Free Republic

For four years, Russia has bet on outlasting Ukraine in a war of attrition. Now, as Kyiv’s drones inflict growing damage on both Russia’s army and oil industry, Moscow is finding out that time isn’t necessarily on its side. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion force is making ever-smaller gains at the front line, its losses exceed recruitment, and it is struggling to adapt to a Ukrainian drone campaign pounding its supply routes to its forward positions. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s stretched army hasn’t buckled as Russia hoped and is even pushing back the invaders in places with small counterattacks. Its increasingly capable...

Cardinal Robert McElroy is offering a different explanation for his decision to remove Monsignor Stephen Rossetti as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, saying the move was not prompted by the priest’s controversial comments about UFOs but by concerns over the public nature of his ministry. According to LifeSiteNews, McElroy addressed the issue during a June 29 interview with Catholic News Service at the Pontifical North American College, which was published on July 8. The cardinal said his decision “wasn’t touching on the question of UFOs,” despite earlier statements from the archdiocese that cited Rossetti’s remarks about UFOs as...

A local pastor has filed a lawsuit claiming Baton Rouge’s library system unlawfully fired him after he refused to use someone’s preferred gender pronouns. The Rev. Luke Ash filed the suit Thursday alleging that the East Baton Rouge Parish Library terminated his employment a year ago because of his religious beliefs, which Ash said prevented him from using a co-worker’s preferred gender pronouns. He is also the lead pastor at Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, per the church’s website. Ash is represented by Liberty Counsel, a Christian civil liberties law firm, and said the library’s inclusivity policy violated his...

The US is redirecting an armada of warships — including two aircraft carriers – toward Iran as President Trump threatens to reinstate the blockade on Iranian ports. Maritime trackers on Friday spotted the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush entering the Gulf of Oman — a move experts in military planning say would be necessary to re-establish the blockade that crippled the Iranian economy. “More than 20 US Navy warships are patrolling waters across the Middle East as CENTCOM forces continue promoting regional security and stability,” US Central Command posted to X this week. Asked about restarting the...

A Fourth of July celebration in Solano County turned into a gruesome scene when a 20-year-old woman was mowed down and allegedly abandoned by her boyfriend.

On an hour-long drive from Vancouver to the heart of B.C.’s Fraser Valley, I contemplate the most professional way to ask if I can pet this cat I’m about to meet. There’s journalistic value to being able to describe its fur, I imagine arguing, as I drive past bucolic fields and cheerless industrial parks. In the end, I don’t need to ask at all. “Do you want to feed him?” Mike Hopcraft says, holding out a dish of raw chunks of beef and a pair of long metal tweezers, as the cat glowers beside me. My commitment to gonzo cat...

Maine Democrat Graham Platner on Friday formally withdrew from his US Senate bid in a letter to state elections officials that signed off with an F-bomb. Platner posted on X a picture of the letter, which did not share any immediate details about who he hoped would succeed him to face Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November. The missive touted the 156,084 votes he had received in Maine’s Senate Democratic primary last month, suggesting that his more than 70-percentage-point win showed: “People are desperate for change.” “Mainers voted for a new kind of politics,” the letter read. “One that...

***** Tunes For Our Troops ~ The Freeper Canteen Music Dedication Presents: Musical Cornucopia! *****~ Support The Artists You Hear Throughout The Canteen ! ~ ***** Warning: Not all music may be appropriate for children! Please click with caution. Thank you! Tunes For The Troops This music is provided for the entertainment of our Troops, Veterans, Allies & their families! Enjoy the variety of musical selections that the Canteen DJs provide throughout the thread. Please ping any DJ with your requests for the Troops! All music is removed on Monday.Thanks to all the DJs for their time & effort...

A former Barack Obama press secretary was fired from his chief communications role in Minneapolis after allegedly stealing cash and credit cards from city employees to fuel his habit for kratom — a natural drug used to treat opioid withdrawal. Adam Fetcher, 42, was canned from his role as Chief Communications Officer (CCO) for the City of Minneapolis after just a year on the job amid a police investigation into internal workplace theft and fraud, as well as claims of substance abuse, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. Fetcher, who made nearly $200,000 a year, is accused of stealing cash and...

Alex Jones clip commented on by Liberal Hivemind

FIFA will take no action against Argentina after its players sang a song referencing the Falkland Islands in their dressing room following their comeback victory over Egypt. Footage shared online by the country's football association showed the group celebrating in their dressing room post-match and belting out the song Muchachos, which includes the line 'for the Malvinas', Argentina's name for the South Atlantic islands it invaded in 1982 to trigger a war which claimed the lives of 907 people. FIFA, who have banned England player Jarell Quansah for two games following a red card, states that it strictly prohibits political...

