Free Republic

Plus: Court reminds cops they can't pull people over just to flirt, salary range laws aren't working as planned, and more...Arrested for pointing his fingers at police in a threatening manner, Arkansas man Larry Eugene Price Jr. wound up in jail for more than a year without being convicted and eventually died of malnutrition and dehydration behind bars. The story highlights a host of problems with our criminal justice system: trumped-up charges; long periods of imprisonment prior to being convicted; and the negligence and mistreatment of people who experience health problems while incarcerated. "Price was arrested in August 2020 after...

The Biden administration is fighting to maintain a federal mask mandate for air travel and other methods of transportation even after President Biden said months ago the pandemic is "over," and despite calls from travel associations to end mask mandates. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Tuesday from the Biden Justice Department on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to reinstate a mask mandate for air travel, after a federal judge in Florida struck down the mandate last April. "The Department continues to believe that the order requiring masking in the transportation corridor is...

Former President Donald Trump lashed out at evangelicals for not supporting his latest presidential campaign, saying it was a “sign of disloyalty” after he appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices and made their long-held dream of overturning Roe v. Wade possible. Trump, 76, told Real America’s Voice’s “The Water Cooler” Monday that the religious bloc of voters who were key to his 2016 victory have not yet come out to back his 2024 White House bid. “That’s a sign of disloyalty,” Trump told host David Brody. “There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty.”

The over $32 billion that leftist billionaire George Soros poured into his organizations to spread his radical “open society” agenda on abortion, Marxist economics, anti-Americanism, defunding the police, environmental extremism and LGBT fanaticism around the globe has paid dividends. In fact, his funding has helped him establish ties with some of the biggest name media personalities in the United States and abroad which help indoctrinate millions with his views on a day-to-day basis. MRC Business found at least 54 prominent media figures (e.g. reporters, anchors, columnists, editors, news executives and journalists) who are tied to Soros through their connections to...

German police arrested Greta Thunberg during a protest against the expansion of a coal mine in the town of Lützerath on Tuesday. Thunberg was among a group of activists who were reportedly rushing toward the mine’s opening when she was detained by security services. “Greta Thunberg was part of a group of activists who rushed towards the ledge. However, she was then stopped and carried by us with this group out of the immediate danger area to establish their identity,” local police said in a statement. Police said Thunberg and her fellow protesters would be released without being charged. Thousands...

Former New York City Mayor and attorney for President Trump, Rudy Giuliani was on the War Room this morning to discuss the Biden classified document scandal. As usual, Rudy knocked it out of the park. Steve Bannon asked Rudy Giuliani a few questions about Joe Biden’s document scandal. This comes after multiple batches of documents were located at Biden’s property and at the Biden Center at Penn U. In July 2022, White House Counsel Dana Ann Remus announced that she would be leaving the White House. Prior to this, she was general counsel for Biden’s Presidential campaign. She reportedly now...

It's the end of an era. As The Reg covered last week, IBM has transferred development of AIX to India. Why should IBM pay for an expensive US-based team to maintain its own proprietary flavor of official Unix when it paid 34 billion bucks for its own FOSS flavor in Red Hat? Here at The Reg FOSS desk, we've felt this was coming ever since we reported that Big Blue was launching new POWER servers which didn't support AIX – already nearly eight years ago. Even if it was visibly coming over the horizon, this is a significant event: AIX...

A bazooka-like weapon powerful enough to take down a military tank was seized from a passenger’s checked baggage in Texas because the traveler had failed to declare the weapon to authorities, the Transportation Security Administration said. The firearm is similar to an M3 Carl Gustaf and can be legally owned in the Lone Star State, although it requires an extensive background check. The TSA does allow guns on planes, but only if they are in checked bags. Any traveler with a firearm must also declare it to the airline when their luggage is handed over, TSA explained. Weapons must also...

A recent Trafalgar and Convention of States Action poll of 1,072 potential Republican voters found that 86 percent of respondents support attorney Harmeet Dhillon as the new Republican National Committee Chairperson.On Twitter Charlie Kirk wrote, "A recent poll of over 1,000 Republican voters found that 86% would support Harmeet Dhillon as the new RNC Chair over Ronna McDaniel. The era of a status quo Republican Party is over whether those clinging onto power realize it yet or not."Current RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, who was elected in 2017 and is running for her fourth term, received 14 percent support.President of Convention...

President Joe Biden’s administration in a court hearing on Jan. 17 urged judges on a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling from a lower court that struck down the administration’s airplane mask mandate. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had “good cause” to impose the mandate and bypass the notice- and comment period required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Brian Springer, an attorney for the government, told judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. At the time the mandate was imposed, in early 2021, “there were variants that had just been...

