Free Republic

In the days since the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castille and the five police officers in Dallas, there’s been a sense that America is a country divided, in the midst of a budding civil war between black and white. While there are many white people who oppose the Black Lives Matter protests that have sprung up across the nation over the past week, there are also many who have joined the demonstrations against the treatment and killings of black people across the U.S. Below are pictures that offer up a little hope, featuring white protestors standing in solidarity...

John McCain followed Mitt Romney on Thursday in blistering Donald Trump, warning that voters should think "long and hard" before making him commander in chief. “I share the concerns about Donald Trump that my friend and former Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, described in his speech today,” said the Arizona senator and 2008 Republican nominee.

Steve Inskeep talks to Bush fundraiser James Wareham, who is one of those who has to decide whether he is going to put his money behind another candidate.Steve Inskeep:...who if anyone are you and your colleagues gonna support now?James Wareham: : For me it's more a process of elimination. There are six candidates left, four are incompetent, and not gonna get support from me or Jeb people... certainly the two folks on the Democrat side, I like to kid, are avowed or defacto socialists...You have a right wing radical guy in Ted Cruz, who probably isn't even eligible under the...

Researchers working in Kenya's archaeologically prolific Lake Turkana region claim to have uncovered a set of 3.3-million-year-old stone tools. That's 700,000 years older than the previous record, and predates evidence for the evolutionary origins of the genus Homo by half a million years. Above: A satellite image of Lake Turkana, where the stone tools – and many other artifacts and fossils of human ancestors – have been recovered NPR's Chris Joyce reports on the findings of Stony Brook University archaeologist Sonia Harmand and her colleagues, which were announced Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco:...

Stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Evangeline Lilly to come out for People's Climate March in New York A-list actors, including DiCaprio, Lilly and Mark Ruffalo, are set to walk in the massive People’s Climate March this Sunday in Manhattan, which is expected to be the largest march for climate action in history. Lilly told the Daily News she was marching for 'my child, my family, and for everyone who has the great privilege of living on this beautiful planet of ours.' The stars are coming out in a bid to save the planet. A-list actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo,...

what's your favorite tool? mine is a ratchet drive screwdriver with all the bits inside the driver head.

Neanderthals and other extinct human lineages might have been ancient mariners, venturing to the Mediterranean islands thousands of years earlier than previously thought. This prehistoric seafaring could shed light on the mental capabilities of these lost relatives of modern humans, researchers say. Scientists had thought the Mediterranean islands were first settled about 9,000 years ago by Neolithic or New Stone Age farmers and shepherds... For instance, obsidian from the Aegean island of Melos was uncovered at the mainland Greek coastal site of Franchthi cave in layers that were about 11,000 years old, while excavations on the southern coast of Cyprus...

IT LOOKS like Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago - though not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers. Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow. Now, George Ferentinos of...

Human ancestors that left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago to see the rest of the world were no landlubbers. Stone hand axes unearthed on the Mediterranean island of Crete indicate that an ancient Homo species -- perhaps Homo erectus -- had used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via at least some of the larger islands in between, says archaeologist Thomas Strasser of Providence College in Rhode Island. Several hundred double-edged cutting implements discovered at nine sites in southwestern Crete date to at least 130,000 years ago and probably much earlier, Strasser...

... Obama told two of Cuba’s leading dissidents in South Florida Friday that he admires their sacrifices, a rare White House recognition of the peaceful opposition on the communist-ruled island. “The most important thing here was the recognition by the president of the United States, the most powerful democracy in the world,” dissident Guillermo Farinas said minutes after the meeting. Farinas, spokesman for the Cuban Patriotic Union of Cuba, and Ladies in White leader Berta Soler met with Obama during a fund-raiser at the Pinecrest home of Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF).

President Obama invited a number of people to stand behind him as he delivered his speech on the state of Obamacare at the White House Monday morning. One of them, Janice Baker, a small business owner from Delaware, introduced the president, and Obama spoke of Baker and the others gathered there as people who have benefited from Obamacare. But after reading the White House-provided descriptions of each of those behind the president, it's clear the administration was stretching to present people who, beyond supporting Obamacare, have actually gained from it in any tangible way. For example, a Pennsylvania man named...

