Free Republic

——Why We Wrote This—— How to counter invasive species, a common, and often intractable, problem? One entrepreneur’s clever approach offers lessons in finding solutions in the unlikeliest of places. If you can’t beat them, eat them. That is the common wisdom of many scientists, conservationists, and fishermen who dream of ridding the western Atlantic of invasive lionfish, a stunning aquarium fish that, when introduced in the wild, dominates and destroys reef ecosystems. However, catching lionfish has never been simple; they are not easily targeted by line or net fishing. Now, a surprising new invention may bring lionfish hunting to the...

Full Header: Police Organizations Torch 2020 Democrat's Gun Confiscation Plan As 'Asinine, Ridiculous, and Likely Unconstitutional' Former Rep. Robert Francis O’Rourke (D-NM) (aka ‘Beto’) is the left-wing blowhard on guns that liberals fear. Why? Well, it’s because he gives up the playbook and he did so on a national stage. You all know about his plan to confiscate so-called scary guns from the hands of the law-abiding citizenry. AR-15 rifles, one of the most popular in the U.S., and AK-47s are the two scary rifles anti-gun liberals want out of the hands of civilians. Only the government can be trusted...

Striking Chicago teachers who are seeking smaller class sizes and higher pay also are demanding that the nation’s third-largest city do more to lower housing costs and put more resources into helping homeless students. The demand for affordable housing citywide — for students and their financially-strapped families as well as for school employees — stands as a dramatic example of organized labor’s effort to expand bargaining beyond bread-and-butter issues.

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Alexander Hamilton. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Alexander Hamilton was one of America's Founding Fathers. He had several vociferous and combative arguments in favor of a strong, federally-controlled government, but understood the implications of too much power vested in too few people. 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...

If a soundbite winds up being the highlight of a quarterback's night, that clearly means he didn't have a good night. When a mic'd up Sam Darnold was caught saying, "I'm seeing ghosts," down 24-0 in the first half of Monday night's contest against the New England Patriots, it was evident that things were somehow going to get worse for the New York Jets and their star QB. And by the time the final whistle blew on the brutal 33-0 loss to the undefeated Patriots, those suspicions had been confirmed: Darnold went 11-of-32 for a career-low 86 yards, was sacked...

Muslim employee files discrimination complaint against NY DMV for not accommodating his schedule for Friday prayers The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) announced Monday that an employee filed a discrimination complaint against the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for not accommodating his schedule for his Friday prayers. A 40-year-old Bengali-American filed the complaint against the New York DMV Friday after he said the department failed to adjust his schedule for Friday prayers and Ramadan after his repeated requests. He said in the complaint that it is his “sincerely held religious belief that...

“Times have changed and they will continue to change. Avoiding victimization is your personal responsibility and how you choose to react to situations can have a very meaningful impact on the outcome for yourself and others. As Americans and New Mexicans, we are very resilient, resourceful people who always find a way to rise to the occasion and triumph. I have no doubt we will continue to do so. God bless those who have suffered and God bless those who have risen up to defend the defenseless.”

‘Woke’ idiocy comes full circle. The Chinese Communist Party says that criticizing LeBron James over his anti-free speech, pro-Beijing stance is racist. You knew it was coming. Following Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeting his support for the Hong Kong protesters, James said that Morey “wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke.” Siding with his Communist paymasters, who forced the NBA into a groveling apology after Morey’s tweet, the basketball star added that free speech had negative “ramifications.” Now the government-run China Daily, a mouthpiece for the Communist Party, has backed LeBron, asserting that criticism of...

On Hannity Monday night, Donald Trump made a statement about prominent media outlets that under any other administration may have come as a surprise. The Trump administration has long had a combative relationship with the media, in particular the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Trump told Sean Hannity he may “terminate” the outlets from the White House altogether. “They gave Pulitzer Prizes to people that got it wrong, OK?” Trump said. “All these people doing it for the New York Times, which is a fake newspaper, we don’t even want it in the White House anymore. We’re...

The skirmishes at Lexington and Concord are often considered the beginning of the American Revolution, a violent change in the controversy between Great Britain and thirteen of its North American colonies. John Adams opined that the Revolution started many years before: “But what do We mean by the American Revolution? Do We mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People . . . This produced, in 1760 and 1761, AN AWAKENING and a REVIVAL of American Principles and Feelings, with an Enthusiasm which went...

