my face. What happened next was a rage that I had never witnessed to that magnitude. He was becoming a person I had never seen before. The next morning, he came into the room I was sleeping in. I was laying across the bed with my headphones on, listening to podcast on my phone. He said he was about to leave town for the weekend and told me to take the trash out. Given the explosive outrage that occurred the night before,...

An organisation representing LGBT Catholics around the world has been denied permission for a stall at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, which Pope Francis is attending on 25 August. The Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, which represents 60 organisations, has been told that due to “logistical considerations” it has not been allocated a booth in the gathering’s exhibition hall. The WMF, an international event held by the Roman Catholic church every three years, opens in Dublin next Monday. Pope Francis will spend 36 hours in Ireland attending events. The GNRC was told only in the past few days...

The socialist Justice Department employee who harassed the Homeland Security secretary at a Washington restaurant won’t be disciplined for her political tweets, a government watchdog has concluded. Allison Hrabar’s Twitter posts complaining about deportation and detention policy aren’t political activity, the Office of Special Counsel ruled, and so they don’t break the federal Hatch Act. OSC Hatch Act Unit chief Ana Galindo-Marrone said someone must go beyond policy to actually back the election or defeat of a candidate to be in violation of the rules. “The tweets we reviewed from June 19 and 20, which Ms. Hrabar posted while at...

For such a modern and technologically advanced nation, the Japanese can be extremely superstitious, and this can even be seen in mega cities like Tokyo. One area where this superstition comes to the fore is in choosing a place to live, and one type of residence that is typically shunned are what are known as “stigmatized properties,” or jiko bukken in Japanese, which are places that have some association with death and suffering. Such apartments or homes come in several levels of stigmatization. For instance, if a place is located next to a cemetery this is seen as mildly stigmatized,...

BISMARCK, N.D. - Supporters of legalizing recreational marijuana in North Dakota have succeeded in getting the measure on the November ballot. Secretary of State Al Jaeger says proponents submitted more than enough valid petition signatures. Supporters of legalizing recreational marijuana failed on a petition drive in 2016.

Bobby Goodlatte, the son of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), said on Monday he is “embarrassed” that his father’s “political grandstanding” cost FBI agent Peter Strzok his job. Earlier Monday, it was announced that Strzok was fired on Friday after sending disparaging text messages about President Trump during the 2016 election. TWEET: "I’m deeply embarrassed that Peter Strzok’s career was ruined by my father’s political grandstanding. That committee hearing was a low point for Congress. Thank you for your service sir. You are a patriot." Strzok, a frequent target of GOP critics of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation,...

Maude Gorman, the Massachusetts beauty queen who gave up her crown over what she called an insensitive #MeToo movement skit, had her finishes in ultramarathon races vacated after race officials caught her cheating. Earlier this year, Gorman turned in her Miss Plymouth County crown after she said a skit at the Miss Massachusetts Organization's pageant in Worcester mocked the #MeToo movement. Her decision gained attention from media across the country. Gorman, a Hingham resident, posted several pictures of her training on social media, and has placed high in ultramarathons. As reported by the blog Turtleboysports, Gorman has been disqualified as...

The revelation that Sen. Dianne Feinstein had a 20-year employee who spied for China while she chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee takes on greater significance in light of the California Democrat’s decades of favors to the communist regime that have co-coincided with China investments that have helped make her one of the richest members in Congress. Investigative reporter Paul Sperry noted Feinstein’s multi-millionaire investor husband, Richard C. Blum, has been able to take large stakes in Chinese state-run steel and food companies, brokering more than $100 million in deals since 1996, when China began aggressively currying favor with his wife....

President Trump's trade war with China is a multi-pronged thing, given how closely the east Asian states of the Pacific Rim are being affected. Those states are all U.S. allies, and the reason we project so much naval power in the Pacific. While we are seeing a lot of doom and gloom talk in the endless 'analyses' you always see in Pacific Rim affairs on the economic side of things, including China itself declaring there will be 'no winners' (typical for the nation that is facing disaster itself), along with some stories of Pacific Rim states getting ready to profit from...

On a White House conference call with Iran experts last week, a senior administration official said the Trump administration will reimpose sanctions on financial messaging services later this year. That might sound boring. But the administration official was referring to what could soon become another major fight between the Trump administration and Europe. Why this matters In the context of Iran sanctions, "financial messaging services" refers to SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) — a linchpin of the global financial system that facilitates payments across borders and connects more than 11,000 banks around the world. SWIFT cut off Iran...

People with Down syndrome are not often valued in society; they are often discriminated against and targeted for death. But one religious order in France, the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb, aims to give women with Down syndrome a community, where their sense of worth is acknowledged and celebrated. Down syndrome Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb The order was founded when Mother Prioress Line met a girl named Veronique, who has Down syndrome, but also felt a calling to religious life. Mother Prioress Line knew it would be difficult — if not impossible — for Veronique to...