Free Republic

If ever there was a year we needed Christmas, 2020 is that year. COVID-19, thousands of deaths, racial strife, massive election fraud that has unmasked deep corruption at all levels of government, moral cowardice from politicians, Chinese infiltration... But as bleak as 2020 is, America has seen years that were at least as bad. Christmas 1864 was a dreary one for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when he sat down to draft his poem Christmas Bells. He had been through personal anguish over the recent years. The nation was in the throes of a costly domestic conflict. The American Civil War would...

On this date in 1683, the commander who just months before had brought the Turkish army to the gates of Vienna was executed in Belgrade for losing one of the pivotal battles in European history. The Battle of Vienna saw the Ottoman Empire’s high tide and its last great bid to capture control of the strategic Danube city. Despite an army of well over 100,000 that had besieged a frightened garrison numbering fewer than 20,000 soldiers and civilians, Kara Mustafa Pasha had been unable to reduce the city, and then decisively beaten after the timely arrival of a 70,000-strong relief...

Joe Biden said that he’s running for president to ease the racial divisions of our time. He says he resolved to run after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, which was proven to be a false statement afterward. Joe Biden needs to stop talking about race. The subject is a tongue twister for Joe Biden, who bluntly says things that are off-color when talking about, well, color. In five decades of public service — including 36 years in the U.S. Senate — Biden has often seemed to be missing a sensitivity filter when race came up. Whether...

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II delivers her annual address in the Christmas Message to the Nation and Commonwealth.

Article II, Sec. 2 of the Constitution delegates to the President the power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” The pardon power embodies the idea that the President can show mercy. President Trump has wisely used this power already to grant pardons to many people, including well-known individuals such as Michael Flynn, Bernie Kerik, and Dinesh D’Souza. He also has used in cases of ‘ordinary’ citizens, such as Alice Johnson, who served twenty-one years of a life sentence for a minor role in a cocaine trafficking ring--her only criminal offense.

I did a Google search to find a recorded link to share. Google blocked all sources and put in pro Biden fact check messages. Pure propaganda.

BEIRUT: Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province. The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli toward the Masyaf area. It said Syrian air defense “confronted...

Like Sherlock Holmes' dog that didn't bark in the night, so goes in politics: Uncharacteristic behavior can turn out to be crucially significant -- uncharacteristic behavior in politics being defined as one demographic group unexpectedly trending one way when most of the electorate trends the other. Such behavior was the subject of The New York Times' graphic team's report headlined "Immigrant Neighborhoods Shifted Red as the Country Chose Blue." Readers scrolling down through the story encounter maps of metropolitan Chicago, Miami, Orlando, Houston, San Antonio, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, San Jose and Phoenix, plus the Rio Grande Valley, with...

More than 2 million Georgians have already voted in the state's twin Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections, where the Republican majority in the Senate is at stake. The latest early voting numbers released Thursday morning by state officials indicate that more than a quarter (26.7%) of all registered voters in Georgia have already cast a ballot in the two contests. More than 1.3 million Georgians have cast a ballot through early in-person voting at polling stations that have been open for a week and a half, with more than 720,000 casting an absentee ballot. With less than two weeks to...

So we made it to Christmas. It isn’t a normal Christmas by any means: no holiday parties with sloshed colleagues, no late Manhattan nights with red and green lights flickering on chilly streets, no large gatherings or intimacy with our elder kin. As one of the proud New Yorkers who has yet to move to Florida, I can pretty much say that all I want for Christmas is a bar that stays open past 10 p.m. Gov. Cuomo for well on 10 months has been doing his best John Lithgow impression, turning the most vibrant place in the world into...

Car bomb exploded 2nd ave Nashville tn

PEABODY, Mass. -- Police in Peabody, Massachusetts, are looking for a couple who slithered away with a snake worth $300 from a city pet store.The couple entered the Petco store around 4:30 p.m. Monday, police told The Salem News on Wednesday. **** Snake for Christmas.......

WASHINGTON, Monday, Dec. 24. Governor ANDREW, Senators DOOLITTLE and TRUMBULL, Representatives BURLINGAME and TAPPAN, and a number of other Senators and members of Congress, held a conference, yesterday, at the rooms of FRANCIS P. BLAIR, Sr., and unanimously agreed that the integrity of the Union should be preserved, though it cost millions of lives. Private information reports Gov. HOUSTON as making a great Union speech, in the face of threats, and eventually carrying with him the largest audience ever assembled in Texas. Prominent Republicans are moving here to secure HOUSTON a seat in the Cabinet, as he has indicated his...

Today is Christmas. It is, though, a very different sort of Christmas. Nine months after the world spun off of its axis and the COVID Internment of America (and much of the world) began, Doctor-In-Chief Anthony Fauci has made his pronouncement as to how Americans are to celebrate this holiday. In a word, they aren’t. Fauci the Infallible, the ever-unimpeachable Fauci, the Good Doctor par excellence has spoken.

Explanation: Orion always seems to come up sideways on northern winter evenings. Those familiar stars of the constellation of the Hunter are caught above the trees in this colorful night skyscape. Not a star at all but still visible to eye, the Great Nebula of Orion shines below the Hunter's belt stars. The camera's exposure reveals the stellar nursery's faint pinkish glow. Betelgeuse, giant star at Orion's shoulder, has the color of warm and cozy terrestrial lighting, but so does another familiar stellar giant, Aldebaran. Alpha star of the constellation Taurus the Bull, Aldebaran anchors the recognizable V-shape traced by...

I made a grave error this year in purchasing a gift for a family member. Since the advent of Covid and the restrictions placed on social contact, I decided to be a good sport and shop online this year for a gift. I made the mistake of ordering some overpriced pears from Harry and David (although the box is nice). But as always, no good deed will go unpunished. Now on every internet page I go to (except FR) there is this ad from H&D that flips and churns catching my eye. Ho, Ho, Ho, long will this last? A...

... Californians will barely notice most of the hundreds of new laws going into effect in 2021. But we've pulled out the most noteworthy, interesting and wide-reaching laws that will take effect in 2021. - Assembly Bill 685 ensures the right of employees to quickly learn if COVID exposure has occurred in the workplace. - After a number of high-profile deaths in police custody around the nation, California passed AB 1196, which prohibits police from using chokeholds and carotid holds. - As part of California’s continued incremental raising of the minimum wage, it will go up to $14 per hour...

Emergency services are responding to a massive explosion in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning. Residents and first responders are being told to leave the area due to possible car bombs. Local media reports that the initial blast came from an RV. There have been reports of gunfire before and after the explosion — as well as live ammo exploding inside of a vehicle that was ablaze.

As a world-class jazz double bassist, composer and band leader, Charles Mingus is one of the most celebrated figures in American music. He was well-known as a bon vivant and his larger than life physical stature towered over the bandstand and fellow musicians alike. His zeal for parties and drink were just as legendary as his sometimes caustic temperament that led him to occasionally punch fellow musicians and sometimes even lay into patrons. He was the Ron Artest of the jazz world—a brilliant artist that sometimes had trouble at the seams of life. But even The Angry Man of Jazz...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- With unexpectedly cold weather in the forecast and pandemic-related curfews in some places, Florida is about to have a Christmas unlike any other in recent memory, and it may involve falling iguanas. The National Weather Service earlier this week warned that South Florida could experience the coldest Christmas Day in 21 years. Morning lows on Saturday could drop into the low 30s and 40s degrees Fahrenheit, the weather service said. “ Brrr! Much colder temps expected for Christmas," the National Weather Service in Miami tweeted earlier this week. “Falling iguanas are possible." Because they are cold-blooded...