Free Republic

There can be few experiences more traumatizing than suddenly becoming an alien in your own land. The primal fear of the hate-fueled mob coming to get you, burning torches in hand, runs through our human DNA.That is the pandemic experience of tens of millions of Americans, condensed in two sentences.One moment, you’re waving to a longtime neighbor. The next, the neighbor is calling the police because you are violating the lockdown.

State and city governments are warning Americans to downsize their Christmas gatherings, mask up around family members they don't live with and even shun their unvaccinated relatives just days before the holiday, as cases of the omicron COVID-19 variant spike nationwide.

The Eric Clapton we loved, whose new album is as good as anything he’s ever done, is dead to us, basically. Clapton has doubled down on his anti-vaccine madness and thrown in with Robert K. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy, a misery to his family– they’ve all criticized him– maintains a loud anti-vaccine campaign himself. Despite suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, Kennedy is anti-public health. His dead uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who fought for decades for universal health insurance, must be throwing up in heaven. Clapton has now allowed himself to be interviewed by Kennedy and featured on his website. Clapton tells...

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:(Hebrews 12:25-28)We are living in the time of shaking. Shaking, like all of God’s methods of trial and testing, does not add anything to...

Here’s a shocker. Leftists aren’t all too crazy about riders of the Trump train. Progressive types are known for denying MAGA people real estate transactions. Banning them from their concerts. Attempting to crater their skulls with 2x4s. Then there’s this. A writer over at salon is recommending you shun all of your Trump-loving friends and family until they repent. Yeah, for reals: "If you have friends or relatives who support Donald Trump you should confront them. Explain to them that they are complicit with Trump’s cruelty and sadism. Then communicate that you will no longer speak with them, nor will...

This shunning could entail anything lawful that denies the appointee’s legitimacy. Treating the appointee as persona non grata is one example. Justice Clarence Thomas has experienced a bit of that shunning among some who credit Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment. High regard is not an entitlement. Neither is a pay raise. While the compensation of justices cannot be "diminished during their Continuance in Office," nothing prescribes increases. Future Congresses might even try to freeze the salary of the appointee who owes his or her seat to this ideological grab, although concern for judicial independence may caution against starting down...

Riley Gunnoe says business is booming at his tool store in St. Albans. He says it's because of a sign outside. Gunnoe told me he didn't know what was going to happen when he put this phrase on it, "If you are for Obama's policies, please keep your dumba$$ out of this store." Gunnoe says he didn't know what was going to happen when he put the sign up. "I didn't care. But it really has doubled my business since I put it up so I'm glad I did now!" Some people in the community say it makes them question...

Israel's Right praises US Republican presidential candidate after he is filmed mocking Palestinian interest in peace; Peace Now: Romney, Netanyahu both backed by extremist coalition of evangelicals, Sheldon Adelson. US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney found himself in the heat of a decades-old political debate in Israel Wednesday after he was taped criticizing a proposed two-state solution and mocking the Palestinian interest in achieving peace with the Jewish state. Romney’s comments at a Boca Raton fund-raiser about peace being “almost unthinkable to accomplish” were praised by the Israeli Right and residents of Judea and Samaria, and slammed by the Left.

Six years ago, about 300 Amish bishops gathered in Pennsylvania to discuss the group's leader, Sam Mullet Sr., who had ordered the shunning of families that left his settlement near the West Virginia panhandle. Mullet had come to the attention of the bishops because, according to witnesses at his trial, there were concerns he was brainwashing community members. Prosecutors would later say he forced men to sleep in chicken coops as punishment, and one woman testified that Mullet coerced women at his settlement into having sex with him so he could turn them into better wives. The bishops eventually vetoed...

KC McLawson works for a cafe near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and since the body-scan and patdown controversy last November, her boss has taken extraordinary measures to ensure the TSA knows of his displeasure. “We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren’t allowed to come into our business,” she says. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone.” Banning TSA from a restaurant. Seems a little harsh, doesn’t it? McLawson explains...

Residents of the middle-class subdivision have turned against the neighbor, Lori Drew, and her family, demanding the Drews move out. In interviews, they have warned darkly that someone might be tempted to "take matters into their own hands." "It's like they used to do in the 1700s and 1800s. If you wronged a community, you were basically shunned. That's basically what happened to her," said Trever Buckles, a 40-year-old who lives next door to the Drews. Drew became an outcast after she participated in a hoax in which a fictional teenager by the name of "Josh Evans" exchanged online messages...

Lori Drew regrets not stopping her daughter and an employee from using a fake MySpace account to mislead Missouri teenager Megan Meier, but Drew’s lawyer claims she had no knowledge the prank had taken a nasty turn until Megan committed suicide. “She knew these girls were doing it and she didn’t stop it,” attorney Jim Briscoe told TODAY’s Matt Lauer during an exclusive interview Tuesday. “She wishes she did. If she could turn back the clock, that’s the part she would do differently.” Drew has yet to speak publicly about the events leading to Megan’s death in October 2006, and...

n army of Internet avengers has set out to destroy Lori Drew and her family. With ruthless efficiency, they have learned the identity of the suburban St. Louis woman whose cyberspace meddling appears to have played a role in the suicide of a 13-year-old neighbor girl. They have published her address, phone numbers and photos, and harangued the clients of her advertising business. The Drew family has fled its home. Their teenage daughter is living apart from her parents, for her safety. The advertising business is closed. And still the online avengers forge on, seeking the whereabouts of Lori and...

The secret was revealed six weeks later: Neighbor mother Lori Drew had pretended to be 16-year-old "Josh" to gain the trust of Meier, who had been fighting with Drew's daughter, according to police records and Meier's parents. After their daughter's death, Tina and Ron Meier begged other neighbors to keep the story private. Let the local police and the FBI conduct their investigations in privacy, they pleaded. But after waiting for criminal charges to be filed against Drew, neighbors learned that local and federal prosecutors could not find a statute applicable to the case. The community's patience dried up. Furious...

For months there had been a quiet buzz in both political and publishing circles surrounding "The Book" being written about Sen. Hillary Clinton. The scuttlebutt had it that New York Times best-selling author Edward Klein was in the final stages of a blockbuster expose of the former first lady, the likes of which could derail her 2008 presidential aspirations. "The Truth About Hillary" is now out, and it has lived up to its billing in the fireworks department. Except the controversy surrounds not Hillary Clinton but author Ed Klein, and the broadsides against him are coming primarily from conservatives, not...

Catch some rays, sun-shunning Aussies told August 05 2002 at 08:51AM Sydney - After years of being ordered to shun the sun, Australians are now being advised to get a little more light in their lives. New research suggests that efforts to reduce skin cancer and a growing tendency for people to stay indoors may be having an unwanted adverse effect - vitamin D deficiency, which can contribute to the brittle bone disease osteoporosis. In a "clinical update" published in the respected Medical Journal of Australia, Professor Caryl Nowson of Deakin University reported that the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency...