Free Republic

When retired New York Deputy Fire Chief Jim Riches speaks about it, the anger and sadness in his voice is unmistakable. It's been nearly 20 years since his son Jimmy was among the 343 New York firefighters to die at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The 9/11 terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people, launched wars, and changed the world.But since the January 6 Capitol riot, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the building to disrupt certification of Joe Biden's election victory, some commentators and reporters have claimed it's not just on par...

An Arizona man who was dressed as Captain Moroni — a figure in the Book of Mormon — during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has been arrested. According to an FBI affidavit, Nathan Wayne Entrekin, 48, of Cottonwood, Arizona, “stood out from the crowd due to the outfit he chose to wear … in part because of the temperature, and in part because of the unique nature of the costume.” He was wearing what appears to be a “plus size Roman gladiator costume” sold online, according to the affidavit.

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Psalm 119Psalm 119[a]ט Teth 65 Do good to your servant according to your word, Lord. 66 Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I trust your commands. 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. 68 You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees. 69 Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep your precepts with all my heart. 70 Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in your law. 71 It was good for me to be afflicted...

At the behest of the Biden administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is supposedly clamping down on domestic extremism. Urging Americans to keep an eye on family members and friends for “mobilization to violence,” the FBI’s targets are homegrown violent extremists, also known as HVEs. In other words, the FBI wants Americans to spy on their friends and family. Such over-the-top rhetoric is obviously a response to national polling, showing that the American people are outraged by the violence on the streets of America and the Democrats’ “Defund the Police” agenda. Suddenly, the Biden administration is doing its best...

Against the backdrop of conflagration in South Africa, I offer positive commentary about the country of my birth. Do I need to provide a disclaimer before saying positive things about South Africa mid-riots? Probably—given that I’m the author of a scathing, 2011–dare I say prescient?– indictment of the political dispensation forced upon South Africa by the “Anglo-American Axis of Evil.” That dispensation is the "one man, one vote, one time” arrangement, to quote “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa”: "Democracy is especially dangerous in ethnically and racially divided societies, where majorities and minorities are rigidly...

Since I’m spending this week vacationing with my family in Newport Beach, I thought I’d talk to my son Cameron and let him do a little ranting. Cameron is 43. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two little girls, ages 3 and 5. His wife works full-time as a home loan processor and he has one of the toughest jobs in the world – stay-at-home dad. That means for the last 15 months Cameron has been the parent who’s had to deal the most with the unpredictable craziness of California’s oppressive and unpredictable war on COVID-19. He...

When I was a kid, I loved the connect-the-dots puzzles and connecting the sequence of numbers until a completed picture emerged. Leftists would most certainly have trouble with such activities, since they appear to be woefully inept at connecting the dots to the lousy conclusions reached by their failed ideologies. What do they think the end scenario will be from teaching racist CRT doctrine to children from pre-school through high school? What about the outcome of canceling fossil fuels to rely mainly on renewable energy? Are they connecting any dots to see the outcome of passing trillion-dollar budgets when the...

resident Joe Biden is, yet again, proving to be the most authoritarian executive in the United States since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This past week, Biden's administration informed Americans that it would initiate an 'information' based program that will involve both door-to-door based inquiries into citizens' decisions on whether or not to take the COVID-19 vaccine and to work with SMS carriers to text individuals about vaccine information. After suffering the effects of the pandemic-driven lockdown and mask mandates of the past year and a half, Biden and his administration are proposing yet another federal stomping on American privacy rights. The...

Novel Cold Fusion reactor with D supply from Ni-D layer on reaction metal layer with nano-mesh and with Metal Surface Potential Control Cold Fusion reactor with D supply from Ni-D layer on the backside of reaction metal layer with nano-mesh and with metal plate holder on the front side of the metal ----------------------------------------- SUMMARY It is proposed that Cold fusion in metal is caused by the formation of small D2 molecules with EDOs created by the compression of D2 at surface T sites of close-packed metal structures. However, the FPE mechanism is different from the mechanism of real cold fusion,...

"Freedom of speech is the air that any thinker breathes; it's the fuel that ignites the fire of an intellectual's thoughts." Raif Badawi dared to write such things in Saudi Arabia. And he exercised his own freedom of speech, asking questions about faith and challenging extremism in that country -- so he was imprisoned for apostasy for 10 years. He was flogged, although he's not yet received the 1,000 lashes he was sentenced to, because a doctor determined it was too much. He's been separated from his young family since his detention in 2014. His legal team has written of...

