Free Republic

Earlier this week, a 34-year-old driver led North Carolina police officers and deputies on a pursuit after fleeing from the officers during a traffic stop. According to the Town of Boone Police Department and the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office, the suspect, later identified as Joshua Minton, of Millers Creek, NC, ran into an undeveloped area after abandoning his vehicle in the Deep Gap area. Because the suspect was driving fast and recklessly, officers were not close behind him and therefore did not see where he ran to, police said. While officers were searching the area for the suspect, they were...

A former special education teacher at Española Valley High School pleaded no contest in state District Court in Tierra Amarilla to three charges stemming from an incident in which she was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage student. Makana Masacayan, 26, was arrested in June of last year and initially was charged with fourth-degree criminal sexual penetration, fourth-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and enticement of a child. ---------- Masacayan appeared in court wearing a mask and stood next to her attorney, Dorie Biagianti Smith, while entering her plea. She accepted a...

Think Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray in Carberet. Think West Hollywood, Greenwich Village and Provincetown and the Castro, known as hotbeds of homosexuality. But they are nothing like the uninhibited urban gay sexual scene and vast homosexual subculture that flourished in Berliin under Germany's Weimar Republic. Sexual experimentation between the same sexes and medical advances of helping genders ‘trapped within the wrong body’ in Germany more than one hundred years ago shaped our understanding of gay identity today. The city's liberal years - before the rise of Hitler - are detailed in a new book, Gay Berlin. The science of...

drug bust video Authorities in Ohio have arrested 10 men in a human trafficking sting. The men, who range in age from 30 to 55, were arrested Thursday on sex charges in North Olmsted by the members of the Northeast Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force. On the same day, a Lorain County man who was previously convicted of 31 human trafficking offenses was sentenced to life in prison.

Videos posted on Russian social media on Saturday showed a helicopter apparently being shot down over Russia’s Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine. The state news agency TASS cited an emergency services official as saying preliminary information indicated the helicopter’s engine had caught fire before the crash near Klintsy, which is around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border. However, a video posted on the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Voyenniy Osvedomitel, which has around half a million followers, showed a helicopter high in the sky exploding, being thrown off course and then plunging earthwards in flames. Comments accompanying the video, which Reuters...

The CEO of New York City grocery store chain Gristedes is sounding the alarm over all the "dumb things" the government is doing as inflation persists. When FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo asked John Catsimatidis when Americans will see a break at the supermarket he said: "When the food executives feel confident that Washington is not doing dumb things." "When they feel that their earnings… are going to survive," he continued. His comments came on the heels of inflation jumping 0.4% in April as prices remain stubbornly high. The Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index, a broad...

New York City is home to the country’s first-ever reported cases of ringworm infections that are highly contagious and resistant to common anti-fungal treatments, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two cases were reported to state health officials by the dermatologist in February, and those cases are briefly documented in a case study released Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “On February 28, 2023, a New York City dermatologist notified public health officials of two patients who had severe tinea that did not improve with oral terbinafine treatment, raising concern for potential T. indotineae...

It’s a wrap. After more than three long years, the public health emergency for COVID-19 in the United States is ending. The Biden administration in February announced that the measure, first invoked in March 2020, would expire today. Alongside the US decision, the World Health Organization (WHO), similarly ended its public health emergency of international concern designation for COVID. By many measures, the impact of the virus—both in the United States and around the world—is receding, but experts warn that could change if and when a new immune-evasive variant crops up. COVID deaths have been dropping steadily this year. Between...

The idea that the attorney general and the Department of Justice are independent from the president is a modern misconception with no basis in the Constitution. This is clear just from Article II of the Constitution, and it is even clearer in Federalist Paper 76, which discusses the appointment of officers in the executive branch. If we are ever going to put the genie of the unconstitutional fourth branch of government back into its bottle, we have to bust this myth. The administrative state, especially after the astonishing revolution that the New Deal era accomplished, is now strangling our republic.Let’s...

