Free Republic

Nina Simone once said that It’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times. I included this quote in my coming out post; my public disclosure; my very conspicuous grabbing onto the third rail of unpopular opinions. It was only my third ever Substack blog? essay? post? “what am I even doing here?” I had sent out. The thing is, I was an artist among artists whose view of the times was so exceedingly out of orthodoxy, so obviously unacceptable to the status quo, it took away a major part of my identity. What was I supposed to do now? So...

Special Counsel John Durham continues to ignore the FBI’s malfeasance in the Crossfire Hurricane targeting of Donald Trump, a Friday court filing by prosecutors in the criminal case against Igor Danchenko confirms. While that approach may have been prudent and in the country’s best interests three and a half years ago, when then-Attorney General Bill Barr tasked Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia collusion hoax, it is no longer judicious. The special counsel’s failure to appreciate this reality threatens the government’s case against Danchenko, but more significantly has spurred the Biden administration, the D.C. deep state, and partisan...

Prices could continue to rise, expert says.. The average price of gas in Oregon is up to $5 per gallon again after prices spiked by nearly 40 cents in the last week. After a summer of declining prices, AAA reports that statewide prices jumped from $4.64 per gallon to $5 per gallon in the last seven days. Prices are also up 20.3 cents per gallon in the Portland-Vancouver area this week, with an average price of $4.98 per gallon, GasBuddy.com petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan noted. ... gas prices shooting up in several regions amidst myriad refinery issues from the...

President Joe Biden’s foreign policy advisers are concerned that a victory by Italian leader Giorgia Meloni could weaken the united European coalition pushing back against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meloni represents a populist-nationalist shift in power after Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi sought to align Italy with the European Union and teamed up with the G7 nations to push back against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Archaeologists from UP Diliman (UPD) and the National Museum, and leaders and members of the indigenous Pala’wan community unearthed new discoveries dating back to the last glacial maximum (LGM) or at the height of the last ice age at Pilanduk Cave in Palawan.The research Tropical island adaptations in Southeast Asia during the Last Glacial Maximum: evidence from Palawan presented new data from the re-excavation of Pilanduk Cave such as “evidence for specialized deer hunting and freshwater mollusc foraging, LGM fossils for the tiger and remains of other native mammal and reptile fauna of Palawan,” UPD archaeologist Janine Ochoa, PhD, said...

OTTAWA — The federal government is removing all remaining COVID-19 related travel measures, ending masks on planes, vaccine mandates and the mandatory use of the ArriveCan app.

Archaeological sensation on Papuk. A Greek silver coin from the end of the 4th century BC was found at an archaeological site near Kaptol. The story doesn't stop there - it's only starting to come together. What wealth and power did the people who lived in this area have, and how long did it last?As RTL reports, a Greek silver coin from the 4th century BC was found after the rain along the forest road on Papuk. It was carved with a depiction of Zeus enthroned with a bird, and on the other side is a depiction of Alexander the...

A sprawling disinformation network originating in Russia sought to use hundreds of fake social media accounts and dozens of sham news websites to spread the Kremlin’s talking points about the invasion of Ukraine, Facebook parent company Meta said Tuesday. The company, which also owns Instagram, said it identified and disabled the operation before it was able to gain a large audience. Nonetheless, Facebook said it was the largest and most complex Russian propaganda effort that it has found since the invasion began. The operation involved more than 60 websites created to mimic legitimate news sites including the Guardian newspaper in...

A Minnesota high school has scrapped its traditional “gender-dependent” method of choosing homecoming “royalty.” White Bear Lake Area High School no longer crowns a “king” and “queen” as part of its annual homecoming celebration, which took place last week. The school’s homecoming committee, with the backing of school administrators, adopted the “language of a royalty court” where the winners are selected “regardless of gender identity.” In an email responding to a concerned parent, school principal Don Bosch said the change stems from the “traumatic misgendering of a student during last year’s Homecoming coronation preparations.” “This year’s Homecoming committee and staff...

