Free Republic

Like many flags championed by the Patriot, Constitutionalist and Second Amendment movements, the Bennington Flag is older than the Constitution itself. As the “76” in the canton probably gives away, the flag dates back to the revolutionary period, from the Battle of Bennington in 1777. The battle didn’t actually take place in Bennington, Vermont, but rather about 10 miles away in what is now Upstate New York. In some ways, the flag is easy to ignore. It looks much like the more iconic Betsy Ross Flag, but there are several crucial differences. First, there is the “76” in the canton....

Facebook says it has banned the Taliban and all content supporting it from its platforms as it considers the group to be a terrorist organisation. The company says it has a dedicated team of Afghan experts to monitor and remove content linked to the group. For years, the Taliban has used social media to spread its messages. Its rapid takeover of Afghanistan raises fresh challenges for technology firms on how to deal with content related to the group. "The Taliban is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under US law and we have banned them from our services under our Dangerous...

They are the second-largest land mammal and an endangered species with a near-threatened status. To save white rhinos from extinction, a zoo in Taiwan is preparing to send a young female southern white rhinoceros, called Emma, to Japan where they hope she will breed. "We currently count only around 18,000 of the white rhinoceros species in the world right now, they are on the edge of being extinct," said Tony Liang, Leofoo Village, Manager of Central Recreation and Entertainment.

The 16-year-old boy who suffered a cardiac arrest six days after receiving his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine is “recovering steadily” and is undergoing inpatient rehabilitation, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Monday (Aug 16). "He is making good progress and can perform his activities of daily living without assistance," said the ministry in a press release. “He will likely be discharged in the coming weeks, but will likely require outpatient rehabilitation for some time before he can return to school and resume other activities," it added.

Amazingly fast work. Not really funny, but laughter is a form of defiance.

President Joe Biden’s administration has approved a significant and permanent increase in the levels of food aid available to needy families — the largest single increase in the program’s history. Starting in October, average benefits for food stamps — officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will rise more than 25 percent above pre-pandemic levels. The increased assistance will be available indefinitely to all 42 million SNAP beneficiaries. The increase coincides with the end of a 15 percent boost in SNAP benefits that was ordered as a pandemic protection measure. That benefit expires at the end...

(SNIP) It began with individual outposts in rural areas where starving and ammunition-depleted soldiers and police units were surrounded by Taliban fighters and promised safe passage if they surrendered and left behind their equipment, slowly giving the insurgents more and more control of roads, then entire districts. As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food. But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces — which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just...

Former President George W. Bush on Monday urged President Joe Biden to “cut the red tape” and allow for the swift evacuation of Afghan refugees following the Taliban’s takeover of the country. Responding to the fall of Afghanistan’s US-backed government, Bush said the Afghans “at the greatest risk are the same ones who have been on the forefront of progress inside their nation.” The costly US-led war in Afghanistan began just shy of 20 years ago after the 9/11 attack while Bush was president. Bush, in his Monday statement, noted Biden has promised to evacuate the Afghans who assisted Americans...

....In recent weeks my thoughts have been roiled by a series of questions that now I feel compelled to put down in writing. These are root questions about the nature of what I am calling the Counter-Revolution ― an organized and growing network of people nationwide increasingly willing to push back against the revolutionary tide of Fascism and the “Woke” New Faith-Ideology. What is fascinating about the Counter-Revolution is the surprising political breadth of the people that have been brought together under its tent of opposition. Classic liberals, conservatives, and libertarians; social conservatives, rationalist humanists and atheists; Christians, Jews, Muslims,...

The body of an Afghan so desperate to escape the country hours after Kabul fell to the Taliban was found in the landing gear of an American C-17 transport aircraft hours after it hastily took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The body in the aircraft’s landing gear has made it temporarily inoperable, the sources said. The U.S. resumed operations out of the airport late Monday, allowing C-17s carrying Marines and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to land in the country, according to Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the Joint Staff’s deputy...

A missing link in strategies to contain China is Indonesia the fourth biggest country in the world. It is a very conservative God-fearing young nation with a keen appreciation of freedom. Who agrees?

National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that raising concerns over COVID-19 cases among migrates at the U.S.-Mexico border is a “distraction.” In a video, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said, “Whatever variance are around the world, they are coming across that southern border, so he’s not shutting down the virus. He’s helping to facilitate it in our country.” Anchor Chris Wallace said, “You talk about dealing with the science, dealing with facts, I’m going to ask you about that. Parts of Texas, the positivity rate for COVID among some of...

One hundred years ago today, Leo M. Frank was lynched to an oak tree at Marietta — one of the most notorious mob murders in American history. Methodically extracted hours before from the Midgeville State Penitentiary by an Ocean’s Eleven-style team of coordinated professionals, Frank’s murder was as shocking in 1915 as it reads in retrospect. The well-heeled Jewish Yankee was factory superintendent at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta when a 13-year-old girl in his employ was discovered in the factory’s basement — throttled and apparently raped. That was in 1913; for the ensuing two years, the prosecution of...

you’re planning a visit to a national park, you’ll need to pack a mask — even if you’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19. The National Park Service said Monday all tourists and employees will be required to wear masks where they are crowds — both indoors and outdoors. The mask mandate comes as the delta variant drives COVID-19 cases across the U.S. and wearing masks is required regardless of vaccination status or the level of community transmission. It’ll be in effect until further notice. “Visitors to national parks are coming from locations across the country, if not across the world,” National...

Forensic scientists have for the first time shown that DNA can be recovered from the surface of capsules after just 15 seconds of contact by drug manufacturers and dealers—making it possible for law enforcement agencies to track down criminal syndicates around the world. In a new study published in Forensic Science International: Genetics, Flinders University researchers have demonstrated that DNA from criminals who may have handled the capsules during production, assembly and distribution of illegal drugs can be identified if matched to a profile of a suspect, or one already on a DNA database. Ph.D. candidate Amy Griffin from the...

On Sept. 23, 2020, McKenzie K. Davis, a lobbyist with the Success Group, registered to lobby the administration of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on “covid response.” The timing is curious because only six weeks earlier, federal authorities announced they’d arrested then-Speaker Larry Householder and four associates in what they said was “likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme ever in the state of Ohio.” Also implicated in the corrupt scheme was the company on whose behalf Davis had registered to lobby: Akron-based FirstEnergy. Davis’s ties to the bribery scheme, as first reported by the Energy and Policy Institute, run deeper...

In a withering critique of the Bush administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday accused the president of betraying the country by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. ''He betrayed this country!'' Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. ''He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.'' The speech had several hundred Democrats roaring their approval for Mr. Gore, the party's 2000...

- 69.3% of Americans Disapprove of #Biden’s handling of #Afghanistan military operations - according to @trafalgar_group & @COSProject #Poll of likely ‘22 voters conducted 8/14-8/15 See Report: http://thetrafalgargroup.org/news/

Australia sends 250 troops for rescue mission but ex-defence force chief says ‘we’ve just left it far too late’ The Australian government has been accused of waiting far too long to organise a military evacuation mission to Afghanistan, as it sends 250 defence force personnel to the region in a last-ditch bid to help people flee the Taliban. Amid shock at the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the Australian government promised to “continue to work with key partners in the days ahead” to seek the safe passage of more than 130 Australians in the country, along with Afghan nationals...

(George Bush) betrayed this country! He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place!