Free Republic

I find myself thinking a lot lately about the deficit of imagination among people who consider themselves savvy and sophisticated. Here’s what I mean: Let’s say you work for a prestigious company or organization that professes to care about a certain set of values: open-mindedness, curiosity, excellence, hard work. And let’s say you watch as a colleague, previously held up as a paragon of those values, is ostracized and smeared for a thought crime that was not considered a thought crime until about five minutes ago. Maybe he made a bad joke. Or maybe he used the phrase “guys” instead...

BALTIMORE (AP) — A man was shot and killed after he swung a baseball bat at a person who cleans windshields at intersections for cash, Baltimore’s police commissioner said Thursday.The 48-year-old man who was shot was driving through an intersection near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the afternoon when he encountered so-called squeegee workers and had a heated interaction, Commissioner Michael Harrison told reporters.Squeegee workers, also known as squeegee kids, consist mostly of teens from low-income neighborhoods who clean drivers’ windshields at intersections in exchange for money. Some drivers in Baltimore have complained about them.The man drove through the intersection, parked...

Incredible how these guys at Dragnet summed up the problem..... https://youtu.be/FZo2hhvvlpw

Former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo collapsed in the western city of Nara at around 11: 30 a.m. Abe was making a speech on the street. An NHK reporter says Abe was bleeding. The reporter heard what sounded like a gun going off. Former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo collapsed during a speech in the city of Nara, in western Japan. Initial reports say he may have been injured. An NHK reporter on site heard something that sounded like a gunshot, and saw Abe bleeding.

Many voters still believe cheating affected the 2020 presidential election, and a majority fear the upcoming midterm elections could be tainted by cheating. A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports and The National Pulse finds that 52% of Likely U.S. voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 36% who think it is Very Likely. ... Fifty percent (50%) of voters think it is at least somewhat likely there will be widespread cheating that will affect the outcome of this fall’s congressional elections, including 24% who...

President Joe Biden’s administration sold 950,000 barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese state-owned gas company that has financial ties to a private equity firm cofounded by Hunter Biden, according to a Washington Free Beacon report. In April, Biden’s Department of Energy announced the nearly one million barrel sale to Unipec, which is the trading arm of Sinopec. Sinopec is wholly owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party. Unipec reportedly purchases oil across the globe and then apparently sells it through its Sinopec Marketing subsidiary. According to Unipec’s LinkedIn page: UNIPEC America, Inc. is...

State legislative incumbents are losing to primary challengers at an increased rate this year compared to 2020. Across the 26 states that have held primaries so far, 132 incumbents—27 Democrats and 105 Republicans—have lost. This represents a 65% increase from 2020 among these states. This increase has been driven by Republican losses, which are up 98% from 53 in 2020. For Democrats, the number defeated this year remains the same. In total, 5.0% of incumbents running for re-election in 2022 have lost, up from defeat rates ranging from 2.4% to 3.4% since 2014. At least one state legislative incumbent has...

he pair of suspects arrested for allegedly plotting to “shoot up” a Fourth of July celebration in Richmond, Virginia — thwarted by an American citizen — are illegal aliens, court records state. On Wednesday, as Breitbart News reported, the Richmond Police Department announced the arrests of Guatemalan nationals 52-year-old illegal alien Julio Alvardo Dubon and 38-year-old illegal alien Rolman Balacarcel Ac for allegedly plotting a mass shooting at the city’s July 4th celebration. According to Police Chief Gerald Smith, Dubon and Ac’s plan was thwarted thanks to an American “hero citizen” who overheard a conversation about the plot and subsequently...

100% MADE IN AMERICA!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 LET’S TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!

The Nebraska Republican Party has decided to bar Matt Innis of Crete, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter who has been sharply critical of Gov. Pete Ricketts, from its state convention in Kearney this weekend. The decision has stirred traffic on Facebook and within GOP circles. Innis, a former Lancaster County Republican chairman who unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Ben Sasse in the 2020 GOP primary election and supported Charles Herbster in this year's Republican gubernatorial primary election, has aimed a steady stream of criticism at Ricketts on his Facebook page. Jim Pillen of Columbus, who won the GOP gubernatorial nomination in May,...

