Free Republic

“Complete transformations” happen so fast these days that it is helpful to set Thursdays aside to recall the roots of some of today’s popular technologies and ideas.The Origin of Texting DevicesFor example, few people today know the proper way to set a formal dinner table.The correct placement of the texting device is below and slightly to the left of the butter plate.And it seems that every decade or so people forget that really bad ideas create bubbles: that result in a really bad economic downturn when they burst. Yet they continue to fall for really bad ideas.Just a few random...

I went to my radiation and chemo treatments scared to death. Good old Greg Allen drove me there and back and I will give him a gold star for his efforts. I had a lot of pain holding my arms back while in the infernal radiation machine that whirled about me shooting left over parts of the Little Boy bomb at my cancer. Yet the good meds the doc gave me kicked in and the pain did not last very long after I got out the radiation's grip and put my arms down. Then 30 minutes later I was in...

Pacific Gas & Electric worker Juan R. Cavazos testified Tuesday that he knew something wasn’t right when accused killer Kori Ali Muhammad slowly walked past his truck, staring at his fellow PG&E employee Zackary Randalls.

(Posted on Facebook last time and after a good sleep I wanted to say this to all the FReepers who prayed for me.) I went to my radiation and chemo treatments scared to death. Good old Greg Allen drove me there and back and I will give him a gold star for his efforts. I had a lot of pain holding my arms back while in the infernal radiation machine that whirled about me shooting left over parts of the Little Boy bomb at my cancer. Yet the good meds the doc gave me kicked in and the pain did...

RALEIGH, N.C. — A man who gave a fiery speech for gun rights two years ago in Greensboro won the Republican primary in North Carolina’s lieutenant governor’s race Tuesday night. Mark Robinson, who was seeking his first elected office, topped eight other candidates, likely winning the primary without a runoff and shocking pundits. He spent less than other candidates – one a state senator who put half a million dollars into his own campaign – and he didn’t have the statewide platform or political experience of others. “We’re not pretentious. I’m not spreading a political message. I’m spreading a message...

There’s too much power vested in nine people in black robes. It only takes five justices, though, to make decisions that impact generations. And they’ve been Supremely wrong, repeatedly. In Dred Scott vs. Sanford, the Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens and, therefore, not afforded constitutional rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1875, both written and passed solely by Republicans, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In Plessy v. Ferguson, despite the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th and 15th), an arrogant Supreme Court affirmed codified racial discrimination in what should be called Separate and Unequal. In Minor v....

A gruesome WWII photo album made from the skin of Nazi death camp victims has been found at a bric-a-brac antiques market in Poland. The battered WWII album was handed over to staff at the Auschwitz Memorial Museum after the buyer noticed the cover had 'a tattoo, human hair and a bad smell'. Museum experts have now analysed the album's cover and binding and say it is likely that the skin came from an inmate murdered at the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, in Germany. They added that it was 'without doubt proof of a crime against humanity.'

HAMMOND - - Threatening the president will get you prison time, even if you were more than 100 miles away when you did it. U.S. District Court Judge Philip Simon on Tuesday imposed a 30-month sentence on Steffon Gonzalez, 21, of Hobart, who pleaded guilty to posting threatening messages from his home on Facebook against President Trump earlier this spring. But if Gonzalez had been convicted at trial, he would have faced a maximum penalty of five years for his threats and an additional 20 years for trying to obstruct the federal investigation of his threats by telling his girlfriend...

The broadcast and cable networks were fairly lackluster on Tuesday night and early Wednesday during their Super Tuesday coverage, in large part due to former Vice President Joe Biden’s upsets over socialist Bernie Sanders. But at 3:31 a.m. Eastern, CNN spent almost eight minutes bashing Democratic primary voters as sexist heathens for not supporting Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). CNN Tonight host Don Lemon set the table, fretting that there were all these “women and their influence or really sort of the lack of influence in this election” despite them being “very strong, very powerful, [and] very smart.”

The liberal media is full of stories about how President Donald Trump has been supposedly ineffective in combating the spread of coronavirus. At the forefront of these attacks is the New York Times which actually published a column by their opinion writer, Gail Collins, calling the viral disease "Trumpvirus." Well, Gail Collins, meet your own science writer at the Times, Donald G. McNeil, Jr., who countered the notion of an ineffective Trump with an analysis on Friday, "To Take On the Coronavirus, Go Medieval on It." The subtitle reveals that the early travel restrictions imposed by Trump have had a...