Apache has been accused of cultural appropriation and Indigenous erasureNatives in Tech, a charitable organization founded to empower Native American peoples by offering networking events among other initiatives, has urged The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to change its name out of respect for the Indigenous culture that it is said to appropriate. In a blog post(opens in new tab), the group criticizes Apache for failing to abide by its code of conduct, citing the tech firm’s words: “be careful in the words that [they] choose”. The company’s name was said to come about when co-founder, Brian Behlendorf, watched a documentary...

Explanation: Why are there oxygen-emitting arcs near the direction of the Andromeda galaxy? No one is sure. The gas arcs, shown in blue, were discovered and first confirmed by amateur astronomers just last year. The two main origin hypotheses for the arcs are that they really are close to Andromeda (M31), or that they are just coincidentally placed gas filaments in our Milky Way galaxy. Adding to the mystery is that arcs were not seen in previous deep images of M31 taken primarily in light emitted by hydrogen, and that other, more distant galaxies have not been generally noted as...

Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has been detained by police at a protest outside a western German village.She had been protesting with activists seeking to stop the abandoned village of Lützerath from being demolished for the expansion of a coal mine. Police told the BBC Ms Thunberg was not arrested and would be released after they checked her ID. The Swedish activist was detained after a group "rushed towards the ledge" of the Garzweiler 2 mine, police said.

On a farm close to Hanoi, Le Van Hien picks out the best bird among his flock of "dragon chickens" - a breed with legs as thick as a brick that can fetch up to US$2,000 a head. The lumpy legs of the Dong Tao chicken - named after the commune where it is bred in northern Vietnam - are considered a delicacy, and are particularly popular among the wealthy during the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, known as Tet. Hien's prized 4kg bird, whose enormous legs make up around a fifth of its body weight, was sold for about US$150...

WASHINGTON — A little-noticed rule change made quietly by Democrats in the final days of their majority last year could give House members a long-delayed increase in compensation, allowing them to be reimbursed for the cost of lodging, food and travel while they are on official business in Washington. For the past dozen years, House members have declined to take a cost-of-living increase in the annual spending bills, fearful of a political backlash if they were seen to give themselves a raise. But the provision, tucked into internal rules that typically receive little attention from the public and without any...

The Pickle Jar ChallengeThe simple opening of a pickle jar can become quite stressful and complex when a girl asks her boyfriend, for the first time, to open a pickle jar for her. There are protocols to follow. Pitfalls to keep in mind. A man who is handed a pickle jar by his woman needs to handle this seemingly straightforward request very carefully as the situation is fraught with peril with many possible negative outcomes for the man. Yes, all the pressure is on the man in this sort of thing and he must find a way to perform this...

In the house where I grew up, President Nixon was a villain. My parents voted against him every opportunity they got, and we all cheered when he resigned during his second term, flying off in ignominy from the White House lawn to a life outside the public eye. That he was a criminal, a warmonger, a bigot, a vicious redbaiter, a threat to the Constitution — these were unquestionable truths. So for me, a recent visit to the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda was a head-turning, mind-bending experience that challenged my assumptions and forced me...

A portion of the ruins at Fort Funston in San Francisco slid down a rain-soaked bluff onto the beach below, authorities said Monday. A concrete structure, which had been jutting out and partially buried in the sand dunes, tumbled onto Funston Beach, according to a social media post by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The post said the structure had been undermined by the saturated soil. No injuries were reported, but visitors were urged to follow posted trail signs and be attentive to their surroundings. The concrete structure, possibly an old lookout post or base end station, was part...

Astrophysicist Natalie Gosnell says field is riddled with ‘white supremacy’ It’s a different kind of space race. A Colorado astrophysicist who says the field is paralyzed by “systemic racism and white supremacy” and “very violent and hyper-masculine” terminology — such as “vampire star” or “cannibal star” — is speaking out about combating these issues in the classroom and beyond. “As an astrophysicist, I’m a product of institutions that are steeped in systemic racism and white supremacy,” Natalie Gosnell, PhD, an assistant professor of physics at Colorado College, said in an interview published in the school’s newspaper this month. Gosnell, who...

Electric car batteries could be used to boost power storage in the future, injecting electricity into the grid during times of scarcity or storing electricity during periods of excess, a new study found Tuesday. Renewable energy is essential for the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below two degrees Celsius, but the need to scale up quickly and the intermittency of wind and solar have raised concerns about meeting electricity demand. One way to help solve this problem is boosting the storage capacity of electricity grids, so that even when there is no sun or wind energy...