Free Republic

The arrival of the first captives to the Jamestown Colony, in 1619, is often seen as the beginning of slavery in America—but enslaved Africans arrived in North America as early as the 1500s. In late August 1619, the White Lion, an English privateer commanded by John Jope, sailed into Point Comfort and dropped anchor in the James River. Virginia colonist John Rolfe documented the arrival of the ship and “20 and odd” Africans on board. His journal entry is immortalized in textbooks, with 1619 often used as a reference point for teaching the origins of slavery in America. But the...

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Another bombshell from The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow centering on a famous man accused of sexual misconduct has resulted in the resignation of an important figure at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Current Time 0:35 Duration 0:45 Report: Trump’s Personal Assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, Resigns A day after publishing a piece detailing allegations that the MIT Media Lab "had a deeper fund-raising relationship with [Jeffrey] Epstein than it has previously acknowledged" and "attempted to conceal the extent of its contacts with him," the director of the media lab resigned. Farrow reported the resignation in an update to his...

Sen. Ron Wyden, (D-OR) threatened CEO Mark Zuckerberg with incarceration if he doesn't do a better job of censoring the content posted on Facebook. "I know Mr. Zuckerberg thinks he's done enough with his algorithms that dampen access to content that deviates from acceptable parameters of political discussion," Wyden said. "He fears to go further due to the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech. But I want to remind him that it is not within his purview to determine the boundaries of freedom of speech." "The First Amendment is what creates the biggest opportunity for hate speech," the Senator...

Uber has removed from its app a driver who kicked two Camden County women out of her vehicle after they kissed. One of the women recorded the incident and had posted it on her personal Facebook page in a post that went viral, and said the driver told them to get out of her car because their lifestyle violated her beliefs. The transportation company on Sunday confirmed that it no longer works with the unidentified driver. “Uber does not tolerate discrimination in any form and we have been in contact with this rider,” spokesman Grant Klinzman said. "We removed the...

NASCAR admits it is shifting its position on guns and the latest proof can be seen via the rejection of an ad that shows a semiautomatic rifle. The NRA tweeted:The NRA-ILA reports the rejected ad was from K-Var, and “included depictions of ‘assault-style rifles/sniper rifles.'” NASCAR’s media sales company told K-Var the racing giant is undergoing a “gradual shift in (its) position on guns.”K-Var’s blog reported the entire quote from National Event Publications, which is NASCAR’s media sales company: We just heard from NASCAR on a number of gun related ads and unfortunately, due a gradual shift in NASCAR’s position on guns,...

THE Dutch city of Dordrecht near Rotterdam is in lockdown after police said several people had been shot. Emergency services rushed to the scene, with 15 police cars in the street, two ambulances, a trauma helicopter, and several police officers, according to a PvdA member from the city. Many local residents also rushed out on the street as panic ensued. The city has been partially closed off.

Is China Trying to Elect a Democrat? For the last three years, Democrats have obsessed over Russia’s relatively trivial participation in the 2016 election. But if they have any concern about China’s reported interest in 2020, they haven’t shown it. Why? Because China’s leaders want to get rid of Donald Trump and replace him with a Democrat who will be more compliant.Bill Gertz’s piece in the Free Beacon is titled “China Trying to Stop Trump Reelection, Dominate Militarily.” Washington Free Beacon senior editor Bill Gertz said Friday that China is working against America ahead of the 2020 election because it...

Conservative commentator and vocal Donald Trump supporter Candace Owens is officially off the market. The controversial politico was married on August 31 to the Honorable George Farmer, the son of a noted British peer. It was a whirlwind romance — the two got engaged within less than three weeks of knowing each other. Candace confessed was “pretty crazy” on her eponymous talk show, as seen on YouTube. In honor of her wedding, Candace interviewed her now-husband, getting him to answer questions about their relationship. The first question asked was how the couple first met. The two tied the knot at...

One of the hardest things to understand about the current economy is that we are in a good, solid place — but not a perfect one. Last week’s jobs report was a touch light on the number of jobs added, but average hourly earnings were up nicely — and, besides, August tends to be a bit of a squirrely month anyway. This economy can best be summed up by a classic childhood fairy tale: “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” The growth is exactly the way Goldilocks prefers her porridge: not too hot, not too cold, but “just right.” While the...

