Free Republic

As Americans, we speak our minds. It’s the quintessential American quality. Freedom of expression is so foundational to our liberty that it is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. We must never take our freedom of speech for granted. Today, 243 years after our nation’s founding, educational institutions, originally created to foster and promote freedom of thought and freedom of conscience, are now actively suppressing first freedoms in the name of political correctness. In a sudden Orwellian twist, students across the country are now discovering that it’s not only acceptable, but morally praiseworthy to use intimidation,...

Stanford researchers have shown that a few layers of atomically thin materials, stacked like sheets of paper atop hot spots, can provide the same insulation as a sheet of glass 100 times thicker. In the near term, thinner heat shields will enable engineers to make electronic devices even more compact than those we have today... The heat we feel from smartphones or laptops is actually an inaudible form of high-frequency sound. If that seems crazy, consider the underlying physics. Electricity flows through wires as a stream of electrons. As these electrons move, they collide with the atoms of the materials...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one...

[Catholic Caucus] Alleged Gay Predator Bishop Sued for Sex Abuse Bishop Howard Hubbard was believed to be gay ringleader in Albany diocese ALBANY, N.Y. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A newly filed lawsuit accused a bishop of homosexually abusing a minor. In the suit, a man identified only as "P.R." claims that Bp. Howard Hubbard and Fr. Paul Bondi sexually abused him in the 1990s when he was a teenager. It states the Fr. Bondi abused P.R. while stationed at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Ballston Spa, New York, when P.R. was 12–15 years old. It also alleges that Bp. Hubbard abused P.R. when the...

A woman's daily habit of cleaning her ears with cotton swabs led to a life-threatening infection in her skull, according to news reports. The 37-year-old woman, who is identified only as Jasmine, said she cleaned her ears every night with cotton swabs... But over time, she noticed she had trouble hearing out of her left ear, and finally went to the doctor. She was initially told she had an ear infection, and was given antibiotics. But her hearing problems remained, and she soon noticed blood appearing on the cotton swabs after she cleaned her ears. After a hearing test showed...

The leader of a conservative group was arrested Friday in Portland, Ore., one day before planned protests involving supporters of the far-left Antifa movement and supporters of several conservative groups. Joey Gibson, leader of Portland-based Patriot Prayer, turned himself in to authorities in connection with an arrest warrant for rioting, stemming from a violent clash in the city on May 1, according to the Associated Press. He was later released after posting bail, with further legal action pending. In a video posted on Facebook, Gibson accused police of targeting conservative groups for arrests but not members of Antifa, even though...

President Trump, per usual, uttered quite a few astonishing soundbites during his 90-minute rally Thursday night in Manchester, N.H. But he was stirring controversy before he even reached New Hampshire. Speaking to reporters earlier that day as he left his New Jersey golf club, Trump revived an unfounded conspiracy theory that he would have won New Hampshire in 2016 but for buses full of out-of-state voters who illegally cast ballots.

Many of the recent shootings—including in El Paso, Texas; Pittsburgh; potentially Gilroy, Calif.—are linked to white supremacist hatred. And hate crimes have been on the rise nationwide for three consecutive years, according to FBI data released last year. This growing hatred seeps into our classrooms. Like many teachers, I read these stories and statistics and wonder: What can I do to help my students feel safe and ensure that the next generation no longer operates from a place of hatred and fear? ...More than just making our students aware of racism, we can do anti-racist work. It’s easy to decry...

As a Millennial with student loans, the idea of a magic eraser wiping my Sallie Mae account clean sounds really good – actually too good. And when things sound too good to be true, they usually are.When politicians say, they want to “erase,” “cancel,” or “forgive” student loan debt, what they are really talking about is redistributing personal debt. They want to transfer the balance from individual student loan accounts to an account that all Americans are on the hook for, including the over 120 million without a degree.Blue-collar workers who entered the workforce straight after high school and didn’t...

A coordinated ransomware attack has affected at least 20 local government entities in Texas, the Texas Department of Information Resources said. It would not release information about which local governments have been affected. The department said the Texas Division of Emergency Management is coordinating support from other state agencies through the Texas State Operations Center at DPS headquarters in Austin. DIR said the Texas Military Department and the Texas A&M University Systems' Cyber-Response and Security Operations Center teams are deploying resources to "the most critically impacted jurisdictions." Elliot Sprehe, press secretary for the department, said DIR was working to confirm...

