Free Republic

A State Department employee was killed this week while riding her bike in Maryland. The Montgomery County Police Department confirmed Sarah Joan Langenkamp, 42, was struck by a flatbed truck on the afternoon of Aug. 25 while riding a bicycle at the 5200 block of River Road in Bethesda. Langenkamp was a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Numerous offices have cited her as the head of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section at the embassy.

Editor's note: This story was updated on August 18 to reflect that Juan Hernandez served a 40-hour suspension for the offensive social media posts. Three years after a sergeant's bigoted Facebook posts helped spark a scandal in the Phoenix Police Department, an appeals court has allowed his lawsuit against the city, which alleges First Amendment violations, to move forward. In 2013 and 2014, current Phoenix police sergeant Juan Hernandez shared a multitude of offensive memes on his personal Facebook page. "The most common name for a convicted gang rapist in England is Muhammad," one of the posts read. "These gangs...

It seems like every vintage building still standing in Arizona has a story to tell – and sometimes these tales include a ghost or two. Just ask the proprietors of Casey Moore’s in Tempe, Tombstone’s Birdcage Theatre, or the Hotel Monte Vista in Flagstaff, all of whom claim their places are the domain of specters, spirits, or other supernatural phenomena. You could also hit up Marshall Shore, the local “hip historian” who's familiar with many of these tales. It’s one of the reasons he conducts walking tours around downtown Phoenix every October that explores some of the city's more infamous...

WARSAW/BOGDANKA, POLAND — In Poland's late summer heat, dozens of cars and trucks line up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as people fearful of winter shortages wait for days to stock up on heating fuel in queues reminiscent of communist times. Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 kilometers from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tons of coal for himself and his family. "Toilets were put up today, but there's no running water," he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue...

The FBI has responded to an explosive claim by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook algorithmically censored references to Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election after receiving a warning from the agency about “Russian propaganda.”Zuckerberg said on an Aug. 25 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” that Facebook actively reduced the reach of social media posts discussing Hunter Biden’s laptop in response to an advisory from the FBI to some Facebook staffers to be on guard for Russian disinformation ahead of the presidential election.“The background here is the FBI I think basically came to some folks on our...

Business owners in San Francisco's Castro district have absolutely had it with the city's inaction over burglaries, vandalism, and violent homeless people camping on the sidewalks in front of storefronts and residences.As the American Thinker's Olivia Murray notes:San Francisco has an established reputation as a capital for fringe culture and leftism, much of which converges in the enclave of Castro. The first "Drag Queen Story Hour" event ever took place in the Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library in the neighborhood and was "well received."Now, under Democrat leadership, the iconically left community is ready to take drastic measures toward radical American...

Perhaps Republicans Could Learn Something HereI despise the term RINO — Republican in Name Only. It splits the Republican Party year after year, and its persistence hands the Democrats power in Congress they would not otherwise be able to earn. I never hear the term DINO — Democrat in Name Only — because the Democrats are too smart for that. Within the Democratic Party are avowed socialists (Bernie Sanders) together with senators and representatives who represent Montana, Arizona, and other generally red states — states that have long traditions of independence and free-market values. In other words, the Democratic Party...

How confident is the unelected Governor of New York that she can’t possibly be defeated by a Republican in an election in her state? Based on one of her stump speeches yesterday, her confidence is off the charts. In one of the more shocking displays of vile partisanship I can recall hearing in my lifetime, Kathy Hochul delivered a message to the state’s more than five million registered Republicans. Get out. She literally said that all New York Republicans should “jump on a bus” and move to Florida “where you belong.” She topped that demand off with a claim that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cEdT-mCFYs

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum threads labeled “Prayer” are closed to debate of any kind.

We’re doomed. Let’s call it what it is – a bribe to the youngest demographic of voters and a sop to black and brown voters. Joe Biden’s decision to cancel student loan debt was bone-headed at best, cynical at worst. To make a bad decision even worse – Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Jill Biden ( that’s Dr. Jill to you) advised the dazed and confused president not to do it. Instead of listening to a couple of people who might actually know a little something about the subject, Joe Biden decided to listen to Kamala Harris. That’s right. Biden...

