Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Squatters beware. Florida's latest law makes it easier to remove those illegally staying on private property. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 621 into law Wednesday, eliminating squatters' rights in the state. "We are putting an end to the squatters scam in Florida," DeSantis said. "While other states are siding with the squatters, we are protecting property owners and punishing criminals looking to game the system." DeSantis said the law provides homeowners with remedies against squatting and increases penalties for squatters.

LeVar Burton got a glimpse into his lineage in “Finding Your Roots” and discovered something about his ancestors that shocked him. The former “Reading Rainbow” host, freedom-to-read advocate and actor knew little about his lineage. He’d been estranged from his father, Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, since he was 11, and his mother, Erma Gene Christian, had been tight-lipped about her own history. Burton said it was “impossible” to get her to open-up about her upbringing.

Affirmative. It can be portrayed as normal vs crazy - but crazy is a forbearing understatement when it comes to MAGA Republicans captivated in the Trump cult.

Kid Rock was allegedly spotted at a concert drinking a Bud Light this week, only months after the conservative rocker helped spearhead a boycott of the brand with a viral video of him gunning down cases of the beer. The images, which appeared to have been taken without his knowledge, generated mockery across social media, with users accusing him of being a hypocrite for trashing the brand and then consuming it just a short while later. TMZ published video of Kid Rock while he was at the Skydeck venue in Nashville, Tenn., for a Colt Ford performance on Thursday. The...

It is uncomfortable to face violent threats. We endure that discomfort because it is better to face them than run from them. Communists in the US have flocked to Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and the things they want to do are horrible. Fortunately, we’ve faced threats like this before and we’re prepared to face them again. The US model of limited government and empowered people is up to the dangerous task of defending liberty. We are made for this. I’m not going to put words in the mouth of American Communists. Project Veritas recorded many Sanders’ staffers in candid conversations....

Like many on the Right, I’m not exactly a fan of Antifa. I don’t support fascism of any kind, but I find it especially loathsome when it pretends to be anti-fascist. Antifa isn’t so much about combating the scourge of fascism so much as labeling anything they disagree with as fascism so they can then turn around and commit acts of violence. Antifa has done it for a while, starting with setting fire to buildings at Berkley to blocking a speech by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannapolis and eventually spawning into the so-called “Battle of Berkley.” That “battle” was, primarily, a...

Is gun confiscation coming to Congress? The 2018 midterm elections produced a split Congress with Democrats gaining control of the House and Republicans gaining seats in the Senate. The chattering DC classes are already speculating about the Democrat’s plans to subpoena Trump’s tax records and Senate Republicans’ moves to consolidate their hold of the federal judiciary. But amid the DC gossip, a new threat is being overlooked—red flag gun confiscation orders. The Guardian detailed House Democrats’ desire to pass gun control legislation in the upcoming Congress: “Ted Deutch, a Democratic congressman from Florida who represents Parkland, where a February school...

Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) wrote an opinion column for USA Today in which he called for significant increases in gun control, following the murder of Gary Jackson, a 28-year old security guard from Oakland, California, whose killer was armed with an “AK-47-style semi-automatic assault rifle.” Swalwell was the prosecutor in the case, and his exposure to Jackson’s autopsy reports emboldened him to seek significant gun control legislation at the federal level. Invoking the justification-induced power of the pronoun we, Swalwell writes, “We should ban possession of military-style semi-automatic assault weapons, we should buy back such weapons from all who choose...

Close your eyes and imagine holding someone’s scalp in your hands. I don’t mean cradling his skull as you thousand-yard-stare at his lifeless face. I mean a real scalp, Indian-style, of some enemy you just killed on the battlefield; somebody you hated and who hated you back. You killed him, won the day, carved off the top of his skull, and now you’re standing over him victorious on the now-quiet field of battle, with a quiet breeze blowing through your hair. Your adrenaline is still pumping with that primal feeling of victory and the elation of having survived when others...

One of the most common fallacies of the new populists is to say that their model is the “Nordic” one and that those countries are successful examples of how “socialism works”. When I mentioned it to the Finnish Finance Minister Petteri Orpo at a recent ECR dinner, he could not believe it. Expropriations, massive tax increases, appropriation of savings and subordinating the growth model to political control is what populists defend. The same as Venezuela, which all of them praised — from Bernie Sanders to Owen Jones or Corbyn and Chomsky — until it collapsed. Then they moved on to...

