Free Republic

Facebook is Purging Oath Keepers and Other Patriot Groups Today This is an ideological and political purge. Oath Keepers does not engage in unlawful activities or advocate or incite violence. Quite the contrary. We stand for law and order under the Constitution and defend people against unlawful violence. And that’s exactly why we are being purged. Frankly, I knew this day was coming because the left is intolerant of opposing views and they don’t want us to get people prepared to defend against Marxist terrorists. Which is why we created Oath Keepers chats that are owned exclusively by the organization....

The Wall That Heals, a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial along with a mobile Education Center, is coming to Garland Thursday, Feb. 27, through Sunday, March 1. The exhibit will be on display at Audubon Park, 342 W. Oates Road, and will be open 24 hours a day and free to the public. The City of Garland is leading the effort that will bring the exhibit to the metroplex. The Wall That Heals honors the more than three million Americans who served in the U.S. Armed forces in the Vietnam War and it bears the names of...

So, a couple days ago I received a letter in the mail from our SecState, explaining the proposed constitutional amendments that will be appearing on the Nov 3 ballot. Searching FR for 'Texas proposition' I got one hit for a single article about the 2014 proposed amendment. Throwing this up here to get some discussion from fellow Texans in time for the ballot here in a couple months. The letter adds some somewhat more normal English wording to explain each one, but that's a lot of typing (and a ton more formatting), so I just copied over the actual wording....

Many Americans believe that someone, somewhere in Washington, must be in charge of tracking who is and who isn’t a citizen of the United States. Apparently, so does the U.S. Supreme Court, which just accepted a voting rights case that turns on the government’s ability to count the number of citizens in each voting district. But despite all the talk these days about government and Big Data, the justices, like the rest of us, might be surprised to learn that the most basic information as to who is an American citizen cannot actually be found in any publicly available government...

New Orleans passed a far-reaching smoking ban on Thursday that prohibits lighting up in bars, casinos, private clubs—even in the car while waiting in line at a drive-thru. Claiming there is no “constitutional right” to smoke, the New Orleans City Council unanimously voted to outlaw smoking and electronic cigarettes in indoor and outdoor public places.

"We knew the time had come to create something wondrous with pickles," Sam Bompas, one half of gin-cloud generating, wedding cake-exploding culinary masters Bompas & Parr, tells Wired.co.uk. The pickle has been overlooked for too long. Bompas is relaying the story of how the Gherkin Chandelier -- a gherkin-powered piece of lighting with an eerie glow akin to the Grinch lit up at Christmas -- came to be. "Thinking about the development still gives me goosebumps. Risking death to explore an everyday sultan of savour!" You might not associate gherkins with imminent death, but it takes rather a lot of...

Within a year, nine out of 10 Americans could be dead. And whatever causes the national apocalypse—be it North Korean malice or the whims of the sun—the downfall will ultimately be our own fault. That's the fear of Newt Gingrich and other members of a high-profile coalition who are convinced that our fragile electrical grid could be wiped out at any moment. Their concern? Electromagnetic pulses, the short bursts of energy—caused by anything from a nuclear blast to a solar flare—that can wreak havoc on electrical systems on a massive scale. And the coalition believes it's coming soon.

Well that escalated quickly. It seems the ouster of Yanukovych, heralded by so many in the West as a positive, has done nothing to quell the fear of further economic collapse in Ukraine: *UKRAINIANS WITHDREW AS MUCH AS 7% OF DEPOSITS FEB. 18-20: KUBIV *DEPOSIT WITHDRAWALS STILL HIGH IN THE EAST, KUBIV SAYS This is around a 30 billion Hyrvnia loss (over $3 billion) in just 2 days for the banks and the new central bank chief is considering "stabilizing loans" to help banks deal with the liquidity crisis (though Ukraine's reserves stand at a mere $15 billion). Reserves are...

NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) – Judge Carl Ginsberg presided over two ceremonies its participants believe are the first, legal gay marriage in Texas. Two couples said their “I-do’s” and all four people consider themselves female. But one member of each couple has had their gender changed surgically from male to female. “On all of my information, it still says male,” said Ashely Boucher. “So, legally I’m still male in the state of Texas. My presentation would suggest otherwise. But my documentation says that I can marry Genevieve no questions asked. “If you were born male and became female through...

While there’s no way to confirm hard numbers, it seems thousands of users if not more, are leaving the Huffington Post (also known as HuffPost) and its previously robust community because of the newly introduced comment system. The new system requires people to sign in through Facebook if they want to comment on any of the stories. It also requires Facebook verification, which requires a cell phone number.

TAMPA — The question of what law applies in any Florida courtroom usually comes down to two choices: federal or state. But Hillsborough Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen is being attacked by conservative bloggers after he ruled in a lawsuit March 3 that, to resolve one crucial issue in the case, he will consult a different source. "This case," the judge wrote, "will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law."