Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Rats at the police station, filth on L.A. streets — scenes from the collapse of a city that’s lost control The good news is that two trash-strewn downtown Los Angeles streets I wrote about last week were cleaned up by city work crews and have been kept that way, as of this writing. The bad news is that I didn’t have to travel far to find more streets just as badly fouled by filthy mounds of junk and stinking, rotting food. Then there was the news that the LAPD station on skid row was cited by the state...

LONDON — President Donald Trump has waded into the most controversial issue in British politics by urging the U.K. government to leave the European Union without a deal if it can’t get better terms from EU leaders. Trump told the Sunday Times in an interview published Sunday that Britain should “walk away” from talks and refuse to pay a 39 billion pound ($49 billion) divorce bill if it doesn’t get better terms from the EU. The president also says Brexit party leader Nigel Farage should be given a role in the negotiations. The comments come just before Trump begins a...

In other parts of the country, they’re fighting about whether to build a border wall or whether to deport asylum seekers. But here in California we’re having an entirely different type of debate. When Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposed expanding health coverage to all undocumented immigrants up to age 26, his fiercest criticism came from those who felt his proposal was not nearly ambitious enough.

I collected footage for about 6 months. In that time, I noticed that Treacle vocalized less outside than she did in the house, and that the pitch of the vocalizations was different. She only caught one thing that whole time: a woodmouse. I began wondering if I could do this more scientifically, and follow a larger number of cats, to get a better sense of how they behave when no one is watching.

Looking for some great weekend reading? Look no further than the transcript of the CBS News interview with Attorney General William Barr. Calling it a bombshell doesn’t do it justice. The interview is chock-full of one explosive comment after another about special counsel Robert Mueller, the media and Barr’s own investigation of the investigators. Here are some nuclear-grade examples of what the AG has to say: “So it was bogus, this whole idea that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians is bogus.” “It’s hard to read some of the [FBI] texts and not feel that there was gross bias...

MOSCOW—Russia has withdrawn key defense advisers from Venezuela, an embarrassment for President Nicolás Maduro as Moscow weighs the leader’s political and economic resilience against growing U.S. pressure. Russian state defense contractor Rostec, which has trained Venezuelan troops and advised on securing arms contracts, has cut its staff in Venezuela to just a few dozen, from about 1,000 at the height of cooperation between Moscow and Caracas several years ago, said a person close to the Russian defense ministry. The gradual pullout, which has escalated over the last several months, according to people familiar with the situation, is due to a...

The Pentagon has told the White House to stop politicizing the military, amid a furor over a Trump administration order to have the Navy ship named for the late U.S. Sen. John McCain hidden from view during President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Japan. A U.S. defense official said Patrick Shanahan, Trump’s acting defense chief, is also considering sending out formal guidance to military units in order to avoid similar problems in the future. Shanahan confirmed details about a Navy email that said the White House military office wanted the USS John McCain kept “out of sight” when Trump was...

Transgenderism is the new frontier for LGBTQ activists and feminists, but how does it impact our culture, free speech, sports and the children who transition? Wall Street Journal writer Abigail Shrier expounds on the impact of transgenderism in society on this episode of The Candace Owens Show.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has compared Donald Trump's language to that of 'a 20th century fascist' and accused him of 'shamelessly' interfering in the Conservative party leadership race. Ahead of the US President's three-day State visit to the UK, starting tomorrow, Khan also condemned the decision to roll-out the red carpet for the UK's closest ally. It is the latest instalment in a long-running feud between the multimillionaire and Tooting-born Labour Mayor that dates back to 2016. Trump failed to mention the London mayor in an interview with The Sun last week, ahead of his State visit, where he...

VIDEO Rob Reiner appeared on the May 31 "Morning Joe" show and made the absurd claim that there are "piles of evidence of collusion" in the Mueller Report. Really, Meathead? Somehow he has found evidence of Trump-Russia collusion in the Mueller Report that no one else has seen. I therefore challenge Meathead Reiner to SHOW THE EVIDENCE of such collusion. All talk show interviewers should never again allow Meathead on their programs unless he provides such evidence of collusion.

