Free Republic

Recent polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that although voters like the concept of Medicare for All, net favorability falls by almost 50 points when they are presented with hard truths such as the higher taxes, less provider choice, and increased wait times that will inevitably result

The Department of Defense is weighing whether to suspend or revoke the tech entrepreneur’s security clearance for his SpaceX private venture that launches spy satellites for the federal government following an incident last year where he smoked a marijuana cigarette during an appearance on a comedian’s podcast, FOX Business has learned.

I’ve jumped on the train to better, sugar-free health and have been trying the more healthy sweeteners - the “sugar alcohols” that aren’t supposed to be as questionable as the synthetics (Aspartame, Saccharin, Sucrolase, etc.) Just wondering what experience other FReeper have had with these, and what preferences you’ve come to. I’ve been using Stevia for a couple of years now and like it’s very sugar-like flavor and potency. I recently bought some Xylitol and Erytritol, to not so glowing report. I found the Xylitol just OK, but I had to use a lot of it to have a sweetening...

Venezuela ground to a halt Friday as a national power blackout entered its second day, stalling public transportation, decimating already scarce food supplies, crippling the vital oil industry and threatening the lives of thousands of chronic patients.

The Press and Mass Information Bureau of the Serbian Orthodox Church spread a statement emphasizing, in particular, that the only Church known to and recognized by the Serbian Patriarchate in Ukraine is the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine. The document characterizes the encroachment of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the territory of the Russian Church as uncanonical and calls the “unification council” convened with the participation of Constantinople a disuniting and dividing false-council that “deepened a ditch of alienation and societal disintegration in the unhappy country of Ukraine.” The Serbian...

Full Title: California desert is covered in spectacular wild flowers after heavy winter rain brings second 'once- in a decade' super bloom in just two years After heavy winter rain closely followed by warm temperatures, California is in the midst of its second 'super bloom' in two years. Seeds dormant for decades under the desert floor have burst open and produced a display even more spectacular than the last. It started with the desert lilies in December and since then a wave of wildflower blooms has been crescendoing across the Anza-Borrego desert, in a burst of color so vivid it...

The Holy Synod of the Albanian Orthodox Church has not recognized the Ukrainian schismatic church, calling their ordinations graceless and calling instead for a Synaxis of the primates of the Orthodox Churches, given that Constantinople has failed to achieve unity in Ukraine. The Holy Synod of the Albanian Church adopted its decision on January 4 and expressed it in a letter sent to Patriarch Bartholomew on January 14. The letter was published today on the Albanian Church’s site. In particular, the Albanian bishops expressed their concern about the recognition by the Patriarch of Constantinople “of retroactive ordinations, celebrated by the...

— Dan Jenkins, the sports writing great and best-selling author in a career that went from Ben Hogan to Tiger Woods and the manual typewriter to Twitter, has died. He was 89. TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati confirmed Jenkins died Thursday in his hometown of Fort Worth. Jenkins started his writing career at The Fort Worth Press and rose to stardom at Sports Illustrated. He wrote best-sellers “Semi-Tough” ”Baja Oklahoma” and “Dead Solid Perfect” and was a columnist for Playboy and Golf Digest. Jenkins played golf at TCU for his beloved hometown Horned Frogs and was a close friend of...

A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral. In an open letter published by the Dortmund-based German Language Association, signatories including the philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, novelist Peter Schneider, comedian Dieter Hallervorden and the former head of the country’s domestic intelligence Hans-Georg Maassen, hit back against calls for more gender-neutral generic nouns..(snip) ...The protest letter, headed “An end to gender nonsense!” and published shortly before International Women’s Day, argues that the...

CNN) — A Florida sixth-grader who was arrested last month following a Pledge of Allegiance dispute at his school will not be prosecuted, his attorney said Wednesday night. The student at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance on February 4, according to the Polk County School District. At the time, it said the student was arrested for becoming disruptive, not for refusing to participate. The case attracted national attention after Team Roc, a branch of the Roc Nation entertainment company founded by hip-hop artist Jay-Z, became involved. It raised awareness about...

