Free Republic

A Georgetown University law professor says Americans are “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution as their adherence to that document — written by a “tiny group of white slave-owning men” — has turned the country into a “war zone.” Rosa Brooks made the comparison yesterday on MSNBC’s Joy Reid show and highlighted the recent mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. “[T]here are people all over the world who have lived during armed conflicts, and when does the mortar fall on your house, when does the soldier or the tank come down the street and just kill you,” Brooks said. “We are...

President Biden awarded the Medal of honor to four U.S. soldiers today. Advertisement One of the men, Major John J. Duffy, is a Santa Cruz resident. Duffy was awarded the Medal of Honor for acts above and beyond the call of duty for his service in Vietnam. He was wounded several times and refused to evacuate a command post that had been destroyed. Duffy called in airstrikes, led evacuees out, and saved an allied soldier from falling out of a helicopter. "Upon reaching the exfiltration sight, Major Duffy again made sure he was the last to board the helicopter. And...

Discord chat app faces moderation questions after mass shooting suspects are linked to platform “When we talk about people who commit these acts of violence ... it's going to be a part of this nexus,” one expert said of Discord. The suspect in the Highland Park shooting had dedicated chat rooms on the popular social messaging platform Discord and frequented some others that trafficked in violent content despite rules meant to limit such material. It's the second time this year Discord has come up as an application used by a suspect in a mass shooting. The man accused of killing...

Leaders of Texas’ Republican Party continue to promote false claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from former President Donald Trump – and during the Texas GOP convention in Houston last month, members overwhelmingly voted to make election reforms the party’s No. 1 priority. As the Houston Chronicle reports, this means they want the state to adopt laws in the 2023 legislative session that would further restrict voting by shortening the early voting period from two weeks to one and by no longer letting any senior vote by mail. “They’re going off of this assumption that there’s more fraud...

The Kidney Garden Spider bears some resemblance to Pringles’ mustachioed mascot, but it also already has a name.Like many modern brands, Pringles isn't afraid to try a bizarre promotion: Pringles Christmas candles, NFTs, and Thanksgiving-flavored chips boxed like a TV dinner. But this time, they may have gone too far by... trying to rename a spider? Now, in Pringles defense, the spider — currently named the Kidney Garden Spider — does look a lot like the brand's mustachioed mascot, Mr. P. The spider has a round white body with distinctive markings that look like two tiny eyes above a massive...

Last year's release is going for up to $1,000 on the secondary market.Russell's Reserve 13-Year-Old BourbonRussell's Reserve When you think of exorbitantly expensive and frustratingly elusive bourbon, the usual brands come to mind: Pappy Van Winkle, Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, Old Forester Birthday Bourbon. But Russell’s Reserve, part of the Wild Turkey family, has made its mark on the world of extreme bourbon fandom with the second release of its highly coveted 13-year-old expression. Russell’s Reserve 13-Year-Old Bourbon is the oldest age statement offering from the brand, and people went crazy for it when it first came out last year....

In a bizarre move, Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told the public and the press on Wednesday that he believes red flag laws in Illinois are “strong” even though the state with some of the strictest gun laws in the country failed to stop a 21-year-old shooter from murdering seven people at a July 4 parade and injuring at least 30 more. While announcing seven counts of first-degree murder charges against Robert Crimo III for attacking paradegoers in Highland Park, Illinois, over the long weekend, Rinehart praised his state’s gun laws and called for a national ban on certain...

@libsoftiktok Twitter just suspended the @Breaking911 account. Who’s entire account was just posting news -- Here's their last tweet:

Oscar Mayorga accused of driving drunk in marked carBody camera video released by the Eustis Police Department shows an Apopka police officer being arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in his marked car. The Apopka Police Department said Eustis police conducted a traffic stop on Oscar Mayorga, who was wearing his uniform. Mayorga, 25, was scheduled to work Monday evening when he was stopped, according to a news release. Police said one of his two breath tests was 0.391g/210L, which in nearly five times over the legal limit in Florida. According to an arrest affidavit, there was an...

Can black markets lead to a libertarian society? According to agorists, interactions in black markets and grey markets can lay the groundwork for a nonviolent revolution against the present-day administrative state. Agorism refers to a political philosophy that advocates for the use of counter-economics and similar ideas to create a libertarian society based on voluntary exchanges and associations.

