Free Republic

Conspiracy and Controversy in the Air? September 2022 saw World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen embroiled in a lengthy turmoil involving allegations of cheating against 19-year-old foe Hans Niemann. The younger Niemann has admitted to cheating in the past when playing online games, but argues that he has played it straight for quite some time. This would include his recent in-person games against Carlsen and other ranked players. Carlsen, who has reigned atop the chess world for over a decade, says he refuses to play against in Niemann, suggesting the American-born player has “cheated more… than he has publicly admitted.“ Across...

The walleye that swim in the cold, murky depths of Lake Erie are the waters’ apex predator, sleek torpedoes of teeth that dine on shad, minnow and any other fish smaller than themselves. They do not, as far as marine science has determined, dine on lead pellets the size of golf balls or precisely-trimmed fillets of other walleye. So when Jason Fischer, director of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament series, pulled handfuls of lead sinkers and fillets from the bellies of some prize-winning fish, he knew he had a hell of a problem in his hands. There’s nibble-around-the-edges, cut-the-corners...

A pair of fishermen were stripped of their $5,000 tournament win after judges in Ohio discovered that they had put lead weights inside their catch also faced the wrath of a furious crowd on Friday, according to a video of the scene. Chase Cominsky from Pennsylvania and Jake Runyon from Ohio initially won the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship in Cleveland, Ohio’s Gordon Park on Sept. 30. They were awarded a $5,000 prize for their big win. The duo’s catch weighed in at 33 pounds, nearly double what their nearest competitor had caught, according to the Daily Mail. But the...

My mother always said to give people “the benefit of the doubt.” She felt that “judge not, lest ye be judged” from the Sermon on the Mount was a valuable core principle that she lived by. Assume the best in people, until you learn otherwise. Well, in today's world, it gets tougher and tougher to follow that pledge. You trust, and sometimes you get burned. Late Friday, the walleye fishing world was sent reeling after a cheating scandal was exposed in front of God, country, and a mob of justifiably furious walleye fishermen. Two guys – we can no longer...

... Battle Creek’s Lindsey, an African-American, felt the pain too. “NAFTA just ripped us apart,” she said. And though she voted for Obama both times, Trump got her support in 2016. She said she’ll continue to vote Republican. Lindsey was among Kellogg Co. workers who lost their job because the company had moved work to Mexico following passage of the NAFTA, the U.S. Department of Labor later concluded. Trump’s message was tailor-made to those workers: His first campaign stop in his 2016 candidacy was to Birch Run, a village in nearby Saginaw County (which also flipped from Obama to Trump),...

It looks like Ed Schultz knows his days at MSNBC are numbered. I mean when you are a last place show on the fourth place news network you have to know you will soon be shown the exit door. Since Big Ed knows he will be splitting the MSNBC scene, he might as well throw caution to the end.  No need to perform a humiliating reversal as he did a few months ago from being a strong Keystone pipeline supporter to opposing it in order to save a job that is pretty much lost already. Therefore there was no real...

TOLEDO — Wildlife researchers in northern Ohio want to know what’s killing thousands of walleye in Lake Erie. Many of the dead fish have been washing up on beaches between Toledo and Port Clinton in recent weeks. Ohio Department of Natural Resources biologist Roger Knight says it looks like the worst might be over. The walleye is Lake Erie’s most popular sport fish and draws anglers from across the Midwest and beyond.

Age no handicap for 105-year-old fisherman 105-year-old man still hauling in fish By DENNIS ANDERSON MINNEAPOLIS-ST.PAUL STAR TRIBUNE Pulling his driver's license from his billfold, Floyd Doty, Minnesota's oldest angler, on Wednesday confirmed the state would allow him to pilot a vehicle on its roads until 2009 - at which time he will be 108 years old. Floyd, 105, lives alone in the west-central Minnesota town of Glenwood. A huge northern pike adorns one wall of his apartment. On Wednesday Floyd was out, like thousands of Minnesotans in advance of Saturday's first day of fishing, seeking a license. Unsure exactly...

Chris Anderson is only half-joking when he offers a solution for the hungry cormorants that are eating the fish in Leech Lake — and taking money out of his pocket. "Kill them all," he says of the voracious, predatory birds. At Anderson's Cove, Anderson's resort on the western edge of the lake, just three of 11 cabins were rented for this month's walleye opener, after six years of strong opening weekends. Over the next month alone, Anderson figures he'll lose $40,000 or more through mid-June because of cabins standing empty. Word has spread that walleye fishing on Leech Lake, one...

How's this for a fish story? A priest known by locals as the Fishing Father was praying the Magnificat as he was ice fishing one cold afternoon last month. He makes a point of praying whenever he fishes, whether he catches anything or not. On. Jan. 4, it turned out to be quite an intercessory prayer: the Rev. Mariusz Zajac pulled in a world-record walleye, 18.3 pounds. Delighted with his catch, Zajac promptly posted a photo of him holding the lunker on a fishing enthusiasts' website, and the Internet was instantly abuzz about his Lake of the Woods haul --...