Free Republic

Happy Fourth of July everyone. Been a long time since I have been on here - I hope I am a bit wiser and kinder today (but who knows). Strange times we are in with people being unpersoned for not admiring Biden's new clothes - but it is the Fourth, and they can't take that away from us!

Not sure if I have posted in the right area, but this is the first time I have signed one of these. Farmers in South Africa are being brutally slaughtered, with their family member being mutilated by death squads. Now the South African government has voted to seize their farms. While South Africa will shortly turn into a Haiti or Zimbabwe, we can do something for the farmers. If you are willing, please sign. immigration-priority-south-african-farmers-facing-systematic-land-confiscations-and-murder From Petition: "We the People call upon Congress to apply immigration priority to the South African Farmers facing systematic land confiscation and murder by their...

This is a contribution from a friend of the blog. If I Were A Rich Man ... "Dear God, you made many, many poor people. "I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor. "But it's no great honor either!" -Fiddler on the Roof There is an old - and very cynical remark - that the very rich are different from the average person - they have more money.  Which is true.  But what isn't encompassed in that rather sardonic bon mot is just what having vast wealth can do for you.  Being wealthy offers opportunities that are,...

LAS VEGAS – Ronda Rousey was once again pummeled by a striker and lost her second consecutive bout. The former women’s bantamweight champion was completely outclassed in the striking game by Amanda Nunes, who stopped Rousey at 48 seconds of the first round to retain her women’s bantamweight championship in the main event of UFC 207 at T-Mobile Arena. Nunes landed a big right just seconds into the fight that clearly hurt Rousey, who was fighting for the first time since a stunning defeat at the hands of Holly Holm on Nov. 14, 2015. Rousey tried to throw punches with...

In less than a year, the United States has toppled the democratically-elected government of Ukraine, installed a Washington-backed stooge in Kiev, launched a bloody and costly war of annihilation on Russian-speaking people in the East, thrust the economy into a downward death spiral, and reduced the nation to an anarchic, failed state destined to endure a vicious fratricidal civil war for as far as the eye can see. Last week, Washington suffered its greatest military defeat in more than a decade when Ukraine’s US-backed army was soundly routed in the major railway hub of Debaltsevo. Roughly, 8,000 Ukrainian regulars along...

She quickly seduced French officialdom after arriving from Ukraine, winning political asylum within a year of her application. Her visage, framed in blond hair crowned with flowers, helped inspire France's latest postage stamp. Few French people knew back then that they were dealing with a radical soldier for the feminist cause, in town to organize the ranks of women for a radical insurgency with bare breasts as weapons. The sweet start for 23-year-old Inna Shevchenko is souring. The defiant chief of the Ukraine-born Femen movement now risks up to five years in prison and a 75,000-euro ($103,000) fine for bashing...

As the war in Afghanistan winds down, and as the American public is increasingly “war weary” (a phrase I find fascinating since at any given time only 0.6 percent of Americans are in uniform, and the vast majority of Americans have endured not one single second of sacrifice for the war effort since 9/11), anti-military and anti-American sentiment may be rediscovering its Vietnam-era voice. The vehicle for the latest two minutes’ hate is a bit curious, however. Lone Survivor tells the story of a SEAL mission gone wrong and the resulting firefight where a small band of SEALs displayed remarkable...

Jesse Jackson Sr. has jumped into the controversy surrounding comments by Phil Robertson, star of A&E’s backwoods reality TV show, “Duck Dynasty.” In an announcement sent out Tuesday, Jackson Sr. compared Robertson’s recent comments about African-Americans, gay people and women to comments made by the driver of Rosa Parks’ bus. "At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law,” he said in the release. “Robertson's statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was ‘white privilege.’”...

SPRINGFIELD, VA — A paramilitary force was dispatched to a townhouse after a woman reported a domestic dispute between her and her boyfriend. When her boyfriend stubbornly chose to stay inside his home, police shot him and drove an armored truck through his front door. SWAT surrounding the victim's home. (Source: NBC4 Washington) SWAT surrounding the victim’s home. (Source: NBC4 Washington) The situation began on August 29th around 2:40 p.m. when John Geer — a 46-year-old kitchen designer and installer — was told by his girlfriend that she had decided to leave him. The couple had two daughters together, ages...

Jason Morgan, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student earning his doctorate there, has told his supervisor he objects to the school’s mandated diversity training for teaching assistants (TAs) because leaders of the first session he attended essentially called him – and the whole class – racist. What’s more, the next session – on how to support transgender students – is something Morgan said he cannot support, as it runs in direct contradiction to his religious beliefs. The letter, sent by email Sept. 22, states all new TAs in the university’s history department are required to attend one orientation session, two training...

