Free Republic

Our freedom to roam is under assault from a plan to close everything off and make us ask permission before we enjoy it.. There is a plan underway to close the great open spaces of the American West to you, me, our children, and our children’s children. The federal government — which owns most of this land — is determined to move from a “use and let use” system of accessing Western public lands to a permission-based system that will mean reservations, permits, and closures. Just last month, the Bureau of Land Management issued a final decision to close 317...

A plane crash in Utah Sunday evening left four people dead, including a state senator from North Dakota, his wife and their two young children, a state official said Monday. The Grand County Sheriff’s Department said the single-engine Piper plane carrying state Senator Doug Larsen, 47, and his family crashed Sunday evening about 15 miles north of the town of Moab, shortly after it refueled at the Canyonlands Airfield. The sheriff's office said the senator was the pilot and all four people on board the plane were killed. "Senator Doug Larsen, his wife Amy, and their two young children died...

The Palestinian Authority and its supporters have a new enemy: the Louvre.The world's most-visited museum, the famous French institution that holds some of the greatest works of art and antiquities, is likely to find itself on anti-Israel boycott lists around the world.This is because among the Louvre's storied collections is a slab of stone with an inscription that affirms the ancient connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.The stone, known as the Mesha Stele, was first discovered in 1868 near the Dead Sea, but its inscription, written in the language of the ancient Moabites, was only partially...

FReepers may recall some discussions of a case in Moab, UT around the time of the Gabby Petito murder investigation. A lesbian couple were found deceased from shotgun injuries in a remote campsite near Moab, UT. At the time there was some speculation that Petito's male companion Brian Laundrie could have been involved. It turned out otherwise. The link provided explains that police tracked down a former co-worker of one of the victims, who had already committed suicide in Iowa when the investigation located his last known whereabouts. Details in the link.

Palaeontologists are claiming Utah officials have driven over a precious fossil site after dismantling a boardwalk nearby, possibly irreparably damaging preserved dinosaur footprints and animal tracks. These ancient remnants are extremely delicate and cannot be easily seen, according to sources speaking to Gizmodo, but contain more than 200 dinosaur tracks left by 10 distinct species. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has since filed a cease-and-desist letter against the US Bureau of Land Management Utah office, calling for the immediate halt of the destruction of Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite near Moab. The alleged destruction comes as a result of the...

If we get the Dominion-SolarWinds MOAB, even John Roberts can’t cover it up Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be against us. By “us,” I mean the majority of American people who support President Trump and believe that the 2020 election was fraudulently manipulated to change the righteous results. But there’s hope that goes beyond the power the Chief Justice has. It’s more powerful than mainstream media, Big Tech, the Democratic Party, and cowardly Republicans on Capitol Hill. Technically, there are two things that are more powerful. The first is the “MOAB” – the Mother Of All Bombshells,...

Photography of Mesha Stele. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository =============================================================== The biblical King Balak may have been a historical figure, according to a new reading of the Mesha Stele, an inscribed stone dating from the second half of the 9th century BCE. A name in Line 31 of the stele, previously thought to read 'House of David', could instead read 'Balak', a king of Moab mentioned in the biblical story of Balaam (Numbers 22-24), say archaeologist Prof. Israel Finkelstein and historians and biblical scholars Prof. Nadav Na'aman and Prof. Thomas Römer, in an article published in Tel Aviv:...

President Trump dropped a "closing" ad for the 2018 midterm elections Wednesday night, and it's causing a firestorm in the media. The ad features footage of Luis Bracamontes, a convicted cop killer and illegal immigrant. The ad says Bracamontes "Killed our people!" The spot features footage of Bracamontes boasting of his killings and saying he'd like to kill more cops. 'Democrats let him into our country," the ad reads. "Democrats let him stay." The ad then shows footage from the migrant caravan heading north, and shows one man telling a Fox News reporter that he's hoping President Trump will grant...

The US Air Force is seeking to modify its B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers to accommodate carrying and delivering the so-called “mother of all bombs,” a creative nickname given to the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon, according to a new report. The bomb made waves last April when a US military plane dropped a GBU-43/B MOAB on an allegedly Daesh-run terrorist camp in Afghanistan. The bomb is regarded as the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the US weapons arsenal. April 13, 2017, marked the first employment of the bomb in combat. The Air Force is seeking information from industry regarding...

