Free Republic

Justin Bieber has been battling a serious virus, one that has left the right side of his face paralyzed ... and he'll need to take some time off to work on getting better. The singer posted a video Friday explaining to fans why he's had to postpone several shows over the last week, explaining he's been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. Bieber says it's affected a nerve in his ear, causing the paralysis. As visible in the video, Justin is unable to blink with one of his eyes, and can only smile with one side of his mouth. While JB...

Question to the more savvy internet mavens here on FR: Been seeing several versions of postings and repostings/tweets of "I'm an ICU Nurse....and we're running out of bodybags" and PPE etc...coupled with detailing an element of known to be true modes of operation in dignified,respectful and safe honoring of the passing of nearest kin. Example: Using Zoom for remote "attendance" with loved ones passing (mandated by hospital infectious disease, guidance of CDC?). This is on the usual culprits- "butt" book, tweets from twits anti-social steered media. Is this a thing- have you seen this and can they be traced? These...

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA! 2019 WILL BE A FANTASTIC YEAR FOR THOSE NOT SUFFERING FROM TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. JUST CALM DOWN AND ENJOY THE RIDE, GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING FOR OUR COUNTRY!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019

Full title: After 28 hours, Delta Air Line’s only answer for why it made Ann Coulter give up her prepaid seat is “I don’t know” Delta made Coulter give up her prepaid seat. When Coulter asked why, the flight attendant’s answer was “I don’t know.” 28 hours after the incident, Delta has still not offered Coulter any other explanation for its actions. If Delta did have a legitimate reason for doing what it did, it should say what that reason was. Otherwise, Delta will have given the impression that one or more of its employees simply did it out of...

<p>HAGERSTOWN, Md. – Agathe von Trapp, a member of the musical family whose escape from Nazi-occupied Austria was the basis for "The Sound of Music," has died, a longtime friend said Wednesday.</p> <p>Von Trapp, 97, died Tuesday at a hospice in the Baltimore suburb of Towson after suffering congestive heart failure in November, said Mary Louise Kane. Kane and von Trapp lived together for five decades and ran a kindergarten at the Sacred Heart Catholic parish in nearby Glyndon until 1993.</p>

<p>The rhetoric gap is still relatively narrow, but it's likely to grow as the general election approaches. National party leaders will continue to rally the base. Their state counterparts, however, won't need reminders that all politics is local, especially if a race is close (as these races are). The more wiggle room they leave in the primaries, the thinking goes, the freer they will be to court swing voters this fall—and the easier it will be to back away from repeal if and when Americans start enjoying the benefits of the new law. Perhaps with that thought in mind, some of the same Republican Senate leaders who've pledged repeal nationally have begun to quietly condone local moderation: Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, recently advised candidates to "test the winds." The only question now is whether the GOP's mixed signals will reach their intended audiences—or cancel each other out.</p>

<p>BOSTON (Sept. 2) -- Curt Schilling, the former major league pitcher who won the allegiance of Bostonians by leading the Red Sox to the 2004 World Series, said Wednesday that he has "some interest'' in running for the seat held for nearly 50 years by Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Schilling, a registered independent and longtime Republican supporter, wrote on his blog that while his family and video gaming company, 38 Studios, are high priorities, "I do have some interest in the possibility.'" "That being said, to get to there, from where I am today, many, many things would have to align themselves for that to truly happen,'' he added. Any other comment "would be speculation on top of speculation,'' Schilling said, adding, "My hope is that whatever happens, and whomever it happens to, this state makes the decision and chooses the best person -- regardless of sex, race, religion or political affiliation -- to help get this state back to the place it deserves to be." Schilling refused to comment when his office was contacted by phone. The 42-year-old lives in suburban Medfield and campaigned for President George W. Bush in 2004 and Sen. John McCain in 2008. As a player, he won three World Series, in 2001 with the Arizona Diamondbacks and in 2004 and 2007 with the Red Sox. He became a Sox legend when he won Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series while blood from an injured ankle seeped through his sock. He retired in March. He and his wife, Shonda, have four children ages 7 to 14.</p>

<p>A Nebraska man who stole a painting of the Virgin Mary to finance an abortion for a teen he raped has been convicted of first-degree sexual assault and felony theft.</p>

Northwest jet blows 5 tires on landing in Minn. The Associated Press Aug. 2, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS -- A Northwest Airlines jet blew five tires as it landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, closing a runway for a few hours. No injuries were reported in Sunday's incident. Fifteen employees were on the plane, but there were no passengers. The plane landed without crashing or going off the runway, although one runway was blocked for the rest of the afternoon. It's not clear why the tires blew. Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Pat Hogan says the pilot reported his brakes were overheating....

