Free Republic

Day #39 of the Top 50 songs on my iTunes playlist -- ranked in reverse order by play frequency from #50 to #1 and presented here on a series of FR threads. I've been posting them here on a new thread that compiles the growing list one day at a time over the course of several months. I only post them on weekdays and may miss a day or two here and there, so we are getting down to the last few weeks here. And to show my gratitude to the FR management for giving us all a forum to...

In 2020, a gay Thai man living with HIV sparked controversy with a Facebook post. He was on antiretroviral therapy and had gotten lab tests to check the level of virus in his blood. Since his viral load was undetectable, he wrote, he was going to stop using condoms. The public responded with a mix of contempt and disbelief. How could he? So selfish! So reckless! The resulting debate spilled from social media onto national radio and TV. “There was a huge backlash,” remembered Dr Nittaya Phanuphak, the Executive Director of the Institute of HIV Research and Innovation (IHRI). She...

On April 24, 2007, Kamala Harris testified before Congress in support of the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007. The bill, which was introduced that year but never passed the upper chamber, would have created a student loan repayment program for state and local prosecutors, and Harris, then the district attorney of San Francisco, argued it would draw top legal talent to offices like hers. In a written statement to the House Judiciary Committee, she described how debt-addled prosecutors often decamp to the private sector a few years into the job, lured by the prospect of...

The documents began circulating on Friday on the Telegram app, and U.S. officials are looking for the original source of the leak.The F.B.I. is investigating a leak of highly classified documents that appear to show Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack earlier this month, the agency confirmed on Tuesday. The documents were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for analyzing images and information collected by American spy satellites. The N.G.A. is part of the United States intelligence community and conducts sensitive work in support of clandestine and military operations. The information in the...

Microsoft Excel, the true successor to the throne of COBOL. Version 1.0 was released on the last day of September 1985, four decades ago.Since the original US English version of Windows 1.0 went to manufacturing at the end of November that year, this means that the default spreadsheet for Microsoft Windows is itself older than Windows. (The European version of Windows didn't appear until May 1986, but that doesn't really matter, nobody cared about it either.)Excel 2 wasn't pretty, but it was prettier than 1-2-3 – click to enlargeAs the old joke goes, like an "incel", it still incorrectly assumes...

With two weeks to go until Election Day, Kamala Harris’ top advisers are staring down numbers that show a wide majority of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track. They’re also confident that the next two weeks will include Donald Trump dropping more references to the “enemy within” or January 6 as a “day of love” and going off on rambling tangents like his lewd remarks about golf legend Arnold Palmer at a Pennsylvania rally last week. And they expect they’ll be able to trigger him into making more outlandish claims. Getting Americans to focus on that over...

"Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned Monday in battlegrounds Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney. Chris Matthews joins Morning Joe to discuss Cheney's support for Harris"

'Iranian American leaked Iran strike plans'. Sky News Arabic identifies Ariane Tabatabai, senior Pentagon staffer with access to highly classified secrets. A senior staffer in the office of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was identified as the leaker of the classified documents dealing with the Israeli preparations for an attack on Iran, Sky News Arabic reported on Tuesday, quoting a senior Pentagon Source. The suspected staffer was identified as Ariane Tabatabai, an Iranian American who works as the Bureau Chief to Austin's aid for special operations and was authorized to have access to very secret information.

By now, the story has made the rounds. Back in June, Oklahoma’s superintendent for public instruction, Ryan Walters, ordered every classroom in the state to teach the Bible between fifth grade and high school. Three months later, when he released the guidelines for companies bidding to supply the Bibles, they included some unusually specific terms. The Bibles had to contain not just the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments, but founding documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as well as the Pledge of Allegiance. And they had to be bound in leather, or some...

Ballot initiative would turn certain thefts and drug crimes into felonies, potentially helping expel some immigrants.

