That Worked!!, Thank You. Still confused as to why all of a sudden it quit. But it works now! Thanks.
Problem was not you. Problem was likely a temp. setup of DNS records, somewhere, but yesterday, that temp. setup somehow changed.
For a while after the last migration of FreeRepublic.com, the old IP address of 209.157.64.200 was still involved with some of FreeRepublic.com traffic . . . but I checked yesterday, and that old IP address is no longer involved.
So, “something happened,” re DNS records, somewhere, but I am not sure, exactly.
You shouldn’t need to edit your hosts file. The DNS Server should give you the right IP Address.