Free Republic

Carnivorous fans flocking to Madison Square Garden to see rocker Morrissey next month will be forced to go vegan or go hungry — because the arena is giving in to his demands to ban meat at the performance. The former frontman for the British band “The Smiths” — which had a smash-hit album called “Meat is Murder” — is scheduled to perform June 27. Concertgoers craving a burger or hot dog will be asking, “Where’s the beef” after the singer revealed that the Garden had agreed that only strictly vegan foods would be served during the show. So no meat...

The Kings rented out their Calgary, Alberta, home in Canada using the popular renting service Airbnb. They thought it would be an easy way to help offset the cost of their travel with their two kids, CTV reported. They were wrong. The Airbnb renters told the King family that only four people would be staying at the home while they attended a wedding. So on Saturday, they handed over the keys and were off on their trip. But it wasn’t long before they their neighbors called and sent them text messages, explaining that they were concerned about what was going on. Later,...

Jameis Winston wasn’t the only controversial football player to skip the 2015 NFL Draft in Chicago. Ray Lewis stayed home, too—in Baltimore.

For most parents, watching their child get pulled over is a nightmare. But when Ashley Crawford saw the flashing lights of a police car behind her son’s vehicle, she happily whipped out her camera. Jaxon Arbuckle, Crawford’s son, is a 2-year-old who loves his toy car. So when Crawford saw that a local Louisville, Ky., police officer was tending to a small car wreck on her street on Tuesday, she had an idea. “I thought, ‘How cute would it be if I got a picture of Jaxon pulled over?’” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “I waited for him to finish up...

VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. -- With her husband and children watching, a mother viciously beat another woman over a parking spot in Valley Stream, Long Island, and it was all caught on cellphone video. The brawl allegedly started Sunday after a woman tried to park in an empty spot at the Green Acres Mall, but a man was standing in the spot, holding it for someone else. The woman parked in another spot, then got into an argument about what happened. That's when the punches and hair pulling started.

Some people protest police brutality in ways that only remind us of why we need police. That’s how I feel about the Baltimore rioters who some news reports described as “protestors [SIC].” The label falsely flatters the thugs and hooligans who set fires and attacked police, merchants and journalists after the otherwise respectful funeral on Monday for Freddie Gray, 25, who died under mysterious circumstances in police custody.

Okay, some new names for cities affected by rioting or probably soon to be affected. Baltimore - Baltitroit Charleston - CharlesWatts Atlanta - Detrantla Birmingham - Birmingtroit Philadelphia - Philatroit Pittsburg - PittsWatts

As rioters rampaged across Baltimore Monday evening, a Georgia woman decided it was the perfect time to go on Facebook and announce that “All Black ppl should rise up and shoot at every white cop in the nation starting NOW,” police allege. After being alerted to the online threat--which appeared on the page of “Tiffany Milan”--investigators tracked the post back to Ebony Dickens, a 33-year-old mother from East Point, an Atlanta suburb. Dickens, pictured at right, was arrested yesterday for making terroristic threats. During a search of her apartment, police seized computers and a handgun, cops reported. “I condone black...

The Rev. Jamal Bryant, who gave a rousing eulogy at Freddie Gray's funeral, says Baltimore's poor people must make demands on themselves, not just on government. "If you've ever rented a car, you'll notice, no time when you've rented a car did you ever take a rental car to the car wash. Why? Because you didn't feel like it was yours. As a consequence, so many people in public housing don't really feel like that's theirs," Bryant told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday "And so we've got to do something in terms of home ownership, in terms of economic development,...

The term "Fifth Column" came into popular use in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and thereafter as socialism and fascism were sweeping into conflict to take over the nations of the West. It means a group of guerrillas, activists, intellectuals, etc. who work to undermine a nation (or some larger organization) from within. Its activities can be out in the open, or they can be secret. Today in America, the neoconservative political movement represents a "Fifth Column" for the forces of collectivism. Its intellectuals and activists promote themselves as conservatives who oppose the liberals, but their political philosophy has...

I'm pretty sure this was posted a couple of years ago, but with Baltimore and Ferguson recently in the news (and in flames), it is worth another look. Steven Crowder's "Detroit in Ruins" is (IMO) a well done piece on Detroit's fall from grace under liberal influence, put in power by the UAW.

