Free Republic

I’m writing from Texas, so I’ll try to finish this column before the electricity goes out. As you may have heard, we’ve had an unusually powerful winter storm down here and, in spite of the fact that every third household has a four-wheel-drive super-duty pickup truck, Texas has come to a standstill. When a little bit of ice settled on the freeway, a half a dozen people lost their lives in the ensuing 135-car pileup.

Columbia professor: I do heroin regularly for ‘work-life balance’ Carl Hart is a Columbia University professor of psychology and neuroscience. He chairs the psych department and has a fondness for heroin – not only as a subject of scholarly pursuit but also as a substance for personal use. At 54, the married father of three has snorted small amounts of heroin for as many as 10 days in a row and enjoyed it mightily – even if, as he recalls in his new book “Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear” (Penguin Press), he’s experienced mild...

How could this happen in a state that is the nation’s biggest energy producer and home to several of the world’s biggest energy companies? The disaster can be traced to mistakes by Texas’ leadership and faults created by decades of opposition to more regulations and preparation.

OUR WASHINGTON DISPATCHES. WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Feb. 20. THE PEACE CONFERENCE. In the Peace Conference to-day. JAMES C. SMITH, of New-York, made a strong speech against compromise. Several members say it was one of the best speeches yet made. He took nearly the same ground as that assumed by Mr. FIELD. The debate took place upon the proposition to incorporate a provision for a National Convention as an alternative clause in the pending proposition for adjustment of the national difficulties. An attempt will be made to-morrow morning to force a Vote. The result is doubtful. A proposition may then be made...

They both walked into a concealed carry class without knowing each other, but now, Wanetta Joseph and Tyrone Russell say they’re both survivors. Joseph and Russell say they heard a lot of shots. “It was a lot it was a lot like you could tell it was a gunfight. It was a gunfight, that’s all I knew,” the pair said. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office says an active shooter walked into the Jefferson Gun Outlet Saturday afternoon and started firing. Three people including the shooter were killed. Two others were injured. Joseph and Russell say they were upstairs in a...

SACRAMENTO - A group of Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation Friday to create a single-payer health care system to cover all Californians, immediately defining the biggest health policy debate of the year and putting enormous political pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Democratic governor faces the increasingly likely prospect of a Republican-driven recall election later this year. The single-payer bill adds to his political peril from the left if he doesn’t express support, and from the right if he does. State Assembly member Ash Kalra, author of AB 1400, said the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a broken health care system...

Since the Justice Department launched its nationwide manhunt to track down and arrest anyone involved with the Capitol breach on January 6, hundreds of perpetrators have been arrested. Most face misdemeanor charges for trespassing or disorderly conduct, but dozens are in jail and denied bond for the thoughtcrime of believing the 2020 presidential election wasn’t on the up-and-up. The acting U.S. attorney general overseeing the investigation promises to apprehend hundreds more, however, it’s been two weeks since authorities have arrested anyone in connection to the probe.

The Baltic eurozone state with a population about a third the size of London is now leading the EU in fintech with over 230 companies, according to the Invest Lithuania government agency One of the first to come after the 2016 Brexit referendum was London-based Revolut bank Invest Lithuania estimates that the sector employs more than 4,000 people in the country Thanks in part to Brexit, Lithuania is becoming a fintech hub as a growing number of UK-linked digital financial companies are getting licenses there so they can continue to operate in the European Union. The Baltic eurozone state with...

s there any political organization in history that likes losing as much as the Republican Party? Over the last several weeks, the saga of Neera Tanden has played out on the national stage. Joe Biden nominated the left-wing conspiracy theorist to head the Office of Management and Budget, one of the most powerful agencies in Washington (see Joe Biden Wants a Wild Conspiracy Theorist as OMB Head). For a time, her confirmation looked certain after the GOP lost both Senate run-offs in Georgia, but Joe Manchin (D-WV) blew that up recently by announcing he’d oppose her. That’s left Democrats scrambling,...

My RedState colleague Bonchie first reported on this story Friday. Members of the Oakley Union Elementary School Board of Trustees were engaged in a videoconference Board meeting on Wednesday last week, discussing various matters seemingly in preparation for a meeting of the Board open to the public that was to follow. The Board members were participating from their own homes, and after discussing various issues about how to work through the items on the agenda, there was a discussion about how the Board members reacted to criticism they were hearing from parents who want the schools to reopen to normal...

