Free Republic

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif), chairperson of the 55-member Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the most numerous in our nation’s history, has set the Caucus’ sights on “reversing the trauma inflicted on people of color by the Trump Administration over the past two years. We will use our tremendous power and influence to undo Trump’s evil plan to force millions of voters off of welfare and into the labor economy.” “The notion that a job is the answer to curing poverty and improving one’s life is a myth,” Bass contended. “Curing poverty has been the task of government since the 1960s’ Great...

After an evaluation of the country's armed forces showed that the German Army would not be ready for combat operations until 2031 at the earliest, Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea to the global community to postpone any planned attacks on Germany until 2032 or later. "We are in worse shape than the bourgeois democracies that were crushed by the blitzkrieg Germany sprung on them in 1939," the Chancellor confessed. "It would be unsporting for others to emulate the underhanded tactics that enabled our army to overrun most of Europe in the early stages of World War II." Merkel...

Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, Russians have been obsessed with “one aspect of Russian ‘unity,’ territorial,” Vladislav Inozemtsev says; but “the unity of the Russian nation is not only about the inviolability of state borders but about much else and the neglect or suppression of these other aspects threatens Russia’s future. In a column, the Moscow economist says that the unity of any nation, including the Russian, involves a recognition of common tasks and goals, a shared vision of the world, and sufficient confidence in society of these “elements of solidarity” that there can be debate about...

It has long been noted that the leftist movement had transformed into a kind of religious cult – the Cult of victim seekers.Like any other cult, the leftists have their dogmas, their worldview, their taboos, and their idols. The list of “victims” of this cult is impressive. Well-known recent “victims” are nature (destroyed by evil capitalists), domestic animals (evil capitalists mock them), climate (the temperature of the air is warmed up by all the same evil capitalists), and sexual minorities. It is not surprising, therefore, that the numerous left-wing “green” parties in all countries are often compared to watermelons: they...

On 31 December 2018, our XP-82 Twin Mustang flew for the first time since 14 December 1949. Although it wasn’t supposed to fly yesterday, all that was planned to do was the last FAA required runway high-speed taxi test, lift off for a second or two and then back down, deploy full flaps and brake to a stop. It accelerated so fast after the planned lift off that Ray, our test pilot, realized that getting it back down and stopping it in the remaining runway would be marginal. So he pushed the power back up and flew for about five...

Late in the afternoon of September 17, roughly an hour before the sunset that would mark the close of the bloodiest day in U.S. history, a Maine regiment met with a wholly unnecessary fate. Just when the regiments’ soldiers thought they’d made it through the battle relatively unscathed, they got pulled back in with disastrous consequences. At Antietam, due to Union commander George McClellan’s piecemeal strategy, the fighting was conducted sector by sector. (General Phil Kearny once described McClellan as “fighting by driblets.”) The severe topography of the Antietam Valley, featuring a field carved into discrete sections, contributed further to...

Every major social, economic, and political problem in the US was either created or deliberately exacerbated by the progressive socialist movement. It all started in the late 1800s with the progressive socialists, newly arrived from Europe, setting their sights on taking over and taking down the United States from the ground up. They weren’t anything new. In their European form, they had long been known to the founding fathers. John Adams referred to their grands-pères in the French genesis of “ideology” as the “science of idiocy,” the art of sinking deeper than any diver had ever gone into the depths...

... The modern leftists are fighting so fiercely for “the rights of illegal immigrants” not because the fate of immigrants worries them in any way, but because Globalists see the illegal immigrants as the main “engine of the revolution,” which must bring about socialist transformations and catapult them to power. Therefore, the more “engines” there are in the country, the better for the Globalist party elite. Hence, their irrational and contrarian sense calls for opening the borders of the United States, the dissolution of the border patrol service, and the admission of non-citizens to participate in elections. The position of...

Today’s post is in honor of Sgt. Michael J. McMullen, who on this day in 2006 died of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device in Ramadi, Iraq. The 25-year-old from Salisbury, Md. served as a firefighter-paramedic on the Salisbury Fire Department and was assigned to the Maryland National Guard’s 243rd Engineer Company. McMullen was posthumously awarded the Silver Star (for saving the life of a fellow soldier during the attack), the Purple Heart, and promoted to Staff Sergeant. 1942: After just a month of war in the Pacific, the United States Navy meets to determine the best way to...

In a wide-ranging, 5,000-word interview in Kazan’s Business-Gazeta, Moscoc commentator Konstantin Kalachev says that over the last year, five significant things have changed in Russia, but five equally significant ones have not, a pattern likely to continue in 2019. The five things he says have changed include: 1. A growing sense among all Russians that the old model of the system based on confrontation with the West and of Russia as a besieged fortress has exhausted itself without a new model having been put in place or even thought up. 2. Russians feel that the views them with hostility, that...

