Free Republic

You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand the risks that a criminal defendant takes when sitting down for a television interview. And some of President Donald Trump’s critics, like ally-turned-opponent Chris Christie, claimed that Trump had incriminated himself in his interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, or even committed obstruction of justice on the air.But I see it differently: he “boxed in” the Department of Justice, pun intended.The strongest part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment is the transcript of a recoded conversation with a journalist in which Trump appears to refer to a defense-related document that he...

Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign team is expected to announce Friday he’s won the endorsements of more than half of Pennsylvania’s House GOP delegation.The ex-president’s Pennsylvania backing reportedly flows from Reps. Mike Kelly, Dan Meuser, Scott Perry, Guy Reschenthaler and John Joyce. Their show of support helps him draw further away from his Republican rivals seeking the party’s official endorsement.As of Thursday evening, Trump had received the backing of 56 of the 63 House Republicans who had so far endorsed a candidate, according to FiveThirtyEight, which is tracking congressional endorsements.Trump continues to declare his innocence in light of the recent...

Former President Donald Trump performs nearly six points better than Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) does in a hypothetical general election race against President Joe Biden, according to an Emerson College Polling survey.The poll, published Thursday, shows that Trump and Biden are neck-and-neck in a rematch of the 2020 election. While 43.5 percent of voters would back Biden, 43.4 percent would support Trump.The margin between the two was decided by one respondent, with 441 choosing Trump to 442 selecting Biden. Another 8.9 percent of voters would back a different candidate, while 4.2 percent are undecided.🇺🇲 2024 Presidential General ElectionJoe Biden: 44%...

Developing commercial fusion energy requires scientists to understand sustained processes that have never before existed on Earth. But with so many unknowns, how do we make sure we're designing a device that can successfully harness fusion power?We can fill gaps in our understanding using computational tools like algorithms and data simulations to knit together experimental data and theory, which allows us to optimize fusion device designs before they're built, saving much time and resources.Currently, classical supercomputers are used to run simulations of plasma physics and fusion energy scenarios, but to address the many design and operating challenges that still remain,...

A former New Hampshire state representative and the nation’s first transgender-identifying state lawmaker was arrested by police this week and charged for allegedly distributing child pornography. Stacie Marie Laughton, a Democrat who previously resigned twice from the New Hampshire state house, is now facing four counts of distributing sexually explicit images of children. Laughton was born Barry Charles Laughton, Jr. Nashua Police Department public information officer Sgt. John Cinelli said that police were called to respond to a juvenile incident on Tuesday and were then told that the former lawmaker had been distributing explicit images. On Thursday, police searched Laughton’s...

[Catholic Caucus] The Sin-Nod For A Sin-Nodal ChurchRedundancy is a great ploy for those who haven't the foggiest idea about which they are blathering, isn't it? The Vatican wonks are getting this tactic down to an art form, wouldn't you say?The Instrumentem Laboris has been released, comic sans font and all. It can be found here, in all its translations and formats. Mind you, these are official translations. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to examine the Word file, as word counts can be done quite efficiently. Word counts are a decent indicator of priorities. So let's jump...

A man walked into a five-star Indian hotel and booked a room for one night – then extended his stay by almost two years and allegedly skipped his roughly $70,700 bill when he left. Accused fraudster Ankush Dutta booked a room for a single night at the swanky Roseate House hotel in Delhi on May 30, 2019, but stayed an extra 603 nights and left on Jan. 22, 2021, The Indian Express reported, citing a police complaint. He allegedly left behind unpaid bills amounting to 5.8 million Indian rupees, or over $70,700, the newspaper reported. Management accused the staff of...

The U.S. Marine Corps has removed the last of its .45 caliber M45A1 Close Quarters Battle Pistols from service. The M45A1s, which are heavily upgraded variants of the venerable Colt M1911, have now been replaced by 9x19mm M18 pistols. The Marines had been the last major American military user of M1911-series pistols, though other versions remain in increasingly limited service in the U.S. special operations community. Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) confirmed to The War Zone that the replacement of the M45A1s with new M18s began last year and was completed by October 2022. M45A1s had previously been issued primarily...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed floated the idea of demolishing the abandoned Westfield mall as a solution to the city's untamed drug and crime epidemic. Speaking at Bloomberg's Technology Summit in California, Breed brushed off questions about the mall's demise and argued 'there are a lot of people who may not even shop in those places' due to the rise of online shopping. The city has seen a mass exodus of companies as a result of rampant crime in the city, with Westfield the latest to flee after it announced it has been forced to stop making mortgage payments due...

