Free Republic

Free Beacon Investigates: Five cities, five free crack pipes Crack pipes are distributed in safe-smoking kits up and down the East Coast, raising questions about the Biden administration's assertion that its multimillion-dollar harm reduction grant program wouldn't funnel taxpayer dollars to drug paraphernalia. The findings are the result of Washington Free Beacon visits to five harm-reduction organizations and calls to over two dozen more. In fact, every organization we visited—facilities in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Richmond, Va.—included crack pipes in the kits. The kits became the subject of national attention in the wake of a Free...

Several non-profit organizations that distribute crack pipes as part of smoking kits received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Daily Caller analysis of loan filings found. The Daily Caller identified eight organizations that received PPP loans and distribute kits with pipe components or a fully assembled smoking device. Those organizations received more than $5 million in PPP loans during the pandemic, including two organizations that received more than $1 million each. The federal government distributed $800 billion in PPP loans during the pandemic, with the majority going to business owners, shareholders, creditors, and suppliers, according to...

Conservative figures have launched an online furor this week, claiming that the government planned to spend $30 million on pipes for smoking crack cocaine. The heightened concern came months after the Department of Health and Human Services announced a federal grant for local programs that provide myriad "harm reduction" tools, or services that minimize the risks associated with drug use. Republicans seized on "crack pipes," causing the phrase to trend on Twitter on Tuesday, the latest in continued resistance from the GOP against harm-reduction techniques at a time when people are dying of drug overdoses at record rates in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Following outrage on the political right, the Biden administration said Wednesday that a grant program to help prevent additional harm to people who use illicit drugs will not pay for safer pipes to smoke crack or meth. “No federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House drug policy adviser Rahul Gupta said in a statement. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said separately that was never the intention, complaining that impression was created by “inaccurate reporting.”...

The current brouhaha over smoking has made everyone painfully aware of tobacco's effects on the body, but it has also obscured a more profound reason for smoking’s popularity: its relation to the soul. As the heyday of smoking passes into the ashheap of history, it is meet that we reflect on this connection. The soul, of course, is a complex thing. Long ago Plato suggested that we consider it as divided into three parts—the appetitive, spirited, and rational—that correspond to the three basic kinds of human desires: the desire to satisfy physical appetites, the desire for recognition, and the desire...

The bipartisan infrastructure agreement reached last week will get rid of all of the country's lead pines and service lines, according to a new White House memo, but it's not clear how long it will take. The memo, from National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and senior adviser Anita Dunn, says the bipartisan framework "will replace 100 percent of the nation's lead pipes and service lines." White House press secretary Jen Psaki also told reporters on Monday that "it will put Americans to work replacing 100 percent of our nation's lead water pipes" but wouldn't give a time period when...

AG Barr plays bagpipes, speaks at US Attorneys' Natl Conference Attorney General William Barr delivers opening remarks at the US Attorneys' National Conference. Barr surprised the audience by playing the bagpipes with the NYPD Pipes and Drums.

America loses its greatest scholar of Russia and communism. The most respected academic authority on the Russian Revolution, 20thcentury communism, and the Cold War has died. He was Richard Pipes, longtime professor of Russian history at Harvard, and a remarkable man. Where to start with an adequate tribute to Professor Pipes? I’ll start with some biographical observations and then finish with personal reflections. Richard Pipes was born in Poland on July 11, 1923. As a 16-year-old Jew at the time of Hitler’s invasion, Pipes mercifully escaped, thanks to a clever and shrewd father. He credited not only his father but...

I submit this for lovers of fine music, and if you shed a tear or two, that might be a good thing. I can't find out much about David Knox, the writer, except that he was a bandsman for a Scot military pipes band. I don't know if he's still alive. His composition is fairly recent. Kelvingrove Park is a public park located on the River Kelvin in the West End of the city of Glasgow, Scotland, containing the famous Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. This rendition of Rose of Kelvingrove is recorded by the pipers and band of the...

Burton never burdened their taxpayers for the switch over to PVC pipe, and in fact is saving local taxpayers $651,000 by switching over to water delivered by lead-free PVC pipes Purposely held back from the good residents of Flint, Michigan by Democratic Party politicians landing like crows to carrion on their city before Tuesday’s Michigan primary seeking to turn public anger to Democrat votes, this little gem: it’s not the water that’s the problem, but the archaic, rusted, lead-letting iron pipes carrying water into Flint homes that is. Nor did any rumpled-coat Detective Columbo have to go all the way...