Located in the constellation of Hercules, about 230 million light-years away, NGC 6052 is a pair of colliding galaxies. They were first discovered in 1784 by William Herschel and were originally classified as a single irregular galaxy because of their odd shape. However, we now know that NGC 6052 actually consists of two galaxies that are in the process of colliding. This particular image of NGC 6052 was taken using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. A long time ago gravity drew the two galaxies together into the chaotic state we now observe. Stars from...

As Facebook struggles with the backlash from issues ranging from privacy to disinformation, much of the vitriol has been aimed at the social media giant's headman - CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Security threats against Zuckerberg seem to be a major concern for Facebook, as the firm has set aside a whopping $10 million each year for the Facebook boss' executive-protection team, Business Insider reported, citing sources familiar with the situation. The $10 million budget not only bankrolls a 70-plus person security team, but is also reportedly used for a 'panic chute' and a bulletproof conference room, among other things.

Sen. Marco Rubio and 23 Democratic Senators are asking President Donald Trump to grant asylum to Venezuelans, even though the grant would minimize the Venezuelans’ incentives to overthrow their country’s Cuban-backed dictatorship. “We respectfully request that your Administration promptly designate Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to ensure that Venezuelan nationals currently present in the United States are not forced to return … [because a return] is not in the best long-term interest of the United States or our partners in the region,” said the March 7 letter.

“‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’” (Matthew 5:8). Throughout the history of the church, many have thought the best way to achieve spiritual purity and holiness is by living apart from the normal cares and distractions of the world and devoting oneself entirely to meditation and prayer. The problem with sin, however, is not primarily the world around us but the worldliness within us, which we cannot escape by living in isolation from other people. But God always provides for what He demands, and He has provided ways for us to live purely. First, we...

PADUCAH, Ky. (Video from WPSD) — A waitress took action after noticing a family behaving strangely, saving the children from their allegedly abusive parents. Jordan Cooper told WPSD she works weekends at Olive Garden, but cares for her children during the week. Recently, she and her co-workers noticed something odd about a family they seated. She was serving a table with two parents and two children. One of the children was only a year old. "When I walked around to the baby, she looked at me with a face that said, 'Help,' like beat up...like I can't even describe to...

American whalers recorded voyages in Australian rock art, study reveals Text chiseled into boulders more than 150 years ago is the earliest archaeological evidence of a thriving 19th-century American whaling industry found in northwestern Australia. Homesick sailors on 19th-century American whaling ships commemorated their remarkable circumnavigations of the globe by recording their voyages into rocks on remote islands in northwestern Australia, report archaeologists. Engravings created by whalemen on two vessels—Connecticut, in 1842, and Delta, in 1849—have been found amid Aboriginal rock art on the Pilbara coast of Western Australia, nearly 1,000 miles north of Perth. The discovery is reported in...

In the time since announcing her engagement to Prince Harry in November 2017, Meghan Markle has become one of the most influential people in the world. The so-called "Markle effect" has seen fashion brands such as Outland Denim and LINE experience a huge spike in sales, and she even landed a spot on TIME's 2018 Person of the Year list. Her influence has become so strong that people are now starting to get plastic surgery to replicate the "Markle sparkle." Greer starting meeting with Houston-based surgeon Dr. Franklin Rose around the time of the royal wedding. She and Dr. Rose...

Commercial satellite imagery of a facility near Pyongyang suggests that North Korea is preparing to launch a missile or space rocket in the near future. The images are of a site known as Sanumdong — a facility where North Korea has assembled some of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and satellite-launching rockets. The images taken Feb. 22 by DigitalGlobe and shared exclusively with NPR show cars and trucks parked near the facility. Rail cars sit in a nearby rail yard, where two cranes are also erected. "When you put that all that together, that's really what it looks like when...

Holocaust survivors who joined the #walkaway movement have something to say.