Free Republic

Should Chris Wallace pick up a rifle and go stand a 'tripwire' post on the Turkey border?

As nobody else seems to celebrate Columbus Day, we might as well. So herewith some authentic Columbian music. This essay is adapted from my book A Song For The Season: For a 15th century Italian explorer long out of favor with America's cultural elite, Christopher Columbus sure has a hammerlock on the standard repertoire. Cole Porter put him in the verse to a famous song: As Dorothy Parker once said to her boyfriend 'Fare thee well' As Columbus announced When he knew he was bounced 'It was swell, Isabelle, swell...' In those days (1935) Dorothy Parker was famous for leaving...

<p>Hillary Clinton defended Meghan Markle in a new interview, saying her biracial background “certainly” played a role in the British tabloids’ harsh treatment of her.</p> <p>“I do want to say that the way she’s been treated is inexplicable,” the former Secretary of State told The Sunday Times of London in an interview.</p>

It will be another four and a half months before Republican voters in Alabama select a GOP nominee to face incumbent Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) in the Nov. 3, 2020 general election. However, there could be a familiar face among the list of candidates on the ballot. In recent days, there has been rampant speculation that former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions could enter the contest for his old seat. Sessions held the seat currently occupied by Jones from 1997 through 2017. He gave up that seat to serve in the Trump administration until his unceremonious exit in late 2018....

On the evening of 18 September 2018, Anthony Reyna was happy and excited. He and his friend, Gary, were hunting moose on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson north of and sharing a boundary with Anchorage, Alaska. Tony had drawn a moose tag for a bow hunt. He was using a 60 lb PSE ThunderBolt compound bow. He has owned the bow since he was a teenager. Tony and Gary set up and started moose calling about 6 p.m. After 40 minutes, they heard a bull moving in. They saw his antlers at 30 yards. Suddenly, a second bull appeared at 15 yards!...

The Narrative “[My plan] forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”[1] — Bernie Sanders “The result [of rising college costs] is a huge student loan debt burden that’s crushing millions of families and acting as an anchor on our economy.”[2] — Elizabeth Warren RealitySixty-six percent of millennials have no student debt at all.[3] That’s because they haven’t gone to college or because they managed to get through without having to borrow. Those who do have debt tend to have modest burdens...

Archaeologists in Israel announced Sunday that they had uncovered a 5,000-year-old city north of Tel Aviv. It is the largest Bronze Age urban area found in the region to date and could fundamentally change ideas of when sophisticated urbanization began taking place in the area, they said. Israel's Antiquities Authority said in a Facebook post that the city was discovered at the En Esur excavation site during road works near Harish, a town some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Tel Aviv. The archaeologists described the city as "cosmopolitan and planned." It covered 65 hectares (160 acres) and was home...

Melania Trump continued her Manolo Blahnik BB pump streak yesterday for a “Be Best” panel on vaping at the White House. The first lady looked chic in a charcoal-gray dress, which she teamed with python-print shoes. Animal print in all forms — from leopard to cow — is a major trend for fall ’19 and into spring ’20, but snakeskin may be the biggest must-have of all. Snake print appears on nearly everything this season, and Melania found a way to incorporate the reptilian look without sacrificing her style. After all, the BB pump has long been a staple of...

Hours after electricity was restored Saturday to all Bay Area PG&E customers, officials with the utility said their crews had located at least 50 instances of weather-related damage to power equipment within outage zones, including 13 in the North Bay — about half of them in Sonoma County. Another 100 or so cases around the greater Bay Area and the Sierra Nevada foothills were still being evaluated Saturday but are suspected of resulting from the same gusting winds that prompted the utility to shut off power to about 800,000 customers Wednesday in a controversial effort to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Power...

A “diehard Houston Rockets fan,” Mr. Cruz said China’s reaction to Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s tweet last week in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong shows “just how powerful the protests are.” “[H]e tweeted a very benign tweet where he said, stand for freedom, stand with Hong Kong. And the Chinese communist government, they just about lost it,” Mr. Cruz said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in an interview from Hong Kong. The NBA has sought to repair relations with China after the government-controlled Chinese broadcaster announced a boycott of Rockets games while Chinese commercial sponsors cancelled their...

