Free Republic

Francis J. DeGregory was a World War II Army veteran who served in the Battle of the Bulge. He died in 2008 and is interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Dara Welty was an aspiring opera singer and La Jolla native who died of a blood clot during a visit to Bolivia in 1998, at 22. Both went on to vote — repeatedly — in San Diego County elections, records show. They remain registered to vote to this day, DeGregory as a Republican and Welty as a Democrat. Amid a national debate about whether states should pass new laws to...

Fox News Sunday reports on a hot mic that caught John Kerry mocking Israel's "pinpoint operation" against Hamas in Gaza: [Video]

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says Russian President Vladimir Putin bears direct responsibility for the downing of the passenger jet over eastern Ukraine last week. “I think Putin is responsible and complicit for what happened,” Rep. Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I believe that we are — Mr. Putin is — returning to a Cold War mentality.” “We’re seeing that happen with Crimea being annexed, we’re seeing that happen with the Russian-speaking peoples in Ukraine and all throughout the Baltic states now where I think his long-term strategy is to...

From our fields to our forks, huge corporations have an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply every step of the way. Right now there are more than 313 million people living in the United States, and the job of feeding all of those people is almost entirely in the hands of just a few dozen monolithic companies. If you do not like how our food is produced or you don't believe that it is healthy enough, it isn't very hard to figure out who is to blame. These mammoth corporations are not in business to look out for...

New research, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), counters a widely-held scientific view that thawing permafrost uniformly accelerates atmospheric warming, indicating instead that certain Arctic lakes store more greenhouse gases than they emit into the atmosphere. The study, published this week in the journal Nature, focuses on thermokarst lakes, which occur as permafrost thaws and creates surface depressions that fill with melted fresh water, converting what was previously frozen land into lakes. The research suggests that Arctic thermokarst lakes are "net climate coolers" when observed over longer, millennial, time scales. "Until now, we've only thought of thermokarst lakes as...

We regret civilian deaths. Those lay at hamas' door. Hamas is deliberately targeting our civilians. They have fired 2,000 rockets at Israel's cities. 75% of our population has to be in bomb shelter alert. Of 60 seconds or 90 seconds. They're digging these terror tunnels from gaza. From homes in gaza to penetrate and infiltrate Israeli territory. They've emerged there and killed Israelis and run back or tried to run back into their territory. We have tried to take action. What hamas is doing is embedding its rocketeers, these tunnels, these terror tunnels in homes, in hospitals, in schools. When...

With the rabbit hole of conspiracies getting deeper by the hour, video has emerged showing what appears to be the "black box" flight data recorder from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being taken from the crash scene. As NBC reports, the men in the video are wearing Ukrainian Emergency Ministry uniforms, but a senior Ukrainian official told a news conference Sunday that rebels had taken the black boxes. This fits with reports from The Hill that pro-Russian separatists have located the black boxes for the downed Malaysia Airlines passenger jet and will hand them over to international authorities, according to...

IRMO, SC — Three Columbia adults and three underage teenagers have been charged in a home invasion Thursday that stemmed from an argument earlier in the day between two teen girls over a boy, the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department said. Charged in the incident were Lenore Sharlene Jennings, 43, and Terrell Lamont Miller, 25, both of Jamil Road; Martha Nicole Pringle, 20, of Alcott Drive; and, two 15-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy, who were not identified because of their ages. The warrants charge that Jennings, armed with a stolen handgun, threatened the homeowner and an unknown number of children...

When most of us look at our hands, we might notice that we need to trim, clean, or stop biting our fingernails, and that's about it. But if you ask a dermatologist, they can see a whole lot more. Everything from poor diet and stress to serious kidney problems can be revealed by a glance at your fingernails. There are about 30 different nail signs that can be associated with medical issues, though many may indicate more than one problem, according to Dr. Amy Derick, a clinical instructor of dermatology at Northwestern University. Here are eight of the things a...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told a cheering crowd of conservatives Saturday night that the next U.S. president should shutter the much-maligned Internal Revenue Service and turn the agency's 110,000 employees loose to police the U.S.-Mexico border. 'That's slightly tongue-in-cheek,' he said in Denver at the Western Conservative Summit. 'But think about it for a second: You travel thousands of miles, you cross over and see 110,000 IRS agents? You'd turn around and go home!' [Snip] The normally stolid and bloated GOP establishment, he hinted Saturday, is dismayed at his rise to prominence among tea party sympathizers and other grass-roots...

