Free Republic

The owner of a San Francisco restaurant famous for hosting politicians claimed Sen. Bernie Sanders lost his vote in the 2020 presidential election after the Vermont Democratic candidate was “rude and cranky” to his servers, a report said. John Konstin, who owns the 111-year-old John’s Grill, told Politico many Democrats dined at his bistro while the Democratic National Committee was in town for a three-day event over the weekend. Sanders arrived for dinner with about 15 members of his campaign team and was not nice to any of the staff and didn’t want to shake hands or have his picture...

China's "social credit" system, a high-tech operation that tracks and assigns points in relation to the daily activities and behavior choices of its citizens, is being developed in Silicon Valley.The Communist government's digital efforts, which have been in place since 2014, to control the actions of the people has been extensively utilized to manipulate them into compliance with their preferred way of conduct.Reports indicate that it is increasingly common for Chinese people who refuse to go along with what the regime deems as good behavior to be denied the ability to travel by air or business class train tickets, among...

A school diversity committee formed by Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to eliminate programs for gifted and talented students, claiming they perpetuate racial inequality because they’re comprised mostly of white and Asian students.The committee also recommended scrapping all forms of screening for students across the city.The report has no binding power, but de Blasio can implement the panel's recommendations if he wishes.New York Post: De Blasio only said of the report Monday, “Every child, regardless of ZIP code, has the right to attend a school where they can thrive. “I thank the School Diversity Advisory Group for all their...

Today's post is in honor of Chief Warrant Officer 4 Dennis H. Laffick of the Oklahoma National Guard who was killed on this day in 1995 when his OH-58 Kiowa helicopter struck power lines during a counter-drug operation in Bixby, Okla.. The 48-year-old Chicago native previously served with the 114th Aviation Helicopter Company in Vietnam and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. 1862: One year after the Confederacy's "glorious but dear-bought victory" over the Union in the First Battle of Bull Run, the two (significantly larger) armies meet again on the same battleground. 70,000 soldiers of Union Maj. Gen. John...

AMC's show Preacher has set a new record for irreverence, making Jesus Christ out to be an adulterer and mentally handicapped. Yet on Sunday, the show managed to become even more offensive. In one episode, the character portraying Jesus smokes a joint and imagines himself robbing a bank. Next episode, he will negotiate with Adolf Hitler regarding the apocalypse.Early in the episode, Tyson Ritter — whose character is listed as "Humperdoo, Jesus Christ, Jesus" on IMDB — smokes a joint with Ruth Negga, playing Tulip O'Hare. He reminisces about having sex with a married woman in the Garden of Gethsemane...

Dear FRiends, We need your help to get this FReepathon wrapped up. Prayers up for continuing progress and success. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties -- not even the IRS -- trying to control what we do or say....

[Catholic Caucus] Former papal nuncio demands women’s ordination at Mass, parishioners applaud COLINDRES, Cantabria, Spain, August 27, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― An archbishop and former papal nuncio to the United Kingdom has affirmed his support for women’s ordination.  On August 25, Archbishop Pablo Puente Buces, 88, announced during a Mass honoring a local saint that a letter would be sent to the pontiff on this subject the next day.  Miguel Ángel Revilla, 76, television personality and the president of the Spanish region of Cantabria, was present at the Mass. He reported the incident on Twitter: “During the Mass of San...

African migrants traveling to the United States attacked Mexican military police near the southern US border in Tapachula. VIDEO

The initial goal of invading Afghanistan in the immediate weeks after 9/11 could not have been more clear: Get Osama bin Laden and oust the Taliban regime that gave his fanatical pack of beards safe haven to plan and practice the deadly attacks.It was the first and so far only time NATO allies invoked the Article 5 mutual defense pact. That familiar mission creep, however, seeped in and with the best of naive intentions, the foreigners stuck around to attempt nation-building to protect the power vacuum they created.It’s had some good days (a new Constitution now gives equal rights...

In the shameless shambles that is Morning Joe, they can report on Ilhan Omar -- but only the parts where they think Republicans look ridiculous. On today's show, Joe Scarborough, with an assist from Eugene Scott of the Washington Post, whom the paper's official bio describes as a "reporter covering identity politics," criticized the Alabama Republican Party for adopting a resolution calling for the expulsion of Omar from Congress. Scarborough approvingly cited Omar's tweet in response to the resolution, in which she mockingly noted the 2016 Senate nomination of Roy Moore. Scarborough also quoted Scott to the effect that the...

Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis took several implicit swipes at President Trump’s leadership in an op-ed published Wednesday, warning about the fallout from fractured alliances and increasing divisiveness under the current administration. Mattis’ comments were included in a lengthy essay adapted from a forthcoming book and published in The Wall Street Journal. They amount to the most extensive remarks from him about his time in the Trump administration since he quietly resigned in January.

The Queen has approved Boris Johnson's request to suspend parliament from the middle of next month, which will restrict MPs' ability to block a no-deal Brexit. In a move prompting a furious political row, parliament will be prorogued in the week beginning 9 September until 14 October. This is the date on which a new Queen's Speech - detailing the legislative agenda of Mr Johnson's administration - will be held. ...The action will see parliament lose a number of sitting days prior to the UK's scheduled departure from the EU on 31 October. Asked if he was denying opposition MPs...

Here’s a question in return: Guess who’s looking to recover from the collapse of the Russia-collusion theory? A “source”* tells me that this is more an exposé of MSNBC’s desperation than of actual reality. I’m betting that my source is more solid than Lawrence O’Donnell’s, but YMMV.Even Business Insider treats this with asbestos gloves, calling O’Donnell’s report “rumor” rather than, y’know, news. And the reaction from Rachel Maddow pretty much emulates what everyone else thinks of O’Donnell’s report: BREAKING: MSNBC reports that Donald Trump obtained business loans by having Russian oligarchs as co-signers: "The source close to Deutsche Bank...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Abraham Lincoln. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, and is credited for keeping the union together, and for doing away for the Declaration compromise, slavery, that allowed the country to form in the first place. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the...

Police say a man in Washington reported his truck was stolen — as he happened to be nearby allegedly robbing a store himself. William Kelley called authorities on Sunday around 6 a.m. to report that he left his keys on the seat of his red 1992 Chevrolet pickup truck in Kennewick, a city roughly 140 miles southwest of Spokane, and "someone just stole it." Kelley said he saw a man riding a bicycle who "discovered the keys and then threw his back bike in the bed of the truck and fled," according to a Facebook post from the Kennewick Police...

The controversial way America elects presidents is barreling toward a crisis point. A federal court ruling has spotlighted the confounding nature of the system, which twice in the last five elections put presidents into office against the wishes of the majority of American voters. Under the Constitution, the voters who select a president every four years are, in fact, picking a party-chosen slate of electors pledged to that candidate. The presidential candidate who wins a state’s popular vote gets all its electors — except in Nebraska and Maine, which split the electors by Congressional districts. These electors formally select the...

OKLAHOMA CITY - A local news anchor issued a tearful on-air apology to her co-host after she compared him to a gorilla on television. USA Today reported that KOCO morning show host Alex Housden, who is white, made the racist comparison of co-anchor Jason Hackett, who is black, to a gorilla in a segment about one of the animals at the Oklahoma City Zoo. The Washington Post reported that Housden was specifically reporting on Fin, the zoo's baby western lowland gorilla, who was seen taking selfies during an Instagram takeover by one of his caretakers. "As you can see, Fin...

ATLANTA, GA—CNN host Brian Stelter blamed President Trump for the network's falling ratings Sunday, accusing the president of killing millions upon millions of people that otherwise might have tuned into CNN. "If Trump weren't killing off most of America by the millions, we'd still have a pretty solid viewer base," Stelter bellowed at the three viewers watching Reliable Sources. "Airports, lobbies, waiting rooms, and gas station pumps are now playing CNN to absolutely no one, since Trump has killed them all." A guest on Stelter's show suggested that Trump has killed more people than Hitler, Mao, and Stalin put together,...

Having destroyed discipline, central banks have no way out of the corner they've painted us into. It was such a wonderful fantasy: just give a handful of bankers, financiers and corporations trillions of dollars at near-zero rates of interest, and this flood of credit and cash into the apex of the wealth-power pyramid would magically generate a new round of investments in productivity-improving infrastructure and equipment, which would trickle down to the masses in the form of higher wages, enabling the masses to borrow and spend more on consumption, powering the Nirvana of modern economics: a self-sustaining, self-reinforcing expansion of...

Why does most of Africa stay poor while other parts of the world prosper? People blame things like climate, the history of colonialism, racism, etc. But I say Senegalese businesswoman Magatte Wade gives the right explanation: too many rules. “Once you hire someone, good luck getting rid of them for any reason,” Wade complains. Her government must approve every firing. “Then the tax code is so complicated… worth at least two or three truckloads of paper.” Wade started a lip balm company. Some of her ingredients are not made in Senegal, so she imports them. To “protect” Senegalese manufacturers, the...