Free Republic

Robert Mueller Asks Judge To Hide Russian Election Evidence From The Russians Godfrey Daniel! You've GOT to be kidding me. Do I smell a Hollywood comedy coming up after this is all over? "Dumb & Dumber" meets "Zero Dark Thirty"? The characters are a bumbling crusty-but-benign FBI agent who's always getting heat from his incompetent AG; an ugly female desk jockey who sends love twitters to our hero; an accident prone IT technician who is computer illiterate; an aging weed-smoking, ex-hippie detective who sees Russians everywhere (even in his sleep); and a clueless, sex-crazed blonde bimbo TV anchor who can't...

In one of the most well-known classics of British Literature, Pride and Prejudice, the author Jane Austen offers a morality tale. She describes the slow realization of the heroine, Elizabeth Bennett, that her much-vaunted intelligence failed to give her an accurate reading of the man who eventually emerges as the hero of the tale. Mr. Darcy, the wealthy landowner who arrives new to town with his likable friend Mr. Bingley, is at first regarded with some appreciation. He’s a rich man, considered handsome, and: “… he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening; till his manners...

hough his impact during the Korean War was significant, Michael Drake said his father, Dale, was not a volunteer. "He was drafted into the Army to serve as an anesthesiology physician. That was his first job," said Michael, who himself is an anesthesiologist in Evansville. Dr. Dale Drake, who passed away on Tuesday, was stationed in the 8055 MASH unit in Korea. He was 93 at his death. Dale, along with his wife, Cathy — who worked in the same unit — would later help Hollywood shape the way America saw the Korean War. About 10 years after Korea, the...

aeolist Noun (plural aeolists) (rare) A pompous person, pretending to have inspiration or spiritual insight. _________________________________________________________________________________ Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the Word for the Day in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day.

18th century map of the Inner Austrian districts of Görz and Trieste created between 1789 and 1797. Credit: University of Bristol ====================================================================== A lost world in a former empire in Europe has been brought to life thanks to University of Bristol researchers who used artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyse 47,000 multilingual pages from newspapers dating back to 1873. The study, published in Historical Methods, aimed to discover whether historical changes could be detected from the collective content of local newspapers from the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca. The findings reveal a series of political and cultural events...

“All hope abandon ye who enter here.” That’s the inscription on the gate to Hell in one of the first English translations of The Divine Comedy, by Henry Francis Cary, in 1814. You probably know it as the less tongue-twisting “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” which is the epigraph for Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, hangs as a warning above the entrance to the Disney theme park ride Pirates of the Caribbean, appears in the videogame World of Warcraft, and has been repurposed as a lyric by The Gaslight Anthem. But it’s just one line of the 14,233...

The author of the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy, Chuck Wendig, went on a Twitter rant against Star Wars fans, calling them #GamerGate, #ComicsGate, MRAs, Incels and white supremacists. He started off the rant on May 31st, 2018, exclaiming that he went down a rabbit hole of crappy Star Wars fans after they threatened to boycott his upcoming book and were glad Solo: A Star Wars Story tanked at the box office. Chuck Wendig ✔ @ChuckWendig I help I fell down a weird rabbit hole of [expletive] Star Wars fans oh my god these people Chuck Wendig ✔@ChuckWendig What a weird...

Life's fine but t'aint easy I had seen this movie years ago, a few times, at least parts of it. But I bought it the other night via Amazon Prime and watched it with my oldest son. I knew there were really touching moments in it, but I just thoroughly loved seeing it after all this time. I really don't think I had ever seen the whole thing, to be honest. Gregory Peck was outstanding as the dad. As was Jane Wyman as the mom. And the little boy, Claude Jarman Jr., was so darned good as Jody Baxter. Too...

When the novelist Philip Roth died a few days ago, I thought, briefly, about re-posting an ancient piece of mine from The American Spectator. But de mortuis nihil nisi bonum and all that. Then I picked up The Daily Mail, and figured I might as well hop aboard the bandwagon. I came to Roth via the film of Goodbye, Columbus, with Ali McGraw and Richard Benjamin, who rather spoilt the book for me, and then read Portnoy's Complaint, and thereafter whatever review copy I was obliged to digest for my BBC artsy endeavors. As to the oeuvre, the defining Philip...

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". jollification [jol-uh-fi-key-shuh n] noun jolly merrymaking; jolly festivity. Origin of jollification First recorded in 1800–10; jolly + -fication Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018 Examples from the Web for jollification Historical Examples Also, there was nothing in their demeanour that savoured of any spirit of jollification. Prairie Flowers James B. Hendryx By jingo, I think he might say ‘splice the main brace’ now, after all this jollification!...