Baseball in Baltimogadishu Today's game in an empty stadium: Amid civil unrest in Baltimore, Wednesday’s game between the White Sox and Orioles at Camden Yards has been moved to a 1:05 p.m. CT/2:05 p.m. ET start and will be closed to the public, the Orioles announced Tuesday. The game had been scheduled for Wednesday night. This after two straight days of cancelled games and the organization locking 15,000 fans inside on Saturday night as riots spiraled outside. On the bright side, the Sox play in front of crowds about as big as today's scheduled attendance - it'll be like having...

If you’re someone who’s skeptical of government-reported numbers, you’ll find the following chart confirms your suspicions. And if you’re someone who’s attracted to value, you’ll love the chart.There is a lot of criticism of the government’s CPI number simply because it doesn’t really seem to reflect what the average person experiences. Even with gas prices in decline, other segments of our society have seen prices accelerate. Healthcare and college costs are two biggies, rising far more than the current 0.2% reading. And many food items have scary trajectories—ground beef has more than doubled since 2010.Meanwhile, the gold price has fallen...

So, now we are being told that calling someone a "thug" is racist. Toward which race, exactly? I pulled up an online dictionary and found this... noun 1.a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer. 2.(sometimes initial capital letter) one of a former group of professional robbers and murderers in India who strangled their victims. Don't really see anything there that could be construed as being racist. If we cannot refer to these miscreants as thugs, what are we allowed to call them?

... I took two pregnancy tests, just to be certain. I spent the night by myself, crying. The very next day, I skipped class and went to an abortion clinic, where I officially learned that I was almost four months pregnant. My ex-boyfriend had apparently broken up with a girl who was a month and a half pregnant with his child. All I desperately wanted was to have my boyfriend back. I wanted him to hold me and let me cry into his chest, for him to tell me that everything was okay even though it wasn’t. But by the...

Vietnamese foodie guide: Critic Brad A. Johnson dishes about the 25 best things to eat in Little Saigon The scent of Little Saigon hits me in the face. An intoxicating perfume of jackfruit and bananas and the vanilla-y scent of pandanus leaves wraps itself around me in a warm, tight embrace. It’s a sunny Friday afternoon, and the line to purchase something cold and sweet at Thach Che Hien Khanh in Garden Grove stretches out the front door and down the sidewalk, past a vendor of exotic fruits and knickknacks — chopsticks, paper lanterns, plastic Buddhas, various figurines of the...

A politician from India donated some $5 million to the Clinton Foundation — which would have amounted to nearly his entire net worth, a new book about the Clintons claims. The Clinton Foundation in 2008 reported that it had received a contribution of between $1 million and $5 million from Amar Singh, a member of India’s Parliament and a pal of Bill Clinton. The size of the donation relative to Singh’s net worth raised questions about whether Singh was the true source of the cash, according to “Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer The 2008 contribution was made as Congress debated...

Does anyone know of any good teaching/learning resources for a 12 year old kid over the summer? I am specifically interesting in supplementing the new common core, dumbed down public education that he is getting during the school year with classical learning that they no longer teach. I am particularly interested in the topics of logic, reason, civics, rhetoric, philosophy, grammar, history (from a conservative standpoint), etc... that would be suitable for an 8th grader.

While we already observed that in Q1, US GDP rose by an appalling 0.2%, far, far below the consensus Wall Street estimate (in case you missed it, here again is the one thing every Wall Street economist desperately needs) and precisely in line with the Atlanta Fed forecast which we brought attention to in early March, confirming yet again that US stocks no longer reflect any fundamentals but merely Fed and global liquidity injections, there is something far more disturbing under the surface of today's GDP report. Inventories.Specifically, the $121.9 billion increase in private, mostly nonfarm, inventories in the...

In most countries, taxes are progressive, so the more you make, the higher your taxes. In contrast, most parking and speeding tickets are about what you did, not about how much you earn. But in Finland, you might pay for speeding based on the size of your fortune. That is what happened to Mr. Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman who was fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for speeding. He wasn’t even going terribly fast, although his clocked 64 miles per hour did exceed the posted 50 mph limit. The whole idea of a progressive fine based on one’s income may...