Free Republic

Source: Photo/Salena ZitoWALL, South Dakota -- Everything about Wall Drug, arguably the most iconic and long-lasting drugstore in America, exemplifies a doggedness. It took persistence to not only survive, but also thrive against insurmountable odds in a place few thought a small business had any business starting an enterprise in the first place. In 1931, when Ted Hustead and his wife Dorothy were looking for a place to open a drugstore, he picked the thinly populated town of Wall because the local doctor told them he'd give them all his prescriptions, so he told the local paper years later. Despite...

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WASHINGTON, Friday, Aug. 23. The Government has reliable information that a quarrel has broken out among the leading traitors of the rebel States, that promises to be as disastrous to them as was the Bull Run affair to us. The belligerents are TOOMBS and the Virginians and North Carolinians on the one side, and DAVIS, WIGFALL and the extremists of South Carolina on the other. The complaint among the disaffected is, that DAVIS is making rather fast to the legitimate results of treason, the abnegation of State and individual rights. The Governor of Georgia, you recollect, protested against some acts...

A man who was shot while trying to break up a fight Friday night near Southeast Portland’s Lents Park has died in the hospital, police said. Numerous police units responded to SE 92nd Avenue and SE Holgate Boulevard around 9:45 p.m. Friday night where they found a man who had been shot. He was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, and police announced the victim died on Saturday. Police said the shooter left the area before officers arrived. No arrests have been made at this time. An investigation is underway. SE 92nd Avenue was closed between SE Holgate Boulevard...

BERLIN — The head of Germany’s national labor agency says the country needs significantly more immigrants to plug gaps in the work force as the population ages. Federal Labor Agency Chairman Detlef Scheele said in Tuesday’s edition of the daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that he expects the number of working-age people in Europe’s biggest economy to decline by nearly 150,000 this year. “In the coming years, it will be much more dramatic,” the paper quoted him as saying. Scheele said that immigrants would be key — “this is not about asylum, but about targeted immigration for the gaps in the...

Remember John Lennon's silly song, "Imagine"? Well, here's my (much shorter) version. Imagine if some of the biggest cities in America seceded from their states. Imagine Illinois without Chicago, Pennsylvania without Philadelphia, California without Los Angeles or San Francisco, New York state without New York City, or Texas without Houston, Dallas or San Antonio. Those states would lose a major tax base and some of their best orchestras and other artistic institutions. But the gains in quality of life would completely offset any financial or artistic losses. Big cities have been and continue to be centers of destructive ideas, and...

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WASHINGTON — Two months ago, the leaders of the world’s seven major industrialized democracies met at the height of summer on England’s southwest coast. It was a happy occasion: the first in-person summit of the Group of Seven nations in two years due to the coronavirus pandemic and the welcomed appearance of President Joe Biden and his “America is back” message on matters ranging from comity to COVID-19 to climate change. The smiles and sunshine seem distant as G-7 leaders meet again Tuesday, in virtual format, for crisis talks on Afghanistan. The country’s burgeoning refugee crisis, the collapse of its...

As the disputed Napoleon quote goes, “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.” It’s simple and brilliant, and perhaps the best advice anyone in the political realm can receive. It’s also advice very few people in the political realm follow because not commenting on everything isn’t in their nature. As a former press secretary in the United States Senate, I know all too well the desire of the politicians to “get out in front of” something or “weigh in on” whatever is happening, even if they had nothing to do with the story. Politicians...

Years ago, a young Navy Pilot was injured while ejecting from his A-4 Skyhawk due to engine failure during a catapult shot from the carrier. Due to the heroics of rescue helicopter crew and the ship's hospital staff, the only permanent injury was the loss of one ear. Since he wasn't physically impaired, he remained on flight status and eventually became an Admiral. However, during his career he was always sensitive about his appearance One day the Admiral was interviewing two Navy Master Chiefs and a Marine Sergeant Major for his personal staff. The first Master Chief was a Surface...

We need to rub Democrats’ noses in the fact that they are responsible for the horrors in Afghanistan, as well as the decay in the U.S.On January 7, one day after the protest at the Capitol, I got a text from my closest friend of twenty years. Before I go into the text, she always knew I was a conservative and I always knew she was a Democrat. We focused on our lives rather than on our politics and it was a really wonderful friendship.Throughout the four years of Trump’s presidency, no matter what false and wildly partisan things she...

The original meme name, GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock, is holding pretty solid, shedding just 9.7% of value in the last month. Shares still have a mouth-watering one-year return of 3,410.15%.

For some of our younger readers who have never heard of Nikita Khrushchev, here is a short bio on the hard line communist. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. After his term he settled in America. Khrushchev’s Message 61 years ago Khrushchev said “We [Communism} will bury you!” A quick read but a lasting thought. Pretty scary now.Khrushchev’s Message 61...

President Biden’s proposal for a new death tax to help pay for his $3.5 trillion social welfare expansion is hitting resistance from members of Congress, including a top farm state Democrat, who warns that the tax will hurt family farms. The proposal would change the way capital gains are calculated on inherited assets worth more than $1 million, taking a bigger bite out of inherited stocks, real estate, businesses and farms.

Former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt recounted the “terrible feeling of humiliation” over getting fired by the network after he defended the Fox News decision desk’s early but accurate election night call for President Joe Biden to win Arizona, adding that it was “very challenging” to tell his kids he was suddenly kicked to the curb.

CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with the Taliban head Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday, the Washington Post reported. According to the WP, this is the first face-to-face meeting between the Taliban and Biden administration since Kabul's fall on August 15, 2021. President Biden’s decision to send CIA director for talks with the Taliban group comes amid a effort to evacuate people from Kabul airport in what the Biden described as “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.” The White House reported that the US has so far evacuated about 48,000 people from Afghanistan...

At this point, America is clearly losing the global war with Islamic religious fascism. Things will get a lot worse before they get better. “The history of the intelligence community is replete with violations of the trust of the American people.” – James Clapper In another time and place, I was the Director of Research and Russian (nee Soviet) Studies at USAF Intelligence under General James Clapper. One of my responsibilities at the time was to draft the USAF input to TOP SECRET strategic National Intelligence Estimates. The NIE, at the time, was considered to be the premier national analytical...

On Saturday morning I met a friend for breakfast at a local diner. We weren't sure whether to sit outside because of the surging delta variant of COVID-19 or inside because stinging smoke from wildfires consuming northern and western California had spread into the Bay Area. Our small dilemma was a microcosm of what many Americans are going through or will be soon. The combination of multiplying COVID-19 variants and mounting environmental damage is making the air dangerous to breathe, inside or out. What to do? Clean air is the quintessential public good. It's supposed to be free, abundant and...

With the debacle of the Afghanistan retreat before us, it’s important to remember that, no matter how badly managed a war, our troops gave their all. Growing up in the 1960s, no one could miss the plaintiff refrain of “Where have the young men gone?” Now, some sixty years later, I too wonder where many of my friends and comrades in arms have gone. I’ve realized that, as the old Peter, Paul and Mary song indicates, they have “Gone to graveyards, every one”—or at least, almost every one. Over 50,000 men and women died in Vietnam. Today, many veterans still...

What is occurring in Afghanistan is not surprising to most conservatives, as this crisis only confirms the corruption and ineffectiveness that dominates our foreign policy establishment and military leadership. While this crisis is far from over, there are already a number of sobering lessons that Americans have learned: 1) The “America Last” agenda of the Democrat Party remains in place. It is simply unprecedented to have American military troops extracted from a crisis before every American citizen has been evacuated so once again, American citizens are treated as if they were lepers. Even in Vietnam in 1975, the military did...