Free Republic

A GoFundMe has been launched to help make a divisive BLM activist hired by Dove as its 'fat pride' spokeswoman feel 'safe' and 'protected'. Zyahna Bryant's cousin Erica Chapman created the virtual begging bowl after Bryant was slammed online for ruining a white student's life over a remark the 22 year-old activist admits she may have 'misheard.' Chapman said she wants to make Bryant feel 'safe' and 'protected,' writing: 'My cousin Zyahna has passionately and courageously supported important social issues since she was 12 years old Sadly, in today's national climate with so many angry, violent and unpredictable people, being...

It was a cold, solemn day on the Texas ranch. A biting, prairie wind was staved off with a thick, fur coat wrapped around an American music icon. Former President Lyndon B. Johnson had said before he died that at his burial he wanted the Rev. Billy Graham to pray and Anita Bryant to sing. Bryant, once Miss Oklahoma and a Miss America second runner-up, was known in 1973 as the vivacious spokeswoman for Florida orange juice and the Sunshine State. She nervously tried to get her voice ready to sing for a worldwide satellite television audience at the president’s...

LeBron James has expressed regret over a tweet he posted last month about the police-involved shooting death of Ohio teen Ma’Khia Bryant. 'I fueled the wrong conversation about Ma'Khia Bryant and I owe it to her and this movement to change it,' the Los Angeles Lakers forward wrote on Twitter on Monday. James included a link to an article by Vox race reporter Fabiola Cineas which criticized Columbus Police Officer Nicholas Reardon's decision to shoot 16-year-old Bryant at the moment it appeared she was about to stab another woman.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has spent a lot of time pleading for patience and talking of the dangers of rushing to judgement in reaction to the shooting death of a 16-year-old girl by Columbus police officers. Community organizers, however, are calling for a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Columbus Police Department, and Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said there is lack of trust between the community and police. Yost consistently has said half-facts lead to half-truths, tweeting two days after the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, “Let’s get all the facts and find the whole truth.” Yost responded to a...

PAWTUCKET, RI--Hasbro announced today an exciting new playset for kids and little innocent babies: "My First Knife Fight," to be released under its Playskool brand aimed at toddlers. The playset features real shivs kids can use to stab each other in an innocent street fight. Including a variety of knives, from makeshift shivs made out of toothbrushes and razor blades to switchblades and kitchen knives, the playset is designed to entertain kids of all ages. "Raise your kids right with My First Knife Fight!" says the voiceover in a new commercial for the product. "As everyone knows, all sweet and...

The birth family of the Ohio teenage girl who was shot by police outside her foster home Tuesday is mulling a lawsuit, according to a report.Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, was shot dead after calling police for help when two woman started fighting with her outside the Columbus home, her cousin Deja Torrence told Insider. Police opened fire as she lunged at one of the women with a knife, according to dramatic footage released by police.Nicholas Reardon, the officer who killed Bryant, has been assigned to desk duty while the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation looks into the shooting, the report said....

There is war ongoing. The war is being carried out on cops, with a certain class of cops in particular. On Tuesday Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16 year old girl was fatally shot by a cop as she was attempting to stab another girl. The video can be seen here. No one was interested in the facts. No one. Certainly not the media and not activists. This from attorney Ben Crump: Unarmed? Uh, no. It gets worse. The White House again put its finger on the scales of Justice. Wacki Jen Psaki: “She was a child. We’re thinking of her friends...

Attorney Benjamin Crump tweeted Tuesday evening that police in Columbus, Ohio, had shot an “unarmed” Ma’Khia Bryant, though body camera footage released by police to the media appeared to show that the teenager was armed with a knife. Crump, a civil rights attorney who frequently represents the families of those killed by police, jumped to conclusions: But as Breitbart reported Tuesday night, Bryant appeared to have been armed — and attacking another girl: The Columbus Division of Police released a bodycam video showing Tuesday’s shooting of a young black girl who appeared to be armed with a knife. The video...

