Free Republic

A Texas world history teacher is accused of having a sexual relationship with a former male student after the two met at a restaurant, authorities said. Michelle Schiffer, 23, of Houston, allegedly had sexual intercourse with one of her former students, now 16, in July after the two met up at a local Chick-fil-A restaurant, court documents stated. The alleged improper relationship was reported by an anonymous student to Cheryl Henry, principal of Cypress-Springs High School where Schiffer taught. Authorities said Schiffer admitted to meeting the student at the restaurant before they went to a friend’s apartment to have sex,...

"... The Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico along the western boundary of the state and derives its name from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi which means “Great River.” It was along the Mississippi Delta that the blues developed in the middle to late 19th century. Within a few decades, blues music would slowly grow in many ways creating a crop of musicians and variety of new genres. Both the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were uncertain, turbulent and violent times for Mississippi. Even though the Civil War brought about freedom for enslaved...

President Trump invoking Pocahontas as a derogatory term during an event honoring Navajo Code Talkers cuts deep for many Native Americans. The White House denied the President was using the name as a racial slur, but several Navajo Nation leaders and residents said on Tuesday that Trump has once again managed to make the name offensive. Navajo Nation council delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty called Trump’s remark “problematic” and said his words diminish the experience of Pocahontas and all Native Americans. Crotty said in a statement that Trump’s “careless” comment is the “latest example of systemic, deep-seated ignorance of Native Americans...

Full title........................Dogs really ARE smarter than cats: Canines have more than twice as many brain cells linked to intelligence............ The debate over whether dogs or cats are the smartest pet has raged for decades, if not centuries. But in a twist that is sure to ruffle the fur of cat-lovers, new research shows that dogs are more intelligent than their feline foes after all. Experts showed that dogs have more than twice as many brain cells in a region linked with thinking, planning and other complex behaviours.

During his lecture at the hermitage, Longhi recounted a conversation he had with the John Paul II in March 1993, in which the pope warned him about a disturbing vision he had about the future of Europe. "The Pope told me: 'Tell this to those whom you will meet in the Church of the third millennium. I see the Church afflicted by a mortal wound. More profound, more painful than those of this millennium,' referring to Communism and Nazi totalitarianism. 'It is called Islamism. They will invade Europe. I have seen the hordes come from the West to the East,'...

French wingsuit flyers recently completed an unbelievable stunt following a B.A.S.E. jump from the top of the Jungfrau mountain in Switzerland. Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet, known as the Soul Flyers, caught up with and flew into a plane in mid-air. As part of their project A Door in the Sky, which they had spent several months training for by completing more than 100 test flights in Empuriabrava in Spain, the duo B.A.S.E jumped from the top of the Jungfrau, one of Europe’s highest mountains, and flew into a Pilatus Porter light aircraft in mid-air. Now that's a different way...

Have any of you purchased a doorbell from ring.com I'm thinking about getting one and would like to know what you think. Is it a good buy? Are you happy with it? How easy was it to install? Any got you that I should know about?

Is their any better way of describing what's going in liberal media and politics? Are we making a running list? I'll start: Garrison Keiller (my personal favorite) Matt Lauer Anthony Weiner Raul Grijalva Harvey Weinstein Charlie Rose (No, THIS one is my personal favorite) Al Franken

In an opinion piece on the cable news network's website Sunday, writers Hossein Derakhshan and Claire Wardle called for scrapping the term President Trump has made synonymous with CNN. The duo wrote that use of the term “fake news” is “not only self-defeating, it oversimplifies a very complex problem” and it devalues the expression that has “become meaningless” over the past year. The phrase is now “used to describe any piece of information that someone else didn't like” and has been “has become weaponized by politician,” Derakhshan and Wardle wrote, adding the term should be used when referring to clearly...

When I was in grade school, the word “retard” was a word we used to describe a person or persons who were “inescapably stupid.” Which, notwithstanding my being unapologetically politically incorrect, brings me to Hillary Clinton and her minions. She and her sycophants epitomize the definition of “retards” as stupid or foolish people. Let me explain. Thanksgiving Day I received a quasi-personalized letter from Hillary, sent by one of her front groups named “Onward Together.” The letter claimed: “You’re receiving this email because you’re a member of a team of big-hearted people who are committed to building a fairer, more...