CARACAS – Venezuela, my home country, has it all: beautiful and breathtaking landscapes, abundant resources, even unique wonders of nature like the Angel Falls or the Catatumbo Lightning. Yet if you’ve heard our name in the news recently, it’s as the subject of tragedy: toilet paper shortages, desperate people scavenging through garbage to find food for their families, bread lines, a systemic failure of our public utilities, dogs flayed in broad daylight for meat, corruption, lack of proper medicine and health access, weighing stacks of cash, and so much more. It saddens me to say that it’s true, all of...

Celebrated Christian evangelist Franklin Graham has taken issue with the Democrats’ extreme push of the LGBTQ agenda, saying he will stand with biblical morality. “I will not bow down at the altar of the LGBTQ agenda nor worship their rainbow pride flag,” Rev. Graham said in reaction to Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they do not recognize homosexual marriage. “I’m going to stand with the Word of God, the Holy Bible, which is truth from cover to cover,” Graham added in a three-part tweet Friday evening. Rev. Graham, the son of “America’s Pastor,” Billy...

Should it be a crime to knowingly expose someone to HIV without disclosing it? Most sane people would say yes. But a widely panned Vox article published this week said that state laws making it a crime to not disclose your HIV status “have only increased stigma and abuse.” And apparently, many 2020 Democrats agree with this ludicrous, insane point of view.

It was a small airbase on the border with Cambodia. It bordered a town of 6,000 that survived on the proceeds of local rubber plantations. The airbase was guarded by a few hundred South Vietnamese regulars supported by 11 U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) soldiers. But it would host a 10-day battle that would see hundreds of North Vietnamese forces killed while that tiny force held its ground. The small town and airbase were important for two reasons. First, the airbase was a logistical hub for military and espionage operations conducted by the U.S.; something communist forces were keen...

More beer makers are crafting up sober brews. Brooklyn Brewery is launching its first non-alcoholic beer nationwide, the New York City-based brewer announced Tuesday. It’s the latest brewery to cater to a sober-curious crowd. Brooklyn Special Effects was made to mimic the flavor profile of regular beer, minus the alcohol and is described as a hoppy lager-style brew. “It's not just for people who are sober, pregnant, or driving, but rather it’s for people who want to do more with their lives while still enjoying a fun and flavorful beverage,” Robin Ottaway, Brooklyn Brewery President, said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that testimony from the intelligence community whistleblower at the center of the House impeachment inquiry against President Trump may no longer be necessary. “Given that we already have the call record, we don't need the whistleblower who wasn't on the call to tell us what took place during the call,” he told Margaret Brennan during an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation." “Before the president started threatening the whistleblower... we were interested in having the whistleblower come forward. Our primary interest right now is making sure that that person is...

A man who criticized President Donald Trump’s immigration policies in the name of progressive Christianity was killed last week by an undocumented immigrant who avoided deportation by hiding in a local “sanctuary church.” Sean Buchanan, a father of five from Colorado Springs, was driving his motorcycle on Highway 83 when Miguel Ramirez Valiente swerved into his lane and killed him. The immigrant was charged with reckless driving with a revoked license. Ramirez Valiente received national media coverage in January when he sought sanctuary in All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Buchanan’s hometown. Speaking from the pulpit, he told assembled reporters...

In October 1917, Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power and inaugurated the first communist workers' state, founded on the principles of Karl Marx's “Das Kapital.” Almost immediately, the race was on to turn antiquated, almost feudal imperial Russia into a communist utopia. It was a tall order in Russia: the vast majority of the population of the nascent Soviet state were illiterate peasants, for whom the traditions and tenants of Orthodox Christianity were the sole cultural and spiritual bedrock. Replacing it with the more complicated economic and social principles of Marxism took ingenuity, dedication and ruthlessness. The state embarked on a...

MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough worry there might be a "void" in the Democratic 2020 presidential candidates lineup if Joe Biden can't go the distance. "Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, either one of them against Donald Trump puts the suburbs back in play," Brzezinski (note: should have been Scarborough) warned. JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's in Florida, Michigan. Yeah, it's democrats as well who are really scared right now. In the suburbs, people in the suburbs where this is -- this is Democratic territory. If what we are hearing is actually true, then Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders,...

Tim Pool analyzes the latest outbreak of violence involving Antifa in the city of Portland.