Free Republic

At the start of the race, it was clear most Black voters would support Crockett and most White voters would support Talarico; the wildcard was where Latinos would go. In the end, Hispanic voters acted as a key factor in the Senate primary, helping James Talarico win the Democratic nomination... The Republican primary picture is less clear-cut. In majority Hispanic regions, Cornyn led Paxton with 52-55% of the two-way vote. In urban areas, though, voters in majority Hispanic precincts actually favored Paxton (51%) at greater levels than voters in other precincts (45%)... Some commentators see evidence of Republican realignment. Others...

A “cleansing” ceremony involving the poisonous skin of an Amazonian frog is believed to be the cause of death for a wellness coach — mere months after he beat cancer. After recovering from Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive type of blood cancer, Kristian Trend became immersed in holistic wellness. But his participation in a dangerous “detox” ritual involving the use of a “toad vaccine” had a fatal end.

As election officials across the country brace for the possibility of federal agents descending on polling sites in November, a nationwide coalition of Democratic district attorneys has vowed to prosecute any federal agent suspected of intimidating voters. The announcement, first reported by Politico, comes shortly after President Donald Trump refused to rule out sending U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to election sites during the midterms. “I’d do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections,” Trump told reporters earlier this month. The coalition includes prosecutors from Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Dallas and Northern Virginia, among other jurisdictions. “We’re ready to...

Listening to Matt Walsh on YT. He has the flavor of Rush I was listening to a few Matt Walsh shows for the first time and found that he has had the brashness and humor that reminds me of the earlier Rush shows. Does anyone else here listen to him?

A popular graffiti artist was fatally struck by a Brightline train in Florida, local officials say. On May 13, Eric Alan Hirt, 47, was struck and killed at 12:26 a.m. local time while walking on the tracks in Biscayne Park, Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office (MDSO) Detective Joseph Peguero said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. Eric was hit by an oncoming Brightline train, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office confirmed, according to The Miami Herald. The Brightline train is one of two high-speed trains in the U.S., traveling as fast as 125 miles per hour. The train began test runs in 2017....

The Israeli military says it has begun a wave of strikes across Lebanon following an announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country will intensify its attacks on Hezbollah. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had launched strikes against Hezbollah sites in the Bekaa Valley in the east of Lebanon and additional areas across the country. It followed a video statement on Monday evening in which Netanyahu said Israel was "at war with Hezbollah" and that he had given the military instructions to "deal them a crushing blow". The expansion of Israel's campaign came as the Iranian government...

The British government is reviewing the ‘Youth Rehabilitation Order’ sentences given to two teenage rapists by a judge who said he didn’t want to “criminalise” the perpetrators. The first victim, who was attacked in an underpass in Fordingbridge, Hampshire by the River Avon in 2024 said, the broadcaster related: “Why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, reliving everything because of evidence and watching it all happen again?… It sort of gave me a sense of what’s the point…what was the point in putting me through that just to say...

Residents in a troubled Seattle neighborhood have begun erecting large homemade barricades across residential streets after a surge of gun violence left many fearing for their safety.Neighbors living near Aurora Avenue say repeated shootings, alleged prostitution activity and late-night chaos have pushed the community to a breaking point.Following another burst of gunfire over the weekend, frustrated residents took matters into their own hands by physically blocking off nearby roads in an effort to keep traffic and suspected criminal activity out of the area, Fox 13 reported.Videos circulating online show multiple streets partially sealed off with piles of dirt, chunks of...