Intensifying its enforcement in so-called sanctuary cities across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun 24-hour-a-day surveillance operations around the homes and workplaces of undocumented immigrants. The agency plans to deploy hundreds of additional officers in unmarked cars in the coming weeks to increase arrests in cities where local law enforcement agencies do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. ICE leadership has requested at least 500 special agents who normally conduct long-term investigations into dangerous criminals and traffickers to join the enhanced arrest campaign rolling out in sanctuary cities, according to an internal email reviewed by The New York...

Yes, Democrats are divided over Bernie Sanders' revolution versus Joe Biden's restoration of status quo Obama. Yes, they are divided over what that means in terms of policy, like Sanders' Medicare for All versus Biden's tweaked Obamacare. But there is a deeper cultural gap behind the Bernie-Biden battle. And it will not be resolved by the primary fight, and perhaps not even by November's election. Some small indicators: Biden rallies often begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. It's a brief ritual that seems so basic it might not stand out in anyone's memory. But it's not done at Sanders events....

Residents of a Washington county where 44 people have tested positive for coronavirus and nine people have died are being advised to work from home and schools are shutting down to avoid possible exposure to the killer strain. Eleven people in the U.S. have died from coronavirus, and 164 people have tested positive nationwide. Washington state has been at the epicenter of the outbreak, with 44 cases and 10 deaths.

Pope Francis Thursday appointed Bishop Gregory Hartmayer of Savannah to be the next archbishop of Atlanta, Georgia. Hartmayer is a member of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual and has been bishop of Savannah since 2011. In Atlanta, Hartmayer follows Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who was appointed to head the Archdiocese of Washington in early 2019, after leading the Georgia archdiocese for almost 15 years. The Archdiocese of Atlanta covers 21,445 square miles in the northern half of Georgia. The archdiocese has over 100 parishes and serves around 1.2 million Catholics, according to 2018 stats. It is also the metropolitan see...

Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday on MSNBC that President Donald Trump “risked his presidency” because he did not want to face him in the general election. Biden was referencing the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives’ articles of impeachment against Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, which were voted down by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Democrats can complain that their presidential race has come down to a 77 year-old white man, Joe Biden, against a 78 year-old white man, Bernie Sanders. But that is what has happened. Now, after the departure of Michael Bloomberg Wednesday morning, what is needed is for the last remaining also-ran -- Elizabeth Warren -- to quit the race. A simple, clarified Biden-Bernie contest is the only way to settle the fundamental conflict that has plagued Democrats through the last two presidential nominating cycles. Democrats once crowed about having the "most diverse field" in presidential history. There were African Americans —...

Morning "Let us not sleep, as do others." 1 Thessalonians 5:6 There are many ways of promoting Christian wakefulness. Among the rest, let me strongly advise Christians to converse together concerning the ways of the Lord. Christian and Hopeful, as they journeyed towards the Celestial City, said to themselves, "To prevent drowsiness in this place, let us fall into good discourse." Christian enquired, "Brother, where shall we begin?" And Hopeful answered, "Where God began with us." Then Christian sang this song-- "When saints do sleepy grow, let them come hither, And hear how these two pilgrims talk together; Yea, let...

And then there were two…and a couple of stragglers. As of this writing, the remaining Democrats running for president are Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard. That’s it, that’s the best one of the two major political parties in the United States in 2020 could come up with. Of course, the only criteria Democrats have for their candidate is “someone who can beat Donald Trump.” That’s an interesting bar for people who claim to care about the country. They don’t give a damn who their candidate is, what they want to do, or even if they have...

I want Bernie Sanders to thrive all the way to the Democrat’s convention in Milwaukee. I actively root for him. Not just for simple chaos or political giggles, though there’s some of that. No, I want Bernie to secure his party’s nomination so we can all stop pretending. There’s no such thing as a moderate Democrat. This makes my Never Trump, Jeb! voting, Chamber of Commerce friends angry. “He’s a socialist! He’s said glowing things about communist regimes! How dare you – as a conservative – cheer the likes of Sanders?!” Oh really? How dare you – as a conservative...

If drugs aren’t stopped along the U.S.–Mexico border in Arizona’s remote desert, chances are, a large proportion will end up traveling through Pinal County on its way to Phoenix, a major trafficking hub. Around 40 percent of illicit drugs enter the United States through Arizona, said Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. Hard narcotics—such as heroin, methamphetamines, and fentanyl—are usually hidden in vehicles and driven through one of Arizona’s seven ports of entry along its border, while marijuana has traditionally been backpacked through the desert between border crossings. In the past few years, Mexican drug cartels have been flooding the United...