Free Republic

The clown prince of crime is alive and mentally unwell in Gotham City in Todd Phillips' grippingly atmospheric supervillain origin story, Joker. While a never-better Joaquin Phoenix paints on the famed maniacal smile with his own blood at one memorable climactic moment of messianic rebirth, what's most noteworthy about this gritty entry in the DC canon and the lead actor's sensational performance is the pathos he brings to a pathetically disenfranchised character — just like countless others in a metropolis in which the social chasm separating the haves from the have-nots has become a pit of incendiary rage. The smart...

Are today's young evangelicals becoming more liberal?This is the main question behind Central Michigan University political scientist Jeremiah Castle's new book, Rock of Ages: Subcultural Religious Identity and Public Opinion among Young Evangelicals, published this month by Temple University Press.For the most part, Castle found young evangelicals to be just as conservative as older evangelicals, with a few notable exceptions.Looking at ideological identification, political party identification, issue positions and issue priorities, young evangelicals look like their older peers.Book cover for "Rock of Ages: Subcultural Religious Identity and Public Opinion among Young Evangelicals" (2019) by Jeremiah Castle. | Temple University Press...

The public is treated to a continuous barrage of stories saying how we might be headed to a recession. The source of all the negative reporting on the economy is that almost all of the media wants a Democrat elected in 2020 and people who pretend to be journalists know that if the economy is going well and people feel good about the economy, it would be likely that Trump would be elected. Pocketbook issues win. Like everything else, whether it is fictitious Russian collusion, claiming Trump is mentally incompetent, claiming everyone hates us overseas, and playing the race...

Few understand how big an influence Hong Kong money is on the PRC. Over two decades ago I followed that money. In The Year of The Rat days in the late nineties, as the financial crimes investigator for the House Committee on Rules, I followed the actions of one of the wealthiest men in the world. Based in Hong Kong, multi-billionaire Li Ka-shing was one of the most important and richest men in Asia. His financial empire, Hong Kong based, was an important PRC early indicator of Chinese ruling class money and influence in their emergence into global financial markets....

The New York Times “1619 Project” is being lauded by the media and many Democrats for what they believe is a long overdue discovery of the hidden truth of America -- that it was founded on white racism and the enslavement of blacks, and that even today the belief in white racial supremacy is so endemic to America that it’s a part of our national DNA. The Project will likely be used to advance policies in Washington, D.C. and throughout the country that purport to remedy this alleged injustice. Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-Cal.) has already...

Gaffney, South Carolina — In the past month alone, Joe Biden has confused New Hampshire for Vermont, compared poor kids to white kids, and said he met with students from the 2018 Parkland shooting while he was vice president. He told an audience he wasn't "going nuts," after he failed to remember the exact location of a speech he had just given. And a story he told about awarding a war hero turned out not to be entirely true. The string of summer slip-ups would seem to reinforce Biden's gaffe-prone reputation and raise questions about his central pitch of electability....

Organizations that advocate for the health of the climate and the urgency of global warming are praising CNN after the network announced that its climate-focused town halls next week will run for seven hours. On Sept. 4, the network will broadcast 10 back-to-back town halls with Democratic presidential candidates focused on climate change, running from 5 p.m. ET to midnight. Network anchors and hosts Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, Erin Burnett will do the questioning. "Tackling the climate crisis is one of the top polling issues among voters this election, which is why it is important that...

Telegram, a popular encrypted messaging app, will allow users to cloak their telephone numbers to safeguard Hong Kong protesters against monitoring by authorities, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort.

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....

State Sen. Wesley Bishop, a Democrat from New Orleans who recently announced he would not seek re-election after eight years in the Legislature, is under federal investigation for possible payroll abuse, records show. Bishop serves as associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at Southern University at New Orleans. In a series of stories last year, WVUE-TV Fox 8 reported that Bishop had been paid for 122 days of sick leave at SUNO while attending hearings in Baton Rouge in his capacity as a lawmaker. The station raised questions about whether the roughly $50,000 in sick leave payments were legal or...