... • Stalinist-Leninists (“Bolsheviks”) argued that terror could hold socialist power in a single country for a period sufficient enough to build communism. History confirmed the fallacy of this approach. • The Trotskyists (“Bolsheviks”) argued that power in one socialist country in a capitalist encirclement would not be retained by any terror, and it would be necessary to simultaneously make socialist revolutions/coups in all countries without exception. History confirmed that Trotsky was right that the power cannot be held. • The Fascists (“Mensheviks”) argued that the bloody revolutionary redistribution of the wealth would only deter the people from socialist ideas....

<p>Jesus has told us to love our enemies.</p> <p>Ruth Bader Ginburg has done a great deal to destroy the Constitution as written, and thus destroy the rule of law in the United States. She follows a 70 year tradition of Progressive dominance of the Court, ignoring the clear text of the Constitution, and substituting Progressive preferences.</p>

The Godfather of Gun Training I have never taken a class at the Gunsite Academy and I don't claim to know Jeff Cooper. I do know that he saved my life, and if you carry a gun for a living, at some point he is going to save yours too. In order to digest this sweeping statement you have to understand how things were before Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Cooper, USMC (retired/deceased), developed the "modern techniques" of small arms training. I'M A HISTORY BUFF with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the Vietnam War. I’ve studied thousands of photographs from that conflict; my...

Unwilling to undergo the sex and pigment alterations that his advisers say is essential to compete for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, recently defeated Texas senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke has scored a major coup by getting the endorsement of unsuccessful 2016 presidential candidate former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. “Like every Irishman I know, Beto has the wisdom to listen, the courage to lead, and a rock-solid faith in the powerful goodness of our nation,” O’Malley asserted. “I am proud to hand over the torch I lit for my campaign to the man who can carry my bold vision forward to...

Since World War II, America’s elite forces have used quiet firearms for missions where it pays to be silent. Sound suppressors—commonly referred known as silencers—remain in service today. What many don’t know is that U.S. commandos once carried revolvers with special cartridges designed to muffle gunshots. In the early 1960s, Army weapon designers looked at alternatives that would completely eliminate the sound of the propellant exploding. They came up with the so-called "piston cartridges". By 1962, the Army had piston rounds available for .30-caliber rifles and .38-caliber revolvers. The ground combat branch's Special Forces sections also planned to develop a...

ewly elected socialist firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “if we want economic growth and a fairer distribution of wealth the rich will have to pay more in taxes.” She cited history to back her claim. “In the 1960s, before President Kennedy’s tax cut, both economic growth and taxes in this country were higher than today,” the first-term congresswoman observed. “In more progressive countries like the Soviet Union and Communist China economic growth was even faster with the government essentially controlling all the investment and distribution decisions.” “My ‘Green New Deal’ is a moderate first step...

Today's post is in honor of Lance Cpl. Joseph R. Giese, who was killed during combat operations in Afghanistan's Helmand province on this day in 2011. The 24-year-old native of Winder, Ga. was assigned to 2d Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force. 1822: The sailors of the West Indies Squadron made this a pretty rough day for the pirates of the Caribbean: the schooner USS Porpoise (the first of five so-named Naval vessels) captures six pirate ships off the Cuban coast and destroys their base. Meanwhile, the heavily-armed brig USS Spark recaptures a Dutch sloop...

The iconic Colt 1847 Walker Revolver was the game changer of the old west. Only about 1100 of the guns were ever made in total, 1,000 of which were for the military, only 100 was for the public. The Walker Colt saw use in the Mexican-American War and on the Texas frontier. Samuel Walker was carrying two of the revolvers that bore his name when he was killed in battle during the Mexican-American War in 1847. This revolver best known today as Clint Eastwood's weapon in "The Outlaw Josey Wales." Did you know that this massive cap-and-ball revolver was the...

This well-preserved portrait, usually on display in Berlin’s Altes Museum, has become quite famous since it was acquired in 1976. It’s a young woman, some traces of the original paint are still visible and a smile that betrays self-confidence. Although originally there were some doubts, it is now certain that this is Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last queen of independent Egypt. Yes, that Cleopatra.

At year-end 2018, how is President Donald Trump’s regulatory reform project going? Better than Obama, Bush II, and Clinton in terms of fewer regulations; but not as good as Trump’s own first year. Let’s look at it. Monday, December 31, 2018, is the last federal workday of the year. That would seem obvious, but a partial federal shutdown on December 22 made clock-out earlier for some. Nonetheless, a preliminary tally for Federal Register page and rule counts for Trump’s 2nd calendar year has appeared, even though “[d]uring the funding lapse, Federalregister.gov is not being supported." The Number of Pages in...