Donald Trump Jr., plagued by personal and professional scandals ranging from alleged philandering to colluding with the Russians to blacklisting his father for a year, is pitching a top-secret book proposal, that could net the First Son a multimillion dollar advance – if he 'fesses up to the secrets he holds', top book executives say. While the title and subject of Trump Jr.'s book is being kept under wraps for now, publishing insiders say the proposed book's greatest value will be his revelations about life inside the controversial Trump family, and his efforts to redeem his tarnished personal and public...

The week of May 8 to 15 closed a chapter in my life whose first pages were written in France before I made my 1947 debut, in New York City. My father’s first cousin, William Friedman, authored those pages by deed. Bill enlisted in the Army in 1938 and made the first of his three first-day World War II landings Nov. 8, 1942, in Oran, Algeria, with the First Division, (snip) Italy (snip) the invasion of Normandy. Like most veterans Bill rarely spoke of his war days. He opened up to me a few times, once showing me letters he...

The week is done, I slip out of the battles of work and into a space that is mine alone. New chores that I decide. The music sets the tone, in the background, as I address my Hopes and Dreams with domestic production. My first album on full play? Everything But the Girl - Amplified Heart Just put it on and let it play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EKOyrKLvM4&t=765s What's your go to full play album?

____________________________________________________________________________________ Ultracrepidarian. Definition: one who is presumptuous and offers advice or opinions beyond one's sphere of knowledge. The meaning of this word comes from a story in antiquity, in which the famed Greek painter Apelles one day heard a cobbler criticizing the way he had rendered a foot in a painting. ul·tra·crep·i·dar·i·an ˌəltrəkrepəˈderēən/ adjective adjective: ultracrepidarian; adjective: ultra-crepidarian 1. expressing opinions on matters outside the scope of one's knowledge or expertise. "“Dad, how do we know the universe is expanding?” inquires your six-year-old. Try answering that without resorting to an ultracrepidarian trick here or there" noun noun: ultracrepidarian; plural noun:...

A list of conventions that have banned science fiction authors - including some they'd put on panels - and the history of what is going on.

It's couched in oh so delicate terms, as pretty much everyone mourns the death of the great Tom Wolfe: Tom Wolfe was a reporter, Tom Wolfe was an observer. Tom Wolfe eyed status-seeking. Tom Wolfe skewered the establishment. And through his incredible mastery of words, he entertained the hell out of us. Yes, true enough. But somehow he never got a Nobel prize in literature, despite vastly outranking almost everyone else who has. So I guess I am corrupting things a little when I state the obvious about Wolfe: He did write, he did observe, he did skewer, and by...

Sentinel (Penguin/Random House) has just authorized a new edition (4th) of "A Patriot's History of the United States" written by Larry Schweikart (LS) and Mike Allen. This will be the 30th printing of the book since 2004 with a half-million copies in print. The new edition, expanding on the 10th Anniversary Edition in 2014, will cover all of US history from Columbus's discovery of the New World to the end of Trump's second year. That means all of Zero's useless presidency will be included. Since Trump is erasing it as fast as possible, there may not be much to cover...

Almost six years ago, former Navy Seal and fighter against the Deep State, Matt Bracken, wrote this short story in the form of "confession" by an operative of a coup. This story was written in 2012, shortly before Obama's reelection, and the events of the story are consistent with the era and the events that unfolded in that time period. The name of the story is called "What I Saw at the Coup." This is the BEST story I've ever read that translates the VITAL ROLE of our 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms, particularly to arms such as AR-15's...

Roughly 60 years after the abolition of slavery, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston made an incredible connection: She located the last surviving captive of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the United States. ... In fact, they are only now being released to the public in a book called Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” that comes out on May 8, 2018... he was only 19 years old when members of the neighboring Dahomian tribe captured him and took him to the coast. There, he and about 120 others were sold into slavery and crammed onto the...

Chelsea Clinton has locked down her next book. The best-selling children’s author has reteamed with Penguin Young Readers to publish Start Now! You Can Make a Difference this fall, EW can exclusively announce. The book —featuring facts, stories, and tips on how to change the world — will be aimed at readers ages 7-10 years old. Clinton will use her platform to break down issues relating to health, hunger, climate change, endangered species, and bullying for young readers to understand, and see how they can make a difference in their own lives, as well as in their communities and the...