Newly recovered text messages exchanged by anti-Trump FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page reveal their shock and frustration in the wake of James Comey’s May 2017 firing, as they privately fumed over the news and scrambled to react. The messages were transmitted to congressional committees late Thursday by the Justice Department, after the inspector general announced that his office had recovered previously missing communications over the critical period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017. This covered Comey’s firing and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

U.S. equities fell sharply on Thursday, pulling back from record highs, on worries that tax reform could be delayed until 2019. A proposed plan by Senate Republicans would push tax reform back to 2019, CNBC has learned through a source. The move contrasts with a bill working its way through the House. The Washington Post first reported the news. "That's what gave us this new leg down," said Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS, on CNBC's "Squawk Alley." Expectations for tax reform have increased recently, helping lift the stock market to all-time highs. The major indexes had recovered...

After years of debate, a U.S. government board has voted to rename Utah’s Negro Bill Canyon, overruling a recommendation by Utah officials to keep the name. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names decided Thursday to rename it Grandstaff Canyon to get rid of an offensive name, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. The vote was 12-0, with one member declining to vote. The decision comes 16 years after the board voted to keep the name. The new name honors black rancher and prospector William Grandstaff, whose cattle grazed there in the 1870s. “His name was Grandstaff; it was not Negro Bill,”...

A rumor has appeared on social media suggesting that Russia has dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb, nicknamed the Father of All Bombs, on ISIS terrorists in Syria. If confirmed, this would be the first time Russia has employed this weapon, which is has otherwise revealed very little about, in combat. On Sept. 7, 2017, posts appeared on Twitter alleging that witnesses and activists near the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, had seen the weapon in action.. As yet, though, there has been no reporting in English language Russian news outlets or an official statement from the Russian Ministry of...

I see that in honor of Mother’s Day weekend the little mother from North Korea decided to test his unguided missiles again. He might want to be a little more judicious when playing his virtual reality games in the future as the stakes tend to get higher every time you play.He might get the Mothers’ Day special whether he ordered it or not.But speaking of Mother’s Day, Melania continued the White House tradition of hosting Military Mothers ahead of Mother’s Day.Lady M hosts Mother’s Day Military Family event, 2011Melania hosts Mother’s Day Military Family event, 2017Making America Great Again, one...

Pope Francis has criticised the naming of the US military's largest non-nuclear explosive ever used in combat as "the mother of all bombs". "I was ashamed when I heard the name," the pontiff told an audience of students at the Vatican. "A mother gives life and this one gives death, and we call this device a mother. What is going on?" he asked. Last month the US dropped such a bomb, which weighs 21,600lb (9,800kg), on Islamic State militants in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said it was dropped from a US aircraft in Nangarhar province, targeting tunnel complex used by IS....

Thousands of IS fighters have retreated to desert of Anbar, where they are launching deadly attacks against vulnerable non-combat troops Having secured the towns and villages of Anbar province, and with commanders focused on the battle for the city of Mosul, Iraqi forces are now having to contend with a new Islamic State (IS) group tactic – desert ambushes. Military sources say that beneath the sand, thousands of IS militants are hiding in underground tunnels and bunkers, from which they are launching a campaign to unnerve and disorientate the Iraqi army, already weary after years of fighting. On Sunday, at...

The Taliban accused Washington of harming the environment and using disproportionate force against ISIS by dropping the "mother of all bombs" in Nangarhar province last week. It was the first time the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, packed with 11 tons of TNT and dropped from an MC-130, was used in combat. The U.S. Resolute Support Mission said forces "took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike." An Afghan army spokesman told the country's Tolo News that one civilian family lived in the blast area, but they were evacuated by security forces before the MOAB was dropped.

Podcast 17:52 John Batchelor, Bill Roggio, Tom Joscelyn, Thaddeus McCotter discuss Afghanistan, Taliban, ISIS, ISIS connections in Indonesia ... among other things.

The United States on Thursday dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal on an ISIS stronghold in Afghanistan — a strike President Trump hailed as “very, very successful.” The US estimates that 600 to 800 ISIS terrorists were on the ground in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar, conducting strikes on government and US forces while battling the rival Taliban.