Free Republic

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Victoria Cobb, President of The Family Foundation. Phyllis Schlafly was right when she warned against The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution. One woman predicted the ERA’s dire consequences – and nearly single-handedly led the revolution to stop it. The ERA contains seemingly innocuous language about equal rights for women, however, it would result in dangerous consequences, including enshrining a Constitutional right to an abortion, up until the moment of birth, and funded by taxpayers.When the ERA currently being considered by Congress was first introduced in 1972, few people were thinking about...

Former Illinois Governor Blagojevich says he was a 'political prisoner'; Matt Finn reports from Chicago. #FoxNews

Last week I came out as a 2016 supporter of Hillary Clinton - and a 2020 supporter of Bernie Sanders. Four years ago, I was excited about electing a woman president. I admired Secretary Clinton’s experience, and I thought she was the unbeatable candidate in the race. While I loved what Bernie was saying, I found it hard to believe at the time that he could get elected. He seemed almost too good to be true. But hindsight is 2020. Donald Trump won for a number of reasons we all can name - from the Russians to James Comey to...

A group of hackers has managed to trick Tesla’s first-generation Autopilot into accelerating from 35 to 85 mph with a modified speed limit sign that humans would be able to read correctly. Hackers at McAfee Advanced Threat Research conducted the experiment. Ultimately, they were able to make a Tesla vehicle on Autopilot accelerate by 50 mph over the limit: The ultimate finding here is that we were able to achieve the original goal. By making a tiny sticker-based modification to our speed limit sign, we were able to cause a targeted misclassification of the MobilEye camera on a Tesla and...

The article published on 3 February criticised the country's response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The Chinese foreign ministry said it had asked the newspaper to apologise several times but it had declined. The newspaper said the journalists - who had not written the opinion piece - were given five days to leave China. China's decision came a day after the US State Department tightened rules on Chinese state media organisations operating in the US, classifying them as foreign missions. It told five outlets including state-run Xinhua news agency and the China Global Television Network that they had to submit...

An attorney for Julian Assange alleged in court Wednesday that President Trump offered a pardon to Julian Assange if he would deny any Russian involvement in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack in 2016. Edward Fitzgerald, Assange's lawyer, said in a London court that Trump's message had been passed on to Assange by former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). Fitzgerald said a statement made by Jennifer Robinson, another lawyer for Assange, shows "Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange... said Russia...

Key fundraisers are jumping ship from Joe Biden’s struggling presidential campaign to instead support Mike Bloomberg’s ascending candidacy. The development comes amid growing concerns within Biden’s affluent donor network that the former vice president is struggling to convince voters that he can defeat Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, for the Democratic nomination. The financiers are also impressed with Bloomberg’s self-funded operation. Jon Henes, a partner at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, has signaled to friends that he is shifting his allegiance from Biden’s campaign to Bloomberg’s bid to take on President Donald Trump, according to people with...

Lt. General Charles "Chuck" Pitman passed away this past Thursday at age 84. His career spanned over 40 years, including three combat tours in Vietnam. He also was involved in Operation Eagle Claw, the attempted rescue of the American hostages in Tehran in 1980. He commanded an Air Wing and was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Marine Corps Aviation. He earned the Silver Star, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. But for all his achievements in uniform, Pitman is better known for ignoring military protocol and breaking a bunch of regulations so he could...

Federal officials have arrested a Mexican citizen for allegedly acting on behalf of a Russian agent who recruited him to collect information about the U.S. government and met repeatedly with him in Moscow. Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes and his wife were about to board a plane back to their native Mexico from Miami on Sunday, when a customs official asked to inspect their phones. The official looked in a file of recently deleted images on the phone of Fuentes’s wife and found a close-up photograph of a license plate. The plate belonged to the vehicle of a U.S. government source,...

Officials want to know but predictions vary wildly, from now to after hundreds of millions of people are infected.Coronavirus infections in China continue to swell by thousands a day, prompting epidemiologists to estimate when the outbreak will peak. Some suggest the climax, when the number of new infections in a single day reaches its highest point, will happen any time now. Others say that it is months away and that the virus will infect millions — or in one estimate hundreds of millions — of people first. Public health officials want to know roughly when the peak will be —...

