Free Republic

The enormous reaction to Betty White’s death and America’s decades-long love affair with the 99-year old caused me to consider why. What is it about her that elicited such universal affection and praise from nearly everyone? It’s not because she isn’t worthy of that kind of adoration, but it’s just so unusual for the American population to agree on much of anything, never mind the likeability of a specific personality. Then it clicked. Betty White was my grandmother. And she was your grandmother. Or what you wish was your grandmother. Or what you imagine your grandmother would be if you...

When will Ray Epps not kill himself?I originally thought it would be sometime before the GOP took control of Congress with a new January 6 Committee that would investigate what REALLY happened that day (such as find the ID of the pipe bomb guy, the fence cutter guy, and the blue and white megaphone guy in the tower). At the very top of the list of people for the new January 6 Committee to subpoena would of course be Ray Epps. That would mean Ray Epps would have to not kill himself sometime before a new January 6 Committee begins...

Washington, Sunday, Jan. 5. It is stated very positively that a very high officer of the army has been arrested, to-night, on the charge of being the medium through which the rebels have been constantly obtaining important information relative to military movements. Prominent persons here are understood to be involved in the same affair. The hour is too late to admit of a verification of the story, and I give it on rumor only. Measures have been taken additionally to guard against the communication of information to the rebels, especially through female agency. COL. KERRIGAN'S GUILT. Circumstances in the case...

A watchdog group is asking the Justice Department about its decision to waive ethics rules and let the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer argue a landmark affirmative action case involving her former employer, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Protect the Public's Trust filed a Freedom of Information Act request Wednesday for information about Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar's involvement with a legal brief the administration filed urging the Court to reject a lawsuit accusing Harvard of bias against Asians. Prelogar, a former Harvard employee, is barred by the Biden administration's ethics pledge from participating in the case without a waiver....

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Former president Donald Trump has hurt his chances for a second go of the presidency, if he plans to run. By recently saying, "The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind," he dismayed a large swath of supporters who consider the COVID shots one of mankind's greatest failures. SNIP One of the hardest things in the world to do is admit being wrong. Pride is widely considered to be the worst of the seven deadly sins. There's also plenty of pride going around within the CDC, FDA, and NIH these days, with devastating consequences as the COVID shots...

What could possibly have happened to Ted to turn him into a shill for Democrat talking points on January 6, 2021? I know from the volume of email I’ve received on it that Ted Cruz’s comments on January 6, 2021, calling it “a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol” have outraged many conservatives. Ted was once the darling of intellectually inclined conservatives, but I think the bloom is now off that rose. Tucker Carlson used video of Cruz’s comments as the keystone of a segment on how Republicans are being cowardly and granting Democrats their false premises on the riot...

It happened in the late spring when thousands of demonstrators took part in the Cultural Revolution. Students on campuses everywhere came together to make radical changes in the nation. The old ideas, customs, and beliefs had to be put away and a shining new society ushered in. Young people marched in the streets, tore down signs, and toppled statues. Media outlets throughout the country praised this unprecedented movement. Did this happen in Seattle? Portland? The streets of Chicago? No, this was Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution that started in May 1966 and ushered in one of the bloodiest eras in China’s...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemActs 4The Believers Pray 23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: “‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 26 The kings of the...

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden's sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support. As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will "destroy democracy" or stage a coup. A cynic might suggest that they praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or...

The green socialist left is increasingly embracing tyranny in the form of authoritarian power to act on their viewpoint on climate change. A recent paper published by Cambridge University Press titled “Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change” is raising serious and worrisome questions about the role of academia in our national political debate on climate change. The paper was written by Ross Mittiga, who self-describes as an “assistant professor of political theory at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, specializing in climate ethics.” He also labels himself an “environmentalist, vegan, and occasional gadfly.” Mittiga’s paper explicitly argues society must prioritize climate...

A Florida man and his wife, both of them sheriff’s deputies, have committed suicide within days of each other, leaving their one-month-old son behind as an orphan, an official said. Clayton Osteen, a St. Lucie County Deputy, died on January 2nd. Days after Osteen’s death, his wife, Deputy Victoria Pacheco, also took her own life “in the wake of her husband’s death,” Sheriff Ken Mascara said in a statement on Tuesday.

