Free Republic

The stage was set for war. Literally. Inside a small Tuscan theater with a mock-up of a World War I trench, Susanna Ceccardi, a rising star of Italy’s hard-right League party, was flanked by rival candidates for the European Parliament elections and firing angry salvos against a club she soon hopes to join. a person standing in a room: Graffiti in Brussels, where the European Commission and European Council meet. “This Europe must be changed, this Europe of bureaucrats, do-gooders, bankers, boats of migrants, it has to be changed,” Ms. Ceccardi, the 32-year-old mayor of Cascina, Italy, roared to smatters...

Michael D. Cohen is embracing his truth. This week, the Nickelodeon actor, who has starred as “Schwoz” on Henry Danger since 2014, revealed that he transitioned female to male nearly 20 years ago. Cohen, 43, tells PEOPLE that he felt he was assigned the wrong gender at birth and decided to transition to male and align with his “core being and essence” on April 26, 2000 — just before his acting career took off. Michael D. Cohen is embracing his truth. This week, the Nickelodeon actor, who has starred as “Schwoz” on Henry Danger since 2014, revealed that he transitioned...

Full Header: "An insider at the San Francisco psychiatrist association convention gives us a whiff of why they're called 'shrinks'" Remember the golden era of blogging, around 2005 or so, when blogging was really good? Back then, people who were experts, or else really, really, observant, blogged with photos and told us all about the world around them, observing the absurdities the media was missing. Think of the all-time greats, such as Zombietime, or Tim Blair, or well, you probably have some favorites. It's not there much anymore, but happily, there are still some instances of this kind of blogging...

I sit down on a plush, blue-grey booth seat and admire the freshly cut daisies on the table in front of me. It’s a rainy day in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so the warmth of the spicy crispy chicken sandwich I prepare to sink my teeth into enlivens me. Unthinkingly, I tune in to a conversation happening at a window table to my right. “Here at Chick-fil-A, we treat our colleagues in the back kitchen as well as we treat our customers,” I overhear a supervisor sharing with a new employee. I smile to myself as I consider how this rule...

Jon Voight declares Trump ‘greatest president since Abraham Lincoln’… SHORT VIDEO

Our readers are finding this photo at Fort Snelling National Cemetery worth sharing again, eight years after columnist Jon Tevlin wrote about it.

President Trump’s decision to give Attorney General William Barr a free hand in determining which documents related to the intelligence community’s covert operation to take down the Trump Administration can be opened to public inspection has led to major consternation among Democratic Party luminaries. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) called the move to inform the general public “a cover-up and un-American. Secrecy is essential if our guardians are to keep us safe from the type of threat the election of Trump posed for our country. Granted, mistakes may have been made, but they were all...

This Week's Bonus Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Albert Einstein. Click image (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle.Bonus puzzle created for a long Saturday afternoon. Note: Today's regular puzzle can be located here.All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidential spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom half (answer grid)...

Sometimes you write about the most obvious thing in the world because it is the most important thing. Reaction to the outcome of Robert Mueller’s investigation shows Americans again how divided we are. If you are more or less of the left, you experienced the probe as a search for truth that would restore the previous world of politics. Instead the traitor got away with it and you feel destabilized, deflated. If you are of the Trumpian right, it was from the beginning an attempted coup, the establishment using everything it had to remove a force it could not defeat...

<p>A serial killer who terrorized Florida with a murderous spree that claimed 10 women in 1984 was put to death Thursday, his execution witnessed by a woman who survived one of his attacks and aided in his capture. Bobby Joe Long, 65, was pronounced dead... following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison. Long had no last words, simply closing his eyes as the procedure began, witnesses said.</p>

I was watching netflix last night I saw there was a new season of slasher. The first two seasons weren't too bad so decided to give number three a shot. The show starts rolling along and there's a hijab wearing Muslim female high school student. Shes as sweet as can be. She helps a man in need. We soon find out the man she helped is a "gasp" white supremacist who secretly hates Muslims. Soon after that the slasher strikes, beheading a victim. At that point the slutty daughter of the "gasp" white supremacist attacks the poor wonderful Muslim girl,...