CNN chief Chris Licht reportedly scolded far-left ‘journalist’ Oliver Darcy for being too emotional in his coverage of the network’s town hall event with Trump. Darcy released his Reliable Sources newsletter, whining about the debate 15 minutes after CNN released a statement essentially bragging about the event. Darcy was reportedly ‘visibly shaken’ over this exchange. Prior to joining CNN, Darcy worked for conservative outlets like The Blaze and the Daily Caller, but since joining CNN, has become a major mouthpiece for the far left in pushing lies about Russian collusion and focusing his attention on smearing Trump and conservatives.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doesn’t seem very interested in hearing from constituents who live near public land. On Wednesday, the agency released its schedule for a tour of Western high mountain states during which BLM officials will present sweeping new regulations on public lands. The proposed Public Lands Rule, published at the end of March, threatens to undermine the multiple use mandate and jeopardizes grazing rights for ranchers. The bureau, which manages 245 million acres primarily across 12 Western states, is preparing to implement conservation leasing and cut off ranchers’ access to public lands.The states to entertain a...

Despite an audience that was friendly to the candidate, CNN’s recent town hall hosting Donald Trump was anything but an effort to inform independent and Republican voters about the candidate’s position on the substantial issues faced by struggling Americans. It was a hedonistic exercise to satiate its left-wing producers’ and viewers’ desire to emphasize all the criticisms that CNN talking heads have been levying against him since 2020. CNN certainly didn’t expect that Trump would simply concede to all the nonsense that they’ve been unsuccessfully peddling to Americans these past few years. He wasn’t going to say that he’s really...

It is time we face it: we live in an era where our leaders manufacture crises. This week, with the eclipsing of Title 42, the U.S. southern border has gone from a hot mess to a full-blown emergency. We were pushed into the conflict with Ukraine and Russia as well. Before that was the debacle in Afghanistan. Our leaders killed drilling for oil and terminated pipeline projects which led to elevated gas prices and fueled inflation. If inflation was a concern, you’d never notice it from our leaders. They pumped trillions of dollars into the economy to make inflation worse...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

An eight-year-old girl was rescued after her brother shot a 17-year-old kidnapper with a sling shot in Michigan. The girl, who has not been identified, was on a mushroom hunt near the woods just outside of Alpena Township in the northern part of the state, police say. The victim's uncle posted on Facebook that the 17-year-old male suspect had a 'black mohawk' and had come out of the woods, covered the young girl's mouth and then tried to drag her away. Her 13-year-old brother saw the tussle from inside the family's home and took action, grabbing his slingshot and firing...

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, May 11, 1863. The following order has been issued by Major-Gen. HOOKER: HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, May 6. 1863. GENERAL ORDERS No. 49. -- The Major-General Commanding tenders to this army his congratulations on its achievments of the last seven days. If it has not accompliseed all that was expected, the reasons are well known to the army. It is sufficient to say they were of a character not to be foreseen or prevented by human sagacity or resources. In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock before delivering...

As of this morning, I am on my last cartridge razor from the plastic dispenser thingy. I am considering changing my shaving habits after a lifetime of disposable and cartridge razors to wet shaving using a safety razor. Expense is one factor. Another is buying razors from woke big business, i.e., Gillette. Ideally, I’d like a high quality, American made, non-woke, and inexpensive shaving solution. I think I may have found the solution in Western Razor Company. It’s American made and I assume it is quite a small business. They don’t seem the least bit woke. As for cost, there...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.” John 15:18–19This is a sobering thought: “the world hates you.” That is, if you are among those who have been taken by our Lord out of the world. In that case, Jesus says that the world will hate you.No one wants to be hated. No one...

In an effort to make diets and agriculture “sustainable,” urban bureaucrats make policy based on industrial agricultural data, completely ignoring experience and practices coming out of holistically managed operations. Some green activists have come to the conclusion that agriculture itself is necessarily destructive to the climate, biodiversity, and soil health. Thus World Economic Forum–adjacent thinkers call for a “farm-free future” with food primarily manufactured via precision fermentation and other scientific processes that result in products like lab grown meat. This idea, that we could simply eradicate the entire class of farmers, the land stewards who produce the world’s food—84 percent...

In New York City, everybody but the richest few percent rides the subway, and they know how bad things have gotten in the wake Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg treating arrests as inequitable since African Americans are disproportionately arrested. Jordan Neely died in a hospital after being subdued by Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny with the help of two other passengers (who have not been charged). Uncredited photo via The New York Post Neely “avoid[ed] prison for allegedly slugging a 67-year-old woman in November 2021 during a psychotic episode” by agreeing to a plea deal. Despite a record of more than...