Free Republic

A call for help may become a punch in the gut. A Federal Communications Commission proposal to replace its 10-digit national suicide prevention hotline number with the three-digit 988 hits too close to home for a Staten Island activist, who noted the numbers 88 are significant in neo-Nazi and white supremacy movements. The letter H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and to neo-Nazis, the numbers 88 together stand for “Heil Hitler.” “It’s not just a number,” said Charles Greinsky, a 68-year-old Jewish war veteran, who recalls when hatemongers spray painted the digits on his temple in 2008. Greinsky...

The human body is often likened to a high-performance machine. But it is so much more than that. It works 24 hours a day for decades without (for the most part) needing regular servicing or the installation of spare parts. It runs on water and a few organic compounds, is soft and rather lovely, reproduces itself with enthusiasm, makes jokes, feels affection and appreciates a red sunset. How many machines do you know that can do any of that? There is no question about it. You are truly a wonder. And how do we celebrate the glory of our existence?...

Several Democratic presidential candidates will be attending an annual steak fry event, despite lecturing Americans about the need to eat less meat because of climate change. The organizers of the Iowa Polk County Democratic Party's annual steak fry will be grilling 10,500 steaks and 1,000 vegan burgers on 10 grills, during Saturday's event. Some of the candidates will grill steaks themselves. Democratic candidates recently participated in a CNN climate town hall, where multiple candidates discussed the importance of reducing meat intake. Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) called for the U.S. government to create incentives to eat less meat. "As a...

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Colombia's president is comparing Nicolás Maduro to Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic and says Venezuela's embattled socialist leader would be making a "stupid" mistake were he to attack. Ivan Duque made the comments in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press before traveling to New York. There, Duque is expected to condemn Maduro before the United Nations General Assembly as an abusive autocrat who is not only responsible for the country's humanitarian catastrophe but is also now a threat to regional stability for his alleged harboring of Colombian rebels.

Wait. Isn’t conversion therapy already banned in California? Yes, it is, but it’s still happening anyway. Lawmaker Evan Low of the state’s Legislative Assembly has drafted AB-2943, which aims to add conversion therapy to criminal fraud categories. Low wants to put practitioners of queer conversion therapy in prison, providing a powerful disincentive to people who violate the existing ban.

MASON — A company that recently announced a major expansion project is hiring new employees. Rhinestahl Corporation, which has its headquarters in Mason, is a privately held company serving diverse markets globally through two complementary business units. Founded in 1967, it has more than 180 employees with approximately 10 percent located internationally, according to spokesman Kevin Gold. It has operated within Mason since 2009.

For the men of ODA 1333 and their detachment of around 100 U.S. soldiers and Afghan commandos, the orders sounded straightforward: help secure two Afghan helicopters downed by the Taliban near Ghazni. They knew they would have to take the long way around, because the Taliban had buried so many land mines along the direct road leading into Ghazni that it was impassable. What was usually a 60-mile trip westward from Paktia province would instead cover 160 miles of terrain. The troops loaded up their weapons and clambered aboard hulking RG-33 and M-ATV armored vehicles, which rumbled into the night...

During the Obama Admin, then-VP Joe Biden took his chronically jobless son Hunter on an official trip to China. China gave Hunter a billion dollar check for his "equity fund." Did "middle-class Joe" sell out the United States to China to set his son up in a billion dollar business? Hunter Biden also had connections to jailed crook Allen Stanford WSJ, By Susan Schmidt, Steve Stecklow and John R. Emshwiller, Feb. 24, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET A fund of hedge funds run by two members of Vice President Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by companies controlled by Texas financier...

Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., announced Saturday that he will mount a primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., next year. The 38-year-old Kennedy -- the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy – formally announced his candidacy at a community center in Boston after weeks of rumors that he was mulling entering the race. [Snip] The challenge to Markey, 73, is likely to leave local Democrats, including 2020 presidential hopeful and fellow Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., with a difficult choice of who to back. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has already endorsed Markey, with whom she has worked closely on the Green...

LOS ANGELES — Barron Hilton, a hotel magnate who expanded his father's chain and became a founding owner in the American Football League, has died. He was 91. Hilton's family says he died Thursday of natural causes in his Long Angeles home. He transformed Hilton into the industry's top brand during his 30 years as its chief executive. Hilton also founded the Los Angeles Chargers in the AFL and oversaw the AFL-NFL merger. William Barron Hilton was born in Dallas in 1927 to Conrad N. Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels, and Mary Adelaide Barron.