Best advice for this anniversary of the events of last January 6: Turn off the TV. Today will be a festival of drama-queen hand-wringing, the latest attempt to make Americans believe that democracy itself was on the brink of collapse, and remains threatened by voters poised to launch waves of insurrection and assaults on basic voting rights. That fabrication has fueled a year of rhetorical excess and malicious maneuvering designed to do two things—destroy the political viability of Donald Trump, and savage the motivations of every voter who ever supported him. Emotions following the 2020 elections ran so high, and...

Prosecutors have filed a motion seeking funds from Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's inmate trust account, including a $1,400 COVID-19 relief payment he received in 2021. Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Nathaniel Mendell filed a motion on Wednesday asking for funds from Tsarnaev's account to be taken and used as restitution to his victims, according to Boston Fox affiliate WFXT. The motion indicated that Tsarnaev had an account balance of $3,885.06 as of Dec. 22, 2021, including a $1,400 COVID-19 stimulus payment deposited to the account in June. Prisoners were largely eligible to receive $1,400 payments included...

On January 14, 2018, in Rochester, Minnesota, Alexander Weiss stopped to help people who were involved in a traffic accident. He ended in a confrontation with aggressive teenagers. Muhammed Rahim was claimed to have grabbed for Weiss’ handgun. Weiss shot and killed him. Surveillance video caught most of the action. Early in the confrontation, Weiss had an opportunity to drive away.Alexander Weiss was prosecuted in two trials, six months apart. Both trials ended with hung juries and mistrials. In November of 2019, the prosecutor dismissed the charges.Finally, in May of 2020, a judge granted a motion to expunge the charges...

PARIS (AP) — France announced a staggering 332,252 daily virus cases Wednesday, smashing a string of recent records, as hospitals prepared drastic measures to brace for patient surges and the government strained to avoid a new lockdown. With Europe’s highest-ever single-day confirmed infection count, France is facing an omicron-driven surge that is dominating the race for April’s presidential election and increasingly disrupting workplaces, schools and public life... France’s weekly average of virus cases has doubled in the past 10 days...more than 72% of French ICU beds are now occupied by people with COVID-19. The surge has prompted authorities to allow...

There are few joys in life quite as fun as watching liberals attacking other liberals; when the head of the snake that is the progressive culture whips around and bites one of its own. It happens more often than you think – there’s always an activist professor who missed a memo and used an out of date term or said something recently declared unacceptable who is not fighting for their jobs, but every once in a while it gets higher profile, and therefore even more fun. Such is this case out of Hollywood. Helen Murren is a great actress, with...

Stewart Rhodes has insight into the role that Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Ali Alexander played in recruiting his militia group. Will he tell the Jan. 6 committee?Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, has the power to burn some top right-wing personalities who pissed him off. It’s unclear if he’ll actually do it. Members of the Oath Keepers, the far-right militia group which featured prominently during last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, feel betrayed by the headliners of the protests that day—names like Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Ali Alexander. According to the Oath Keeper’s lawyer, those...

Chuck Schumer, the Inspector Clouseau of Senate Majority Leaders in comparison to Mitch McConnell’s Sherlock Holmes, has decided to try to strong-arm Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema into dropping their opposition to killing the filibuster by making a big public show of it. Hey, that’s plan has worked great so far. I sure hope he succeeds – for once – for three reasons. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. As so often happens with the Dems, Napoleon’s injunction to never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake comes to mind. So does Br'er Rabbit’s plea to Br'er Fox not to...

Breaking News Plus (Analysis, Comment) I am now able to bring you something regarding the events in recent hours at the US Capitol... One killed by the Capitol Police 14-year Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt... One can see that the story of today is written in earlier stories published on this blog like the comments of incoming Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox alluding to supporters of President Trump-opponents of coronavirus restrictions. They were protesting outside his inauguration... And then there's the story of confrontation at Oregon's State Capitol New Year's Day. A protest that was peaceful at its beginning descended...