Free Republic

Years ago, fully brainwashed by the mythology carefully manufactured through the magnificence of NFL Films and the mellifluous voice of John Facenda, the realization that the NFL is actually a business hit me harder than figuring out that grown men don’t stomp their feet on a canvas mat when hitting each other, like the pro wrestlers of the day did. Pro football is undoubtedly is a business, first and foremost. It’s part of what drives this website and prompted Playmakers — a desire to nudge the powers-that-be away from their tendency to place we

The GOP's Friday night U.S. Senate candidate forum in Ohio featured a face-off between candidates Mike Gibbons and Josh Mandel that nearly brought them to blows. The argument between the two erupted after Mandel claimed Gibbons had "made millions" from business dealings with Chinese companies. "You may not understand this," Gibbons told Mandel, who then stood up from his seat and confronted Gibbons at the event hosted by FreedomWorks. "I do," Mandel replied. "You have never … you have never been in the private sector in your entire life," Gibbons told Mandel. "Two tours in Iraq. Don’t tell me I...

The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency described the sharing of information and intelligence between the United States and the Ukrainians as “revolutionary in terms of what we can do” at a Thursday congressional hearing. Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier told the House Armed Services subcommittee on intelligence that he could go into greater detail on how this is being done in a closed session. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, said that “in my 35 years” he has never seen a better sharing of accurate, timely and actionable intelligence than what...

Recriminations and finger-pointing have begun within Russia’s spy and defense agencies, as the campaign that Moscow expected to culminate in a lightning seizure of Ukraine’s capital has instead turned into a costly and embarrassing morass, U.S. officials said. ... A U.S. official described as credible reports that the commander of the FSB intelligence agency’s unit responsible for Ukraine had been placed under house arrest.

I've been listening (for the umpteenth time) to the C-SPAN interview of Robert Caro (by Brian Lamb). Robert Caro is the author of an enormously detailed history of the life and career of Lyndon Johnson. Also for the umpteenth time, I listened to this exchange between Brian Lamb (BL) and Robert Caro (RC) concerning the "Box 13 Scandal," which was Johnson's stepping stone to the United States Senate. This exchange begins about 27 minutes, 30 seconds (27:30) into the video linked above. BL: You have a chapter in this book devoted to his wife, and someone who is still alive…...

The fashion choices of three cosmonauts who just arrived at the International Space Station are raising some eyebrows. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov docked with the orbiting lab's new Prichal module today (March 18) at 3:12 p.m. EDT (1912 GMT). About 2.5 hours later, the hatches between the two vehicles opened, and the three newcomers floated aboard the station to greet their seven crewmates. Everything went according to plan, but the hatch opening was still surprising, because it revealed that Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov were wearing bright yellow flight suits with blue highlights...

“As told by (Che Guevara biographer Oesterheld) in the graphic biography “Life of Che,” Guevara’s story is about values far deeper than communism — the same values that, in fact, have inspired people around the world to express support for Ukraine,” writes Etelka Lehoczky in The New York Times this week. “Oesterheld’s Guevara calls for economic and political fairness, self-determination for little countries and the need to keep big countries in check,” continues the glowing review of a recently unearthed biography of dead communist terrorist Che Guevara by dead communist terrorist Héctor Germán Oesterheld, who was presumably “disappeared” during Argentina’s...

The traditional payments ecosystem expose countless people to the risk of a COVID-19 infection, when we should be able to just wave our phones by no-touch payment terminals to make transactions. Will the world finally be ready to adopt digital wallets now that their lives may depend on it?

Here is a very revealing discussion of the beliefs of Dennis Prager representing the Orthodox Jewish tradition and Jack Hibbs presenting his understanding of the Christian faith. Dennis is one of the most prominent defenders of the Jewish Tradition in the world today and Jack Hibbs is one of the most visible conservative Christian pastors and Bible teachers in America. They discuss the differences in their faiths. They are both very close friends and their love for each other is obvious and this is a wonderful example of how two people with very different views on religion can discuss their...

The corpses of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine are being moved from Belarus back to Russia by train and planes in the dead of night to avoid attracting attention, it has emerged. Video posted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shows military ambulances driving through the Belarusian city of Homel in early March, with employees at the region’s clinical hospital claiming more than 2,500 bodies have already been shipped back to Russia as of March 13. -snip- Now Belarusian medical staff in Homel, in southeastern Belarus, have described ‘overflowing’ morgues, with one resident of the city Mazyr claiming: ‘Passengers at the...