Under pressure from activists, Target announced in September 2017 that it would hike wages for all 323,000 employees to at least $15 per hour by 2020. This was a major victory for the "Fight for $15" movement—a win that was supposed to have repercussions for retail and fast food workers everywhere. "Our momentum is unstoppable," a Minneapolis Fight for $15 organizer told Common Dreams. Two years later, the story is pretty different. "I got that dollar raise but I'm getting $200 less in my paycheck," a Target employee named Heather told CNN. Heather's hours have been cut from about 40...

For rabbits and squirrels, the most efficient and humane gun is a 12-gauge shotgun with number 6 shot. This provides the quickest and cleanest kills with the least chance of a wounded animal escaping to die a lingering death. It is by far the surest way to bring home dinner. The semiautomatic shotgun is popular, as it tends to mitigate recoil, while the pump shotgun can be had at very reasonable prices. While they hold more shells than a double, their rate of sustained fire is actually less than the fast-reloading double. WHILE .22 LONG RIFLE is the most popular...

How can that be? Those two trends in CNN polling would appear to be at least somewhat contradictory, but that neglects the impact of the magic elixir of American politics — partisanship. For the first time in CNN’s series on impeachment, support for Donald Trump’s removal from office has hit 50%, at the same time his approval rating has jumped to its highest level since June: Half of Americans say President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, a new high in CNN polling on the topic and...

Suspended Broward Sheriff Scott Israel shouldn’t get his job back, a key Florida Senate committee decided Monday, a powerful indication of the ultimate outcome. The vote was close, with nine senators voting in favor of Israel’s permanent removal and seven favoring his reappointment. Cheers immediately erupted from family members and supporters of the 17 people killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, who were at the committee when it convened at 10:30 a.m. through the vote at about 8:45 p.m. Israel, who also spent the day at the Senate Rules Committee, sat near the back of the...

How would one categorize a nation-state whose army gives a drug baron’s son to cartel members after suffering brutal losses in pitched battles? The country whose firebrand leftist president apologized on television and said the army’s surrender to a drug cartel was the correct thing to do, because “we do not want war”?If the reports are correct, this is precisely what happened in Mexico, around the same time the Democratic presidential primary field was debating whether there should be more trillion-dollar expenditures in the U.S. budget. Instead, a failed state on the southern border of the United States should...

Perhaps the most momentous part of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) was its acknowledgment that the U.S. government’s historical premise “that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China” was wrong. Recent events indicate that not only was the theory underlying all U.S.-China policy for nearly 50 years incorrect, but that perhaps the opposite is true: Support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order has actually illiberalized America.Stated differently, there is a case to be made that since President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit...

New PragerU Video Shows 2 Scientific Reasons to Doubt Evolution On Monday, PragerU released a video giving two solid scientific reasons to doubt the Darwinian theory of evolution. In the video, Stephen C. Meyer, who earned a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science and who serves as a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, lays out two key flaws in the evolutionary theory that is often taught as gospel truth in may high schools and colleges.Meyer begins the video by quoting evolutionary biologist and New Atheist Richard Dawkins, who claimed that anyone who does not believe in evolution...

Last week, the lobbying arm of the wind energy industry made an unsurprising, though somewhat embarrassing, announcement. It wants a longer lifeline with federal subsidies. So much for wind being the low-cost energy source of the future. Less than a year ago, the American Wind Energy Association with great fanfare issued a press statement that, as Bloomberg reported: "America's wind farms are ready to go it alone." Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican who has strongly supported the wind industry since the days of federal support began in 1992, boasted that the wind industry had finally "matured" and wind...

Multiple Democratic presidential candidates attacked President Trump on Tuesday for his comparison of the impeachment inquiry to lynching, which they called a "stain on this nation’s history." The president tweeted earlier Tuesday that Republicans should acknowledge they are “witnessing” a “lynching” with the House's impeachment process, racially fraught language that drew prompt criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) called lynching a "reprehensible stain on this nation’s history," adding that Trump constituted another. “We’ll never erase the pain and trauma of lynching, and to invoke that torture to whitewash your own corruption is disgraceful,” Harris tweeted. Sen....

On Monday’s broadcast of “CBS This Morning,” during a joint interview, Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT-I) said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) would work in his White House if he is elected president. The reporter asked if Sanders would consider Ocasio-Cortez for his running mate.