LANSING, Mich. — A ballot initiative that aims to solidify reproductive rights, including the right to abortion, in the Michigan Constitution could have more than enough signatures to get on the ballot come November. In fact, the volunteers who helped gather signatures estimate they could have double the required number of signatures. “We have absolutely exceeded the goal," said Gina Keller the co-founder of Distill Social, a grassroots organization in Michigan that helped gather signatures for the Reproductive Freedom for All petition. The petition would amend the state constitution to include the right to an abortion, birth control and other...

A volley of policy proposals has been put up for debate at the annual conference of the nation’s largest teacher’s union, including one that called for the organization to support making masks and COVID-19 vaccines mandatory in public schools. About 6,000 delegates of the National Education Association (NEA), who collectively represent more than 3 million employees in public education, convened in Chicago from July 3–6. It’s the first time they’ve assembled in person to debate on issues and set policy agenda since the start of the pandemic. Prior to 2022, anyone could use the NEA website to track the status...

Over the last week, we have been barraged with stories about a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who was unable to obtain an abortion in that state and had to cross the line into Indiana to terminate her pregnancy. If you Google “10 year old abortion Ohio,” you get 33,100,000 results. The story is everywhere, internationally. But did it happen? It turns out that the story originated with an abortionist who is also a media figure, seemingly working full-time to promote abortion. And if a 9 or 10 year old was raped, it was a heinous crime. Where is the...

(CP) Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen, prosecuted for voicing her traditional Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality, believes that a "heavy hatred for Christian values" in Western society will cause many Christians to censor themselves for social acceptance. The former interior minister who has served in Finnish Parliament for nearly three decades was one of several global political figures to speak at the annual International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., this week. The event aims to increase "the public awareness and political strength for the international religious freedom movement. The summit is led by former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has posted images Thursday of him meeting U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal in Kyiv, saying that his country continues to "count on the support of Congress" for weaponry in its fight against Russia.

An Army training slide obtained by Breitbart News instructs soldiers to shower with transgender members of the opposite sex even if they have not undergone a surgical transition. The training slide offers a “vignette” instructing soldiers on what to do if they encounter a female soldier who identifies as male according to the Department of Defense’s personnel tracking system known as Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), but has not surgically transitioned and still has “female genitalia.”

A federal judge says a Mexican drug cartel accused in the gruesome killings of nine women and children from an offshoot Mormon community must pay $1.5 billion to the familiesA Mexican drug cartel accused in the gruesome killings of nine women and children from an offshoot Mormon community must pay $1.5 billion to the families, a federal judge from North Dakota ruled. The family members of the victims filed a lawsuit accusing the Juarez cartel of carrying out the November 2019 attack in Mexico as retribution for their public criticism and protests against the cartel. Cartel members fired hundreds of...

Hundreds of pro-abortion demonstrators tried to block a monthly pro-life march and prayer vigil at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Lower Manhattan on July 2, 2022, setting off a tense confrontation. | Jeffrey Bruno/CNAHundreds of pro-abortion demonstrators tried to block a monthly pro-life march and prayer vigil at a New York City Planned Parenthood abortion clinic Saturday, setting off a tense, hours’ long confrontation in Lower Manhattan. With NYPD officers slowly pushing against the crowd, the marchers eventually reached the clinic. There were no immediate reports of arrests. A counter-demonstration organized by NYC for Abortion Rights began Saturday morning...

The Biden administration is raising up an army of atheist missionaries. The government recently announced plans to fund a program that would send Americans abroad to promote atheism and humanism in South/Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. The program would be funded by your tax dollars - as much as a half million dollars per organization. They are literally going to use a government tithe to spread a godless message of hopelessness to the world. Congressman Jim Banks, the Republican from Indiana, is demanding answers — writing in a letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony...

The ex-boyfriend of a New York City woman who was shot dead as she pushed their infant daughter in a stroller has been ordered jailed without bail, with prosecutors describing the killing as a “premeditated execution.” Isaac Argro, 22, appeared Saturday evening in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree weapons possession. Prosecutor Brittany DeCesare told Judge Eric Schumacher that on the night of the killing, Argro dressed in all black and wore a ski mask as he paced back and forth waiting to shoot Azsia Johnson, his estranged girlfriend.