Unlikely. Just look at how this poll was done. Here are the biased numbers for the recent Economist-YouGov poll that gives Joe Biden a 49% approval rating. A first-year reporter could retrieve this information with ease, unless he were incompetent, lazy, or most likely biased. I guess most Dems are accustomed to living in such willful ignorance. They will swallow and pass along any talking point from the media elites if they are slanted against conservatives. The Economist–YouGov poll July 10–13, 2021 — 1,500 U.S. Adult Citizens Registered 2020 Vote Party ID Dem (324) Republican (235) Independent (260) Ninety-nine more...

“Football” is pandering. Football is pathetic. Football will say or do anything to chase down the very last potential viewer/customer. The National Football League (NFL) recently joined virtually every other American institution in lauding -- and marketing to — the LGBTQ Community during Pride Month in June. It did so by releasing a new 30-second commercial proudly proclaiming that “football is gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, bisexual and exciting.” The ad begins by stating “football is gay” to the sound of drums rolling and people cheering. (I’m not sure what Dick Butkus would have to say about this advertisement, but I...

The global pandemic, the ongoing cultural revolution, and the divisive politics of the 2020 election have revealed the extent to which the American republic has trended toward oligarchy. Throughout the pandemic, federal and state officials have determined which businesses would close, which would stay open, who must wear masks, and where they must wear them. Our ruling class decided what gatherings were permissible and what gatherings were impermissible. Our governmental and medical elites decided what drugs our doctors could prescribe for us and what drugs they could not. And they have made clear that the unvaccinated population will have fewer...

The Biden administration has discovered a back door into raising the effective minimum wage. Paying lucrative supplemental unemployment benefits, which is effectively subsidizing leisure, increases the opportunity cost of working and thereby places upward pressure on wages as employers seek to incentivize would-be employees to move off the couch and into the workforce. No minimum-wage legislation and political combat with the Republicans is required to implement this policy. The federal government need only keep the spigot open on supplemental unemployment benefits, and employers seeking to attract workers will have no choice but to increase the wages offered to compete. The...

The likely explanation is that among the current virus carriers, some 2,000 are schoolchildren, and half of them were fully vaccinated. Both groups are very unlikely to develop severe forms of the disease, even though it occasionally happens. At the moment, around 60% of the patients in serious conditions were vaccinated. "Percent of cases that turn critically ill is now 1.6%, compared to 4% at a similar stage in the 3rd wave when there were no vaccines," Prof. Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who advises the coronavirus cabinet, tweeted on Friday. He said that...

Editor's Note: This piece was authored by Garion Frankel.The fight against critical race theory (CRT) in classrooms is raging across America. Led by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo and Reason’s Corey DeAngelis, parents and students around the country are pushing against the academic practice, which teaches children that thanks to their skin color, they’re inherently evil. It’s racism in its most obvious form. Enter Randi Weingarten, a lawyer, longtime union executive, and the current president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Weingarten has argued that those forces pushing back against CRT are part of “radical circles” that seek to...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic socialist who for years stood at the edges of Senate Democratic policy debates, is now at the center of power and on the cusp of a major policy victory that will put his stamp on government spending and policy for years to come. Before his surprisingly successful 2016 Democratic primary campaign, Sanders for much of his legislative career in Congress was largely ignored by more moderate colleagues. At the weekly Senate Democratic caucus lunches, Sanders would routinely stand up to speak, and colleagues would often tune him out or wave him off with joking...

Why would any American hate America First policies? Why would American politicians despise America First? Why would someone born, raised, and rearing children in America not want America First? What is wrong with putting the needs, wants, security, and future of your own country first, ahead of others? Why would any American want to diminish the potential of their own country and thus its citizens and thus his family for the sake of elite globalists who ignore the average American at every turn? Why put the globalists' ambitions ahead of hardworking families who only want better for their own kids...

The column’s title struck you as click-bait, right? Or maybe you thought the Babylon Bee, Saturday Night Live, etc. somehow got their post and skit titles mixed up with Townhall’s, right? Well: Check this out, and remember that a snickering Stalinist Cuba sits prominently on the very UN Human Rights Council which the Biden team just invited. “Guns? What for?...to fight the government? The Cuban people don’t need guns nowadays.” – Fidel Castro during his very first speech upon entering Havana Jan. 8, 1959. Some guns in the hands of Cuban freedom-lovers would sure come in handy this week, as...

The federal effort by the Biden administration to reduce gun violence on the streets of Chicago will be ineffective if the local prosecutor continues to allow the release of murder and attempted murder suspects back onto the streets to wreak future havoc, according to a retired police sergeant. "What is needed are stricter laws and the enforcement of existing laws," retired Chicago police Sgt. Peter Koconis told Fox News. "Catch and release does not work. There has to be a penalty when these gang members are arrested for using or carrying a weapon." There were 101 murder suspects and 21...