October 21, 2013 Group behind Obama at Rose Garden speech includes only 3 Obamacare registrants Caroline May Of the 13 people who flanked President Obama during his speech defending Obamacare in the Rose Garden Monday, just three had successfully registered for the new Obamacare exchanges.A list of the people who joined Obama on stage provided by the White House included people who have or “will” benefit from Obamacare, small business owners, representatives from “partner organizations,” and new registrants.The three people who were able to register included: Janice Baker, who introduced the president and as of last week was the only...

When President Barack Obama defended his foundering health insurance overhaul Monday in a carefully staged and scripted White House pep rally, thirteen people stood behind him as examples of Americans whom the 'Obamacare' law would help. But according to their biographies, just three have actually enrolled in the plans offered in their states. They include the state of Delaware's first Obamacare insurance participant – and, so far, its only one – along with a Tennessee woman who enrolled less than a day before the press event, and a Washington, D.C. man that the Obama White House has used on two...

I know what you’re thinking: it’s the perfect allegory, right? Woman falls ill, “Big Healthcare.Gov” is there to catch her as she’s falling. Oh, and BTW, her name is “Karmel” – how perfect is that!! Not too dark, not too light: just right! A little too perfect, say the usual critics (Tea Party Anarchists). They’re off, spinning their usual, unfounded, conspiracy theories. You know how they plot their little scenarios by now: they’ll claim that BO’s Big Brains and otherwise useful idiots advisors wrote the fake faint right into the script so Barry can come to her aid. As they...

With a handful of plastic boxes and over-the-counter sensors, including Wi-Fi adapters and a USB hub, Brendan O’Connor, a security researcher, was able to monitor all the wireless traffic emitted by nearby wireless devices.Brendan O’Connor With a handful of plastic boxes and over-the-counter sensors, including Wi-Fi adapters and a USB hub, Brendan O’Connor, a security researcher, was able to monitor all the wireless traffic emitted by nearby wireless devices. Brendan O’Connor is a security researcher. How easy would it be, he recently wondered, to monitor the movement of everyone on the street – not by a government intelligence agency, but...

This holiday season I’m featuring a nutcracker of another sort—the bearded capuchin of Brazil. Native to open woodlands called the Cerrado, these monkeys are nicknamed Hercules with a tail, and for good reason—they can lift a stone heavier than themselves to break open tough palm nuts. (Watch a video of the nutcracking monkeys.) A monkey with a missing foot can still crack just as well. Photograph courtesy Dorothy Fragaszy National Geographic grantee Dorothy Fragaszy has been studying these charismatic little critters in the field, and last week she stopped by headquarters to update us on her research. She passed out...

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...

ITW Consumer has warned the state of Florida of 73 layoffs and the closure of their Riviera Beach facility earlier this year. Illinois Tool Works, ITW's parent company, announced a change in strategies and its decision to phase out operations in Florida earlier this year, according to the Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification notice filed with the state on Wednesday. ITW's functions will be relocated to Ohio and Connecticut. The company stated that it plans to cease ITW Consumer operations by the end of February. The first run of separations were effective at the end of August and October. Additional...

Have you ever been a fly on the wall? How about right out in the open, undercover? Well I have and the RNC should pay me for it on retainer. New tools, new tactics, and firing Rove and the pantywaist consultants is the only way to win again. Yesterday - and quite often I'll add - my wife and I are the only conservative ones in large settings with staunchly democrat blacks - you know the type, 0bama is king, is perfect, and only bigots would not vote for him. But to sit there, watch how smart phones get passed...

I have been pondering emergency preparations for some time and enjoy the prepper threads from which I've learned a lot and have applied much. I was trying to find some good articles on essential tools for "a really bad day" scenario or, TEOTWAWKI. Many articles include things like cash and shelter and first aid. Even post it notes and looms have made some lists. I am looking for ideas for hand operated essentials and have my own list...Please help flesh out these ideas.