Free Republic

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is doing his best Sheila Broflovski from South Park imitation by shouting “Blame Canada!” and suggesting a wall along the northern border is a “legitimate issue.” He told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press that people along the northern border are interested in a wall. Is northern border security a lot different than the security on the southern border? Absolutely, but there are plenty of reasons for it. The U.S. has a much different relationship with Canada, than it does with Mexico. Canada has drug cartels, but they appear to be focused on distributing product in...

I skipped the church dinner to buy something to repair my clothes. I went to the deli to buy some dinner. People often mock people who shop at WALMART, but tonight, it was an employee who got my attention. The teenager who was cleaning up and served me my meal, had his trousers hanging below his butt, below the curve of his butt, with his skivvies exposed full bore. Serving food. I spoke to 3 managers, I told the first one, she got a bigger manager, she came over, I told her, her first words out of her mouth were,...

My father passed away earlier this month at age 86. I traveled from California to Michigan for the memorial service. My oldest sister took charge in getting all the hard work done. She's always been the responsible one, even now. She wrote the obit, contacted friends, ordered the flowers, and booked a room at a local funeral parlor. I offered to help her, but being out of town, it was practical that she and my other siblings make the necessary connections. My Dad used to coach boxing, and there were many, many people there, giving heartfelt testimonials. At first, I...

A partnership between scientists at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a German research institute may have found the solution to make animal experiments a thing of the past. Animal testing has been condemned for being cruel and morally dubious, but in recent years it also has been understood that such tests fail to predict human responses to drugs, and as regulations tighten massive investment has been turned to the field of alternative testing. Hebrew University announced on Monday that its cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology (IZI-BB) in Germany has borne breakthrough results, and together the...

Proper grammar seems to be a thing of the past -- why stress about tiny technicalities, right? Wrong.You should be a grammar stickler for many reasons. Do you want to risk turning off potential clients, employers and connections because of grammatical mistakes?Many people are so concerned with what they are saying in an email or text message that they completely forget to pay attention to how they are saying it. If you chose to turn grammar mode off when you are communicating with friends, that is one thing, but there is absolutely no reason to send a professional communication that contains errors.Here...

In George Orwell’s “1984,” the fictional Oceania government imposed a truncated English upon its people. The purpose of the new language, termed Newspeak, was to help the regime in its effort to eliminate thoughtcrime. “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc [the state ideology of Oceania], but to make all other modes of thought impossible,” Orwell said. But now Newspeak is transforming from fantasy to reality at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The taxpayer-funded university recently issued a new guideline for...

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT -- This is it. The last two unbeaten Little League teams in the entire world. While Red Land powered through districts, sectionals, states, regionals and the first four games of the Little League World Series en route to its first U.S. championship, Kitasuna from Tokyo was finessing its way through to the world championship. And now they meet at 3 p.m. today at Lamade Stadium in South Williamsport, the LLWS 2015 title up for grabs. The game will be televised live on ABC. Red Land hopes to become the first U.S. team to win the overall title since...

Recalling the Iranian bomb that cut through his armored vehicle in Iraq in 2005, “my scars are the direct result of Iran,” says Sgt. Robert Bartlett. His face was ripped from the temple to the jaw and his gunner’s legs were blown off. He had more than 40 procedures done and he died three times, only to live to speak today. Bartlett is featured in a powerful, viral ad against the Iran deal sponsored by Vets Against the Deal. Sgt. Bartlett is appearing on many networks about the Iranian deal now. He will be speaking at the September 9 rally...

First Donald Trump antagonized the Republican establishment with his proposals on immigration. Then he irritated some with his stands on trade and Social Security. Now Trump is preparing a tax proposal that will again set him far apart from the party's powers-that-be. The problem for the establishment is that Trump's positions on all three issues are more in line with the majority of American voters than the establishment's preferred policies. By using his popularity to force outside-the-GOP-box ideas into the Republican presidential debate, Trump is displaying an uncanny sense of the divisions between voters and the GOP power structure. Trump...

