Free Republic

A California teacher who taught White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller when he was a third-grader has been suspended after she published an op-ed claiming he was a “loner” who ate glue in her class. The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District placed Nikki Fiske on “home assignment” pending an internal investigation following her piece in The Hollywood Reporter magazine describing the 8-year-old Miller as a “strange dude.” “Do you remember that character in Peanuts, the one called Pig Pen, with the dust cloud and crumbs flying all around him?” Ms. Fiske wrote Wednesday. “That was Stephen Miller at 8....

“Kid Rock, should President Trump fire Jeff Sessions?” the off-camera reporter asked as the singer made his way to the West Wing. “He should fire you,” the singer quipped without missing a beat.

...According to the report, 25 percent of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives, and their views are far outside the American mainstream. Some 8 percent of Americans are progressive activists, and their views are even less typical. By contrast, the two-thirds of Americans who don’t belong to either extreme constitute an “exhausted majority.” Their members “share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation.” (snip) If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education....

Antidepressants pose a threat to wildlife due to their presence in water supplies, say experts ... ... Dr Helena Herrera, of Portsmouth’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, said many prescribers might not be aware antidepressant medication was potentially harmful for marine life, or that it persists in the environment. ... Their research [Dr Helena Herrera, of Portsmouth’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, and Professor Alex Ford, of Portsmouth’s Institute of Marine Biology], published in British Journal of Psychiatry, suggests even one step towards addressing the environmental problem of such drugs would help. ... In a previous study, Professor...

Foreign aid workers who rallied to the island of Sulawesi after the devastating earthquake and tsunami more than a week ago have been asked to leave the country by the Indonesian government... Clancy said international NGOs had to walk a careful line of not acting paternalistically and taking over aid operations. “There’s pushback against the international community who come flooding in days or weeks later, taking over the response. It’s about taking back that power and saying local organisations have significant capacity.” The Indonesian government, the Indonesian Red Cross and other Indonesian NGOs all have “significant capacity” for providing humanitarian...

The plea comes from Juanita Broaddrick via Twitter on behalf of Kathleen Willey: https://twitter.com/atensnut/status/1039917583263260674?lang=en Willey goes way back with the Clintons. While serving as a volunteer in the White House and facing financial hardship, she says she met with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office to request a paying position. But instead of getting help, she says, she was subjected to “nothing short of serious sexual harassment.” Distraught, Willey fled Clinton’s presence, only to discover that her husband had committed suicide that same afternoon. Just a few days ago, supporters started a GoFundMe page for Broaddrick, who promptly asked them...

President Trump has denied Russian interference in the U.S. election. However, carefully gathered evidence shows that Russian hacking and social media made a difference. One of America’s most credible analysts of campaigns and voting patterns... Audio podcast To The Point

Filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights by attorney Vernadette Broyles, the complaint alleges that a kindergartner at Oakhurst Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia, was assaulted in a bathroom in November 2017, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The gender fluid boy allegedly pushed the girl against the bathroom wall and touched her genitals, according to the complaint.

Good Morning/Afternoon, MEGAWELCOMEJusticeKavanaughToTheUSSC!DITTO!

Please join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and for America: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (I John 5:14) Religion forum threads labeled “Prayer” are closed to debate of any kind.

In a few days I will be leaving the public discourse I’ve participated in for now over a decade and be joining one of the finest and most noble organizations in human history. I will be direct commissioned as an active-duty First Lieutenant JAG Officer, a military lawyer and prosecutor, in the United States Army. All the freedoms we cherish, all the rights we hold, the laws of the United States and our very Constitution itself, are upheld only because men and women are constantly willing to fight, to take up arms, to risk life and limb, to protect those...

Addressing thousands at a boisterous rally in Mississippi, Trump relied on his own visceral sense of the moment and mocked Christine Blasey Ford for gaps in her memory, directly impugning the accuser’s credibility. Establishment Republicans initially reacted with horror. But Trump’s 36-second off-script jeremiad proved a key turning point toward victory for the polarizing nominee, White House officials and Kavanaugh allies said, turbocharging momentum behind Kavanaugh just as his fate appeared most in doubt. . . . “How did you get home? ‘I don’t remember,’ ” Trump said, reenacting Ford’s hearing. “How did you get there? ‘I don’t remember.’ Where is...

November’s Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald will make “clear in what you see” that one of its main characters is homosexual, the director teased in a new interview. During her 2007 tour for the final book of the main Harry Potter series, author J.K. Rowling told a crowd that “Dumbledore is gay, actually,” despite the elderly mentor character’s sexual attraction not being referenced in the books themselves. The bombshell earned her accolades from pro-LGBT activists but also criticism from parents concerned about exposing their kids to adult and morally-objectionable themes. Critics of the series, such as...

Actress and Broadway star Bette Midler melted down on Twitter Thursday night, declaring that women “are the N-word of the world” and are “the most disrespected creatures on earth.” “‘Women, are the n-word of the world.’” Midler tweeted, which is the name of a song written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. “Raped, beaten, enslaved, married off, worked like dumb animals; denied education and inheritance; enduring the pain and danger of childbirth and life IN SILENCE for THOUSANDS of years,” Bette Midler wrote in a tweet she later deleted. “They are the most disrespected creatures on earth.” Midler’s tweet came...

(CNN)Hurricane Florence reminded Americans of something that we in coastal areas know all too well -- the impact and depth of natural disasters are unpredictable. Some people are lucky enough to ride out the storm. For others, underestimating it is a dangerous mistake. Such are the storms of politics. Snip More than one-fifth of the voters say Kavanaugh is their most important issue, ranking well above health care and immigration.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Japan should refrain from flying the “Rising Sun” flag on a warship in a fleet review planned in South Korea next week, a North Korean propaganda website said on Friday, joining South Koreans in the latest spat over the countries’ colonial history. ...“The ‘Rising Sun’ flag is a war-crime flag that the 20th-century Japanese imperialists used when executing their barbaric invasions into our nation and other Asian nations,” North Korea’s state-controlled Uriminjokkiri website said. “Planning to enter flying the ‘Rising Sun’ flag is an unbearable insult and ridicule to our people.”

Food banks around the country said they may not be prepared to execute the Trump administration’s plan to get additional billions in food to hungry Americans...Last month, the administration set in motion a $1.2 billion program to send food to the nation’s food banks as part of its wider effort to bail out farmers hurt by the president’s trade war. Local food bank officials said they are thrilled by the opportunity to feed more Americans who need help, but worry they will not be able to process all of the newly available agricultural products that could double or triple the...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup or a glass, and start a conversation.You never know who you might meet in the Cafe. Glad you could join...

The new SnapCrap app is bringing San Francisco's poop problem into focus. The free app launched Tuesday for iOS users invites people to take photographs of feces on streets and sidewalks that need cleaning and delivers a report to the city's 311 hotline. Sean Miller is the brains behind the app and told NBC Bay Area he was inspired to start the project when he moved from Vermont to San Francisco in 2017 and was surprised to find himself constantly stepping over human waste. San Francisco is known for its filthy streets; the 311 line receives about 65 calls regarding...

It seemed like Frank Caputo had worked in construction with his family since he could walk, and at 61 years old, he had no plans of retiring anytime soon, his family said. “He would die with concrete on his hands, and he did,” said Lorraine Richards Caputo, his estranged wife. “His blood ran concrete. He was proud of his job. He was a good worker, and he did a damn good job.” Caputo was working Friday night on the northbound lanes of the Tri-State Tollway near Rosemont where two lanes had been closed for a construction project. Just before 10:20...