Free Republic

We are witnessing the consequences of race-baiting in politics and the media. Last week, a video of a violent racist attack on a group of Asian-American students on a public train in Philadelphia was widely circulated on social media. The perpetrators were four African-American girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab. It began with four perpetrators hurling racist abuse and intimidating and physically assaulting a group of Asian-American high school students who were sitting in close proximity. The Asian-American victims helplessly attempted to shield themselves from the violence. In time, a senior Asian-American girl student attempted to intervene and...

Inflation in Turkey is now near 20%...Turkey's currency has been in a downward slide since early 2018, thanks to a combination of geopolitical tensions with the West, current account deficits, shrinking currency reserves, and mounting debt — but most importantly, a refusal to raise interest rates to cool inflation.

Read the email reproduced below from Dania Matos, UC Berkeley's new vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. And weep. Or laugh. The language alone -- an inadvertent parody of academic incomprehensibility -- is enough to provoke uncontrollable laughter or tears, depending on one's state of mind. Here it is in all its Orwellian glory: Be clear about what we have here: This is a summons from UC, Berkeley's new Vice Chancellor for "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion," a lawyer and 2003 political science graduate of Brown, presumably sent to all faculty members (and to many others - postdocs, grad students,...

An Illinois Democratic staffer brazenly mocked the Waukesha SUV tragedy that killed five and injured dozens in Wisconsin on Sunday, sarcastically equating the incident to Kyle Rittenhouse's highly-publicized acquittal last week. 'It was probably just self-defense,' Mary Lemanski, 46, reportedly the social media director for the Democratic Party in DuPage County, wrote on Twitter Sunday night in the wake of the Wisconsin attack, in the first of a string of since-deleted, scornful posts. 'Living in Wisconsin, he probably felt threatened,' Lemanski continued in her late-night tirade, referring to the SUV driver in the Waukesha case. 'I'm sure he didn't want...

It's all about the need for 'myth.' It's what Eric Hoffer called 'make believe.' One of the more remarkable phenomena associated with the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict is the presentation of claims that are unsupported, or even objectively false, as though they were fact. Examples of such include the description of Mr. Rittenhouse as a "white supremacist," the assertion that he transported a weapon across state lines for the purpose of committing murder, that those whom he shot were "peaceful protestors," that he killed two black men, that Jacob Blake was killed by police, etc. A common assessment of this phenomenon...

Any Russian invasion of Ukraine will be bad news for energy-dependent Europe. News reports from Europe indicate two potentially dangerous events occurring on the borders of NATO. The most glaring is the report of Russian large scale troop deployments near the Ukrainian border indicating a possible invasion in the next few months. The other report is on the smaller yet volatile migration movements along the Belarussian-Polish border. These two circumstances coincide with Europe’s weak energy situation and the global perception of American weakness created by the mismanaged withdrawal in Afghanistan. Although the risk of war in this region remains low,...

Viewing America from outside the country adds a semi-neutral perspective on news and events. I’ve been told there’s value in hearing an outside viewpoint about people more intimately tied to the emotional maelstrom of unfolding events. Conversely, I find it helpful to receive information from people in the know, which adds to the volume and depth of my research. When it comes to Kamala Harris’s floundering, I’ve been hearing shocking gossip. I received this gossip directly from a Washington insider, It will be difficult to confirm until it happens, if it happens. I hesitated before sharing it with you. I...

A lot of people support these insane measures. Here in America, too. Perhaps even a majority. Back in the late 1990s, I once complained about the quality of the tap water to my German colleagues in Bonn, Germany. It was full of caulk. Disgusting. But they lectured me that the water was great and that it was full of caulk because it had to be reclaimed. Otherwise, we would run out of water. My mocking reaction that caulk is not water and that we were just a few miles from the massive Rhine river did not endear me to my...

Kyle Rittenhouse slammed Joe Biden for “defaming” his character when the president tweeted out a video suggesting the teen is a white supremacist. “It’s actual malice, defaming my character for him to say something like that,” Rittenhouse told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson during an hour-long interview that aired Monday night. Rittenhouse, who was acquitted on all charges last Friday in his highly-publicized murder trial, was responding to a question from Carlson about how he felt over the president’s comments. Biden, when he was a presidential candidate in September 2020, had tweeted that “there’s no other way to put it: the...