The new "chroniclers" of America's past would transform our history to paint the United States a systemically bigoted state founded on racism in 1619. The most fraudulent aspect of this dishonest scheme is that it fails to address the salient characteristic of slavery in the United States and Europe: the near elimination of slavery in the West by the mid-19th century. This means that slavery as an institution was carried on in Europe for about three centuries from the beginning of the Enlightenment and then, in the blink of a historical eye, banned and made illegal. Within less than a...

A billboard critical of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has dubbed her "Indiana Business Person of the Year" because of restrictions the state had imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Steve Swift, CEO of Swift Broadcasting Company, put up the graphic on a digital billboard that he owns near Interstate 69 and Interstate 80/90 toll roads in Angola, Indiana, according to The Detroit Free Press. When the billboard first appeared on Friday, it displayed the words "Indiana Chamber of Commerce" but the chamber later asked that the phrase be removed and it had not given permission to use its name. "The...

In Britain, soldiers and politicians who came out of the world wars with enhanced reputations were said by their peers to have “had a good war.” Similarly, in coronavirus America, some politicians have had a “good pandemic.” But no politician in the country turned in as Churchillian a performance over the past year as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo became a hero to Democrats across the country last spring, his stature on par with President Barack Obama, with live-streamed daily press briefings that projected steely resolve and paternal authority in the face of a deadly menace. The New York...

John Kerry has repeated his claim the upcoming COP26 talks have to produce results..."international talks this year are the “last, best hope” of avoiding catastrophic global heating". With his repeated last chance claims, John Kerry has added his name to the hilarious and very long list of last chances to save the world from climate change. The list stretches all the way back to the 1980s, so clearly some of the last chance claims were a little exaggerated.

On September 17, 1862, Corporal Henry Wilber of the 108th New York Volunteer Infantry was wounded, shot through the hand charging the "Sunken Road" near Antietam Creek, outside of the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. He was recovered from his wound in time to once again be even more seriously wounded on July 3, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during what became known as Picket’s Charge. Corporal Wilber also fought at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862, and at Chancellorsville in May of 1863. His unit was involved in nearly every major battle from its inception until the very end...

The Left has created a slew of terms such as “white guilt” and “white privilege” to collectively judge Americans by race. So is there actually systemic racism in our country? Carol Swain, Former Professor of Political Science and host of Be the People Podcast, and Candace Owens discuss.

“It’s not law, she’s going to phone the police over a policy.”... British supermarket Morrisons called the police on a disabled man who was medically exempt from wearing a face mask after attempting to make him wear a yellow sticker. Yes, really. The clip shows the man involved in a confrontation with a security guard and staff as they try to make him wear the sticker. The man calls them out by asking how a sticker could stop the spread of coronavirus. When he refuses to wear the sticker, he is asked to leave the store as staff claim they...

When he was talking about his daughter’s boyfriend, or making meatballs for the family dinner, or yukking it up with his brother on CNN, it was easy to forget Gov Cuomo’s prickly side. But when the criticism cascaded with allegations that his administration was covering up the number of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes, the shine began to wear off. The bully was back. To hear Cuomo — who faces a federal investigation over the crisis — tell the story, he’s just a Queens tough guy, forged in the outer borough fire of political and personal survival. But his detractors...

When God sent Moses to the children of Israel in the book of Exodus, He gave him miraculous signs to perform so that the people would believe that God truly sent him. In the same way, when Elijah the prophet spoke to his unbelieving nation, he called down fire from heaven to prove that God had really spoken through him. Yet Jesus said to His disciples that it was by our love for one another, not by our miracles, that the world would know that we were His disciples. Isn’t that striking?To be sure, signs, wonders, and miracles were and...

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON - THE IMPORTANCE AND ADVANTAGES OF PERSONAL WORK MORNING WORSHIP - THE WORD OF GOD, NOT BROKEN AND NOT BOUND – Part 1 SUNDAY EVENING MESSAGE - THE WORD OF GOD, NOT BROKEN AND NOT BOUND – Part 2