Free Republic

There will be some hiccups on our path to a more environmentally-friendly future. Some hiccups, like exploding electric cars, will be bigger than others. So, I’m willing to excuse France for the very, very predictable failure of their solar panel road. On the off chance you have not been thinking about the solar panel road—cheekily dubbed Wattway—over the last several years, allow me to refresh your memory. n 2016, the French government in conjunction with the company Colas built a one-kilometer long road covered in solar panels in a small village in Normandy for $5.2 million. Protected with silicon and...

NBC Sports Pro Football Talk turned into a venue for bashing Donald Trump and conservatives when Mike Florio and Chris Simms said they had to expose “hypocritical sports fans” and media personalities.

[Catholic Caucus] Lawsuit accusing retired bishop of drunken sexual assault settled CHARLESTON, West Virginia - A lawsuit accusing the former bishop of West Virginia’s Catholic diocese of molesting boys and men has been settled.The terms of the recent settlement are confidential, Wheeling-Charleston Diocese spokesman Tim Bishop said in a statement. The diocese declined further comment.A former personal altar server sued ex-Bishop Michael Bransfield and the diocese in March, saying he was sexually assaulted in 2014 and harassed for years prior. The filing asserted Bransfield would consume at least half a bottle of liqueur nightly and had drunkenly assaulted or harassed...

A family of street performers could walk on coals. Here’s how the secret of why they felt no pain could benefit others. The street performer was only 10 years old. He put knives through his arms and walked on hot embers. By 14 he was dead. Someone dared him to jump from a roof. He did it, knowing it wouldn’t hurt. The case of the Pakistani boy with a rare genetic disorder was described in 2006. He could feel warmth and cold and the texture of objects. But he never felt pain. Now scientists have paired the discovery with the...

Hollywood, FL – Abortionist Harvey Craig Roth has been disciplined by the Florida Board of Medicine for conducting a surgical abortion on the wrong woman in 2017 at A Women’s Center of Hollywood, an abortion facility in Hollywood, Florida. A final order in the case dated July 22, 2019, noted that a settlement agreement was reached with Roth where he agreed to pay a fine of $10,000, costs totaling $3,563.70, and has had a “Letter of Concern” placed in his file. Roth will also have to undergo additional education in risk management and give a one-hour lecture on “risk management...

Up to 20 officers at a Manhattan detention facility where disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was being held before his death earlier this month have reportedly been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury for testimony. CNN reported Thursday that a source close to the investigation said that as many as 20 subpoenas have been issued, with more possibly on the way. Epstein, 66, was found dead due to an apparent suicide after guards reportedly failed to conduct rounds by his cell over the course of three hours, despite regulations stating that he was to be checked on every 30 minutes. The...

Stand Your Ground is alive and well in California. A CA criminal defense attorney has successfully defended another client faced with charges for self defense with a firearm. This case involves a woman who used her side arm to protect herself from robbers intent on running her down. She was charged by the DA, the robbers walked. After a vigorous defense the jury acquitted her in 40 minutes. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/22/security-guard-was-charged-for-shooting-tire-of-truck-she-believed-would-run-her-over-a-jury-acquitted-her-in-40-minutes/

Hasan Piker, a contributor with the left-wing "Young Turks" network, unleashed a vulgar rant on Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, a Navy SEAL veteran whom Piker claimed lost his eye to a "brave" soldier. Crenshaw, who now wears an eyepatch, lost his eye in an IED explosion while serving in Afghanistan. Piker appeared to be describing the Mujahideen, guerilla fighters in Islamic countries, as "brave." Piker took issue with an interview in which Crenshaw apparently commented on foreign policy in a way that deeply upset Piker. Hasan Piker, a contributor with the left-wing "Young Turks" network, unleashed a vulgar rant on...

The real collusion in the 2016 presidential election was not between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It was between the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration. That’s the explosive conclusion of an important new book, Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency, assiduously researched and authored by the widely respected Andrew McCarthy. The former federal prosecutor – and the man responsible for the conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, the “blind sheik,” from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing – unmasks the plan to lure Trump campaign operatives into a trap that led to...

A German theme park quickly shut down a new ride -- not due to safety reasons, but because critics said it resembled "flying swastikas." The "Eagle Fly" ride at Tatzmania, an amusement park in Löffingen, a city roughly 60 miles northwest of Zurich, Switzerland, was widely criticized after a video of it in motion reportedly circulated online.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is asking four other top committee leaders to share any documents or materials they think could be related to his committee’s investigation into possible obstruction and potential abuses of power by President Trump. In a letter on Thursday, Nadler wrote to Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) to ask them to provide such information as Nadler's committee weighs whether to introduce articles of impeachment against the president. "I am writing to request information, including documents...

I went to Walmart with the intention of buying a gun last week as part of an investigation into the placement, selection, marketing, and security of firearms in Walmart's stores, and to learn more about the retailer's processes governing gun sales. My journey to bring a gun home from Walmart turned out to be far more complicated than I expected.

Greenlanders were not the only ones mocking reports that President Donald Trump was considering buying Greenland.After The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump joked about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland, Puerto Ricans clapped back on social media.Some called themselves the "Caribbean Vikings" and others shared all the "good things" they would have if they stopped being a U.S. territory and become an autonomous Danish territory.   "I don't know about you, but I have no problem with being sold to Denmark," Gabriel René, a digital ad executive, tweeted. "Denmark is the country with the best education in the world,"...

Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) on Thursday wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to request a breakdown of the money the State Department spent preparing for President Trump’s canceled trip to Denmark. Trump had originally planned to visit the nation in early September, with the visit including the first Danish state dinner attended by a U.S. president since the Clinton administration. However, after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen publicly rebuffed Trump’s reported interest in the U.S. purchasing Greenland, Trump announced the visit would be canceled. In his letter, Kildee, a member of both the House Budget Committee and the House Ways...

Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates testified in federal court Thursday against Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig about the ex-counsel's Ukraine-related work for Paul Manafort, Politico reported. Gates was a top lieutenant to Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, for approximately 10 years. During that time, Manafort supervised a 2012 review conducted by Craig of the abuse-of-power trial of ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, according to Politico. While the review was presented as an independent probe of the trial, it was commissioned by Manafort's primary client, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and bankrolled by Victor Pinchuk, a steel oligarch and...

Bulldozers just (Tuesday, 20 August) spotted SW of Yuma, AZ. This planned 6-mile wall (YUMA 1 on map).

A Mississippi man is suing HuffPost on defamation allegations because of an article the news website published last year accusing the man of helping to supply drugs to fellow students at Georgetown Preparatory School while U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a student there. Derrick Evans, a professor and community advocate, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Gulfport, Mississippi, against HuffPost and the author of the article, Ashley Feinberg, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reported. The lawsuit claims Feinberg and HuffPost repeatedly defamed Evans and Douglas Kennedy, a classmate of Evans and Kavanaugh, by stating that they...

A senior editor at the New York Times apologized Thursday for "offensive" tweets from nearly a decade ago, as one Republican lawmaker called for his firing. “I have deleted tweets from a decade ago that are offensive. I am deeply sorry,” New York politics desk editor Tom Wright-Piersanti said on Twitter after Breitbart News drew attention to the tweets. The tweets, which were deleted late Wednesday, include one from Jan. 1, 2010, in which Wright-Piersanti referred to a "Crappy Jew Year." “I was going to say ‘Crappy Jew Year,’ but one of my resolutions is to be less anti-Semitic. So…...

46 miles of #borderwall construction is underway in New Mexico, the first stretch using stolen military funds under the “emergency” declaration. Spread the word.

1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through...