Free Republic

How one circus has replaced animals with extreme stunts A circus owner says the industry is all about taking 'calculated risks' and not performing animals. Earlier this week Environment Secretary Michael Gove announced a new law to ban travelling circuses from using wild animals. Circus Extreme is currently on its first tour of the UK and says it has taken five years to plan the show. Owner Dr Haze says the circus has to evolve if it is to survive for another 200 years and the performers are 'risking their lives' to entertain the crowds.

That’s how the New York Times characterizes the Massachusetts Senator in an editorial today. I would have said “liar,” but why quibble? Whether it’s falsely claiming to be an Indian or falsely claiming she was let go from a teaching job because she was pregnant, Warren’s ability to spin a yarn is undeniable. Ironically, the Times’ characterization of Warren appears in an editorial endorsing her for president. Such must be the bubble the editors inhabit that no one noticed the irony. Bizarrely, the Times endorsed two Democrats — Warren and Amy Klobuchar. The editorial board must be split between pragmatists...

The new leader of the Islamic State terror movement has been confirmed as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al-Mawli Al-Salbi, according to officials from two intelligence services who were cited on Monday by Britain's Guardian newspaper. Al-Salbi is one of the terror group’s founding members and has led the enslavement of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, among other ISIS operations around the globe. The Guardian has learned that Al-Salbi was named leader, hours after the death of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in October....

RUSH: This is kind of funny. This is… (chuckles) Do you remember Operation Chaos? What year was Operation Chaos? (interruption) You don’t remember Operation Chaos? Operation Chaos was 2008. John McCain won the Republican primaries early. By the early spring of 2008, there was no more drama left in the Republican race. But the Democrat race? Eh, Hillary Clinton was still hanging in. She was looking tough, still hanging in. It was down to the wire between her and Barack Hussein O, and Hillary was ticked off because she had been promised the nomination. But then the young, energetic, vibrant...

A middle school teacher in Pennsylvania provoked outrage and charges of indoctrination after she assigned her students to time themselves for ten minutes as they packed a bag in imitation of refugees forced to leave America by President Donald Trump. “President Trump is trying to take control of the United States!” read the deliberately inflammatory assignment, portraying America’s legitimate president as a dictator enacting a coup. “There are fights in the streets! You have to pretend that you are a refugee being forced to leave your home, never to return.” The assignment then instructs students to spend only ten minutes...

Donald Trump is the only American president to have weaponized foreign and national security policy in an attempt to coerce a foreign country into lying about a rival presidential candidate. This effort by President Trump is the reason he is now the third U.S. president to be impeached. His objective was to pressure the Ukrainian government into spreading a malicious and conclusively debunked conspiracy theory: that Vice President Biden engaged in wrongdoing when he executed official United States policy to remove a corrupt prosecutor from office. This theory, which The New Yorker has ​explained​ originated from disgraced “journalist” John Solomon,...

Buoyed by two significant trade accomplishments, President Trump is heading this week to the World Economic Forum’s annual high-level gathering in Davos, where the organizers have made climate a major focus. Trump is scheduled to deliver an address to the meeting in the Swiss Alps on Tuesday morning, the same day as the teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg appears on two panels – one on “Forging a sustainable path towards a common future,” the other entitled, “Averting a climate apocalypse.” “How to save the planet” is one of the chosen themes for Davos 2020, and WEF founder and executive...

Sharyl: Do you feel like you’ve fallen into the system? This was something you strongly objected to and criticized when we last spoke, now it sounds like you’re operating quite well inside the system. Rep. Ken Buck: Yeah, I still object to it. Larry Klayman is also a former federal prosecutor and longtime swamp-watcher. He head up Freedom Watch, a public interest group that investigates government corruption. Sharyl: What would you tell the public, is the state of what we may think of as the Washington DC swamp, today? Larry Klayman: It’s a club, it’s like the National Football League....

Protesters in Puerto Rico called for Gov. Wanda Vazquez to resign Monday after stores of relief supplies were found unused in a locked warehouse over the weekend as the island reels from a powerful earthquake. Dozens gathered outside La Fortaleza, Puerto Rico’s governor’s mansion, banging on frying pans, denouncing Vazquez and holding signs with messages including “Government, Absent, Criminal, Negligent.” “I have never come out to protest but this caused me so much anger and indignation,” protester Rubi Oliveras told El Vocero newspaper. “How is it possible that you say you care about the country and yet you let so...

