Free Republic

During his campaign for president, Donald Trump had a common refrain -- he was going to build a wall, and Mexico was going to pay for it. Since taking office, he has reiterated this same sentiment many, many times. And yet now, through a GoFundMe page, Trump supporters are volunteering to pay for the wall. It's a horrific bait-and-switch that, ironically, is symbolic of much of Trump's presidency. The very idea of a border wall between the United States and Mexico is a foolish endeavor, designed to gin up anti-immigrant fear and resentment....

In one appearance, Michelle Obama did for Balenciaga boots what it took a hit TV show for Sarah Jessica Parker to do for Manolo Blahniks. During the most recent stop on the book tour for her bestselling memoir Becoming, the former first lady dropped by Brooklyn’s Barclays Center Wednesday night for a discussion with Parker. While the Sex and the City star was clad in a holiday-appropriate sequin dress, Obama’s sparkly $3,900 Balenciaga boots got all the attention. In fact, by Thursday afternoon, the boots were trending on Twitter and were nearly sold out on the Balenciaga website. As a...

Donald Trump is blasting a "corrupt" election system for complicating his path to the Republican nomination. Trump tells a crowd of thousands of enthusiastic supporters gathered in a frigid airport hangar in Rochester, New York on Sunday afternoon that "it's not right" that the person who wins the most votes may not be the nominee. He says he's doing fine, but if he's denied the nomination, "you're going to have a big problem, folks." While Trump has won more states than any of his Republican rivals, it's possible that he won't secure the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination...

Gazing across what Zbigniew Brzezinski once called the “arc of crisis,” U.S. foreign policy appears to be disintegrating. On the Horn of Africa, Islamic warriors have seized Mogadishu. The warlords, our allies, are on the run. In Islamist Sudan, the Darfur horror rages on. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, whom our secretary of state was only recently snubbing for undemocratic behavior, now appears again to be persona grata as our only alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet the Egyptian president scarcely seems chastened. His judges just confirmed a five-year jail sentence for his democratic opponent Ayman Nur, and his regime just...

FReepers: Please do not post full text from articles copyrighted by Maralyn Lois Polak per her copyright complaints. The last two she complained about were published on WorldNetDaily.com. Thanks, Jim

Subject: Pull my articles now Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 15:07:36 -0500 From: Shawn Redden wsredden@artsci.wustl.edu To: webmaster@freerepublic.com Hello: I don't want my columns posted on this website ever again. If one of you nutjob lunatic members pastes anything I've written, I want it removed from your site immediately. Since you refuse to give me the opportunity to respond to the slanderous lies your members spew about me, you have no business claiming you have the right to post the columns. Your refusal to allow me to answer the charge of anti-semitism with equally harsh language reveals both your...

Should critics of the U.S. attack on Iraq hang their heads now that the United States has won the second Persian Gulf War? Absolutely not! People who opposed the attack on Iraq never had any doubt that the United States -- the world's lone military superpower -- would roll over a pitiful Third World country. That wasn't the point. Instead, it was a question of why should the U.S. military kill thousands of innocent Iraqis, maim thousands more and ruin their country to take out one man. All of that, for questionable U.S. motives. Under its historic principles and treaty...

UN accuses allies over looting (Filed: 11/04/2003) The United Nations has accused the American-led coalition of breaking the Geneva Convention by failing to protect hospitals in Baghdad from looters. Iraqis tie a looted wardrobe to the top of a car The UN Office of the Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq (UNOHCI) said the Kindi hospital, one of the largest in the Iraqi capital, had been ransacked as had other medical centres. It said the breakdown of law and order has led to "anarchy and chaos" on the streets of the city. The UN's claims have been supported by reports from journalists...