The Biden administration’s policy on offshore oil and gas drilling leasing has set U.S. energy security back and could lead to significant negative impacts down the line, experts said. Over the last 14 months, President Joe Biden’s Interior Department (DOI) has quietly taken steps to scale back long-term offshore and onshore drilling on public lands through a series of actions and inactions. Overall, the U.S. is set to again become a net importer of oil after briefly reaching net exporter status, government projections showed. “Unfortunately, this is a situation that creates uncertainty that drives investment away from the U.S. and...

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri System has paid a $1.57 million settlement to a white former employee who alleged she was removed from her job in favor of a younger, Black woman. Rachel Brown was 60 when she was removed from her job as associate dean at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. She alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2017 that she faced age- and race-related discrimination and retaliation. Brown withdrew her claim of racial discrimination earlier this year, meaning the settlement was for age discrimination and retaliation, according to the Columbia Missourian, which obtained...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday brushed off questions about President Biden’s conflicts of interest in Russia and China — telling The Post that she had “no confirmation” of the findings of a Senate report that found a firm linked to Hunter Biden got $3.5 million from a Russian billionaire who has yet to face US sanctions. -snip- “On Russia, you told me last year that you were unfamiliar with the Senate report that alleged that the first son or a company linked to the first son received $3.5 million from the richest woman in Russia. Subsequent reporting...

DETROIT, Mich. – Penn State entered the NCAA Championships semifinal round with six wrestlers and a 10.5- point lead over host Michigan in Little Caesars Arena. When the session was over, five Nittany Lions advanced to the finals, and the lead over Michigan extended to 23.5 points. Penn State finalists are No. 1 Roman Bravo-Young (133), No. 1 Nick Lee (141), No. 1 Carter Starocci (174), No. 2 Aaron Brooks (184) and No. 1 Max Dean (197). The only PSU wrestler in the semifinals to lose was No. 4 Greg Kerkvliet (285), who fell to 2020 Olympic champion Gable Steveson...

The country, no doubt, awaits impatiently for the details of the great battle which took place near Newbern, N.C., on the 14th instant, and which have, probably before this, been reported through the rebel telegraph -- though, it is hoped, with more correctness than their former account of the capture of Roanoke. North Carolina is lost to the rebel cause. The City of Newborn, with its approaches by railroad and rivers -- with all its defences, consisting of miles of well-constructed batteries along the Neuse River, and powerful earthworks back of it, extending five miles below the town -- were...

They are the supposed nonpartisan group of top spies looking out for the best interest of the nation. But the 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election. No one actually proved The Post’s reporting was wrong. Media outlets showed up at the doorstep of the computer...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its data this week to reduce pediatric deaths from COVID-19 by nearly 24%. The CDC said the number was revised March 15 due to a “coding logic error,”. Pediatric death counts were not the only ones to be lowered — total deaths were reduced by roughly 70,000. Children make up less than 0.1% percent of total COVID-19 deaths, according to CDC data. Earlier this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that hospitalization data for kids could also be misleading, as many of the children hospitalized with COVID-19 were there for reasons other...

Chinese health authorities reported the first deaths from COVID-19 in more than a year. The country’s National Health Commission disclosed two deaths in Jilin province, bringing China’s official death count to 4,638.

There's no room in the morgue at Mazyr. It's filled with the bodies of Russian soldiers. At one hospital in this Belarusian city about 60 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, the hallways and wards are filled with the sounds of soldiers moaning from their battlefield wounds. At the main train station, Russian soldiers have been recorded on video ferrying stretchers -- apparently holding wounded servicemen -- from a military ambulance to a waiting train operated by Russia's state railway company.

The owner of Burger King has said the operator of its 800 stores in Russia has “refused” to close them, despite its demand to suspend trading after the invasion of Ukraine. Last week, Burger King, which is owned by Restaurant Brands International (RBI), said it had suspended all supply chain, operational and marketing support for the Russian operation. RBI has been unable to close the operations directly, as rivals such as McDonald’s have done, because of a complicated legal contract with its main franchisee partner, Alexander Kolobov, with whom it has run the joint venture in Russia for a decade....