Free Republic

In May, Denver became the first city in the nation to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. Voters approved a ballot initiative by such a razor-thin margin that multiple news outlets initially reported that it had failed. It was easier in Oakland. The City Council on June 4 approved its ordinance unanimously, with little pushback. Oakland even went a step further by decriminalizing not just mushrooms but also a range of other psychoactive plants and compounds including peyote, iboga and ayahuasca. The measure, which applies only to plant-based hallucinogens and not synthetic drugs such as LSD and MDMA, does not actually legalize natural...

JERUSALEM, June 23 (Reuters) - Iran is feeling the effects of existing U.S. sanctions as President Donald Trump prepares to impose more of them from Monday, his National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Sunday during a visit to Israel. While flagging further sanctions, Trump also said on Saturday he wanted to make a deal to bolster Iran's flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions following the shooting down of an unmanned U.S. drone by the Islamic Republic. Tensions in the region began to worsen significantly when Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six...

A Minnesota cat miraculously survived after sneaking into a washing machine -- where it stayed for about an hour. Stefani Carroll-Kirchoff, from Maplewood, a suburb of St. Paul, said she was doing her laundry on Wednesday when her one-year-old cat, Felix, jumped inside the washing machine while the door was open. “I must have turned my back for a few minutes folding clothes and he apparently went in there when I wasn’t looking,” Carroll-Kirchoff told Fox News. “It’s horrific. It’s absolutely horrific,” she added. Carroll-Kirchoff said she hasn't been able to sleep since the incident. “This will haunt me for...

"Jeopardy!" star James Holzhauer may have put down the buzzer, but now he's picking up his poker chips and heading to the Rio Convention Center in Las Vegas to test his luck in the World Series of Poker. Holzhauer, 34, will participate in two events on Monday, the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold'Em Super Turbo Bounty tournament and the $1,000 buy-in Tag Team No-Limit Hold’Em. Poker isn't anything new to Holzhauer, who joked that he majored in the sport while enrolled at the University of Illinois, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. Holzhauer says he was convinced to enter by...

Walmart Opens a New Window. is working to reduce checkout theft in more than 1,000 U.S. stores with the help of cameras powered by artificial intelligence Opens a New Window. . The retailer began investing in the surveillance program, dubbed Missed Scan Detection, several years ago in an effort to combat shrinkage — loss due to several causes including theft, scanning errors, waste and fraud, a Walmart spokeswoman told Business Insider Opens a New Window. . "Walmart is making a true investment to ensure the safety of our customers and associates," Walmart spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins told the business site. "Over...

A University of Utah student who disappeared after ordering a Lyft in Utah was still missing Sunday — nearly a week after she was last seen. Mackenzie Lueck, 23, was flying to Salt Lake City from Los Angeles after attending a funeral last weekend. The Salt Lake City Police Department said Lueck arrived at the airport on June 17 and ordered a Lyft ride-share to an address in North Salt Lake. Investigators said she was last seen "in the early morning hours of Monday." Her family told KSTU they last heard from her around 1 a.m. on June 17. Lueck's...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) refused Sunday to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp, after a Jewish group had invited her to tour that camp and others this summer to educate herself about the facts of the Holocaust. Last Monday evening, Ocasio-Cortez compared detention facilities for illegal aliens caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to “concentration camps,” adding the phrase “never again,” which commonly refers to the Nazi Holocaust. The remark drew outrage and criticism, even from fellow Democrats. Nevertheless, Ocasio-Cortez doubled down, first claiming that she had not been referring to Nazi Germany, then drawing parallels to the U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans...

Some of America's biggest sellers of guns and ammo are suffering from a lack of "fear-based buying," as consumers aren't worried about stricter gun control while Donald Trump is in office.

For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! ~ Hall of Heroes ~ William B. Baugh Info from here.             Private First Class William Bernard Baugh (July 7, 1930 – November 29, 1950) was a United States marine who, at age 20, received the Medal of Honor in Korea for sacrificing his life to save his Marine comrades. The nation’s highest decoration for valor was presented to the young Marine for extraordinary heroism on November...