No worries. Probably just a pep rally… Tensions are high in Celle, Germany after hooded migrants were seen with sticks and pipes, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in a street rally. The Muslim migrants are reportedly from Chechnya. VIDEO=> MASKED MIGRANTS Chanting “Allahu Akbar” Rally in Germany With Sticks and Pipes Jim Hoft Oct 13th, 2015 4:43 pm 180 Comments No worries. Probably just a pep rally… Tensions are high in Celle, Germany after hooded migrants were seen with sticks and pipes, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in a street rally. The Muslim migrants are reportedly from Chechnya. Germany is expecting 1.5 million migrants...

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – Brows were raised and eyes rolled back when needle exchange programs were first implemented to stop the spread of disease. Giving away free and clean syringes to heroin users seemed preposterous to many. Now it is a common practice and almost universally accepted as a means to prevent the spread of HIV. Could the same happen with free crack pipes? Soon after our story was posted Friday, KPIX 5 received a flurry of phone calls and emails from city officials denouncing the idea to distribute the crack pipes. Mayor Ed Lee was first with a...

On April 14, 2008, Riad Elsolh Hamad, 55, left his family’s apartment in Austin, Texas, to get some prescription drugs. The immigrant from Lebanon and middle school computer teacher never returned home. Three days later, the police found his body, bound with tape, floating in nearby Lady Bird Lake, and concluded that “all signs indicate this may have been a suicide.” snip Hamad proceeded to file another three amended complaints and in them he tacked on yet more defendants (Freerepublic LLC, Jim Robinson, Laurence Simon, and Dotster Inc.)

PIPES: Obama: ‘I Have Never Been A Muslim’ By Daniel Pipes Friday, September 7 Editor’s Note: In this first of a five-part series, Middle East and Islam specialist Daniel Pipes begins his inquiry into Barack Obama’s early Muslim connections by noting the president’s autobiographical inaccuracies. Future installments will establish his many connections to Islam. President Obama has come out swinging against his Republican rival, sponsoring television advertisements that ask, “What is Mitt Romney hiding?” The allusion is to such relatively minor matters as Mr. Romney’s prior tax returns, the date he stopped working for Bain Capital and the nonpublic records...

SNIPPET: "There are some good reasons for allowing at least a few jihadi forums to operate." SNIPPET: "However, there are limits to our ability to exploit all the intelligence opportunities a forum may present. To put it another way, jihadi forums contribute to future terrorism in ways that are unpredictable and/or beyond our ability to control. This would be the view held by those other government agencies who prefer to seek out and destroy forums and to take down forum activists. For my part, I can live with keeping online those forums we have sufficient access to monitor and resources...

China Hits Back at US Duties, Says It's Been Made A Scapegoat Published: Thursday, 31 Dec 2009 | 1:06 AM ET Text Size By: Reuters China on Thursday decried a U.S. decision to impose duties of 10 to 16 percent on Chinese-made steel pipe, the biggest U.S. trade case to date against China, and said it had been made a scapegoat of protectionist interests. The Ministry of Commerce said it was "strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposed" to the vote of the U.S. International Trade Commission for countervailing duties, which Washington said were needed to balance out unfair state subsidies...

I shall argue two points about this sequence. First, that the right of Westerners to discuss, criticize, and even ridicule Islam and Muslims has eroded over the years. Second, that free speech is a minor part of the problem; at stake is something much deeper – indeed, a defining question of our time: will Westerners maintain their own historic civilization in the face of assault by Islamists, or will they cede to Islamic culture and law and submit to a form of second-class citizenship?

Pascal Bruckner has skillfully highlighted the perversity of Western self-hatred. Nothing is more Western than hatred of the West.” So writes the French novelist and essayist Pascal Bruckner in his book La tyrannie de la pénitence (2006), capably translated into English by Steven Rendall and recently published by Princeton University Press as The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism. “All of modern thought,” he adds, “can be reduced to mechanical denunciations of the West, emphasizing the latter’s hypocrisy, violence, and abomination.” He exaggerates, but not by much. He shows how Europeans see themselves as “the sick man of...

Can there be a truly moderate Islam compatible with liberal-democratic notions of human rights and democracy? Is “radical Islam” a modern phenomenon or is Islam itself inherently radical? Such were the questions addressed in a recent debate between Dr. Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, and Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born American psychiatrist. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal moderated.Mr. Pipes began by emphasizing that he and Ms. Sultan are allies, fighting the same opponents, namely, the Islamists. They agree on the past and present of Islam but disagree about the future. Ms. Sultan argues it cannot...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2009 – The British army’s 1st Battalion Scots Guards Pipes and Drums played in the Pentagon courtyard during lunchtime today in a show of solidarity with U.S. armed forces. The British army’s 1st Battalion Scots Guards Pipes and Drums Band performs for employees, servicemembers and families at the Pentagon, Sept. 25, 2009. The band, which consists of infantry soldiers who will soon prepare to deploy to Afghanistan, performed to express admiration for its closest allies. U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Stan Parker  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The unit’s performance is “an expression of...