Free Republic

While America had been rocked by riots and assassinations when I was a kid, the first big political development in America that shocked me was the election of Ronald Reagan. He was a boob, a Hollywood actor, not even a very good one. At the time, just out of college, I did not really understand the darker forces that were behind his election—the racism and greed, the anti-government ideology that was really just a formula to enable the richest among us to make more and the most racist states to chart their own course.

Modern history can be divided into two time frames: before 9/11 and after 9/11.This five-part docuseries from director Brian Knappenberger is a cohesive chronicle of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., offering illuminating perspectives and personal stories of how the catastrophic events of that day changed the course of the nation.From the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the country’s breathtaking collapse back into the hands of the Taliban just weeks before the twentieth anniversary of the attacks, history continues to be made.The September 11, 2001 attacks changed the world in ways that have taken decades to...

At the end of May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a notable, yet mostly ignored, large-scale study of COVID transmission in American schools. A few major news outlets covered its release by briefly reiterating the study’s summary: that masking then-unvaccinated teachers and improving ventilation with more fresh air were associated with a lower incidence of the virus in schools. Those are common-sense measures, and the fact that they seem to work is reassuring but not surprising. Other findings of equal importance in the study, however, were absent from the summary and not widely reported. These findings cast...

Wang grew up in Jiangxi Province, a rural farming village 200 miles from Wuhan, before moving to the U.S. nine years ago. In January 2020, working remotely from her home in New Jersey, she assembled a team of field producers, camera operators and subjects on the ground of a heavily censored China to investigate what was going on in hospitals within Wuhan. In doing so, the director was able to reveal the Chinese dictatorship’s attempts to conceal early knowledge of the virus’ deadly potential. “I was never my intention to make a film about the virus or tracking the pandemic,”...

First, the white backlash is occurring in the context of long-term erosion in the federal government’s legitimacy. Since 1958, the Gallup polling organization has periodically asked Americans how much they trust the federal government to do what is right. In 1958, 73 percent said ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’. Trust hit its high point in 1964, when that figure stood at 77 percent. Then it began to fall. By 1980, only 27 percent trusted the government to do what is right. That percentage rebounded to the low forties during the Reagan years, then fell to a new low, 19...

During their brief coverage of Rush’s passing, NBC news just committed journalistic malpractice. Of course, they do this in some fashion almost daily. They claimed that Rush was well known for making “racist and sexist comments”. Then, as an example, they played a tape (while printing the words on screen) of Rush saying: “We need segregated buses.... this is Obama’s America!” Racist ? Really ? Rush was talking about Obama’s statement that “Republicans need to get to the back of the bus.” Rush’s statement had NOTHING to do with race. Obama wanted to segregate us based on our political beliefs....

Apparently, an active shooter and perhaps a truck attack going on NOW in lower Manhattan....

HEADLINE: Few charter school grads earn degrees (On my USA Today newspaper) FACTS> (from article): Statistics for charter schools as a whole are hard to come by, but the best estimate puts charters’ college persistence rates at around 23%. To be fair, the rate overall for low-income students – the kind of students typically served by charters – is even worse: just 9%.

Breaking on Drudge, from Rachel Madcow's twitter feed. She claims to have Trump's Tax Returns.

GEORGETOWN, Ky. (AP) — The fate of the last legislative chamber in the South still controlled by Democrats is in the hands of a few thousand Kentucky voters in four House districts scattered throughout the state. Those voters will choose four state representatives Tuesday in a series of special elections created by resignations and two strategic appointments by new Republican Gov. Matt Bevin. Democrats have 50 members and Republicans 46 in the Kentucky House of Representatives, where Democrats have held the majority for nearly a century. A Republican sweep would mean Democrats would not control the chamber for the first...

TODAY IS PRIMARY DAY in Kentucky!!! GET OUT AND VOTE!!

In my 2012 Kentucky Derby column for Xpressbet.com, I’ll Have Another was my selection to win. He had only one strike. I’ll Have Another got the job done and paid $32.60. In 2013, Orb was my selection to win in my Kentucky Derby column for Xpressbet.com. He had zero strikes. Orb won and paid $12.80. Here are my selections for 2014: 1. Dance With Fate 2. California Chrome 3. Wicked Strong 4. Medal Count

“Under the Obama administration, more than half of those removals that were attributed to ICE are actually a result of Border Patrol arrests that wouldn’t have been counted in prior administrations,” said Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican. “Correct,” Mr. Johnson confirmed. That would mean that in a one-to-one comparison with the final years of the Bush administration, deportations of those same people under Mr. Obama had actually fallen, according to immigration analysts who have studied the data.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- Nine months before Kentucky's 2014 U.S. Senate election, Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes leads five-term incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) 46% to 42% in a WHAS11/Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll released Thursday. McConnell enjoys a comfortable 26 point margin in the Republican primary contest against Matt Bevin in the poll conducted by Survey USA and commissioned by a partnership of WHAS11, The Courier-Journal, WKYT-TV in Lexington and the Lexington Herald-Leader.

April Sniper Attack Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country's Power Grid SAN JOSE, Calif.—The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables. Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

I walked out of my Dr's office today without getting my physical. My Dr for the past 13 years closed his private office and joined the behemoth, Baptist Health System. Before my physical, I had to fill out a bunch of new forms... One of them said, "You acknowledge agreement with our Privacy Policy".. I hadn't been given the Privacy Policy... so, I asked for it. Wow. So many things in it that are awful.. for starters, they say right up front, they reserve the right to CHANGE their policy at any time, without notifying anyone, and all information they...

OK... I LOOKED, SEARCHED.... didn't find anything from Dotty. But, seriously... tonight's the OSCARS! Where's our Live Thread??

After his eponymously-named lab discovered Flame, "the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed," Eugene Kaspersky believes that the evolving threat of “cyber terrorism” could spell the end of life on Earth as we know it. ­Doomsday scenarios are a common occurrence in 2012, but coming from a steely-eyed realist like Eugene Kaspersky, his calls for a global effort to halt emerging cyber threats should raise alarm bells. A global Internet blackout and crippling attacks against key infrastructure are among two possible cyber-pandemics he outlined."It's not cyber war, it's cyber terrorism, and I'm afraid the game is just beginning. Very soon,...

September 11, 2011, 8:41 am The Years of Shame ... The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it. I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

Anti-government activists are reported to be planning to stage nationwide demonstrations against the ruling al-Khalifa family on 13 -14 February. The protests are reportedly referred to on social networking websites as ‘The 14 February Revolution in Bahrain', and organisers claim they are not associated with any pre-existing political group or movement. The gatherings are likely to focus on government buildings in the capital Manama, such as the interior ministry in the west of the city. Other potential rally venues are Exhibition Road, the Ras Ruman mosque near the Diplomatic Area in the north of the city, the US Fifth Fleet...