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday that Congress is "running out of time" to have former special counsel Robert Mueller testify, adding that he hopes a "final conclusion" is reached on his possible testimony "this week." "We have been in private discussions with the special counsel's office," Schiff told CNN's "State of the Union." "It is not clear that he will refuse to come in voluntarily; we are negotiating what the conditions of that appearance might be. But yes, we are running out of time." "I hope that we'll reach that decision this week because we want...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — One person was killed and seven others were wounded on Sunday in an attack by Iranian-allied Yemeni rebels on a Saudi airport, Saudi Arabia said. The strike came as the American secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, traveled to the country for talks on Iran. Regional tensions have flared in recent days. The United States abruptly called off a military strike against Iran last week in response to the shooting down of an unmanned American surveillance drone. The Trump administration has vowed to combine a “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions with a buildup of American...

SOUTH BEND, Indiana (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Sunday faced growing fallout over a fatal police shooting in South Bend, an incident that has exposed simmering racial tensions in the Indiana city where he is mayor and which is complicating his presidential ambitions. Buttigieg answered questions at a frequently raucous and angry meeting with South Bend residents in which he was heckled, booed and screamed at by a minority of audience members. He admitted efforts to make the city's police force more diverse had failed, "and I take responsibility for that." Buttigieg appeared a week after the...

[Catholic Caucus] Drumbeats in the Amazon, and Not from the Natives Since my first column on the “Synod for the Amazon” — which is really a synod for the continued auto-demolition of the Church — Catholic commentators around the world have sounded the alarm about this latest exercise in stage-managed “synodal” decision-making, meaning what Pope Francis is plotting to achieve. See, for example, this searing commentary on the Instrumentum laboris [IL] for the synod, which notes that it “represents a total opening of the gates of the Magisterium to Indian Theology and Ecotheology, two Latin American derivatives of Liberation Theology.”Sandro Magister, however,...

On now CBS 60 minutes hit piece.

The "online knitting and fiber arts community," Ravelry, declared Sunday that it is banning all vocal supporters of President Donald Trump from its website, and declared support for the current President akin to "white supremacy." Yes, a knitting website. Ravely describes itself as, "[a] place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration. The content here is all user- driven; we as a community make the site what it is. Ravelry is a great place for you to keep notes about...

House Democrats blinked Sunday, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing they will vote this week to grant at least part of President Trump’s emergency border funding to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Mrs. Pelosi, in announcing the looming vote, did swipe at Mr. Trump, saying he’s made the border situation worse.

Secret planning has begun for a new port facility just outside Darwin which could eventually help US Marines operate more readily in the Indo-Pacific. Precise details remain tightly guarded but senior defence and federal government figures concede the proposal may risk angering China even though it's a commercial port, not a new military base. Multiple officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have confirmed to the ABC the multi-use development would be in the Glyde Point area, roughly 40 kilometres north-east of Darwin's existing port. In the past, the location has been earmarked by the Northern Territory Government as a...

his week's big leak about a major Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation was orchestrated by acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan in an effort to sabotage the raids before they were scheduled to take place, according to three current and two former senior administration officials. In a move he said was to placate Democrats, President Trump announced on Saturday that the nationwide immigration enforcement operation planned to start Sunday — aimed at migrant families who illegally remain in the country despite being denied asylum — was called off to give lawmakers two weeks to work on a plan to fix...

One of my friends once told me a story that perfectly captures our human tendency to remain unhappy and unsatisfied, no matter what we accomplish in life. My friend went on vacation to Florida to visit his elderly father. At his father’s request, they had gone to the greyhound races, where people would bet on which dogs would win against the other canine competitors (a sport that Florida voters recently decided to phase out by the end of 2020). These big, sleek animals have bodies like missiles and are natural hunters who can reach amazing speeds of 20, 30, or...