Free Republic

They reject government and 'envision sovereignty as the vehicle to a freedom that has yet to be experienced by the African Diaspora' A black liberation autonomous zone is forming in Austin, which is the Texas State Capitol. The developers of the city’s “sovereign citizen” collective reject state authority to “protect Black liberation and prosperity,” according to their published information. “On Sunday, February 14th, 400+1’s L1 Collective led an eleven mile car procession around the perimeter of what is now 400+1 protected territory, renaming the area Orisha Land, and rejecting the state’s authority within it,” the group has written on its...

In their desperation for a president they could manipulate and in her zeal to be FLOTUS, the Democrat Party and Jill Biden offered Joe Biden as a sacrificial lamb to gain power -- forcing the rest of us to watch, in real time, the disintegration of a human being suffering from dementia. As far as I’m concerned, this is elder abuse that ranks right up there with the criminal actions of Democrat governors in sending tens of thousands of seniors to their early graves via COVID. They can prop Joe up, but he increasingly stumbles in interviews, his public appearances...

A friend sent the following little missive over to me the morning after China Joe Biden had accused Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Tate Reeves of Mississippi of “Neanderthal thinking” after they ended their statewide orders on wearing masks and imposing occupancy limits on a wide variety of dining, drinking and service businesses: “Those of us who descend from Europe are 3 to 5 percent Neanderthal DNA. We should have a special protected status and get reparations in the form of quality cave art. Our ancestors were obliterated. I am tired of discrimination against Neanderthals.” Great parody of today’s...

Less than a year ago, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was a darling of the left over his “leadership” in managing the COVID pandemic in his state. Last April, his daily press conferences were covered in full by Fox News and the other more sycophantic media networks, coverage on par with President Trump’s daily briefings. None of the other 49 state governors’ press conferences received daily coverage by national media. In Colorado, Governor Polis’s press briefings were only shown on local news channels. Cuomo wrote a book called, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic and received literary acclaim....

Jerusalem Early Wednesday morning, 10 rockets struck the United States Al-Asad base in western Iraq’s Anbar province in another direct attack against American forces in Iraq. Coalition troops raced into shelters to wait out the attack. During the barrage, an American contractor embedded with U.S. forces suffered from a heart attack and shortly thereafter died. This was the first death of an American citizen inside Iraq since Joe Biden took office. The rocket attack, at least the fourth by Iran-backed forces in just over two weeks, confirms that America is quickly losing power to deter Iran from attacking its forces...

Ladies and Gentlemen of the world, we present to you: the 117th Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. This can’t be real. If it is, these people are mentally ill. (Video)

The media scrum framed the Trump impeachment circus, round II, as an "emotional" affair.Headlines homed in on the "emotion" surrounding the trial. "It Tears at Your Heart. Democrats Make an Emotional Case to Senators — and America — Against Trump," blared one of many hackneyed screamers, this one from Time.com.The case made by the managers “was both meticulous and emotional," came the repetitive refrain.Democrat Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland and a lead impeachment manager, sniffed "emotionally" as he related what to him was a heartbreaking tidbit: His (privileged) daughter expressed fear of visiting the Capitol again, presumably because of...

A local reporter in San Francisco was filming a segment on people breaking into cars on Wednesday, and was about to interview a man in the Twin Peaks area when they he was robbed at gunpoint. Before the interview could commence, a white car pulled up with four men in it, and three men got out and threatened them. According to the Daily Caller, Ford told local news the following: "The car came up here while we were about to do an interview, three guys jumped out. One had a gun and put [it] in my face and said, 'We’re...

SHANGHAI - Despite a high-profile visit to China by a team of international experts in January, the world is no closer to knowing the origins of COVID-19, according to one of the authors of an open letter calling for a new investigation into the pandemic. “At this point we are no further advanced than we were a year ago,” said Nikolai Petrovsky, an expert in vaccines at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and one of 26 global experts who signed the open letter, published on Thursday. In January, a team of scientists picked by the World Health Organization (WHO) visited...

Rand Paul accused of 'transphobic attack' in confirmation hearingPaul claimed that "most genital mutilation is not typically performed by force but, as WHO notes, by social convention." He then argued that "American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent their biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics." Facts First: Paul's analogy relies on a misunderstanding of gender affirmation treatments and misinformation from non-credible sources. In making his comparison, Paul draws on data from the American College of Pediatricians, a group that many health experts believe is on the wrong side of a number...

Why? Or, better yet, why now? The sequel never answers either question, nor does it deliver anything like the laughs generated by the 1988 original. It’s powered by some charming players and fits of inspiration which never coalesce into anything real. At its worst, it piles on the woke platitudes and reheats the better gags from the original film. Why bother?

The gothic flat where the Spice Girls famously shot the music video for their 1996 smash hit Wannabe has gone on sale for £11.5million. St Pancras Chambers Penthouse Apartment in London is a Grade I listed gothic building which was designed by George Gilbert Scott in 1873. Gilbert Scott is a renowned architect known for his work on the Albert Memorial and also the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station. The property, which has rarely featured on the market, is a triplex apartment which offers near to 6,000 sq ft of living space.

Stunning pictures show the astonishing moment a flock of starlings formed the shape of a giant bird over a lake in Ireland. Photographer James Crombie captured the murmuration over Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath on Tuesday evening. Breathtaking footage shows the starlings swooping and diving in unison as they formed the outline of a bird above the water.

When public policies have produced disastrous results, and when alternative policies have resulted in immediate, seemingly miraculous improvement, why would anyone want to go back to the earlier policies? Is there any reason to suppose that this time will be different? Not that I can see. The earlier policies -- a pullback from active policing and certain punishment, an open-handed welfare system providing income for single mothers -- were put in place in the 1960s, within living memory of some of us. The intentions were good. It was a time of high hopefulness that America's shameful history of racial discrimination...

When someone first does something he knows is wrong, he does it carefully, under the radar, because he fears getting caught. If there are no consequences, he repeats the act, without guilt – and if he’s actually feted for his wrongdoing, he will soon act with complete impunity. That’s what we’re seeing when it comes to Democrats erasing everything they dislike – and what they most dislike is America and any opposition to their beliefs. This week, Democrats brazenly canceled Dr. Seuss, Trump’s CPAC speech, and the Mallard Fillmore cartoon strip. In their own minds, they are unstoppable. SNIP If...

The Star Trek franchise is heading in a new direction on the big screen, with Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vasquez set to write a new, original Star Trek movie. Paramount Pictures has set up a blind script deal for Vasquez for her to write an original movie based on an idea she hatched, according to Deadline. J.J. Abrams will produce the movie through his Bad Robot Productions company, though it's unclear if he'll come aboard to direct as well.

"It is utterly embarrassing that "pay people enough to live" is a stance that's even up for debate," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently tweeted. "Override the parliamentarian and raise the wage. McD's workers in Denmark are paid $22/hr + 6 wks paid vacation. $15/hr is a deep compromise -- a big one, considering the phase in." The most obvious problem with Ocasio-Cortez's contention is that Denmark, like other Scandinavian nations, doesn't have a statutory minimum wage. Industries and workers engage in sector-by-sector salary negotiations, which might well undermine intra-industry competition, but which is a much better idea than the flat national-wage floor...

Supporters of the Duchess of Sussex are using the hashtags #TeamMeghan and #SussexSquad as they go up against Royal Family fans online under #TeamQueen. Royal watchers around the world have been reacting on Twitter this week to the war of words between Buckingham Palace in London and Meghan Markle in California. Some backing Meghan claim the palace 'timed their damage control so poorly any moron can see through it' ahead of the Oprah Winfrey interview on Sunday.

MSNBC host Joy Reid sparked outrage this week when she tweeted that conservatives would trade tax cuts to use the n-word. Reid's comments have been slammed for apparent hypocrisy after stirring up previous homophobic comments the embattled news host and political commentator has made. 'I'll say it again: people on the right would trade all the tax cuts for the ability to openly say the n-word like in 'the good old days',' Reid tweeted.

"That attack, that siege" of the Capitol, FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress, "was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it was behavior we at the FBI view as domestic terrorism." "Domestic terrorism," said Wray, echoing his boss. For what had been President-elect Joe Biden's reaction to the Capitol riot? "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It's that basic. It's that simple," said Biden. Yet, the phrase domestic terrorism conjures up events from our past far graver than a four-hours occupation of the Capitol. Nat Turner's rebellion. John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's...