Donald Trump told Arab leaders he will only broker a peace deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if they normalize relations with Israel, according to a leaked phone call. The most powerful leaders in the Middle East, including those from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, joined the President on a conference call on Saturday to discuss progress toward ending the US-Iran war and reopening the vital oil passageway. In return, Trump pressed the leaders to normalize ties with Israel, a demand aimed at nations that have opposed the Jewish state since its founding in 1948. Arab...

ransomnote: Below, brief excerpts of the full video. May 25, 2026

The AR-15 - the deadliest abomination known to man. A gun so terrible it's killed more people than net neutrality and Trump's tax cuts combined. And to demonstrate how awful this weapon is, I did something foolish: I tried firing one. And the experience was so horrible I have not stopped crying and soiling myself since.Yes, even as I type this, tears fill my eyes at the remembrance of pulling that trigger and the terrible things that followed. And my pants... my pants are so soaked.How to describe the experience of firing that monstrosity? When I pulled the trigger, it...

ransomnote: Full video at the link; two excerpts below. 5/25/2026

SP/4 Jeffrey Haerle was a Morse Intercept Operator (as I was) for the Army Security Agency (ASA) The ASA was the Army's signal intelligence (SIGINT) component. The specific job of the the Morse Intercept Operator in Vietnam was to search for, and copy, the messages sent in morse code, via the shortwave radio band, by enemy forces in order to derive intelligence information and in some cases, to assist in the use of radio direction finding to locate the enemy. Although hardly used today, during the 60s and 70s, morse code was one of the primary means of communication used...

Russia tells foreign nationals, including diplomatic missions and staff, to leave Kyiv ASAP

The story of Helias Doundoulakis is like a great war movie. It is the story of the Greek spy who helped Greece and the United States win the war against the Nazis. A true hero, the Greek American worked as a spy during World War II and helped in the liberation of Crete and the eventual victory of the United States against Germany’s Nazi regime. Furthermore, the story of Helias Doundoulakis is also the fascinating story of America’s first national intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Helias Doundoulakis was born in Canton, Ohio to Greek immigrants Demetrios Doundoulakis...

Mehek Cooke@MehekCookeTrump just turned the Abraham Accords into an accountability trap for the Gulf states and Iran walked right into it.Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have never held Iran accountable is due to exposure. They share a neighborhood. They can't sanction, shame, or confront Iran while having zero security architecture binding them to the West or to each other.The Abraham Accords change that math entirely. Once Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are signatories, they aren't just recognizing Israel they are locking themselves into a collective security posture.A breach of the Iran deal becomes their problem...

Explanation: What are these strange space globs? Situated in rich star fields and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar dust and gas are so large they might be able to form stars. Their home is known as IC 2944, a bright stellar nursery located about 7,600 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus). The largest of these dark globules, first spotted by A. D. Thackeray in 1950 using a telescope in South Africa, is likely two separate but overlapping clouds, each more than one light-year wide. Along with other data, the featured Hubble palette image...

SNIP Exhibit A: Graham Platner, the Dems’ hard-left Senate candidate in Maine who cosplays a rugged working-class oyster farmer. He has been given the superstar treatment by the likes of the New York Times and Time in airbrushed cover stories praising him as a “rough-hewn, gravelly voiced … flawed everyman” whose numerous scandals — sporting a Nazi tattoo for 18 years, excusing rape, masturbating in porta-potties, mocking a Purple Heart recipient — are proof of his authenticity and “redemption arc.” SNIP Platner wears his hyper masculinity like a fat suit. It’s hiding something he doesn’t want us to see. Everything...

A film buff found a lost 1968 British TV movie about vampires that sparked a legend that it was so terrifying, it was marked for destruction, a preservation group announced. “No Such Thing as a Vampire” — one of six episodes from the short-lived 1960s BBC anthology series “Late Night Horror” — has been missing for more than half a century after it scarred viewers and caused an uproar that prompted the network to not only kill the show. SNIP The newly rediscovered horror film will screen publicly for the first time since 1969 at Europe’s “Grindfest” horror festival this...

This week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) spoke before the 2026 CAP IDEAS Conference that was hosted by the Center for American Progress, saying "first, as a guarantee, we are taking back control of the United States House of Representatives in November. As I speak, we have thousands of people in the field registering as many new voters as we can. People like 64-year-old Californian Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong who has been registering homeless skid row folks for the last 20 years. She lets them use her home address so the mail-in ballots the state sends to every registered...