Australian council in crisis after motions fail to get enough bishop votesSYDNEY — The agenda for the Second Assembly of Australia’s Plenary Council was disrupted July 6 after more than 60 of the 277 members staged a protest over issues regarding women in the church, including the defeat of a motion to formalize support for the ordination of women as deacons.A sense of crisis among plenary members, lay and clerical, became evident as the protest occurred and in its aftermath.As the scheduled lunch break commenced, the Council’s Steering Committee met to discuss the next steps, while, in a separate room,...

New York state has hit Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with fines for dodging tax warrants filed against her former business five years ago. The state filed a tax warrant against Brook Avenue Press — a children-oriented publishing house Ocasio-Cortez founded in 2012 — on July 6, 2017, to collect $1,618 in unpaid corporate taxes, the Washington Examiner reported. The tax warrant has increased 52% to cost $2,461 due to the representative not paying the taxes.

If this isn’t a sign of the times, nothing is. Amid rising crime in the Big Apple, one of Mayor Eric Adams’ aides was mugged in broad daylight Tuesday while scouting a location in Brooklyn for a planned visit by Hizzoner, law enforcement sources told The Post. The brazen caper took place even though the victim, a civilian member of Adams’ advance team, cautioned that he was a well-connected City Hall employee, a high-ranking police source said. “You don’t want to do this. I work for the mayor,” he told the two crooks. But in a show of utter contempt,...

Under a new Biden administration policy, illegal aliens who are deported from the United States no longer are forced to wait outside the country for up to 10 years before applying for legal status. The law was meant to deter people from trying to live in the country illegally, the Washington Times reported. Previously, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would have denied any application for legal status under the so-called three-year/10-year rule. That meant that anyone without legal status for at least six months but less than a year had to depart and wait three years before applying to...

Iran has arrested the British Deputy Ambassador and a number of other foreign nationals on charges of espionage, Iranian media reported Wednesday. Deputy Ambassador Giles Whitaker, who heads the British diplomatic mission in Iran, was taken into custody by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranian government released footage it claimed showed Whitaker near the site of Iranian missile tests. He is also accused of taking soil...

Two men who were allegedly plotting a mass shooting in Virginia are in the state illegally, with one of the men having been deported several times, according to authorities. Richmond Chief of Police Gerald Smith said during a press conference Wednesday that “a hero citizen picked up the phone and overheard a conversation there was a mass shooting being planned here in the city of Richmond, Virginia,” according to NBC 12 Authorities arrested 52-year-old Julio Alvarado-Dubon and 38-year-old Roman Balacarcel, who allegedly planned to shoot up Richmond’s Fourth of July celebration. Both men were charged with being non-citizens in possession...

Ben & Jerry's is suing its parent company in an attempt to cancel the sale of its business in Israel to a local partner that would continue to distribute its products in the West Bank. The ice cream maker filed a complaint in the US District Court in New York, where it sought an injunction against Unilever (UL) "to protect the brand and social integrity Ben & Jerry's has spent decades building." Ben & Jerry's has been doing business in Israel since 1987, but in recent years it had come under pressure for selling in West Bank settlements, considered illegal...

After nearly a hundred years in existence, the Popeye comic strip is reportedly getting a woke makeover, with the strip’s latest cartoonist promising more ethnic diversity and “more characters who aren’t heterosexual.” Cartoonist Randal K. Milholland described the Popeye character as being “gender fluid,” citing old episodes in which the plot required Popeye to dress in drag. “I [want] to bring in more characters who aren’t heterosexual,” Milholland said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News. “I don’t live in that purely straight white world, and I don’t think a lot of other people do either.”

A new report from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University shows that law enforcement responding to the Uvalde school shooting on May 24 had three missed chances to slow the gunman before the fatal shooting that resulted in the deaths of 19 students and two adults. According to the report, a Uvalde officer armed with a rifle sighted in to shoot the 18-year-old gunman before he entered the school but instead waited for permission from a supervisor. The report states that the officer turned to the supervisor "to get confirmation" about shooting the...

Following extensive damage from an apparent explosive device, the mysterious Georgia Guidestones have been brought down. The structure was damaged early Wednesday morning in an apparent act of vandalism. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated at noon that around 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, "unknown individuals" detonated an explosive device that destroyed a "large portion" of the mysterious structure. A video taken by SKYFOX showed that one of the four pillars of the structure had been completely destroyed, damaging the granite slab it was supporting. (1/3) The GBI and Elbert County Sheriff’s Office are investigating an explosion that destroyed the...