Former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove said Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” that the battle for control of the Senate was a series of nightmares for the Democrats. Rove said, “First of all, he’s already had a nightmare or two because West Virginia, there was no way they could hold it once Joe Manchin announced his retirement. I can’t even tell you the name of the Democratic candidate, he’s a mayor of a town in the western panhandle and he’s going to lose by 30 points. Then they had another nightmare, Schumer had another nightmare. In Montana,...

ohn Deere says they plan to lay off an additional 287 workers. However, the company insists that those jobs are not being moved to Mexico.. “It is important to note these layoffs are due to reduced demand for the products produced at these facilities. They are not related to production moves,” the company wrote in a statement to KWQC-TV. “As we have repeatedly stated, layoffs this fiscal year are due to the weakening farm economy and a reduction in customer orders for our equipment.” John Deere had already announced the layoffs of more than 600 employees at three production plants...

Vice President Kamala Harris plagiarized material in addition to her book Smart on Crime, an analysis by Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium found Tuesday. The additional allegations of plagiarism diminish the credibility of the Harris campaign’s denial of plagiarism. The Beacon’s Sibarium reported Harris also plagiarized pages of congressional testimony from a Republican colleague and a fictionalized story about human trafficking. Sibarium reported on Harris’s material from congressional testimony: Virtually her entire testimony about the bill was taken from that of another district attorney, Paul Logli of Winnebago County, Illinois, who had testified in support of the legislation two months...

In travel news this week: odd room service requests, the cruise passengers stranded for months at their departure port, plus how a rogue bag of Cheetos caused havoc in a New Mexico cave. Unusual guest requests Far be it from us to say folks are getting a little entitled, but a new report from Hotels.com has revealed the oddest room service requests made to its hotel partners around the world. There’s the Evian-filled bathtub requested for a child’s routine scrub-up, and the customized allergen-free menu for a pet. There’s the separate requests that were fielded for burnt toast, fresh goat...

South Korea is renewing its threat to send weapons to Ukraine, days after releasing intelligence alleging that North Korea plans to deploy a large number of troops to support Russia’s invasion. South Korea will consider sending Ukraine “weapons for defense and attack,” according to the Yonhap news agency, which cited an unnamed senior presidential official on Tuesday. Yonhap also reported Seoul may send military and intelligence personnel to Ukraine to analyze North Korean battlefield tactics and assist in interrogations of captured North Koreans. -snip- By sending troops to Ukraine, North Korea’s military could gain valuable battlefield experience, secure financial support...

Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, lashed out at Ukraine and South Korea on Tuesday in the wake of reports that Pyongyang is sending troops to Russia, calling the two countries "bad dogs bred by the U.S." and threatening to unleash nuclear weapons. In her statement to the Korean Central News Agency, the dictator’s sister warned that a "military provocation against a nuclear weapons state" could lead to a "horrible" and "unimaginable" situation. She scorned Seoul and Kyiv's "reckless remarks" about states with nuclear weapons — which she repeatedly said North Korea has — describing...

VIDEOGlenn Kirschner's brain has been FRIED so badly by the sight of President Donald Trump serving McDonalds fries that the MSNBC legal analyst has what he thinks is a big "scoop" for us. Glenn revealed that Trump does not actually work for McDonalds. Yes, what an incredible revelation. Just like Kamala Harris, Trump never really worked at McDonalds. Just recently poor Glenn thought that Jack Smith's public filing of his phony J6 charges would move the election needle. When that heavily redacted filing was met with a collective public yawn, Glenn's brain got fried just as much as an order...

[Catholic Caucus] Radcliffe on drafting of final synod document - full textMeditation by the Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. Monday, 21st October 2024We are about to embark on our last task, to consider the final document, amend and vote on it. Today we prepare ourselves to exercise this weighty responsibility. How are we do so?With freedom! St Paul wrote to the Galatians, ‘For freedom, Christ has set us free.’ (5.1). Our mission is to preach and embody this freedom. Freedom is the double helix of the Christian DNA. First of all, it is the freedom to say what we believe and...

The core reason that the establishment is suddenly interested in climate change comes down to one main factor – money. More specifically, the establishment is hunting down YOUR money through taxation. A second motivator is limiting our freedom of movement by demonizing fossil fuels and limiting our ability to travel. The European Union is now seeking to punish those who fly more than once per year with a frequent flyer tax. The EU has already implemented an aviation tax, but the new proposal is designed to punish the pesky “rich,” but per usual, everyone will suffer. “A frequent flying levy...

Former Clinton strategist James Carville has sounded the alarm this week claiming that former president Donald Trump will arrest them all if he is elected in November.