The aunt of Suleman Dawood, the youngest passenger aboard the Titanic-bound submarine that officials believe imploded on Sunday, said that he decided to join the voyage because he hoped to bond with his father over the trip. Azmeh Dawood, the aunt of 19-year-old Suleman, told NBC News that her nephew had been “terrified” about the trip but decided to join her brother, Shahzada Dawood, on the expedition to spend time with him over the Father’s Day weekend. “I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath … It’s been crippling, to be honest,” Azmeh...

First son Hunter Biden was at father Joe’s Wilmington, Del. home the same day he used the future president as leverage in a text message sent to a Chinese business associate to close a deal, photos found on his abandoned laptop show. Hunter posed in four pictures with a pair of female family members in his dad’s 1967 Corvette Stingray on the evening of July 30, 2017, according to metadata obtained by conservative non-profit group Marco Polo and first reported by the Washington Free Beacon. Hours before, Hunter sent a threatening WhatsApp message to Harvest Fund Management director Henry Zhao,...

Warnings over the safety of OceanGate's Titan submersible were repeatedly dismissed by the CEO of the company, email exchanges with a leading deep sea exploration specialist show. In messages seen by the BBC, Rob McCallum told OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush that he was potentially putting his clients at risk and urged him to stop using the sub until it had been classified by an independent body. Mr Rush responded that he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation".

Yo FBI, I found the white supremacist! VIDEO AT LINK............ Do you see the hatred in her eyes? I visited the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem a number of years ago. They had an entire section dedicated to the rhetoric that was used by the Nazi party to justify their hate. I see that same anger and hate in this woman's eyes. Your time is officially up. Remind me what the "right side of history" looks like again?

Despite intense backlash recently over rival Bud Light's partnership with LGBTQ and transgender star Dylan Mulvaney, Coors Light is remaining the title sponsor of the Pride parade in Denver. Anheuser-Busch, which makes Bud Light, has lost $27 billion in value due to a campaign with Mulvaney that upset conservatives. Then the company upset progressives too after failing to support Mulvaney through the backlash. Molson Coors, which is headquartered in Golden, Colorado, about 15 miles west of Denver, is standing by, with the parade remaining 'The Coors Light Denver Pride Parade' set for Sunday. Several major corporations have backed the event...

More than 150 Starbucks stores with 3,500 workers are set to go on strike next week after a union representing the baristas claimed the company ordered them to take down Pride decorations. The Starbucks Workers United union previously accused the coffee giant of caving into backlash and failing 'to materially support the LGBTQ+ community' earlier this month. It said executives had 'banned' stores from displaying rainbow flags and decorations halfway through Pride Month. Starbucks strongly denied the allegations and hit out at the 'false information that is being spread'. But the union, which represents over 41,000 workers across more than...

Haim Ramon attacks 'Haaretz': "Even in a Y.N (Haredi paper) there is more pluralism" The Haaretz newspaper published an article: "Netanyahu is interested in the Milchan Wall operation in Jenin, don't show up" - to which Haim Ramon responded in the Patriots: "Haaretz has become a Pravda, which is all recruited to the service of a political line. This is not a newspaper, it is a pamphlet. Even at Yated-Neeman, there is more pluralism" -

(Daily readings from the USCCB)“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.” Matthew 6:22–23Every Scripture passage, in a spiritual sense, can teach us many lessons. Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, offers one interpretation to the passage quoted above by saying that the “eye” in this passage refers to your intention and “your whole body” refers to...

VIDEOPerhaps the most amusing part of James O'Keefe's recent OMG video about BlackRock was when recruiter Serge Varlay explained the economic theory of the "Inverse Cramer" in which one can make money by doing the opposite of what CNBC's Jim Cramer recommends. Therefore I thought it would be interesting to see what Cramer's thoughts about BlackRock and its CEO Larry Fink were over the years. As you can see, Cramer has given a big thumbs up to both BlackRock and Larry Fink. What could this mean?

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission acquired stunning views of Mars in two ultraviolet images taken at different points along our neighboring planet’s orbit around the Sun. By viewing the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists can gain insight into the Martian atmosphere and view surface features in remarkable ways. MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these global views of Mars in 2022 and 2023 when the planet was near opposite ends of its elliptical orbit. The IUVS instrument measures wavelengths between 110 and 340 nanometers, outside the visible spectrum. To make these wavelengths visible to the human...

Former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe their children have been abducted by the Mormon group in a twisted way to fulfill a prophecy of its disgraced leader. Four mothers, Lorraine Jessop, Miranda Johnson, Elizabeth Roundy and Sarah Johnson, believe their eight missing children did not run away, as court records suggest, but are, in fact, being concealed by their former church. The FLDS is a polygamist offshoot of Mormonism best known for its prophet Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving life in prison for sexually assaulting girls as young as 12. Jeffs remains...