Free Republic

Every family has a wine aunt who makes weddings and holidays a chore. Her second glass of Sauvignon Blanc turns her into a lawn sign with legs, and she starts repeating slogans: Why don’t you believe in science? America is a nation of immigrants! Trans women are women! In her day job as an administrator for a nonprofit organization or an associate vice president of human resources, Aunt Madge is an enforcer. She lives to police boundaries. You can’t say that! She has no thoughts. She says the slogans. She is received wisdom, embodied, and she knows that what you...

Key Points Iran-backed Houthi rebels killed six people in an attack on a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. U.S. forces fired missiles at a container ship attempting to breach Washington’s blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman. The twin incidents show how the war is inflicting a toll on two of the world’s most critical shipping lanes. ================================================================== Iran-backed Houthi rebels killed six people aboard a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, the first reported fatalities from attacks targeting Red Sea shipping in more than a year. Within hours, U.S. forces said they...

Florida is now the safest big state in America. Miami, Orlando and Tampa combined had just 29 murders in the first half of 2026. That’s incredible leadership and police work. Miami had just 8 murders so far in 2026, down 50% from last year. majorcitieschiefs.com/wp-content/upl…

"Love is patient . . . kind . . . not jealous . . . does not brag . . . is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly . . . does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor. 13:4-7). Love is difficult to define, but it can be described by the behavior it produces. Paul painted a portrait of the kind of love Jesus wants to produce...

The DOJ Once Sued States to Release Institutionalized Mentally Ill Patients. That Policy Just Ended. In the 1999 Supreme Court case Olmstead v. L.C., Justice Kennedy wrote in his concurrence, "It is careful, and quite correct, to say that it is not 'the ADA's mission to drive States to move institutionalized patients to an inappropriate setting, such as a homeless shelter.'" Yet as the Cicero Institute points out, that's exactly what has happened over the last 20 years. A recent Justice Department directive aims to correct 'unintended consequences' stemming from a misinterpretation of the landmark Olmstead decision –– clearing a...

The Prince Georges County Police Department (PGPD) has arrested six suspects who are accused of leading an alleged retail theft ring. A lengthy investigation revealed a multi-state organization that included Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. Six suspects involved in the ring are currently in custody. They are 30-year-old Daryl Michael Jackson of Washington, D.C., 25-year-old Cyan Rocke of Capitol Heights, 37-year-old Marco Morgan of Washington, D.C., 31-year-old Tia Courtney of Capitol Heights, 26-year-old Chyna Parker of Suitland and 22-year-old Quasaan Parker of Suitland. On Monday morning, PGPD, together with Maryland State Police, the Metropolitan Police Department,...

... Although more Americans identify as conservative than liberal, policy programs tilt far to the left. In many programs, the number of conservative faculty is negligible, with left-leaning faculty outnumbering their right-leaning counterparts at leading policy schools by 7-to-1. While the leftward lean of university faculty and administration is old news, the lack of ideological diversity in policy schools has a particular import. After all, policy schools are explicitly charged with educating students to navigate issues like taxation, policing, abortion, and immigration. A half-century ago, Harvard University president Derek Bok explained that programs like his institution’s famed Kennedy School of...

So, at time of writing, it looks as if voters don’t want to cancel Thanksgiving – on balance, at least. Come November, however, few Democrats will be expressing gratitude for their party’s vote-tabulation systems. Francesca Hong, it seems, will not be America’s first avowedly socialist state governor. She appears to have just lost an extremely tight primary to David Crowley, a Milwaukee County executive, in the gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin. The long-view – and already ubiquitous – reaction to this news is to mark it down as a major blow for the Democratic Socialists of America and their bid to...

VIDEOS AT LINK.................... An American Airlines airplane was forced to make an emergency landing in South Carolina after flames shot from one of its engines after the aircraft reportedly struck birds while taking off in Myrtle Beach. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. We’ve got a engine problem here,” the pilot said shortly after takeoff, according to CNN. “I saw he took up birds, it looked like, at least in the left side engine,” another pilot who saw the bird strike said on radio. The Boeing 737 carrying 181 people landed safely. Watch below: CNN shared further: Patrick Gotwalt was a passenger on...

Andy Burnham will chair an emergency Cobra meeting in response to the extreme heat, which has caused wildfires and plunged many parts of Britain into drought. The prime minister will meet ministers, officials and agencies as high temperatures continue across the UK, with 33C forecast on Wednesday and up to 38C on Thursday. A No 10 spokesperson said the government understood that firefighters, farmers and NHS staff were all facing challenges connected to the weather. It will be the second Cobra meeting this year on heatwaves, after one took place amid high temperatures in June. It comes as parts of...