In June of 1934, a United States Naval Review brought over 100 ships and more than 40,000 sailors to New York Harbor. Movietone News covered the event extensively. (original film footage much w/sound appx 18 mins)

Don't let their bright eyes, lolling tongues or doggy grins fool you -- Rhino, Rambo and Der aren't your average pups. The four-year-old Belgian Malinoises are retired mine detection dogs who have spent much of their lives working to clear explosives in Syria. Now they're back in the United States, working to transition to civilian life in the hopes of finding new homes. The work of mine detection dogs like Rhino, Rambo and Der have played "a critical role" in helping the recovery of areas liberated from ISIS, Jerry Guilbert, the chief of programs for the Office of Weapons Removal...

Charlies Daniels in Iraq in 2016. (Charlie Daniels Band Photo) In my youth, the holiday we celebrate this weekend was known as Decoration Day, which started in 1861 when a bouquet was placed on a Civil War veteran’s grave and continued as America paid homage and tribute to the men and women who paid the ultimate price in defense of America by “decorating” or placing flowers on the graves of fallen heroes. The name was changed to Memorial Day and became a federal holiday in 1971. America has lost over one million in our combined wars, and, by whatever...

President Trump is expected to appoint former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli to be the next director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Cuccinelli, regarded as an immigration hard-liner, would oversee the country’s lawful immigration system, including the citizenship processing and asylum claims. The move to replace Director Lee Francis Cissna comes after pressure from the White House for Cissna to step down, according to the New York Times.

A video of uncertain age (recently uploaded to Instagram by @504ollie) shows an unidentified man on a boat holding a gator by the neck, using its open mouth to puncture a can of Michelob Ultra. The man then slams the beer and tosses the gator back in the water, while a “Hell yeah” can be heard in the background. The @504ollie account changed its settings to private, but the video has been re-uploaded to multiple accounts, including Drunk People Doing Things, where it has garnered over 3 million views. [snip] Coincidentally, this is also the second video showing an unidentified...

Pope Francis said Saturday that abortion can never be condoned, even when the fetus is gravely sick or likely to die, and urged doctors and priests to support families to carry such pregnancies to term. Speaking to a Vatican-sponsored anti-abortion conference, Francis said the opposition to abortion isn’t a religious issue but a human one. “Is it licit to throw away a life to resolve a problem?” he asked. “Is it licit to hire a hitman to resolve a problem?” […] His comments come as the abortion debate is again making headlines in the U.S. with state initiatives seeking to...

Actor Jon Voight praised President Trump in a pair of videos on Friday, urging Republicans to support the president amid calls for impeachment from House Democrats while declaring Trump "the greatest president" since Abraham Lincoln. The Oscar-winning actor, who has long voiced support for Trump, said in two videos posted to Twitter that Trump has his and other Republicans' "utmost respect and our love." "This job is not easy, for he's battling the left and their absurd words of destruction," Voight, 80, said. "Our nation has been built on the solid ground from our forefathers, and there is a moral...

As Reader’s Digest so astutely observes, CNN is omnipresent in airports. But why? Well, technically, what you’re watching is the CNN Airport Network, not CNN. CNN Airport Network caters its content specifically to people waiting in airports. At present, around 59 airports broadcast the network, and that’s the only place it plays. While they do play content similar to the content that you’ll find on CNN, you won’t find any news about commercial crashes or content that’s not family-friendly. And, not every airport plays the same content. That’s because CNN Airport Network lets airports request content and broadcast their own....

President Donald Trump has warned that he is planning to confront British Prime Minister Theresa May on the UK's role in "spying" on his 2016 presidential campaign.Despite her emotional public resignation during a Friday press conference, Mrs. May will still be PM during Trump's official state visit in June.President Trump said Friday that Attorney General William Barr will be taking his investigation of the Russia Probe's origins global and examine events in Great Britain, Australia, and Ukraine.