Free Republic

The U.S. government will spend more than half a million dollars to provide residents of a tiny, poverty-stricken African nation with condoms. The money, $700,000, will help fund a National Condom Strategy launched by the Ministry of Health in Eswatini, a landlocked south African country smaller than New Jersey. Until recently Eswatini was known as Swaziland but its tyrannical ruler, King Mswati III, changed it so the country could break with its colonial past. Estwatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy and most of its population of about 1.4 million lives in poverty with the world’s highest rate of AIDS and...

The Pentagon is bolstering the number of warships the Navy will seek in its fiscal 2021 budget request after the White House complained an initial proposal was too low to meet President Donald Trump’s long-term target, according to officials. In the budget proposal expected Monday, the Navy will request funding for eight ships, up from seven in a draft service request in mid-December. The new request for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 includes two DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers built by General Dynamics Corp., one more than the service proposed seeking in the December draft.

One of the most remarkable things seen from the American political landscape since talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh announced he has been diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer has been the outpouring of genuine concern and support. A lack of compassion and downright vile behavior from many on the left has also been noteworthy. ---SNIP--- The remark did not sit well with Limbaugh’s longtime producer, Bo Snerdley, a black man who has spent three decades with Limbaugh.

impeachment was a disgrace

To commemorate MLK Day, a Minnesota college hosted a plethora of events aimed at helping white students confront their alleged "racist tendencies." One such event accused white students of harboring “a nasty little racist inside them.” Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota held an event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day designed exclusively for white students. The event, titled “How to Embrace Your Inner Racist: A Session for White People” was designed to help attendees “recognize and acknowledge that there is a nasty little racist inside them,” according to a description found on the college's website. The session also aimed to...

It happens so fast. A brief thought, a whisper really, and before I know it, I’m all twisted in knots. My husband mentions that for the next three months he’ll be out of town on business more than he is home. I look at the dates on the calendar and add them up in my head. My eyes zero in on the longest business trip of them all, and I feel a weight press down on me. I grow weary and exhausted as though I’ve just run a mile.... Fear feeds on forgetfulness. It thrives on our spiritual amnesia, our...

A Milwaukee Public Schools teacher was placed on leave Wednesday for tweeting that he hopes conservative talk show pundit Rush Limbaugh dies a painful death from cancer. Travis Sarandos, who teaches English at Milwaukee High School of the Arts, has since deleted his Twitter account, @travis_MKE. Replying to a different tweet expressing hope that Limbaugh would recover and begin advocating for affordable health care, Sarandos wrote: "limbaugh absolutely should have to suffer from cancer. it's awesome that he's dying, and hopefully it is as quick as it is painful." It drew a small firestorm after conservative radio host Mark Belling...

Can a qualified D voter write in a name (DJT, Schiff, etc) in the March 17 presidential primary election?

A man has been charged after a five-year-old girl was allegedly raped on the premises of the US embassy in Delhi. The 25-year-old was arrested at the high-security mission in the Indian capital on Sunday after the girl’s family complained of the sexual assault, which allegedly took place on Saturday at the living quarters for local housekeeping staff , the investigating officer, Yogesh Kumar, told AFP on Thursday. Kumar said preliminary medical tests confirmed the girl had been raped. The man was charged under child rape laws, which carry the death penalty. The sprawling diplomatic compound is one of the...

What is it? A new football league owned by Vince McMahon, the WwE guy. I think Trump body slammed him once. Actually it's not exactly new, see it had one season way back in 2001 and went belly up, but it's back and this time, it's personal. 10 week season kicks off this weekend. Top two teams in each conference advance to the playoffs. What are the teams and their head coaches? Western Conference Dallas Renegades, Bob Stoops Houston Roughnecks, June Jones Los Angeles Wildcats, Winston Moss Seattle Dragons, Jim Zorn Eastern Conference DC Defenders, Pep Hamilton New York...

While governor of Massachusetts, Romney wrestled his conscience over religious and moral issues like abortion and homosexual marriage and even though his Faith (assuming he believes in the bible) teaches otherwise, he found a way to personally justify both. In fact, he admitted that he was in favor of abortion for most of his adult life. His conscience allowed him to become pro-life only after it also allowed him to switch most of his long-held principles from liberal to conservative so he could run for president as a republican. I think Mitt's conscience works for the other side. Expediency trumps...

Imma gonna try to break all this shiz down for you, because the comments I’m seeing on my Facebook feed are ignorant and annoying. And to be honest, I was already pretty annoyed today, and really not in the mood to write, and then I saw all these comments which made me actually have to go Google this show and spend 14 minutes of my life watching something I really have no interest in, because no offense whatsoever but I’d probably rather read Rumi and listen to Indigo Girls or Everclear. But everyone was freaking out so much I thought...

Von Drehle, the Washington Post’s most insightful liberal columnist in my view, is worried. He explains why in his latest column, perhaps the most perceptive I’ve seen about the SOTU speech: But no previous address so cunningly adapted the ancient ritual of a formal speech to the visceral medium of television. A former TV star himself, Trump understands that people don’t just listen to what the president says. They also watch the reactions of the people in the room. He engineered the speech to force his opponents to react in potentially self-defeating ways. Some examples. Rather than give the usual...

30,811 confirmed cases worldwide, including 635 fatalities.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot a man in the face who tried to intervene in a deportation arrest in Brooklyn Thursday morning. It happened on 12th Street in the Gravesend section just before 8:15 a.m. Authorities say the on-duty ICE agent fired his weapon while trying to serve a deportation order to Gaspar Avendano Hernandez. As the officers attempted to detain Avendano Hernandez, they apparently got into a scuffle with his girlfriend's son, Eric Cruz. The agent fired his gun, hitting the 26-year-old Cruz in the face. He suffered non-life threatening injuries and was taken to Maimonides...

Long before the coronavirus made international headlines, China’s Communist Party, which rules the country with unchallenged authority, had an image problem. Image has always been a key element of Beijing’s plan to rise to global greatness. It has worked assiduously to carve a reputation as an unstoppable power wading well into the midst of world affairs. Today, however, that carefully crafted image is badly tattered. It’s worse than it was just one year ago when nations that eagerly participated in China’s Belt and Road Initiative began to realize that Chinese “aid” was a two-edged sword. No one has done more...

VIDEO [25:02]

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is launching a five-city tour in Texas on Monday, one week after finishing third in the Iowa Caucus, NBC News reports.

Top Republicans on two key House committees on Thursday condemned the company that built the smartphone app used by the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) to tabulate votes during the Iowa caucuses. Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republicans on the House Administration and Homeland Security Committees, the two House committees with jurisdiction over election security, sent a letter to Shadow CEO Gerard Niemira expressing “grave concern” over the app his company built. "In order for democracy to work, Americans must believe the results of their elections, and caucuses, are rock-solid and secure beyond a shadow of...

Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) is scheduling a protest outside the New Hampshire venue where CNN is hosting town halls ahead of the state’s primary next week, after Gabbard was excluded from the two-night lineup — despite out-polling townhall guests Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, and Deval Patrick in New Hampshire. “This attempt to silence Tulsi is bigger than one person — it’s our right as voters to hear from ALL the candidates, and to have our voices represented. No institution should be allowed to get away with censoring democracy: That’s why we’re standing up to CNN on Wednesday, February 5th,...