Free Republic

President Donald Trump is feuding with LaVar Ball and LeVar Burton is taking the hit on Twitter. Burton is an actor best known for playing Lt. La Forge in "Star Trek" on TV and film and for championing kids' education through the "Reading Rainbow" series. Ball is the father of Los Angeles Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball and UCLA basketball player LiAngelo Ball, one of three student players recently arrested in China for shoplifting. SNIP Some of the president's followers in turn attacked Burton on Twitter, with one calling him a "has been actor with a thief for a son." SNIP

Last week in Bonn, Germany, thousands gathered at the heavily secured United Nations climate conference, dubbed “COP 23,” a Potemkin village of bureaucrats, politicians, environmentalists, journalists and local support staff. Sixty kilometers away, in the 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest, scores of activists, living in treehouses, defended the old growth woodland in an ongoing struggle to save the rare ecosystem from destruction and stop the expansion of Europe’s largest open-pit mine, a sprawling hole in the earth where energy company RWE extracts lignite, or brown coal, the dirtiest coal on earth.

US defense and intelligence officials are growing increasingly puzzled why Kim Jong Un has not tested a ballistic missile in nearly two months. And for now, as President Donald Trump travels through Asia, it does not appear another missile test is imminent. Officials caution all of this could change at any time and Kim could resume aggressive weapons testing -- but that would also pose the question as to why he resumed. One of biggest worries for the US military is that the North Korean regime might live up to its threat of conducting an atmospheric nuclear test. Officials point...

Khachapuri, a gooey, addictive, cheese-stuffed flatbread, is ubiquitous in Georgia, the Caucasian country that shares borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey. Except for when there’s a funeral. “If you’re in a bad mood or sad, when you’re grieving the death of a loved one or have a broken heart, you should never even touch dough; just stay away from it,” said my friend Mako Kavtaradze, a born-and-bred resident of the capital, Tbilisi, and executive director of Georgian spice company Spy Recipe. “If you’re not in a happy mood, we will be able to tell when we taste the khachapuri...

Your Catholic Week in Review (CCHD Edition!) Another disastrous CCHD collection nationwide as more and more parishes are dropping "Alinsky Bucks" into the collection plate rather than subsidize the Obama-Soros population control agenda.     This oft-criticized hub for Alinskyite activism is still trapped in a cycle of anti-Catholic political activism to incredibly shady organizations, as the USCCB finally released their list of 2016-2017 CCHD Grantees.  The list is not encouraging in the slightest.   Click here to read the substance of our CCHD overview at the Lepanto Institute.   Meanwhile, the journalists bloggers over at the font of political leftism...

This is the new SJW's battleground. IQ. Fantastic rant by Peterson. Jordan Peterson - Blue-Collar Lifestyle and IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl7_pwO7R0w

A Finnish TV channel was left red-faced on Tuesday after it accidentally broadcast text insulting Sweden during its live morning news bulletin. MTV3 – a Finnish TV station not related to the American network of a similar name – had a routine start to its 7.30am news show, as anchor Jouni Sipilä opened with a report about Donald Trump's plans to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But things quickly went downhill from there. As Sipilä moved on to the recent earthquake in Japan, the phrase "Ruotsi on kakka" appeared in large text on the main onscreen caption. For the...

Murphy's win boosts prospects for legal marijuana in New Jersey

I have created a solar oven with an old satellite dish and about 250 small mirrors. My thermometer reached >600 degrees F in about one minute. I'm trying to think of a way for it to automatically track the path of the sun. Any suggestions?

Let us cut to the chase: the NFL owns the players' protest because not only has the league failed to hold players accountable, its owners joined in the anti-American protest. Well, virtue signaling has a price. Americans are about to pull tax breaks that the league enjoys. I want to make clear exactly what this protest is about. Colin Kaepernick said: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part...

The family of an 18-year-old apprentice carpenter stabbed to death in an apparently unprovoked attack in north London have said knife crime is "out of control" in the capital. Jason Isaacs was on a night out with friends in Northolt on Saturday when they were targeted by balaclava-clad attackers on mopeds in a "pre-planned attack". The group fled for their lives, but the teenager became separated before being stabbed multiple times with a large knife. Critically injured, Mr Isaacs was rushed to hospital where he died on Tuesday. There have been a total of 18 fatal stabbings involving teenagers in...