"Witness list expanding in multi-conspiracy probe out of Fort Pierce. . . ." Paul Sperry, Real Clear investigations. The scene: February of 2027, a federal courtroom in Fort Pierce (St. Lucie County), Florida, the third day of trial in the RussiaGate matter. Defendants seated on the right (from the judge’s vantage) are so numerous they require two tables, including John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, Strzok & Page, Bruce Ohr, Lisa Monaco, Mary McCord, Christopher Wray, Marc Elias, and seven other former federal officials. Former President Barack Obama and former Sec’y of State Hillary Clinton, named...

Investigative reporter Nick Shirley on Friday released his latest video uncovering over $190 million in fraud in New York. The fraudsters used the needy and elderly to steal more than $190 million in home care scams. “Here is the full 53 minutes of my crew and I exposing New York fraud, we uncovered over $190,000,000 in fraud as these fraudsters use the elderly and needy to commit fraud through adult and personal home care scams in NYC,” Nick Shirley said. “Your tax dollars are paying for elderly Koreans and Chinese to play ping pong and do tai chi, while the...

A new Idaho law may outlaw transgender people's use of public restrooms, but advocates are mapping the private facilities where anyone can pee in peace. Trans Affirm just released an online "Idaho Inclusive Bathroom Map," which shows both the safe and non-inclusive places where residents can use the restroom facilities aligned with their gender identity. The organization has been building the map in the wake of Idaho Gov. Brad Little signing one of the most sweeping statutes in the country criminalizing restroom use.

Randolph Mantooth, who starred as the goofy but gallant firefighter-paramedic Johnny Gage on Emergency!, the 1970s NBC action show that changed life-saving services as we know it, has died. He was 80. Mantooth died Thursday at a hospice facility in Ventura, California, his brother, Donald Mantooth, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had been “ill for a number of years and kept getting thinner and thinner,” he said. Mantooth also had two stints (1987-90 and 1993-95) as Clay Alden/Alex Masters on the ABC soap opera Loving, and he appeared on other daytime serials including ABC’s General Hospital, CBS’ As the World...

Last year, we wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was done chasing criminals after we’d already handed them money. We said we were building something different — a prevention-first operation that would detect and stop fraud before the check cleared, not attempt to claw back lost funds years later. Skeptics had reason to doubt. Government agencies announce transformations all the time. The results usually don’t follow. So here are the numbers: In fiscal year 2025, Medicare savings from the prevention of fraud, waste and abuse hit $42 billion — an almost 60%...

SAWYER, Mich. (AP) — A completed bridge linking Detroit and Canada is expected to open by the end of the month after U.S. and Canadian officials reached an agreement to resolve the dispute that delayed its debut, according to two people directly involved in the negotiations.The sources were not authorized to publicly disclose the deal before a formal announcement.A ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for early June was postponed after the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority said the two countries needed more time to resolve “outstanding issues.” The delay followed President Donald Trump’s earlier threats to block the bridge’s opening.Commercial traffic is now expected...

1 in 5 survey respondents said they used it to research a potential partner For years, LinkedIn, the oft-derided networking site, has been used to boast about professional achievements, apply to jobs that may or may not be real, and observe inane ramblings from out-of-touch tech CEOs. Now, according to a recent report, some are also using it to suss out potential dating partners, making it an “unexpected space for romance.”After gathering responses from more than 1,000 U.S. workers in April of this year, researchers at Zety, a resume-building site, found that 1 in 8 respondents said they formed romantic...

Before the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, Lineage representatives lobbied City Hall over the rooftop solar array. The company says it was seeking a safer alternative to rapid shutdown devices. A year before a massive fire at a Boyle Heights cold storage building sent polluted smoke into surrounding communities, the operator of the facility came to Los Angeles City Hall with a request.Lineage asked about removing an emergency shutdown switch from the solar panels on the roof of the structure, according to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.A spokesperson for Lineage said that the company was inquiring about what...

Clarence Thomas has defended America’s constitutional morality better than any other Supreme Court Justice in recent memory, but he subscribes to a chimerical notion of rights—so-called natural rights—that threatens this moral framework. This magazine, in our June issue, rightly praised Thomas for his fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution, but, as the editor of paleoconservatism’s flagship publication, I must clarify that my fellow paleoconservatives generally do not believe in natural rights—and for good reason.