Joe Biden unloaded on Democratic presidential rival Mike Bloomberg on Wednesday after the former New York City mayor released campaign ads seeking to tie himself to former President Obama. Biden, who has repeatedly underscored his time serving as Obama’s vice president, hinted he would bring up Bloomberg’s past criticism of Obama when the two Democratic candidates meet in Las Vegas for Wednesday's primary debate. “Welcome to the debates, Mike. We have a lot to catch up on about Barack Obama’s record,” Biden tweeted. SNIP Joe Biden Bloomberg Tweet

A man who calls himself “Philly Jesus” was kicked out of the installation mass for new Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Perez at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on Tuesday. Michael Dennis Grant says he was promptly escorted off the property in handcuffs after he made his way through the sea of people and up to the speakers. Officers told him he had to leave, which he refused, saying he is a citizen expressing his freedom of religion. Grant says he attends mass at the cathedral all the time and believes he was targeted because of how he was...

Britain announced an immigration policy Wednesday that would prevent unskilled migrants from entering the country, requiring migrants to be English-speaking and have a job. Home Secretary Priti Patel said the new policy will make it easier for “the brightest and the best from around the world” to enter the country, calling it a “historic moment for the whole country.” The plan, which is intended to go into effect Jan. 1, 2021, aims to reduce the country’s reliance on “low-skilled” migrants and push companies to develop technology and automation. It is encouraging firms to recruit foreigners “with greatest talents,” such as...

Are popular songs today happier or sadder than they were 50 years ago? In recent years, the availability of large digital datasets online and the relative ease of processing them means that we can now give precise and informed answers to questions such as this. A straightforward way to measure the emotional content of a text is just to count how many emotion words are present. How many times are negative-emotion words – ‘pain’, ‘hate’ or ‘sorrow’ – used? How many times are words associated with positive emotions – ‘love’, ‘joy’ or ‘happy’ – used? As simple as it sounds,...

The Prince of Wales has issued a stark warning that humans have just ten years left to save the planet. “We really do have to pull our fingers out now because the theory is we have got this decade left,” he declared. Prince Charles was marking the 50th anniversary of a landmark speech he made on the environment by calling for nature to be put back at the center of modern life. In 1970, he had warned about the problems of plastic waste, chemicals being discharged into rivers and air pollution caused by factories, cars and planes. This was regarded...

Bernie Sanders’ press secretary on Wednesday compared demands for him to release his medical records to the “birther” smears against former President Barack Obama, drawing strong backlash. The Democratic Vermont senator, 78, balked earlier this month at releasing his medical records despite suffering a campaign-trail heart attack in October 2019. Top spokeswoman Briahna Joy Gray doubled down in a CNN interview on Wednesday, insisting that the onus is on Sanders only to be as forthcoming as the rest of the 2020 Democratic field. “I think the American people deserve to know exactly as much as every other candidate has released...

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg slammed President Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh at a CNN town hall Tuesday night. Last week, Limbaugh came under fire for making homophobic comments about Buttigieg and his marriage, something he has said he won’t apologize for, according to Limbaugh, because Trump told him not to. But between Limbaugh’s comments and Trump telling the conservative radio host not to apologize, Trump said he’d vote for a gay presidential candidate, and Buttigieg isn’t buying the contradictory stories. Asked if he’d take Trump at his word about voting for a gay candidate, Buttigieg responded, “Well, not if...

1.Blonde: What does IDK stand for? Brunette: I don’t know Blonde: Why doesn’t anyone know! 2.Why can't a blonde dial 911? She can't find the eleven. 3.How come it takes so long to build a blonde snowman? Because you have to hollow out the head. 4.What did the blonde say when she saw the Cheerios box? "Omg, donut seeds!" 5.Two blondes fell down a hole. One said, 'It’s dark in here isn’t it?' The other replied, 'I don’t know; I can’t see.' 6.What can strike a blonde without her even knowing it? A thought. 7.Why did the blonde stare at...

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) recently told a progressive audience at Howard University that, “Public transit should be free.” This is just the latest call for free transit; the issue has been bubbling up around the country in the past few months, started in large part by some misreporting of events in Kansas City, Missouri. ... A 2002 study authored by Jennifer Perone and Joel Volinski of the Center for Urban Transportation Research concluded: "Based upon the findings of this synthesis, it is concluded that a fare-free policy might be appropriate for smaller transit systems in certain communities, but is ill-advised...

Von Drehle has taken the trouble to watch Bloomberg’s performances in debates held in 2001, 2005, and 2009 when he was running for mayor of New York City. Perhaps Bloomberg has lost a step or two in the more than 10 years since his last encounter. . .Based on the record, though, expect to see a disciplined, efficient debater. Bloomberg doesn’t swing for the fences. To borrow from another sport, he’d rather jab than throw haymakers. He never looks as though he’s shuffling through a mental file marked “zingers,” but he’s deadly with the subtle eyeroll. Bloomberg’s style projects the...