Free Republic

I found a site that we can use to clean up the offending symbols in posts and comments caused by "smart quotes" and strange "em dashes."You just paste your text in the box and hit convert and then recopy the fixed text and paste on FR. Replace smart quotes with regular straight quotes

I don't know if this has impacted anybody else, but in recent weeks, I've noticed that HTML special characters are not rendering properly in HTML posts. For example, the character “ is rendering as “, the character ” is rendering as ”, and so on. A screenshot of a typical thread is here: Needless to say, that is really irritating. There is a workaround for this: replace these special characters with their corresponding HTML codes. The ones that FR is currently having problems with are as follows: ‘ "left single quote" ‘ ’ "right single quote" ’ “ "left double...

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. Since the Islamic State attacks in Paris on November 13, we have seen the development of a new, and strange justification for the Obama administration’s insistent refusal to jettison its manifestly failed strategy of contending with IS specifically and with Islamic terrorism generally.

"The Democratic field consists of a wild-eyed socialist with ideas that are dangerous for America and the world, and Bernie Sanders." "I want to ask everyone here to look forward. Look forward to January 20, 2017 - a date that may soon be renamed Independence Day." "President Obama likes to say he's got a phone and he's got a pen. When you live by the pen, you die by the pen, and my pen has got an eraser." "I intend to ... instruct the Department of Justice and the IRS and every other federal agency that the persecution of religious...

Ted Cruz is the living embodiment of what a conservative Republican in Congress is supposed to be. While the Republican leadership was bowing to Obama, breaking campaign promises and attacking its own supporters, Ted Cruz was at the point of the spear, fighting for the American people. Cruz is intelligent, eloquent and he has proven over and over again that heÂ’s willing to stand up, speak out and fight back. There are several good candidates running for President, but if youÂ’re looking for a strong, smart outsider whoÂ’s proven to be consistently conservative and willing to fight, you canÂ’t...

More than once in the last few years I’ve asked myself the question, “Has the whole world gone mad? Has everyone in our society lost the ability to think clearly? Are people no longer able to process facts and information? Are they so dominated by their emotions and by sound bites that truth and logic don’t seem to matter?” I remember vividly talking to a young man at a rally in Charlotte, NC a few months ago. The rally was surrounding the so-called “bathroom bill” that would have made all of the city’s public bathrooms and locker rooms gender-neutral. This...

What are some of your favorite quotes? Here are a few of mine: To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. – Voltaire The usefulness of a cup is its emptiness. - Bruce Lee Any fool can commit a murder; a suicide requires a real professional. – Genrikh Yagoda Chief of the NKVD during the early 1930s Socialists can provide you shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you're ill, all the things guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave.

During a taped interview that aired Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Dana Bash asked Governor and 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker if he thought “being gay was a choice.” VIDEO

Here are verifiable quotes from Obama and why he is a Muslim and not a Christian.

"When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship." Red or Blue?

1) “In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation. It isn’t happening now, but I will tell you, there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq.” —Seymour Hersh2) “I haven't seen American Sniper, but correct me if I'm wrong: An occupier mows down faceless Iraqis but the real victim is his anguished soul.” – Max Blumenthal3) “Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of...

"To be a father requires patience, love and giving up the 'all about me' attitude." Catherine Pulsifer "The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." Theodore M. Hesburgh "By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder - infinitely prouder -- to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys." Douglas MacArthur "Fifty years old: I'd give anything if Dad were here now so I could talk this over with him. Too bad I didn't appreciate how...

During his State of the Union address, Obama recalled his glorious 2004 speech in Boston at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Sen. John Kerry for president.

Not unsurprisingly, Pat Buchanan has teed off on Pope Francis, and he has done so dishonestly. His latest column will stand for many others of the same sort that mix distortion, assertion, misleading rhetorical questions, dishonest extrapolations, and selective quotation to attack the pope. These writers want to hit him and they donÂ’t seem concerned to hit fairly. People who complained of how the media misrepresented Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI have no problem using the same methods on Francis. And sadly, many conservative Catholics revel in watching the Holy Father get hit. IÂ’ll give two examples from...

Today, it is illegal to perform experiments on living aborted babies in the US. The issue of fetal experimentation has faded into the background. But it wasn’t always that way. There was a time, shortly after Roe V Wade, when babies who survived abortion not only were allowed to die, they were sometimes experimented on until they died. And experimentation on living aborted babies is legal in some countries. Dr. Jerald Gaull, then chief of pediatric research at New York State Institute for Basic Research in Mental Retardation on Staten Island, was quoted defending this practice: “Rather than it being...

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga) wonders if Guam will tip over by adding troops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnk0tIqsbYM Ezekiel Emanuel (architect of ObamaCare) said human life after age 75 is worthless (“leeches and takers”): http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/22/die-at-75-emanuel-obamacare-death-cult Al Gore (almost President) said he created the Internet and predicted the north polar ice cap would be gone by 2014: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnFJ8cHAlco http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/01/al-gore-said-north-pole-would-be-ice-free-this-year-guess-not-huh Bill Clinton (actually WAS President): “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0 Nancy Pelosi (speaker of the House) said we have to pass the Health Care bill to find out what is in it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7dDSgbaQ0 Barack Obama (commander in chief) said...

Bad actors around the globe keep getting confused about the calendar, and it falls to the Obama administration to set them straight. The Russians, Secretary of State John Kerry protested back in March, have forgotten what century we're living in: "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext." Kerry was echoing President Obama's observation that by seizing Crimea, Russian president Putin was putting himself "on the wrong side of history." It's a theme this president sounded in his first inaugural address, warning that "those who cling to power...

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them,...

President Obama has gone from “yes we can” to “so sue me.” The president’s standoffish remark this week about a Republican lawsuit was a reminder of how much Obama’s rhetoric has changed since his 2008 campaign and its promise to deliver a new kind of politics. These ten Obama quotations illustrate the transformation. 1. July 27, 2004: “There's not a liberal America and a conservative America. There's the United States of America.” Obama vaults onto the national stage with a call for unity at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. 2. Feb. 5, 2008: “We know that what began as...

Every so often – if we’re listening – we can catch glimpses of what abortion activists really think. Have you ever wondered what Planned Parenthood’s real agenda is? Have you ever considered the real goals behind abortion? Have you ever thought about what abortion really is, according to the people who do it every today? Wonder no longer. Instead, consider – really ponder – these eight scary statements said by abortion activists. The people who said these things aren’t random humans pulled from an aisle in a grocery store; they’re people who are deeply involved with abortion. They know the...