The good news: Democrats seem determined to lose the 2020 election by running on an extreme platform of massive government control. The bad news: The same thing … if you’re the New York Times. Op-ed columnist David Leonhardt took a closer look at the internals of last month’s Pew survey and discovered that Democrats have utterly squandered a favorability advantage among American voters since the midterms (via Newsalert): A year ago – in the midst of the midterm campaign – Americans viewed the Democratic Party more favorably than the Republican Party. No longer.It's time for Democrats to stop messing...

A federal judge on September 4th ruled unconstitutional the government’s list of “known or suspected terrorists” – formally known as the Terrorist Screening Database. The ruling for plaintiffs, who may or may not even be on the ‘terrorist watchlist,’ was delivered by Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and is a blow to federal government efforts to combat terrorism. .... The lawsuit had been brought by 23 Muslims who were American citizens and who also claimed they'd been included on the watchlist. Their complaints involved being secretly flagged and placed on the...

Heather Waldron and John Hawley are losing their four-bedroom house in the hills above Blacksburg, Va. A teenage daughter, one of their five children, sold her clothes for spending money. They worried about paying the electric bill. Financial disaster, they say, contributed to their divorce, finalized in April. Their money problems began when the University of Virginia Health System pursued the couple with a lawsuit and a lien on their home to recoup $164,000 in charges for Waldron’s emergency surgery in 2017. The family has lots of company: Over six years ending in June 2018, the health system and its...

A former Boeing official who played a key role in the development of the 737 MAX has refused to provide documents sought by federal prosecutors investigating two fatal crashes of the jetliner, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination... Mark Forkner, Boeing’s chief technical pilot on the MAX project, invoked the privilege in response to a grand jury subpoena issued by U.S. Justice Department prosecutors looking into the design and certification of the plane, the person said. Invoking the Fifth to avoid testifying, while a legal right, is sometimes interpreted as an admission of guilt. Its use to resist a...

There's been a pattern of intel leaks claiming to have high-level Russian sources followed by other intel leaks voicing concern that those sources are being exposed. It's fishy. Also fishy: this claim that Trump revealed secret intel to Russian visitors. It was already public. Examples: WP reported in June 2017 of "sourcing deep inside the Russian government" -- so deep that it purportedly "captured Putin’s specific instructions" to launch a pro-Trump influence campaign. (NSA & other intel officials later questioned this claim).

BEIJING, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese astronomers have detected repeated fast radio bursts (FRB) - mysterious signals believed to be from a source about 3 billion light years from Earth - with the largest and most sensitive radio telescope ever built. Scientists detected the signals with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) and they are carefully cross-checking and processing them, according to researchers at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). FRBs are the brightest bursts known in the universe. They are called "fast" because these blips are very short, only several milliseconds in duration....

I explore Surah XIX, and examine why Mohammed couldn't distinguish between Moses's sister and the mother of Jesus or between legend and The Gospel.

* Total US debt including all forms of government, state, local, financial and entitlement liabilities comes close to 2,000% of GDP, according to AB Bernstein. * The biggest potential load comes from entitlements, but is being pressured from rising levels of federal government debt as well. * The warnings about potential debt hazards come as the total federal debt outstanding has surged to $22.5 trillion. * A debt reform advocate says now is the time for the U.S. to tackle the issue, before recession hits. Total potential debt for the U.S. by one all-encompassing measure is running close to 2,000%...

"Time Passages" is the title of a 1978 US Top Ten hit by singer-songwriter Al Stewart which was produced by Alan Parsons and was the title track for Stewart's 1978 album release. The single reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1978, "Time Passages" also spent ten weeks at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Easy Listening chart, the longest stay at number one on this chart in the 1970s. Billboard magazine also ranked "Time Passages" as the No. 1 Adult Contemporary single of 1979. The song is also of note for having the highest...

Should women be permitted to protect their own bodies? Or should they be forced to passively endure an attack until an authorized protector from the government can ride to their rescue? On September 3, Lachelle Hudgins wounded a robber who had attempted to steal her purse. While the mainstream media pan the attack as an overreaction to an attempted purse-snatching, Hudgins, who was there, saw it differently. According to the video recorded by a local ABC reporter, five attackers approached her car in the wee hours of the morning. How was she to know the attack would end with only...