Thousands of people marched across central Moscow on Saturday to protest the exclusion of some city council candidates from the Russian capital's local election, but did not result in riot police making mass arrests and giving beatings like at earlier demonstrations. Opposition-led protests erupted in Moscow this summer after election officials barred more than a dozen opposition and independent candidates from running in the Sept. 8 election for the Moscow city legislature.

Authorities say they have identified a group of teenagers suspected of swimming in a water tower after video surfaced. The Snohomish Police Department says the suspects hopped a fence, cut through two locks, scaled the 80-foot (24-meter) tower and jumped inside Snohomish's water reservoirs. Authorities say a YouTube video shows at least one suspect jumping in the water, and charges are expected to be filed against the group... Officials say water quality tests have been conducted and the water is considered safe to drink.

The U.S. government took a major step Friday to end a decades-old agreement governing the conditions and length of time in which immigrant children can be held. Government attorneys have filed a notice requesting that a federal judge dissolve what’s widely known as the Flores settlement agreement. First signed in 1997, the agreement limits how long children can be in detention to generally 20 days while also spelling out conditions.

Warsaw (AFP) - Ukraine's president on Saturday slammed the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline set to send Russian gas to Germany as a "threat" to Europe and welcomed moves by Kiev to tap into US gas supplies. Volodymyr Zelensky made the comments beside Poland's President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, where he was due to attend Sunday ceremonies marking 80 years since the outbreak of World War II. "We hold the same position as Poland: Nord Stream 2 is unacceptable and it threatens Europe as a whole," Zelensky told reporters. "We want the diversification of sources of energy delivery within the...

Jonathan Sparks is the young man that was attacked by a former Raul Grijalva aide for wearing a MAGA hat. He was attacked from his behind, had his ankle broken and was being beaten before a group of people pulled off the form Grijalva aide. Prosecutors just told Sparks they are trying to make the case go away by cutting a deal.

<p>Parents of babies and toddlers in Spain who have developed abnormal body hair plan to sue a pharmaceutical company that put a treatment for hair loss into packages meant for addressing acid reflux and other conditions.</p> <p>Spanish health authorities have blamed the Minoxidil mix-up on Farma-Química Sur. They say the well-known topical treatment was put in packaging that was supposed to contain a syrup with omeprazole, which is used for stomach problems.</p>

Fired FBI Director James Comey demanded an apology after an Inspector General's report failed to recommend charges be filed against him for illegally leaking confidential FBI memos to the media. While President Trump tweeted that "Comey was thoroughly disgraced by the IG's report," Comey maintains that "I was exonerated. I was also pleased to see that the 'Comey precedent' that was established when I exonerated Hillary Clinton for her careless handling of classified material guided the Department of Justice decision to not press charges against me." "In a truly just world, I would, like former Secretary of State Clinton, now...

[Snip] Yes, we've lost some already. On top of the icons who died horribly young decades ago — Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, John Lennon — there's the litany of legends felled by illness, drugs, and just plain old age in more recent years: George Harrison, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty. Those losses have been painful. But it's nothing compared with the tidal wave of obituaries to come. The grief and nostalgia will wash over us all. Yes, the Boomers left alive will take it...

Nike on Thursday announced Adapt Huarache shoes. They’re a redesign of the original Nike Huarache launched in 1991 and use FitAdapt self-lacing technology similar to the Nike Adapt BB shoes that were announced in January. The Adapt Huaraches work with the Apple Watch and Siri, so you can ask Siri to control a motor inside to lace or unlace the shoes. With support for Apple’s Siri shortcuts, users can talk to an Apple Watch or an iPhone and say a phrase like “Siri, release my shoes” to remove them. The Adapt Huaraches also support different presets for fit styles. You...

A metal asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion, hurtling through space, makes construction of a massive orbital space station substantially cheaper. At least one company is already pitching a plan for a Von Braun Gateway Station housing some 1,500 people in orbit. The resources on the single asteroid, 16 Psyche, is not only enough to build the station, but to wipe out the U.S. national debt thousands of times over.