The pilot of the helicopter that crashed in thick fog, killing Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers, reported he was climbing when he actually was descending, federal investigators said in documents released Wednesday. Ara Zobayan radioed to air traffic controllers that he was climbing to 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) to get above clouds on Jan. 26 when, in fact, the helicopter was plunging toward a hillside where it crashed northwest of Los Angeles. The report by the National Transportation Safety Board said Zobayan may have “misperceived” the angles at which he was descending and banking, which can happen when a...

Following confirmation that the memorial service for Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others who lost their lives in a helicopter crash almost two weeks ago will be held at the Staples Center, there has been increased speculation about a private ceremony as well. The New York Times theorized that such a ceremony might take place at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach, California, as Kobe, a practicing Catholic, belonged to the church. He had reportedly even gone there with Gianna to "reflect and pray" in the early hours of January 26, following which they...

The helicopter that crashed Sunday killing basketball star Kobe Bryant and eight others was owned by a charter company that only operated under visual flight rules, and its pilots were not permitted to fly solely based on their cockpit gauges if they encountered weather that limited visibility, a former pilot for the company told Forbes. The pilot of the doomed flight, Ara Zobayan, was licensed to fly by cockpit instruments, but he likely had little real-world experience in doing so given the operating limitations of Island Express Helicopters, says Kurt Deetz, a former pilot for the company who flew Bryant...

Abigail Disney has weighed in on Kobe Bryant's controversial past, after actress Evan Rachel Wood and a Washington Post journalist were berated for tweeting about a rape allegation against him from 2003, just hours after his death in a helicopter crash Sunday. Disney - whose grandfather Roy O. Disney co-founded The Walt Disney Company - tweeted: 'I haven't said anything about Kobe so far because I felt some time needed to pass before weighing in. But yes, it's time for the sledgehammer to come out. The man was a rapist. Deal with it.'

One of the last things Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna did before they died in a fatal helicopter crash on Sunday was attend church. Father Steve Sallot with Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Newport Beach, Orange County, spoke to a local media outlet about the father and daughter attending mass. "He was here before the 7 a.m. mass and that's our first mass of the day," Father Sallot told KABC in an on-camera interview. "So he would obviously have been in the prayer chapel before that and he was leaving about 10 to 7." CBS News...

Jill and I are sending our prayers to the Bryant family and to everyone who lost loved ones in today’s crash. It’s a reminder of how special — and fragile — life is. And it’s a reminder that we’ve got to make every day count.— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) January 26, 2020

The BBC is being widely mocked online for showing footage of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James while airing a segment about the death of Kobe Bryant. Evening news program “BBC News at Ten” committed the embarrassing gaffe Sunday night — but later apologized and chalked it up to “human error,” according to The Daily Mail. The clip being distributed online begins by showing Bryant and his daughter Gianna — who both died Sunday morning in a California helicopter crash in Calabasas that killed at least nine. The footage then cuts to current Lakers great, Lebron James, high-fiving a fellow...

Even though retired NBA legend Kobe Bryant was born and raised a Catholic, he made a few bad turns. But thankfully, the basketball star was able to turn his life around, and it was all thanks to a kind-hearted priest.

CALABASAS, Calif. — Kobe Bryant died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, TMZ reports. Bryant was reportedly in his private helicopter with three other people when it crashed. Emergency personnel responded when a fire broke out.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday ordered that the Mississippi flag, which carries a Confederate emblem, be replaced by the American flag at a state park that overlooks the Statue of Liberty. Murphy ordered the removal of Mississippi’s flag from a display of each state’s flag at Liberty State Park, a preserve of more than 1,200 acres in Jersey City that overlooks Ellis Island and Lady Liberty. Murphy is a first-term Democrat and a self-styled progressive who regularly cited the Emma Lazarus poem at the statue’s base that invites immigrants to America. New Jersey, he said, is rooted in...

In honor of her 79th birthday today, this playlist is Anita Bryant's 1968 album of classic hymns.