Gossip from behind DC’s closed doors has come my way and the preferred outcome should trouble everyone. Viewing America from outside the country adds a semi-neutral perspective on news and events. I’ve been told there’s value in hearing an outside viewpoint about people more intimately tied to the emotional maelstrom of unfolding events. Conversely, I find it helpful to receive information from people in the know, which adds to the volume and depth of my research. When it comes to Kamala Harris’s floundering, I’ve been hearing shocking gossip. I received this gossip directly from a Washington insider, It will be...

..The dire warning comes as Germany is racing to contain a record rise in coronavirus infections, with the country reporting 49,206 cases on Sunday - the highest number of new coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. ...In Germany, the fourth wave is overwhelming hospitals, with health chiefs warning that the situation is 'extremely critical' in intensive care units across the country. ... Anger is mounting across Europe over the anti-Covid measures, which has seen thousands of people demonstrate in Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland, Austria and North Macedonia on Saturday, ... The frustration is extending to as...

November 23rd, 2021 Memorial of St. Clement I and Bl. Miguel Pro Rabban Hormizd Chaldean Catholic monastery, Mosul, Iraq Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First readingDaniel 2:31-45 ©Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dreamDaniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, ‘You have had a vision, O king; this is what you saw: a statue, a great statue of extreme brightness, stood before you, terrible to see. The head of this statue was of fine gold, its chest and arms were of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet part iron, part earthenware. While you were gazing, a stone broke away,...

Fool's Ball Week 12 Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

“The driver from the incident in Waukesha will claim self defense. It’s the new normal.” To the shock of no one, the left immediately jumped on the Waukesha, WI, tragedy to push out their stupid takes on Kyle Rittenhouse.

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Zahra, 27, a teacher at Srinagar, is like any other aspirational millennial, looking forward to a life in any Indian metro. But that’s not the only reason why she wants to leave. She is a closeted ex-Muslim who fears for her safety and feels tired of leading a dual life: being a practicing Muslim in front of her friends and family but seeking a different life in her heart. “Sharing my beliefs and thoughts on Islam is impossible. In fact, if I do, not just mine but my family’s lives will be in danger too. I have seen a lawyer...

The long-awaited launch of the nearly $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is slipping at least four days, from December 18 to no earlier than December 22, after an incident during processing in French Guiana that briefly jostled the costly observatory.... ...The incident occurred in a processing facility at the Ariane 5 launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. A high-tension "clamp band," used to attach the telescope to an adapter that will, in turn, be mounted atop the rocket's upper stage, suddenly released on its own, briefly shaking the observatory....

BETHESDA, MD—While performing a routine colonoscopy of President Biden, doctors at the Walter Reed Medical Center made a surprising discovery inside the President’s colon: 85,000 Trump ballots. “At first we were incredulous as to what the monitor showed, assuming it was another massive hairball similar to those we’d been seeing throughout the procedure,” said lead colonoscopologist Dr. Cole Collins, “After I zoomed and enhanced it, the picture clearly showed a mass of Trump ballots that appeared to have been lodged in there for over 12 months.” "This brings new meaning to the term 'ballot dump.'" A hospital representative said there...

The suspect in the deadly Christmas parade attack in Waukesha, Wisconsin is a convicted sex offender who fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl, records show. Darrell Brooks, 39, was convicted in 2006 for having consensual sex with a teenage girl in Nevada who later gave birth to his child, according to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. He pleaded guilty and was placed on probation. The suspect was then busted in 2016 for failing to register as a sex offender. He was released on bail but failed to show up to court, leading to a warrant being issued for his...

Octopuses, crabs, and lobsters will be recognized as sentient beings under UK animal welfare laws after a review concluded there is strong evidence they are capable of feelings. The UK government announced Friday that decapods, an order of crustaceans, and cephalopods, a class of mollusks, will now fall under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. Decapods include animals like crabs, lobsters, shrimp, prawns, and crayfish, and cephalopods include octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish. The announcement said the bill "already recognizes all animals with a backbone (vertebrates) as sentient beings. However...decapod crustaceans and cephalopods have complex central nervous systems, one of the key...