California plans to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. In 2021, California required 12 percent of total new vehicle sales to be powered by batteries or hydrogen. By 2026, their goal is to reach 35 percent. By 2030, 68 percent. And in 2035, 100 percent powered by batteries or hydrogen.Democrat-run California is banning gas-powered cars by 2035. The average cost of an electric vehicle is around $67,000, & the state’s electric grid already can’t keep the lights on. This will be an energy disaster. No wonder people keep leaving California! https://t.co/09svGLF3GP— Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (@RepDLesko) August 25, 2022President...

No portions of the redacted search warrant affidavit supported the Biden administration taking the unprecedented step of raiding a former president’s home, a former top intelligence official says.“I think it provided a general recitation of the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice believed that there were classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. But I didn’t really see anything in the affidavit that justified what still seems like an extreme approach by the FBI and the Department of Justice to retrieve those documents if in fact they were classified,” John Ratcliffe, a director of national intelligence during the Trump administration,...

For some years now, many on the right have studiously avoided looking at what was going on with social media. As social media companies ratcheted down the ability of anyone to oppose the conventional, and invariably leftist, wisdom, all we heard was “muh private company.” The idea is that if a private monopoly prevents speech on any subject, that’s fine because they are a private company and conservative, you know, worship at the altar of private property and free enterprise. The solution has always been something along the lines of “if you don’t like how they operate, start your own...

As most readers know, Pennsylvania’s race for Senate is one of the most-watched across the country to potentially swing the upper body of Congress back to the GOP, with Democrat candidate John Fetterman facing off against Republican candidate Mehmet Oz in the purple state.Of course, Fetterman’s unforced errors and inability to put on a semblance of a real campaign make for prime fodder for ridicule–since they’re attempting to pass his campaign off as running the way a normal Senate campaign should.One of the most glaring issues is of him not agreeing to debate the Republican nominee–as my colleague Bonchie pointed...

The exposition of the FBI’s behavior in the month of August has been something to behold. More recently, we learned that the FBI went to Facebook during the 2020 election and indicated that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. In reality, the bureau had known since 2019 that the story was real because they themselves were in possession of the laptop.Prior to that, the big story has been the raid of Donald Trump’s Florida home, which has led to numerous court clashes as the government has sought to keep the details secret. On Friday, the affidavit was released,...

The Department of Transportation declared a regional emergency Saturday affecting four Midwest states after a fire earlier this week caused an “unanticipated shutdown” of a BP oil refinery in Indiana. BP Whiting, the sixth largest refinery in the U.S. refining over 400,000 barrels of oil per day, shut down to undergo damage assessment after a fire knocked out the plant’s electrical power and cooling water systems on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The shutdown caused the federal government to take action and address the looming shortage of fuel output that will affect Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, states that collectively receive up...

A US Army colonel is being slammed as a murderer for turning away four bus-loads of Americans, friendly Afghans, and 300 orphans during the country's evacuation from Kabul Airport last year - likely condemning them to their deaths. The order from the unnamed colonel was delivered on August 25, less than a week before the last troops were withdrawn from the country as the Taliban tightened their grip on the city. Tim Kennedy, the former MMA fighter turned soldier, was among those who witnessed the incident. He told a new Amazon Prime Video documentary called Send Me Tim Kennedy: ‘(We)...

You might not have caught this earlier in the week, but President Trump unloaded on Mitch McConnell with a vengeance in a statement reacting to a Jordan Boyd piece at the Federalist on McConnell’s shady relationship with China.The statement was not kind: The Democrats have Mitch McConnell and his lovely wife, Elaine “Coco” Chao, over a barrel. He and she will never be prosecuted, as per the last paragraphs of this story, as long as he continues to give the Radical Left the Trillions and Trillions of Dollars that they constantly DEMAND. He was afraid to use the “Debt Ceiling...

This came across my Twitter timeline, I'll post link later but MTG is swatted again.