Rep. Doug Collins‏Verified account @RepDougCollins  Sep 20 "When Democrats allow an outside, private consultant to question a witness this week, they broke House rules and granted those political consultants greater congressional privileges than they gave to elected representatives. Here’s why that’s a problem:"

Ed Rendell recently whacked Elizabeth Warren when she bashed Joe Biden for taking rich donors’ money. The former Pennsylvania governor wrote that he himself had run a “swanky” fundraiser for Warren’s Senate race, for which she thanked him royally. Furthermore, she transferred $10.4 million of her big-money hauls into her presidential campaign while bragging that she was only accepting small donations. Calling that maneuvering sleazy would be overdoing it, but there is certainly something untoward about it. Warren refuses to say what taxes she would raise to cover her “Medicare for All” health care plan. Bernie Sanders’ similar vision —...

4Chan succeeds in liquefying the minds of NPCs.

Sen. Kamala Harris's (D-Calif.) support in polls is showing signs of fading, in the latest sign that her presidential bid is losing momentum after a knockout performance in the first Democratic debate. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll this week showed Harris’s support at 5 percent, down 8 points from the last one in July, well behind the top three contenders: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Perhaps more ominously for Harris, she took fifth place in an Emerson College poll surveying her home state of California on Tuesday, trailing Biden, Warren...

Two Los Angeles County women believed to be part of a national fraud ring were arrested on suspicion of posing as employees from the Internal Revenue Service in a phone scam that may have bilked several victims out of $900,000, the Fontana Police Department said Friday. A Fontana man received a call on Sept. 4, 2019, from a person who identified themself as an IRS employee and threatened to arrest the victim if he didn’t pay the caller $2,200 in Target gift cards, police said. The victim complied and provided the gift cards to the caller. He later reported the...

The whistleblower who filed a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general did not have direct knowledge of the communications between President Trump and the foreign leader in question.The conversation was reportedly a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It is alleged that Trump urged Zelensky multiple times to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and his ties to an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch. Giuliani has previously urged a top official in Ukraine to look into the ties.An official who has been briefed on the matter, however, told CNN that...

An extended discussion about his son’s business dealings isn’t helpful to Biden’s electability argument. Joe Biden had a chance to excoriate Donald Trump on Friday after a blockbuster report detailed how the president pushed Ukrainian investigators to investigate Biden’s son. Instead, Biden was circumspect and measured in a comment to reporters. Only hours later, after Biden and his advisors weighed more facts and after Democrats renewed calls for impeaching Trump, did the former vice president’s campaign issue a broader and stronger statement. The time it took Biden to unleash his tougher comments – which stopped just short of urging impeachment...

A New York judge on Friday ordered President Donald Trump to provide video testimony as part of an upcoming lawsuit brought by protesters who say they were assaulted by Trump's security guards during a 2015 protest outside of Trump Tower. Judge Doris M. Gonzalez wrote in her ruling that Trump's testimony is "indispensable" to the trial and so he must provide video testimony before the trial is set to begin Thursday. The Washington Post first reported the judge's ruling. The trial centers around a protest in September 2015 in front of Trump Tower in New York City where two protesters...

Democrat presidential hopeful Robert “Beto” O’Rourke responded to those who want to keep their AR-15s by asking why they do not pursue ownership of a bazooka as well. O’Rourke’s comment came after a gun-totting mother in Aurora, Colorado, told him that he was not taking her guns. O’Rourke later took to Twitter and wrote, “A woman in CO told me ‘hell no’ she won’t give back her AR-15. I listened, but by her logic: Why shouldn’t you be allowed to have a bazooka or a tank?”

Kansas City officials, using a new housing inspection law, have moved residents out of a troubled Northland apartment building where they found roaches, severe plumbing problems and other dangerous health violations, the Health Department announced in a news conference Wednesday. In the building, city officials and elected leaders said they saw caved-in ceilings, mold and damp carpets. During their visit Friday, they walked through human excrement in an apartment where sewage had backed up into the toilet, sinks and bathtub. “Disgusting is the best way I can tell you what I saw,” Councilman Dan Fowler, who represents the area, said...