Megyn Kelly's career is on the ropes Once a celebrated star in the Fox News galaxy, Kelly's fortunes faded following her switch to NBC. The ratings for her show, "Megyn Kelly Today," have been disastrous. And getting worse. Critics have piled on continuously since the show's debut. Even a lighter moment, like her dancing with fellow NBC star Hoda Kotb, earned withering responses. The Peacock Network is clearly regretting signing her to a staggering $23 million per year contract. And yet she remains a smart, formidable talent. She's also one of the few voices in mainstream media with the courage...

Wilson, N.C. — Fresenius Kabi will expand its drug-manufacturing operations in Wilson, potentially bringing at least 445 new jobs over five years and $100 million in investment. The German company will enlarge its 100-employee pharmaceutical production facility and build a new manufacturing plant. Both facilities will make products used in hospitals and clinics throughout the United States and Canada. “This expansion is welcome news for Eastern North Carolina and our entire state and shows once again that manufacturing thrives in North Carolina today,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in announcing the expansion. Fresenius Kabi has owned its Wilson site, specializing in...

In an opinion piece published nearly three years ago by the NY Times Editorial Board, we learned that terminating people of faith from public sector jobs is not only acceptable but demanded if they hold politically incorrect views on LGBT matters. The “tolerant” liberals running the Times shared this little tidbit following the termination of Kelvin Cochran from his position as chief of the Atlanta Fire Department, a position where he was recognized as the 2012 Fire Chief of the Year after declining a Senate-approved appointment by Barack Obama to be FEMA’s US Fire Administrator in 2010. In other words,...

It's said to be richer in protein than regular loavesA Finnish bakery has launched what it claims to be the world’s first insect-based bread, made from crushed crickets. Helsinki-based bakery Fazer made the bread using flour ground from dried crickets. Each loaf contains about 70 of the insects, combined with wheat flour and other seeds. At £3.55 (€3.99) a loaf, it is slightly more expensive than a regular wheat loaf which usually sells for about £2 (€2.24). Due to a limited supply of crickets, the insect-bread will initially only be sold in 11 Fazer bakery stores in Helsinki, but the...

Full Title: Marvel's Ike Perlmutter, a Trump Friend, Hopes Homeland Security Helped Solve Bizarre Mystery Perlmutter is now claiming extortion — and a court filing suggests that Trump's go-to lawyer may have known about it. For the longest time, decades in fact, Marvel chairman Isaac Perlmutter wouldn't show his face in public. The 74-year-old Israeli American could very well have taken a bow for rescuing Marvel Comics from bankruptcy in the 1990s or selling his company to Disney for $4 billion in 2009, but Perlmutter has never been interested in publicity. His aversion to the limelight runs so deep that...

The mayor of Osaka, Japan, is making good on his threat to sever the sister-city relationship with San Francisco because of a Chinatown memorial honoring women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military before and during World War II. The bronze sculpture that was placed in St. Mary’s Square in September shows three teenage girls holding hands next to an older woman. Though the artwork, known as the “Women’s Column of Strength,” was erected to honor female war victims, it’s seen by many Japanese citizens and government officials as an insult. “This is highly regrettable,” Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura...

Arizona State University is revoking an award bestowed on journalist Charlie Rose, who was fired this week by CBS News and PBS in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women. […] Rose was given the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2015. Dean Christopher Callahan said in a statement that the actions reported about Rose were too “egregious” to ignore. He says Rose’s actions victimized young women who were not unlike the students attending Cronkite. …

He was well protected by a beekeeping suit, and armed with a shovel to hack away at the monstrous hornets’ nest. “We got here, what I would say, is the granddaddy of all hornets’ nests,” Jude Verret, a Louisiana exterminator, said as he headed into a shed in Patterson, La., to clear a nest of Europan Yellow Jackets. Beyond physical protection, Verret must have been armed with quite a bit of courage, given the sheer size of the nest — and the million or more hornets he said were swarming around inside.

April Ryan, White House reporter for American Urban Radio networks and CNN analyst, demanded President Donald Trump’s Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provide proof she baked a pie she tweeted a photo of on Thanksgiving Day. It started on Thursday with Sanders doing what many Americans did that day–post a photo of their Thanksgiving Day meal, “I dont cook much these days, but managed this Chocolate Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving at the family farm!” Ryan commented late Friday morning making clear she was not joking, demanding Sanders provide proof, and included a jab at Sanders asking reporters earlier this week...