Chris Wallace’s new CNN show struggled to get any viewers during its Sunday debut, new ratings data shows, according to reports. Wallace’s show, “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” raked in just 401,000 viewers Sunday night, down 29% from the 2022 average for the 7:00 p.m., time slot, data from Nielsen Media Research shows, according to the New York Post (NYP). Just 44,000 between the ages of 25-54 demographic tuned in, down 64% from the average, according to the report. In comparison, Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy” brought in 1.3 million viewers during the same time slot...

Remember three weeks ago when Putin and the Russian military were on the ropes and the Ukrainian army was steamrolling through Kharkov? That was then and Urkaine’s promised victory failed to materialize. With the benefit of hindsight, it appears that Russia abandoned the strategically meaningless territory in the Kharkov Oblast of Ukraine and re-deployed forces to the Donbas, Zaporhyzhia and Kherson. Why? To be in position for the referendum–i.e., to defend the Ukraine oblasts that would be given the chance to vote whether or not to reunite with mother Russia. Putin’s subsequent announcement of the referenda, which began last Friday,...

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‘The government’s theory is that having cash makes you a presumptive criminal, and I think every American should be worried about that.’ There is no denying anymore that our federal agencies have weaponized their power against the political adversaries of the left. But if you think the feds’ abandonment of all standards only affects outspoken critics of the regime, think again. More allegations of FBI corruption and hubris are coming to light after a lawsuit last week revealed FBI agents misled a judge so they could illegally seize and withhold property from innocent American citizens. Agents took more than $86...

Alec Baldwin and three other individuals could face charges imminently related to last year’s fatal shooting on the set of the movie Rust, with a New Mexico official suggesting charges could arrive “within weeks, if not days.” In a letter to the board of finance, the district attorney’s office specified that Baldwin could be one of the possible defendants and that “this case could require up to four separate jury trials,” according to a report from CBS News. Baldwin discharged the gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust set in late 2021. The actor has repeatedly claimed he...

My children were born in New York City. As toddlers, they played in the American Museum of Natural History, joined baby-music classes on the Upper East Side, gnawed on street pretzels, and threw leaves in the air in Central Park. I had originally expected to be a Manhattan mom, but over the years I've come to accept they are now southern kids living in Houston, Texas. They wear shorts year-round, wear sunshine on their skin, crave Whataburger, have never made a snowman, and get pumped for Go Texan Day, dressed in boots, vests, and hats — it's like Halloween twice...

Senior leaders at the Secret Service reportedly confiscated the cellphones of 24 agents who were involved with the Jan. 6, 2021, response and delivered the phones to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general. A source familiar confirmed to The Hill that the phones were handed to Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office after a July 19 letter was sent to the agency from DHS investigators indicating he had begun a criminal probe. NBC News first reported the development.

A federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday handed former President Trump a partial victory in a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s, with the court ruling that presidents are covered by a federal law that gives broad legal immunity to government employees. A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said a lower court erred when it ruled that Trump’s accuser, E. Jean Carroll, could sue Trump personally for the allegedly defamatory statements he made about her during his presidency.

The descent of academia into the cesspool of ideological effluvia continues apace. (I cracked open my thesaurus this morning). As a refugee from the academic world I am no stranger to the wide weird world of academic life. Both my parents were physicists, and I didn’t escape the college and university environments until I was in my mid-30s. One of the several reasons I gave up on my dream of becoming a political philosophy professor was the increasing momentum of the ideological Left in taking over the academic world. Academics have leaned liberal for as long as I have been...

The University of Massachusetts is planning to hold an LGBTQ Pride Day on the same day that the Minutemen host the Liberty University Flames in a football game.

Allies of Republican Senate candidate Dr Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania have dramatically increased their funding for his candidacy in the state, with new polls released Tuesday suggesting that their contributions are impacting the race. Fetterman currently leads Oz by under 2%, gaining 47.7% of the vote to Oz’s 45.9%, per a September poll by the Trafalgar Group – within the margin of error of 2.9%. In July, the same poll showed Fetterman leading Oz by 5%, outside the margin of error. The new polling data follows reports of concern within Fetterman’s campaign about being outspent by Oz’s team. In a...