Pierre Omidyar had the Midas touch. In 1995 he founded what became eBay. I donÂ’t doubt that Omidyar worked hard, but his $11 billion fortune may be a case (compared to the typical toiler) of easy come, easy more -- and that may mean trouble for the rest of us. Stay with me for several paragraphs, please. Psychologists know some people who have inherited lots of money feel undeserving, and some who have earned billions almost magically feel smart enough to run everything. Marxists during the 1930s sometimes joked that the American working class was Democratic, the middle class was...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by John 15:13 (King James Version). Click image (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. This quote was brought out through the review of many of the accounts of our fallen Medal of Honor awardees throughout history, and the extreme yet powerfully sanguine larger-than-life personas of these otherwise common men. Powerful stuff.Note: This quote contains an archaic word common to the Bible.  All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidential spoilers. Please refrain from...

AutoAppraise Published on Jun 18, 2018 John Stratton has been dreaming of this day for a long time- Check 1941 Willys off the bucket list!Big Al’s Toy Barn gets a shout out from car appraiser Jason Phillips on this stealthy big block...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErIlzCyTjaE

Please add your prayers below or simply "amen" or comment on those listed. A Prayer to get it started: Lord God, We are called to pray for our leaders and those in authority over us. Our prayer on this day of prayer is specifically for our President, Donald J. Trump. President Trump is beset on every side with those who seek to injure him politically. That creates a situation where almost everything reported about him that is negative. Therefore, we pray: For his faith in Jesus Christ to be strengthened and that he rely upon our Lord at all times....

FReepers All: Begging prayers for the brother of a friend, Jamie Miller, who has a very rare and aggressive cancer which is inoperable and has grown through his face and jaw. Eating and speaking are difficult and painful and time is running out. Jamie, 60, has 9 children, ages 16-30, some of them adopted and some with special needs. Ten years ago, his wife, Renee, was murdered, so he has been sole parent to those kids for 10 years, and they still need him. As it happens, there is a connection between Jamie and Fr. Emil Kapuan, the most decorated...

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Sunday he believes President Trump will be impeached "at some point" but that Democrats must first build a case for impeachment. Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in House leadership, offered the remarks in an interview on "State of the Union with Jake Tapper." When Tapper asked Clyburn if he thought Democrats would launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, he said "yes, that's exactly what I feel." "What Nancy Pelosi is trying to do, and the rest of us in the House of Representatives, is developing a process to efficiently move on this issue so when...

In a bold move, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp recently signed the pro-life legislation known as the “fetal heartbeat” bill. This will protect the life of an unborn baby after a heartbeat is detected, approximately six weeks after conception. As a result of this move, much of Hollywood has erupted in anger and is threatening a boycott of the state. The good people of Georgia should say “good riddance” to these lunatic liberals who want to impose their progressive ideology on the rest of America. In fact, Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress said that Hollywood has become “blinded by evil” in their...

In the summer of 1992, my family gathered in central Minnesota for my grandfather’s 70th birthday. We were there to celebrate William J. Svrluga Sr. — father, golfer, husband, engineer, grandfather, Cubs fan, cheapskate, retiree. Seven of us joined in the celebration: Bill Sr.’s wife, Ruth, my grandmother; his two sons, my father, Bill Jr., and my uncle Dick; their wives; my younger brother, Brad, and me. At one point, maybe between the walleye and the turtle cheesecake, the conversation hit a lull. Uncle Dick filled it. “Okay, Dad,” he asked. “What are you most proud of in your life?”...

Mueller’s press conference this week should be giving the president a good reason to be asking, how long can his administration afford to allow this coup d’ état to continue before a quorum of public opinion takes hold in this country that will wrongfully compel him by force of some unlawful process, if not arms, to be removed from office?Undeniably, America is in the midst of a civil war. The only things not yet flying are the bullets.Liberals in Congress are demanding our president be impeached for undefined offenses. Liberal federal judges are letting themselves be used to thwart his...

For the auto business, "The pain is just beginning," according to Nomura analyst Masataka Kunugimoto and his team. "We now expect global auto demand to be down 3%," year on year, in 2019, he told clients recently. He is not alone. At bank after bank, analysts are coming round to the idea that the world may have passed "peak car," and that in the future humans will need fewer personal vehicles.