For months, Florida Republicans have been told the governor's race was essentially over before it had truly begun. The message: Byron Donalds has it. The money was raised. The endorsements were secured. The consultants declared a frontrunner. Many in the political class behaved as though Republican voters were simply expected to ratify a decision that had already been made. But voters have a funny habit of refusing to follow the script. A new benchmark survey from the Political Matrix suggests that the race may be far more fluid than conventional wisdom would have us believe. Congressman Byron Donalds remains in...

12 August 2026 Wednesday of week 19 in Ordinary Time Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Vukovina, CroatiaReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First readingEzekiel 9:1-7,10:18-22The cross marks the foreheads of all who are pureAs I, Ezekiel, listened, God shouted, ‘Come here, you scourges of the city, and bring your weapons of destruction.’ Immediately six men advanced from the upper north gate, each holding a deadly weapon. In the middle of them was a man in white, with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt. They came in and halted in front of the bronze...

EXC: China’s “Citizen External Propaganda” Pipeline Put Chinese Nationals Inside Congress. They Wrote Lawmaker Speeches, Researched Policy and Responded to American Constituents. Some interns later became Beijing’s experts on Congress. ... Chinese students were placed inside U.S. congressional offices through a years-long program where they were entrusted with work ranging from constituent correspondence to congressional briefings on sensitive U.S.-China matters to drafting speeches for congressmen, according to Chinese-language university records reviewed for this investigation. ...Xin Qiang, now a prominent Fudan University expert on Taiwan, U.S.-China relations and American politics. Fudan’s official biography says Xin served from November 2001 until May...

Milwaukee is at it again. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, as Wisconsin primary results were still coming in, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez admitted that five of the nine USB flash drives delivered from the city’s central count facility to the county contained audit logs instead of the actual election results. “It’s a human error,” Gutierrez said. When asked by WISN 12 if it was as simple as somebody pressing the wrong button, she replied, “Correct.” Officials were forced to return to the operations center at central count to re-download the correct results from five machines....

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem🇮🇱 (8/12/26)[Prayer]Personalities2 Samuel 3:1-53 The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. 2 Sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel; 3 his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; the third, Absalom the son of Maakah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; 4 the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital; 5...

This chapter in American history could be titled, “The Bad Guys Keep Winning Because They Suffer No Consequences for Their Treachery.” Islamo-fascists and communists have taken over the Democrat Party and threaten to take over the U.S. Congress. Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has been brought to justice for conspiring with parts of the Intelligence Community to frame President Trump as a Russian spy. The same Ukrainian and British Intelligence agents who helped orchestrate the first ridiculous impeachment against Trump (ostensibly set in motion because the president asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy why Joe Biden’s son was making tens of thousands...

The Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman stressed that Russian armed forces were capable of significantly extending their operations beyond the borders of the Black Sea basinMOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. Russia has the right to attack any merchant ship in neutral waters if it is transporting cargo in the interests of the enemy, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev stated. "The vast majority of Western European ships also sail under flags of convenience. So what does that mean? It means that, guided by a fair, symmetrical approach, Russia has the right to attack any merchant vessel of an enemy country...

The FBI and U.S. spy agencies received derogatory evidence about Joe Biden from 14 different informants but embarked on a secret operation to tamp down a Ukrainian corruption scandal engulfing his family during the 2020 election by formally designating Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, key members of Congress and journalists as Russian disinformation “conduits,” according to explosive intelligence community documents declassified by the White House. A spreadsheet that was recovered from U.S. intelligence agency files and made public Wednesday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force shows that spy agencies and the FBI created a...

Both systems promise that a slaughter is necessary but also promise its end. Both systems invariably keep the first promise and violate the second. In revealing the commonalities of the Reds and the Greens in the Red-Green Axis, we have elucidated their shared goals of violence, wealth redistribution, inequality before the law, a binary world, monopoly rule by the elites, and controlling the totality of society. Here we explore the promise of transitional phase slaughter. Both Islamic political systems and Marxist-Leninist communism make two promises about the violent neutralization of internal rivals. The first is that it will happen: a...

The Russian president emphasized that it wasn’t just about the areas where Russian vessels could be seized but wherever Moscow found it necessary and reasonableYUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, August 12. /TASS/. Moscow will retaliate if Western countries seize Russian commercial vessels, President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin said. "If these plans are put into practice, we will have to respond in kind," he warned. Putin emphasized that it wasn’t just about the areas where Russian vessels could be seized "but wherever we deem it necessary and appropriate – anywhere, including in the Pacific Fleet’s area of responsibility." Addressing...