Free Republic

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that while he is pro-choice and thinks abortion isn’t murder, it’s wrong to say pro-life people are anti-women, because if you think abortion is murder, you can’t say, “well, except for people with a vagina, they can commit murder.” And pushed back against arguments that pro-life people shouldn’t impose their values by saying, “you wouldn’t say that about a murderer. That’s what their point is.” Maher said, “I’m more pro-choice than you can imagine. I don’t think life is always precious, most people don’t think that. What I’m saying...

Presidential son-in-law and former presidential advisor Jared Kushner spoke out about his often troubled relationship with ex-chief strategist Steve Bannon, whom he likened to a 'suicide bomber.' Kushner, speaking on The Hugh Hewitt Show Friday, said that Bannon 'blew up' before father-in-law President Donald Trump fired the former Breitbart chief in 2017, according to Mediaite. He said: 'Steve really defeated himself, you know. His head got so big he was just doing all these crazy things, and the ultimately just you know, like a suicide bomber, blew up'. The former White House senior advisor, 41, referred to Bannon as a...

Housing prices could dip by as much as 20% in more than 180 markets nationwide if the US economy falls deeper into a recession, according to a new study. Experts at the research firm Moody’s Analytics said that homes in 183 of the 413 largest regional housing markets in the country are “overvalued” by more than 25%. A map based on data from Moody’s was published by Fortune. It showed that home prices were poised to fall in so-called “bubbly” markets like Phoenix and Boise.

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that while President Joe Biden’s student loan program is “more targeted than a bunch of the proposals that were out there” and will mostly help people making under $75,000 a year, it should have been targeted towards people going into hard-to-fill-jobs “instead of being hedge fund managers,” and “We’re not going to have a shortage of sports marketing degrees here.”

I am posting this because Victor Davis Hanson provides outstanding advice for Donald J. Trump. This video runs 39:00, and is well worth the listen, in my humble opinion. 🙂 👍

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said there was “a conspiracy to get rid of” former President Donald Trump by the media, who buried the Hunter Biden story “because they were like, we can’t risk having the election thrown to Trump, we’ll tell them after the election.” Maher said, “[M]y friend Sam Harris was on a podcast…they were talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was a story and now all the mainstream press has finally admitted it was a real story, it was a real laptop — now look, let’s not pussyfoot around this, he was...

Journalist Bari Weiss asked former Attorney General Bill Barr if convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein may not have taken his own life in an interview Thursday. Epstein was discovered dead of an apparent suicide in his cell at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019, according to The New York Times, but some have speculated that he did not kill himself or may have been murdered. In an interview released Thursday, Weiss asked Barr, “Is it possible that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t die by suicide?” “No,” he responded.

Striking surveillance footage shows the dramatic moment a Russian puppet official who switched sides in Ukraine is assassinated by resistance forces. Askyar Laishev worked for Ukraine's internal security service (SBU) before joining the Moscow-backed Luhansk People's Republic as head of intelligence in 2014. But members of Ukraine's National Resistance in the war-torn Donbas, eastern Ukraine got revenge by bombing his car as he drove through the city on August 11. Laishev made his way out of the car after the explosion, the underground fighters said, but died days later in hospital. t follows the similar killing of Putin official Ivan...

WASHINGTON, Tuesday, Aug. 25. Passengers from Virginia to-day report that there was an engagement at Warrenton, Va., yesterday, in which our forces were successful, having driven the enemy out of the town. We were still holding it at the latest advices. The rebel forces which have been engaged in the recent fights are mainly cavalry. The following-named persons are among those wounded during the recent skirmishes in Virginia. They are at the several hospitals in Alexandria. SEVENTY-FOURTH PENNSYLVANIA. Lieut. Ferd Hicks, Gotfried Pritzbaur, Gustavus Schaaf, Fred. Water, Wm. Hain, Mathias Buck, John McIntyre, Henry Whittell, Ernest Miller, Jasper Filacer, Oliver...

On Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he would be suspending four members of the Broward County School Board for their "incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority" at Marjory Stonemason Douglass High School. In a press release, the governor’s office stated that Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson had been suspended following the recommendations of the Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury. DeSantis has been particularly active in education, going as far as endorsing school board members in their races across the state, and enacting laws on curriculum transparency and parental rights. "Even four years after...

For all the amazing benefits of the mRNA coronavirus vaccines, there are limitations. The effectiveness wanes. New variants evolve faster than shots can be adjusted. Destructive disinformation about their safety lingers. Yet, the vaccines are critical to battling disease and death — and that also goes for the next generation of boosters coming soon. Critics might raise fresh concerns about these new shots, and there are some things the public should know. But the latest booster, as with all the previous shots, promises to be a life raft in dangerous seas.

Public Document Case heading, cropped and scaled by Dean Weingarten U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Many Second Amendment supporters have heard of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. It went into effect on 26 June 1934. It was the first national gun law to have a substantially limiting effect. It was the first federal statute challenged in the Supreme Court based on the Second Amendment in United States v. Miller. The story of that challenge may be read, in short form, on an AmmoLand News article from 2013.Far fewer people are familiar with the National Firearms Act of 1938. The NFA of...

The economic powerhouses of the European Union, France and Germany, both set records on Friday for electricity prices, as the West’s sanctions war with Russia continues to bite. This time last year the cost of electricity per megawatt-hour (MWh) in both France and Germany sat at around 85 euros. On Friday, both countries set record highs, with the cost climbing by at least 1,000 per cent from last year to €850 in Germany and over €1,000 in France, Le Monde reports. While the price of energy has been rising since the end of the lockdown measures across the world last...

Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself is one of the best books about Nazi Germany I've read. The author is 55-year-old Nuremberg native Florian Huber, who wrote his PhD on British policy regarding the postwar occupation of Germany. The book was first published in Germany in 2015. It became a bestseller. Penguin published an English translation in 2019. Huber's writing is as crisp and gripping as prize-winning fiction. His style is a bit like Hemingway's. The main text of the book is 267 pages, followed by 20 pages of notes. Promise Me is a quick read that covers an astounding amount...

Pity the poor F-111, the veritable “redheaded stepchild” of the Western jet fighter-bomber world. “What’s in a name?” quoth young Ms. Capulet to young Mr. Montague in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but in the case of this warplane, the choice of name seemed to create some bad juju from the get-go. Instead of a regal bird-of-prey moniker like “Eagle” or “Fighting Falcon,” the warbird was instead officially dubbed “Aardvark,” after one of the more ungainly-looking mammals out there; accordingly, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) nicknamed her “The Pig,” which shouldn’t automatically be viewed as an insult (“Pride-Integrity-Guts,” to quote...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

President Joe Biden had some choice of words for his opposing party members during his first political rally speech as the November midterm elections round the corner. While making his rounds in Maryland on Thursday night, Biden portrayed MAGA Republicans as a “threat to democracy,” criticizing former president Trump for creating a movement that so many support. “The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security… They're a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people,” Biden boldly claimed, adding “Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice —...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

Emerging markets are burning through stockpiles of U.S. dollars and other foreign currency at the fastest rate since 2008, raising the risk of a wave of defaults across the world’s most fragile economies. Emerging and developing nations’ foreign reserves have shrunk by $379 billion this year through June, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. Excluding the effects of exchange-rate fluctuations and the large foreign-exchange holdings of China and Gulf oil exporters, emerging markets are seeing the biggest drawdowns since 2008 according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Both Massachusetts and Washington state leaders announced on Friday that they would be adopting California’s new ban on the sale of gas powered vehicles by 2035, beginning a shift that may encompass more states in the coming months.