This is nothing more or less than a complete vanity. My sixth book is out today and I am thrilled with it. I started my journey as a self-published writer just over two years ago and look forward to doing this as a career for the next few decades. My latest novel is called 'EMP': In a flash of searing light, the world changed. A massive solar flare has crippled the modern world and brought chaos and destruction. David Hartsman is stuck in the remote farm town of his youth on what was expected to be a short visit to...

"Reverend Gary Davis. His guitar skill must truly be heard to be believed. At points I swear there are at least two or three seperate guitars, but it's all coming out of him. Simply incredible...." .....;

U.S. officials warned on Sunday that scammers are attempting to prey on the families of some of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied child immigrants crossing the border from Latin America, seeking money for phony travel costs. "One fraud scheme involved individuals who claimed to be representing a charitable or non profit organization, which they claimed assists in processing and reuniting the children with their families," said Special Agent Michelle Lee. Another scheme used what Lee described as "caller I.D. spoofing" to make it appear that the calls were coming from a San Antonio business, which she didn't name, in...

Grumpy Cat, Oskar the Blind Cat (and his buddy Klaus), Hamilton the Hipster Cat, and Nala Cat have teamed up with Friskies on a new song and video, "Cat Summer," in honor of their late friend Colonel Meow. Watch as Oskar enjoys the sprinklers on a slip 'n slide, Hamilton and Nala disrupt a game of croquet, and Grumpy Cat looks grumpy despite sitting in a pot of beautiful flowers—and know that you're doing it for a good cause: For every view through September 1, Friskies will donate one meal of its Grillers dry cat food to shelters across the...

And Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35

The chief editor of a Sudanese newspaper was attacked and beaten by an angry mob late Saturday just days after a televised appearance in which he called for “normalized ties” with Israel. AFP is reporting that Osman Mirghani, editor in chief of Sudan’s Al-Tayar daily newspaper, was taken to Al-Zaytouna Hospital after the mob stormed the paper’s offices Saturday night. …

A video released by the IDF Sunday shows soldiers in action, destroying a tunnel dug by Hamas terrorists into Israel. The video shows the soldiers stringing explosives and blowing the tunnel up. “This is one of the first tunnels we found during this operation,” a soldier tells the camera. “It was dug in order to infiltrate Israeli communities. The IDF said Sunday that in three days of the ground campaign in Operation Protective Edge, soldiers had found and destroyed dozens of tunnels dug by Hamas terrorists into Israeli territory. Video

Thirteen IDF soldiers have been killed since Saturday night, the IDF said. The process of identifying the bodies is still ongoing. Golani Brigade, armor and engineering corps forces were met with effective close range guerrilla actions in Shejaiya, Gaza. The dead are apparently all from the Golani Brigade. The Brigade's commander, Col. Rasan Alian, was also lightly injured. According to Channel 2, there were several incidents that involved IDF deaths that occurred one after the other after midnight. In the most serious incident, around 1:00 a.m., an armored personnel carrier hit a large explosive charge, or may have been hit...

The death toll in Gaza’s Shejaiya neighborhood could have been lower had Hamas allowed residents to leave when they were requested to do so by the IDF, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told BBC Arabic on Sunday. Days ago, Israel distributed fliers and sent text messages calling on residents of Shejaiya to leave their homes. But Hamas, Netanyahu told the British news channel, forced them to stay home, effectively using them as human shields. Hamas has displayed photos of mangled bodies lying on the streets of the neighborhood and of the injured being taken to the city’s Shifa hospital. “I...

Kerry Angrily Spars With Fox’s Chris Wallace: ‘You Like To Ask Questions, But You Don’t Like To Get Answers!’ 07/20/2014 After months of shutting Fox News out of his Sunday show appearances, a downed airliner in Ukraine and an ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza compelled Secretary of State John Kerry to finally appear on “Fox News Sunday” A frustrated Kerry relentlessly castigated Fox’s Chris Wallace for continuing to ask questions while the Secretary of State was in the middle of answering. “You like to ask questions, but you don’t like to get answers!” he charged petulantly, before refusing to address...