Free Republic

As House Democrats invited Ivy League shrews to publicly grind their Trump-hating axe during Wednesday’s disastrous impeachment charade, President Trump returned home after confronting our allies again about their lagging financial support of NATO. The stale pact turns 70 this year and like too many Boomers these days, NATO is out of fresh ideas and still listening to worn tracks of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” while the rest of the world is listening to Drake. Also like so many Boomers, NATO members have made financial promises they won’t keep, stacking up IOUs for someone else to pay and hoping no...

So I took the family to see "First Man" today. The movie took a lot of heat from virtue-signaling types, but I suspected the criticisms were unfounded. I was nearly totally correct. Like, 98%. First of all, I'm not super well-read on the space program as compared to some uber-nerds who I'm sure populate this forum who could run rings around me in general knowledge regarding this era of our history. I have, however, been interested in the space program for a long time and even got to meet Alan Shepard at a book signing at the Space and Rocket...

The general commanding coalition forces in Iraq predicts it will take two years of hard fighting to clear the so-called Islamic State from its twin capitals of Mosul and Raqqa, and then to burn out the remnants that will likely flee to the vast empty desert between Syria and Iraq. In a Christmas Day sit-down with The Daily Beast at his headquarters, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend would not put specific timelines on the battle. But he mapped out a grinding campaign that he thinks is going slowly but as well as can be expected, considering how much time ISIS had...

Gunmen ambushed Jordanian police in a series of attacks Sunday, including at a Crusader castle popular with tourists, killing seven officers, two local civilians and a woman visiting from Canada, officials said. At least 27 people were wounded in one of the bloodiest attacks in Jordan in recent memory. The standoff between Jordanian special forces and armed men holed up inside the castle continued after nightfall Sunday, several hours after the first shooting. Government officials declined comment on local news reports that the attackers had taken hostages who were later freed. Shots could still be heard at the scene on...

Among those in the Marine Corps I taught and deployed with, Gen. (ret.) Jim Mattis is a legend. The quotes, the foxholes, the knife hands. Everyone has their favorite story. I once handed Mattis a Diet Coke out of a cooler at Quantico. A mundane act? Yes. But I’ve remembered it fondly for 12 years. He is Chaos, Mad Dog, and the warrior monk. But we should not add secretary of defense to that list. I have long thought of Mattis as a “break glass in case of emergency” type of leader. He was uniquely suited to his roles in...

As I write this, the Supreme Court has handed down what will be the “Roe v. Wade” of marriage, redefining marriage in all 50 states. This is a sober moment, and I am a conscientious dissenter from this ruling. The Court now has disregarded thousands of years of definition of the most foundational unit of society, and the cultural changes here will be broad and deep. So how should the church respond? First of all, the church should not panic. The Supreme Court can do many things, but the Supreme Court cannot get Jesus back in that tomb. Jesus of...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senior U.S. officials are literally calling “fowl” after the Thanksgiving turkey pardoned by President Obama publicly defected to the Middle Eastern terrorist group ISIS. Popcorn the Turkey, now calling himself Babakurn al-Turki, was pardoned from the dinner table only yesterday by President Obama in a public ceremony at the White House. Normally the pardoned bird is sent along with its competitor to live out its remaining days at Morven Park’s Turkey Hill in Leesburg, Virginia. However, U.S. officials have now admitted that al-Turki instead hijacked an Osprey out of Andrews Air Force Base in nearby Maryland and...

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS ESPN 3 WEDNESDAY (23 JULY)THE BEACH 9AM Pacific Points Available: 100 For time: Swim 250 yards 50 kettlebell thrusters (35 / 24 lb.) 30 burpees Swim 500 yards 30 burpees 50 kettlebell thrusters (35 / 24 lb.) Swim 250 yards OVERHEAD SQUAT 6:30PM Pacific Points Available: 100 1-rep-max overhead squat Athletes will each have 3 attempts.

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS2013 CrossFit Games Coverage ScheduleESPN 3 WEDNESDAY (24 JULY)THE POOL8AM PacificPoints Available: 100 points 10 rounds for time of: Swim 25 yards 3 Bar muscle-ups Swim 25 yards Time Cap: 25 minutesROW 1 & ROW 21:30PM PacificPoints Available: 100 points each For time: Row 21,097 meters Row 1 will end at the 2,000 meter checkpoint. Athletes will receive points based on their times at this point. There is no scheduled rest at the checkpoint as the race continues. Row 2 will be scored by the total time to finish the entire 21,097 meters. Finishing order at the 2K...