As far as a chair umpire at the Australian Open was concerned, it was a slip of tennis etiquette. During a qualifying round for the Grand Slam event, Elliot Benchetrit of France was rebuked by the official when he asked a ballgirl to peel his banana, News.com.au reported. Benchetrit, 21, was handed the banana during a break in his match against Dmitry Popko and asked the girl for help in peeling the fruit, indicating his heavily taped fingers prevented him from doing so, Nine.com.au reported. Chair umpire John Blom interrupted and told Benchetrit to peel his own banana, according to...

A day before the opening of President Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial, former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign is issuing a pre-emptive strike, sending an unusual open memo to the media warning against disinformation pushed by the president and his defenders. The memo, first obtained by NBC News, is also a shot across the bow of Republican senators as they consider whether to entertain Trump's demands to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, as a witness in the trial. Trump has been "spreading a malicious and conclusively debunked conspiracy theory" that "Biden engaged in wrongdoing when he executed official United...

The New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), a police union representing the city’s active and retired sergeants, blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for the death of a 92-year-old woman. A 92-year-old woman, Maria Fuentes, was sexually assaulted and murdered on the streets of NYC earlier in January. The man suspected of killing her, Reeaz Khan, is an illegal alien who had been arrested by the New York Police Department in November 2019, but was released and never handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because of the city’s strict sanctuary policy. The SBA on Sunday said Fuentes would...

The American singer-songwriter David Olney has died on stage during a performance at a festival in Florida. The 71-year-old was mid-song when he apologised, closed his eyes and fell silent, two musicians who were performing alongside him said. He suffered an apparent heart attack during the show in Santa Rosa Beach on Saturday night, a statement said.

Can Donald Trump beat Elizabeth Warren, who will have a chance to be the first Native American nominee in Democrat history? Probably.

Melania Trump definitely got everyone’s attention when she stepped out in a gorgeous blush trench coat and chocolate boots combo at the White House. The first lady looked just as striking as ever in the jaw-dropping long-sleeve number that went down past her knees as she joined President Donald Trump and their son Barron as the three made their way to board Marine One from the South Lawn for a weekend trip to Palm Beach, Florida. She completed the great look with loose hair, a plum colored top, clutch and high heel boots. To say it was the perfect winter...

Gravitational waves are caused by calamitous events in the Universe. Neutron stars that finally merge after circling each other for a long time can create them, and so can two black holes that collide with each other. But sometimes there's a burst of gravitational waves that doesn't have a clear cause. One such burst was detected by LIGO/VIRGO on January 14, and it came from the same region of sky that hosts the star Betelgeuse. Yeah, Betelgeuse, aka Alpha Orionis. The star that has been exhibiting some dimming behaviour recently, and is expected to go supernova at some point in...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Bruce Eberle. While Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, and Republicans passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution as well as the civil rights act of 1875, it fell to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to actually bring about full citizenship rights for black Americans. Booker T. Washington had advanced the cause of black Americans into the twentieth century, but the situation worsened as progressives introduced segregation in the South that then spread to virtually the entire nation.These progressive intellectuals who orchestrated segregation were certain that science proved black...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday unveiled a new census council co-chaired by Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of the civil rights leader, as part of an effort to ensure a fair count the state's population. Cuomo also said he is proposing an additional $10 million in this year’s budget to go toward the fair census count plan, bringing the state’s total for the 2020 Census to $70 million. The push, announced on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, comes after what Cuomo called the Trump administration’s attempt to keep immigrant communities from completing this year’s census....

To close out her 2019, Lupita Hernandez stopped after every mile to plant a small flag along Interstate-10 between Houston and San Antonio. Each pause in her 200-mile run was to honor a fellow veteran battling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), something she has dealt with since she retired from the Marines in 2004. PTSD still affects her life each day, whether personally or in Hernandez’s work in the Veteran Treatment Court in Harris County, Texas. On average, 22 veterans commit suicide everyday, and that’s a statistic that is always on her mind. “I wanted to bring awareness to the stigma...

[SATIRE] U.S.—Somber members of the press offered their thoughts and prayers that someone would start some violence at the gun rights rally in Virginia today. Reporters expressed their grief and condolences as the violence they hyped has so far failed to materialize. "Nobody has so much as fired a shot. This is an unbelievable tragedy," said one teary-eyed MSNBC reporter, clearly caught up in the anguish of the moment. "It's tragic that we live in a country where reporters who are just minding their own business trying to push a narrative can have everything ripped away from them in an...