The US economy continues to grow at a modest, steady rate. And this is great news. Over the last year and a half, the economic story in the US has been the same: a disappointing start to the year followed by a rebound that overall indicates the economy is growing a bit more than 2% per year. This week, we saw extreme volatility in the US stock market.And while these wild price swings made headlines, the most important news of the week came Thursday morning, when we learned that the US economy grew 3.7% in the second quarter, better than...

Naturalists, feminists and members of an atheistic UFO religion believe it’s only a matter of time until they win women across the country the right to go topless on public beaches and other places where men are allowed to bare their chests. Courtroom and town council fights are underway to expand topless rights, but supporters are wary of pushback in New York, where discomfort about painted topless women posing in Times Square for tips has led state and city officials to consider nipping at hard-won progress in the bastion of top-freedom. The Big Apple hubbub inspired some rally-goers Sunday who...

Some medical advice from Freepers is sorely needed. About two weeks ago I twisted my lower back and the result sciatica. I have been taking 3 200mg of Advil and 2 300 mg Tylenol every six hours plus alternating between an ice pack (wrapped in a towel) and a hot water bottle. I have also been doing some exercises several times a day as recommended by my physical therapist. So here it is Saturday evening and I am in a lot of pain. What is so discouraging was today at about 2 pm for a couple of hours, I was...

Results for some of the states that participated in Common Core-aligned testing for the first time this spring are out, with overall scores higher than expected though still below what many parents may be accustomed to seeing. Full or preliminary scores have been released for Connecticut, Idaho, Missouri, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. They all participated in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two groups of states awarded $330 million by the U.S. Department of Education in 2010 to develop exams to test students on the Common Core state standards in math and English language arts. Scores in...

The GOP Field That Failed By RICH LOWRY August 28, 2015 The rise of Donald Trump is, in part, a function of a vacuum. He is thriving in a Republican field that is large, talented, and, so far, underwhelming. To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, there’s 17 candidates and nothing on. Except Donald Trump. Now, this has much to do with the media, and with Trump’s unique qualities as a showman. He has the advantage of not caring about anything, apparently — the facts, his reputation, or, ultimately, winning the presidency. In consequence, he is a free man. Yet no speech, no...

Why I posted the Betrayal Papers...

Harris County deputy Darren Goforth, in uniform, was pumping gas into his patrol car when the gunman approached from behind and fired several shots, sheriff's officials said. No motive has been reported. Hickman expressed outrage at the shooting, which occurred as demonstrators nationwide have been protesting police killings of unarmed minorities, in particular black men. "Our system of justice absolutely requires a law enforcement presence to protect our communities, so at any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point where calculated cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen(s). This rhetoric has gotten out of control," Hickman said. "We've heard...

Question I am pondering the pros and cons of competition.

Fences are making a major comeback in America, Europe, Asia and the rest of the globe. Some, like Donald Trump’s proposed fence along the United States-Mexico border, are literal. Others, like China’s currency manipulation, are figurative. But they all serve a common purpose: preserving national interests and deterring domestic threats. These fences evidence a major global trend: the rise of nationalism. They manifest a growing shift away from globalization, and toward self-interest. Nations are focusing more on protecting their own economies, their own manufacturing industries, their own people and their own cultures—because of uncertain and unstable global socioeconomic conditions. The...

There are languages that place the verb between the subject and the object (SVO order -- Subject/ Verb/ Object) while others place it at the end of the trio (SOV order). The order of these elements, far from being purely decorative, influences efficiency of expression. A team from SISSA's Language, Cognition and Development Lab (along with two Iranian institutions) studied the mechanism that controls the transition from the SOV form, considered the "basic" order by scientists, to the SVO order while the language is evolving, demonstrating that when the computational load on the brain is lightened, humans choose more efficient...

Stump for Trump Girls interviewed by our Sarah.