Today, all Americans are told, "Go to college!" President Obama said, "College graduation has never been more valuable." But economist Bryan Caplan says that most people shouldn't go. "How many thousands of hours did you spend in classes studying subjects that you never thought about again?" he asks. Lots, in my case. At Princeton, I learned to live with strangers, play cards and chase women, but I slept through boring lectures, which were most of them. At least tuition was only $2,000. Now it's almost $50,000. "People usually just want to talk about the tuition, which is a big deal,...

It’s been three short months since the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead , and America has suffered from yet another school shooting. This time in Santa Fe, Texas, where 10 people were gunned down on Friday. As we’ve come to expect, it’s trending on every social media platform and news outlet, as people gear up with the latest arguments and narratives and wait – although, not always – for the facts to emerge. Rather than partake in the mud-slinging, I believe it’s time to reevaluate our solutions and look to government for the answer, by...

Link here: https://youtu.be/nu_7m--Ozrs

This afternoon, Donald Trump made an announcement regarding the future of the Iran nuclear deal. Ahead of a self-imposed May 12th deadline, the President announced that he will not be waiving the sanctions. This decision places the United States in violation of the deal. But while it may not kill the JCPOA completely – European states and Iran could decide whether to keep some version of the deal going without the United States – it will start a period of profound uncertainty about the future of U.S-Iranian relations. In some ways, this uncertainty is the most concerning thing about the...

In a recent article, David Brooks (New York Times “conservative” columnist who — surprise — writes as a “progressive”) suggests that “the culture war” is over or close to over: progressives have already won. Their opponents, “the … less educated ... tribalists” have “self-marginalized over the past two years.” In addition, progressives “are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior. ...” As a result, they could now “be on the verge of delegitimizing their foes, on guns but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society … [avoid being] morally illegitimate...

Free speech may not mean what most college students think it means. The majority of college students surveyed in a Gallup/Knight Foundation study said they support free speech and believe it is vital to the health of democracy. Yet droves of students also said they favor policies that restrict free speech such as safe spaces, free speech zones, speech codes and bans on offensive Halloween costumes. Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, said “the discrepancy between what undergraduate students say they believe and what actions they are willing to take is really breathtaking.” “Students like the ring...

As the Parkland, Fla., school shooting revealed yet again, when it comes to firearms, the differences between Americans has become too monumental to overcome. On one end of the political spectrum are left-wing politicians and pundits calling for the elimination of the Second Amendment and severe restrictions on virtually every kind of gun. On the other end are Americans who believe the best way to stop mass shootings is to have even more weapons available to the public, and for everyday citizens, including teachers, to be better armed so that they are capable of defending themselves and others from murderers...

Whenever there is a mass shooting in the media, commentators rush to figure out on what to blame the latest violence. Predictably, those who want gun control blame gun control. Others blame mental illness — and perhaps a lack of government programs related to it. Some others blame racism or ideology, as was the case with the Aurora theater shooting when one ABC talking head concluded the shooter must a "Tea Party" member within hours of the shooting. And then there's the Republican politician who blamed the same shooting on “the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.” The odds of dying...

A state commission in Colorado that punished Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips for refusing to use his artistry to promote same-sex marriage could be eliminated. Future funding for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, where one member even likened Christians to Nazis, failed in a vote in the state’s Joint Budget Committee. State Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, tweeted that the decision came down to a party-line vote that tabled plans to continue sending money to the commission. “My argument against approving their funding today is we need to wait and see what the legislature does with the renewal of the law...

A great many people – especially conservatives – reverence the Constitution, consider that it has been abused and that if only the doctrines expressed within were revived and respected, all would be well with America again. This, of course, is a kind of children’s bedtime story – and approximates reality to about the same degree as the story of the Three Little Pigs. The Constitution was peddled and imposed on us by men like Alexander Hamilton, a grasper after power who very openly loathed the ideas expressed by men like Jefferson in his Declaration (and even more so in his...