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Four Iraqi National Guardsman died and six were wounded Tuesday when a suicide car bomb rocked a checkpoint near the eastern city of Baquba, police said.The suicide bomber was driving a 1979 Corona, and an Iraqi man believed to be involved in the attack was arrested, police said. Paperwork in the car indicated that the owner was Sudanese.The bomber was seen following vehicles of U.S.-led multinational forces, and the car bomb was detonated as they passed the checkpoint in the city north of Baghdad.The wounded guardsmen were evacuated to a multinational forces facility.Last week, 70 people...

<p>A Georgia man's experience only goes to prove what most people take as common sense: Don't try to mix dangerous chemicals in your pants.</p> <p>According to newspaper reports, three Walker County social workers were visiting Daniel Gabriel Doyle, 39, of LaFayette, last Tuesday. As he sat in their car filling out paperwork, his pants exploded.</p>

<p>IMAGES of the Vietnam War seem to be flooding into our lives lately. Footage of a young naval Lt. John Kerry, in fatigues, carrying an M-16, patrolling the Mekong Delta. President Bush, in an eerie echo of a previous president from Texas, vowing never to retreat in the face of aggression. Yet sitting recently in the Cafe Au Lac on a tree-lined street in Hanoi's old quarter, opposite the elegantly restored French- era Hotel Metropole, it was hard to remember why we fought that war.</p>

<p>Does the Democrat really have a shot at the military vote?</p> <p>Give John Kerry his due for taking aim at a key Republican constituency: the military and military families. If a prime time salute, a convention hall full of flag wavers and his own "Band of Brothers" were enough, Mr. Kerry might have sliced a core voting bloc away from President Bush.</p>

<p>Over the past two weeks, decent people who consider themselves pro-choice became intimately acquainted with those heading the movement. To be sure, they didn't know this was whom they were meeting as they read what was to become the most talked-about New York Times Magazine article in years. Neither did the Times, claim editors, who last week admitted to the New York Sun that the protagonist of the recent "Lives" column was a New York Planned Parenthood advocate and consultant to Gloria Steinem--and not the Everyman for whom the space is normally reserved.</p>

<p>"The embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world," declared Ted Kennedy, in a moment of Revolutionary War nostalgia. Or he would have done, if he had managed to stick to his text. But, in a strikingly erratic performance even by his standards, what actually emerged from the senator's lips was: they "fired the shirt round the world."</p>

<p>WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Sunday honored Poles who fought Nazi occupiers in the doomed Warsaw Uprising 60 years ago, bowing at a memorial to the insurgents and acknowledging the "immeasurable suffering" Germans inflicted on their neighbor.</p>

<p>August 1, 2004 -- WATCHING last week's Democratic infomercial in Boston, one could be forgiven for thinking that John Kerry went straight from the Mekong Delta to the podium at the Fleet Center, with barely a stop in between.</p> <p>That he had almost nothing to say about his 20 years in the U.S. Senate was surprising. But that almost nary a word was heard about the events that rocketed John Kerry to nationwide fame is shameful.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON - (KRT) - When former President Bill Clinton sought to frame differences between Democrats and Republicans, he made a point of citing the soon-to-expire federal ban on semiautomatic assault weapons.</p> <p>"Our policy was to put more police on the street and to take assault weapons off the street, and it gave you eight years of declining crime and eight years of declining violence," Clinton said in his prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention last week. "Their policy is the reverse."</p>

<p>Angelo was a 45-year-old, never-married contractor from Massachusetts. As the years went by, his standards were going down.</p> <p>“I’m not looking for Victoria’s Secret, like I used to be,” he said. “Just a fairly attractive woman who is similar to me, who will laugh and be happy.”</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President George W. Bush may be tapping into solid human psychology when he invokes the September 11 attacks while campaigning for the next election, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.</p> <p>Talking about death can raise people's need for psychological security, the researchers report in studies to be published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science and the September issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.</p>