Gratitude is one of my favorite topics, and I have written blogs, articles and book chapters about the virtues of thankfulness. As we approach Thanksgiving, I cannot help but revisit this topic. It warms my heart to see the 30-day gratitude challenge many people have taken in this month. I see tweets and Facebook posts with gratitude expressed each day for someone or something in their lives. Woohoo! I would love to see the challenge extend another month, quarter or year commitment to keeping a gratitude journal or gratitude board in your home or office. Challenge yourself to find elements...

Twitter is cracking down on hate speech and not just by looking at its own site. In what amounts to a major shift in Twitter policy, the company announced on Friday that it will be monitoring user's behavior "on and off the platform" and will suspend a user's account if they affiliate with violent organizations, according to an update to Twitter's Help Center on Friday. "You also may not affiliate with organizations that — whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform — use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes," the update...

“We saw attacks by terrorists on the police and army, and we said this is mutual violence. These extremist groups have attacked churches and we said that they think it is a [different] religion, not Islam, and it is hostile to them, and then we said it is okay, but how [can these groups attack] Muslims?,” Magdi said. It is good that she was suspended, but where did she get this idea in the first place? Straight from the Sharia. In Islamic law, Muslim lives are explicitly worth more than those of non-Muslims. The Shafi’i Sharia manual ‘Umdat al-Salik dictates:...

Yesterday, Sen. Al Franken broke his silence and did a media tour explaining away his sexual offenses. “I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow,” he said. He should instead take some of his own medicine and resign. Five years ago, Franken co-sponsored a bill, the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act, to strengthen federal legislation on human trafficking, which includes sexual exploitation. The bill, which was approved by the Senate in December 2012, was necessitated because of the failure of the existing “zero tolerance” policy. In July 2013, Franken co-sponsored another bill, the Military Justice Improvement Act, to...

The U.S. Navy has always been an innovator. It pioneered the Global Positioning System, developed nuclear propulsion, and deployed the first operational laser weapon. The recently commissioned USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) is brimming with bleeding-edge technology. Its stealth design, Integrated Power System, and long-range gun firing capabilities make it the most sophisticated ship in the world. Likewise, the lead ship in the new carrier class USS Gerald R Ford (CVN-78) features many technological advances including an electromagnetic aircraft launch system. However, the Department of the Navy is not always in a rush to phase out and replace assets that continue to...

Larry Klayman, the founder of both Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch, and a former federal prosecutor in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (Justice), announced today the filing of a Complaint for Writ of Mandamus and Injunctive Relief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Case no. 1:17-cv-02459) to force Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and Inspector General (IG) to investigate the alleged criminal leaks of grand jury information that have consistently emanated from the Office of the Special Counsel, as well as the obvious conflicts of interest among the staff. The...

“The privacy of emails, photos stored in the cloud, even heart rate history from a smartwatch could be at stake, according to civil libertarians, as the Supreme Court takes up a potential blockbuster case after Thanksgiving. When they return to the bench after the holiday, the justices will weigh whether the history of cell phone locations stored by a phone service provider is searchable without a warrant. The case, Carpenter v. U.S., centers on Timothy Carpenter, who argues the government violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure when it obtained his cell phone location records from MetroPCS...

Twenty years after going to jail for leaving her baby in a stroller outside a New York City restaurant, Anette Sørensen is ready to set the record straight. Anette Sorensen in 1997.Don Halasy In 2012, she published a novel based on the “traumatizing” experience, “A Worm in the Apple” in her native Denmark, and she has just launched a Kickstarter fund to get it translated into English. “It’s a way of getting back what I never got,” said Sørensen, who feels she was treated unfairly by the city and the press and didn’t get to tell her side of the...

The military space business is stuck in its old ways and missing a "golden opportunity" to capture the energy of a rejuvenated commercial industry, said a former White House space and aviation technology adviser who is now a top official at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. ... Kennedy's..words ... were met with skepticism from executives in the audience who argued that DARPA often funds the development of technologies that already are available in the private sector, creating government vs. industry competitions that undermine private efforts. ... Executives in the audience pointed out that the Defense Department has not moved...

Among the Australians upgrading their shower, 68 per cent increased its size, with 64 per cent switching over to rainfall showerheads or 62 per cent handheld showerheads. Around 22 per cent of homeowners included a bathtub large enough to fit a couple while 12 per cent upgraded their showers to accommodate two people. The study found white was the preferred colour for walls, cabinets and bench tops - and often accented by grey flooring. Up to 12 per cent of homeowners are getting high-tech upgrade to their bathrooms, including digital controls and built-in sound for showers and self-cleaning and overflow...