I guess it is not embarrassing enough for Chris Cuomo to work at CNN. He had to go to eleven in the own-goal asshattery department, going postal on some nuisance bystander, and claiming that the term “Fredo” is a racist slur. Another example of liberal hypocrisy and goalpost shifting: anyone else recall how one of the left’s putdowns of George W. Bush was that he was the “Fredo” of the Bush family, which was in turn described as the Corleone family of American politics? No one—not even a Cuomo auxiliary—said this was a racial slur. But since everything is racist...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Old Testament) 2 Kings 17 Samaria Resettled 24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. 25 When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. 26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country...

I've been working contract at the VA hospital in Omaha for the past 4 years. The contract has not been renewed and expires Sept. 22, 2019. I reach full retirement age Sept. 28, 2019 and begin receiving SS in October. I guess I've reached retirement age. That said, I want to purchase a full time living 5th wheel that is 4 or 5 years old and a toy hauler to be placed in a really nice RV resort in Jacksonville, Fl. I can't wait to get away from Omaha (and northern) winters. I hate cold and all the snow sucks....

SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM) -- The company auditing the Mass. Registry of Motor Vehicles has released their preliminary findings. The report from Grant Thornton details several failures to process out-of-state driver notifications like the one that meant Volodymyr Zhukovskyy still had a license to drive the night his truck and trailer killed seven motorcyclists in New Hampshire. However, it has also outlined other potential weaknesses in the RMV's framework. In their review of the RMV's overall structure, Grant Thornton highlighted weaknesses in the agency's risk management and several areas where those weaknesses could put the public in danger. Grant Thornton's report...

KERBALA, Iraq: The match should have been cause for young Iraqis to celebrate. Their national team beat Lebanon 1-0 in the first competitive international hosted by Iraq for years in the holy city of Kerbala, complete with an opening ceremony of music and dance. Instead, the event drew high-level criticism which many of the city's youth say shows the gulf between them and the political and religious establishment. Advertisement At the opening ceremony last week for the West Asia Football Federation Championship, a tournament of Arab countries hosted by Iraq, a Lebanese woman violinist not wearing the Islamic headscarf and...

On 15 August 1944, 2,000 U.S. Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force heavy bombers, supported by hundreds of fighter escorts, lifted off to strike 11 Luftwaffe bases in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. One of those targets was Fliegerhorst Weisbaden, which would become a U.S. Air Force base during the Cold War. Intense enemy flak damaged 11 aircraft, but 39 Hell's Angels B-17s were soon over the enemy airfield, dropping 164,000 pounds of explosive and incendiary ordinance on the runway and its facilities. Approximately 45 miles away from Weisbaden on their return trip, shortly after the fighter escorts left,...

Move over “race card,” there is no need for you to do all the heavy lifting anymore. No, because now just being against the current president is more than enough license for unhinged liberal “thought leaders” to spew hateful, incendiary and increasingly dangerous rhetoric against all things MAGA.Isn’t racism, which has been the central theme focused against all things Trump and his ardent base of supporters, so 2018? I mean, shouting racist at Trump didn’t prevent historic ascension to the presidency in 2016, did it? It hasn’t prevented a plurality of Americans from supporting common sense border security and immigration...

The third Saturday of August marks the world’s largest celebration of car culture in Metro Detroit and today marks the 25th anniversary of that celebration, the Woodward Dream Cruise. They share the date with Cajun and Mr. Cajun who are celebrating their 53rd anniversary today, so celebrations are in order! The Dream Cruise was started by Nelson House in 1995 and a group of volunteers who wanted to recreate a bit of nostalgic fun associated with the 50s and 60s, “when youth, music and Motor City steel roamed Woodward Avenue, America’s first highway.” Bob Seger, in case you didn’t recognize...

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will showcase their liberal messages in South Carolina this weekend, trying to connect with black voters and battling to secure a spot as the clear second-place candidate in the fourth statewide contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Both candidates are scheduled to speak to an expected audience of 5,000 millennials Saturday in a presidential candidate forum at the Young Leaders Conference, in partnership with The Black Church PAC in Atlanta. Warren will then stop in Aiken, South Carolina on Saturday, and each has events scheduled Sunday in Columbia, South Carolina. Polling for the last several...

Dove season opens in California and across the U.S. on Sept. 1. For as long as I can remember, all I had to do when dove season rolled around each year was oil my 1970s-vintage shotgun, buy a case or two of shells at the nearby Big Five sports store and drive toward the Arizona border with my hunting buddies for a few happy days of shooting. But thanks to a proposition approved by 63 percent of Californians in 2016 and the leftist lawmakers in Sacramento who've been wrecking the state for 40 years, dove season this year will be...