Sam Kellner, who says his son was abused, helped the Brooklyn DA in his fight against child sexual abuse. Now, Kellner himself is himself facing accusations of extortion. Is he being set up? For Jews, Chanukah is a season of light and miracles. It wasn’t like that last month for Sam Kellner, a chasidic resident of Brooklyn’s Borough Park. Unemployed and facing mounting debt from his lonely fight against both the powers that be in his community and the Brooklyn district attorney, Kellner, 50, was contemplating a Chanukah in darkness: he had pawned the family silver, and the menorah along...

I’ve recently been made aware of a strange new tribe who refer to themselves collectively—they do everything collectively—as “progressives.” I think they used to call themselves “liberals” until it became clear that they don’t care much for liberty. Males and females in this tribe both tend to wear beards and gather in urban coastal areas, where they pay too much for apartments, water, coffee, and bean sprouts. They speak a strange and exotic tongue unfamiliar to my ears. But they repeat certain terms so frequently, I feel as if I’ve begun to get a handle on what they’re driving at....

I've almost completed the 1st week of Insanity. I understand that it is designed to be a rough workout, but I have a hard time keeping up with Shaun T. I was wondering if other have completed this and if they were happy with the results. A guy I work with does P90X and repeats it - he's done it 6 times so far. I definitely feel better after a week.

A McKeesport gun shop’s giveaway contest had to be postponed because Facebook shut down the Pittsburgh Tactical Firearm’s page. The contest was to give away an AR-15, ammunition, and other gear, valued at some $10,000 dollars. The company has done many of the giveaways, their most recent was back in February. KDKA-AM’s Robert Mangino spoke with Pittsburgh Tactical Firearm’s Owner Eric Lowry about his gun shop’s giveaway who says they’ve never had any problems up until now. Lowry believes that it’s your Second Amendment right to own a gun and that the American people have the right to protect themselves...

Educators, lay leaders and rabbis representing South Florida Jewish day schools met last month in Tallahassee in a concerted effort to advocate state legislators for funds to alleviate a Jewish school tuition crisis. The visit, facilitated under the auspices of Chabad of Tallahasee, was a unique opportunity to build and strengthen connections between key community leaders from Jewish South Florida and Florida’s Jewish Legislators. "The inaugural mission was to educate legislators in a very personal way about the Jewish day school crisis," said Elliot S. Schreiber, director of the Jewish Leadership Coalition for School Choice in South Florida. Print Comment...

As a blinkered young leftist back in the late 1980s, I subscribed to The Nation magazine for a year or two. Since I was a plumber’s son who put myself through journalism school by driving a cab on weekends, I naively identified with any media outlet that claimed to speak on behalf of the working class. Then, as life’s cruel realities slowly peeled the scales from my bleeding eyes, I began realizing that many such propaganda machines, despite their eternal claims of uplifting “the people” in a noble fight against “the elite,” were themselves the organs of a certain class...

Maybe someone here an answer this, although I may have to post this on a lib board someday. Why does the left especially hate Glenn Beck? They seem to me to hate him a lot more than Rush, who is 10* more mocking and disrespectful of the left than Beck is. Levin, Savage, Hannity, etc are small potatoes to the lefty when he has his hate on for Glenn. It seems that they are positively obsessed with him. A news article that mentions his name will have the inevitable Beck bashers frothing at the mouth, flaming away in the comments....

Danica Patrick's fourth and final Daytona start in 2012 ended just like the first three; with a crash. Patrick qualified third and spent most of the evening near the front, leading five times for a career-high 13 laps, and missed the race's 14-car pileup because she was at the head of the pack. It wouldn't have been a stretch to say that Patrick might have had the race's best car. But 17 laps later, Patrick wasn't so lucky. Jeffrey Earnhardt went around off the bumper of Ricky Stenhouse ahead of Patrick, and Patrick, who was on the outside as the...

No one had yet heard of a Florida teenager named Trayvon Martin when a group of Wisconsin Republicans got together last year to discuss expanding a self-defense bill before the State Legislature. The bill, known as the Castle Doctrine, made it harder to prosecute or sue people who used deadly force against intruders inside their houses. But the Wisconsin legislators, urged on by the National Rifle Association in a series of meetings, wanted it to go further. They shaped an amendment that extended the bill’s protections to include lawns, sidewalks and swimming pools outside the residences, as well as vehicles...

The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971 as a civil rights law firm, has released its latest "Intelligence Report" on hate groups in the United States. This year's report contains a new category: the Manosphere. From the SPLC's introduction to the misogyny report: The so-called “manosphere” is peopled with hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general. Although some of the sites make an attempt at civility and try to back their arguments with facts, they are almost all thick with misogynistic attacks that can be astounding...