When I first hit the FreeRepublic link to access the site it takes from 5 to 8 seconds to come up, always, and has for several years. I think this is a clue to the overall problem. I am going to trace the link to see where the delay is. No other site does that. They always come up in less than 2 seconds, most less than 1 second. Something is amiss and it may be that Freerepublic access is routed in a way that it can be scrutinized more thoroughly than others. Hopefully a trace will show that.
Follow-up: I traced it about 15 times and reached the end node in an average of 46 msec which is certainly fast enough, and not what I expected. It seems that whatever is slowing down my screen from loading happens after the connection is made to Freerepublic. It could be queuing but I doubt it. I didn't see any special or suspicious routing either. It looks like the route from my location is fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching about Freerepublic. I would be lost without it. I just wanted to see if I could ascertain anything that might help with people who are complaining.