A fun conversation I had with some Facebook liberals (and one conservative, I guess). Enjoy! The names have been abbreviated to protect the guilty, and I'll use "FSE" for me: ORIGINAL POST: "The actions of a few individuals are not a valid justification for hatred and prejudice against an entire race."--CM FSE (me): lol...when I see people say that about gun owners, maybe I'll give it a second's thought. JR: I didn't know gun owners are a race. FSE (me): I didn't know Muslims were either. VL: I hope you were joking, [FSE]. That isn't even close to a valid...

Fourth "open movie" released today by the Blender Foundation. Watch it!

When David Petraeus visited the Harvard Kennedy School in 2009, one of the meetings he requested was with author Doris Kearns Goodwin. Petraeus, who holds a PhD in International Relations from Princeton, is a fan of Team of Rivals and wanted time to speak to the famed historian about her work. Apparently, the great general (and current CIA Director) is something of a bibliophile. He's increasingly an outlier. Even as global literacy rates are high (84%), people are reading less and less deeply. The National Endowment for the Arts (PDF) has found that "[r]eading has declined among every group of...

A screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Cookeville., Tenn., was halted on Thursday after a theater worker reported seeing a moviegoer with a gun. According to the Cookeville Herald-Citizen, a police officer who arrived at the auditorium discovered three men with handguns. The men didn't think they had done anything wrong: Each was one of the state's 344,000 handgun carry permit holders. They were told to put their guns in their vehicles, in accordance with theater policy, and then the movie resumed. The story didn't make national headlines, unlike the July 20 "movie massacre" in Aurora, Col., that left...

I know there are a few FReeper CrossFitters out there. Anyone watching the Games this weekend? I'm totally blown away by Julie Foucher and Rich Froning (of course). I'm totally shocked by how poorly Dan Bailey and Ben Smith are doing after being hyped up for the entire season leading to the Games.

ON Monday, inside a warehouse turned gymnasium on an empty street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, a group of well-educated, accomplished New Yorkers chose to start their holiday with one of the most punishing workouts on earth. That workout, bluntly known as Murph, is as simple to explain as it was difficult to complete: a one-mile run followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 squats, followed by another mile — all for time. No picnic, and yet by 10:30 a.m., the gym was swarming with social workers and food bloggers, as well as F.B.I. agents and former Marines, who grunted and...

Senior US officials told the BBC the name of the suspect as he was heading back to the US to face charges. He is being flown to Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas, from Kuwait. His lawyer, John Henry Browne, said on Thursday that the suspect was a 38-year-old man who had been injured twice while serving in Iraq. He also said the accused had witnessed his friend's leg blown off the day before the killings. That incident has not been confirmed by the US Army. The Taliban called off peace talks in the wake of Sunday's deadly rampage - in which...

This American Life is airing a new episode today titled "Retraction." The title and show are a direct response to the January 6th edition of the popular public radio program titled "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory," an adaptation of a one-man show that helped put Cupertino's involvement with Foxconn back in the public spotlight. "Regrettably," the show's producers write in the description of this week's episode, "we have discovered that one of our most popular episodes was partially fabricated." The hour-long show has been dedicated to clearing up some of the misconceptions, including an interview with Mike Daisey to...

Long before the US soldier suspected of slaying 16 Afghan villagers was identified as an Army sergeant from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the installation had earned a reputation as the most troubled outpost in the American military. The Army station near Tacoma, Washington, has come under scrutiny as the home of several soldiers involved in wartime atrocities in 2010 and a base scarred by a record number of suicides last year. It has deployed troops repeatedly to Iraq, and late last year, sent soldiers to Afghanistan. The independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes in December 2010 called Lewis-McChord "the most troubled...

The world of science fiction and fantasy art and design has lost one of its true legends as Ralph McQuarrie died today at the age of 82. McQuarrie began his design career after moving to California from Indiana in the early 1960s. While he started out working as a technical illustrator for Boeing, he also found jobs designing film posters and providing animation elements for CBS News coverage of the Apollo space program. An offer to work on concept art for a film project followed, and his designs caught the eye of director George Lucas, who had an ideal for...

Technology is in a constant state of flux, and there are a number of cool concepts that haven't yet realized mainstream adoption, despite massive potential to change our lives. We take a look at 11 different ideas that you could see pick up steam.