Free Republic

As riots continue throughout France following the police shooting of a North African teenager, with people losing their lives and sustaining serious injuries, there are unconfirmed rumors swirling around that French President Macron intends to shut down the internet to try to calm the chaos. Again, this is unverified, but if it is true, it’s probably less about quelling the “rioting” and more about stifling a certain very powerful voice who is speaking out right now in ways the Macron regime doesn’t like. The popular French right-wing influencer known as Papacito has come up with a rather intriguing strategy to...

Nearly 700,000 people in the United States die from heart disease every year, and one-third of those deaths result from complications in the first weeks or months following a traumatic heart-related event. To help prevent those deaths, researchers at Northwestern and George Washington (GW) universities have developed new device to monitor and treat heart disease and dysfunction in the days, weeks or months following such events. And, after the device is no longer needed, it harmlessly dissolves inside the body, bypassing the need for extraction. About the size of a postage stamp, the soft, flexible device uses an array of...

Iran’s oil exports have hit a five-year high in recent months as the country sells more to China and other countries, adding large volumes of discounted crude to a global energy market already struggling amid concerns over demand. The surge in Iran’s oil supply threatens to upend efforts by Saudi Arabia and other major crude producers to prop up prices by cutting output. Oil’s value has fallen by about a fifth since late last year on expectations of a slowing global economy and a glut of cheap Russian cargoes. It also shows how Iran is increasingly circumventing U.S. sanctions as...

New research from the University of Montana and its partners suggests artificial intelligence can match the top 1% of human thinkers on a standard test for creativity. The study was directed by Dr. Erik Guzik, an assistant clinical professor in UM's College of Business. He and his partners used the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, a well-known tool used for decades to assess human creativity. The researchers submitted eight responses generated by ChatGPT, the application powered by the GPT-4 artificial intelligence engine. They also submitted answers from a control group of 24 UM students taking Guzik's entrepreneurship and personal finance...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)After entering a boat, Jesus made the crossing, and came into his own town. And there people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:1–2Just prior to this passage, Jesus cast out demons from two men from the town of the Gadarenes. Afterwards, the townspeople told Him to leave their town, so Jesus departed by boat and arrived in Capernaum, which was where He had been living after leaving Nazareth. This encounter with a paralytic on a...

A shooting at an apartment complex in Fort Lauderdale, Florida Wednesday evening left five victims with injuries, including two juveniles and three adults, police said. Fort Lauderdale police said the shooting started shortly before 9 p.m. after an argument escalated between two groups of people in the courtyard of the complex, located at Northwest 29th Avenue and 19th Street, WSVN reported. “At approximately 8:40 p.m. this evening, at this apartment complex … we had a group of people gathered in the courtyard. A second group of people confronted them,” FLPD Chief Patrick Lynn said. “As a result, gunfire ensued.” The...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says the Senate is going to make another attempt to pass gun control legislation in response to a new round of mass shootings. At least 10 people were killed in separate shootings in Baltimore, Fort Worth and Philadelphia over the weekend and July 4, while shootings in Lansing, Mich., and Wichita, Kan., left dozens more injured. The Gun Violence Archive has counted 20 mass shootings across the nation since July 1, leaving 19 people dead and more than 100 injured. It was just a year ago that lawmakers passed gun control measures in response...

[Author's Note: This story originally published 25 years ago about the Vince Foster "suicide." I thought it might be appropriate to republish now with the current cocaine scandal in the White House. Notice how the White House videos at the time went conveniently missing?](President Clinton is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. A voice is heard on his intercom. It is his secretary.) SECRETARY: Mr. President, Lieutenant Columbo is here to see you.(The Oval Office door opens a bit. Columbo peeks in tentatively.)COLUMBO: I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr. President.CLINTON (smiling broadly): Not at all! I heard...

People who use words as weapons understand that hijacking a country’s vocabulary is the shortest path toward claiming total control over a country’s thoughts. Language is the battleground for ideas. Which words become common and which go out of style record the advances and retreats of competing beliefs. People who use words as weapons understand that hijacking a country’s vocabulary is the shortest path toward claiming total control over a country’s thoughts. In a war of words, what is forbidden from being said out loud is more important than what is allowed. Sometimes language bans are explicit, such as Ireland’s...

Target has reportedly informed conservative radio host and litigator Mark Levin, via his publisher, that it will not carry his new book, The Democrat Party Hates America, for fear of offending Democrats who shop there. Levin, whose previous books have been New York Times bestsellers, made the revelation on Twitter yesterday: Target has informed my publisher, Simon & Schuster, that it will not carry my new book when it is released on September 19. It claims that certain customers might be offended by the title. Imagine that! So, the corporatist leftwing censorship begins. I will discuss this in… — Mark...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemLuke 19 Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King 28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 Those...

Gender Dysphoria, which attacks social cohesion, the family, individual health, both physical and mental, and the very nature of reality itself, is about as perfect a leftist weapon as can be envisioned. The other day I came across a piece of information that puts the entire transgender craze into about as much perspective as it is ever going to require. This is actually something I knew from years ago, but that I’d let slip thanks to a conviction that, obvious as it was, it certainly must have arisen in the debate already. SNIP So here we have two mental disorders...

President Joe Biden laughed and again ignored questions about the cocaine found at the White House - as the administration tried to distance the first family and staff from the shocking discovery by suggesting it was a visitor. Biden sat and watched reporters as they tried and failed to get his response to the drug scandal while he was in the Oval Office with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre implied in her daily briefing that a member of the public left the Schedule A substance in a 'heavily-traveled area' of the West Wing -...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s official website published advice for trans and non-binary individuals on seeking guidance on how to “chestfeed” their infants. In sections of the major health institute’s guidance on breastfeeding, it contained information for those who have had much of their breasts removed in gender-reassignment surgeries, or for biological men taking hormones to grow breasts, on how to feed their newborn children. However, several doctors criticized the guidance, not simply because CDC has appeared to guide biological men in how to breastfeed children, but because they claimed the CDC has failed to gauge the risks...

The “missing witness” from the Biden corruption investigation, Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, has laid out his bribery allegations against the president’s family in an extraordinary video filmed in an undisclosed location while on the run. In the 14-minute recording, obtained exclusively by The Post, the fugitive former Israeli army officer claims he was arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from individuals with alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence, and that they had an FBI mole who shared classified information with their benefactors from the China-controlled energy...

Lugging around a heavy suitcase on holiday could become a thing of the past if an airline's clothes rental experiment proves a good fit for customers. The service, dubbed 'Any Wear, Anywhere', allows passengers to rent a bundle of clothing ahead of their flight, which is then delivered straight to their hotel or AirBnb on arrival. Japan Airlines launched the scheme yesterday in the hope that it will mean customers can leave bulky bags behind and make a 'sustainable choice'. Travellers can tailor their clothing style depending on whether they are on a business or leisure trip, choosing between smart,...

The U.S. military released dramatic video of a tense encounter on Wednesday over the skies of eastern Syria as Russian fighter jets were seen "harassing" three American military drones carrying out a mission against the Islamic State group, an official said. In a statement, the U.S. Air Force general in the Middle East labeled the run-in "unsafe and unprofessional behavior" and called on Russia to stop what he called "reckless behavior" that has been carried out by pilots flying over eastern Syria where the U.S. still has 900 troops assisting in anti-terrorism efforts. The conduct "threaten[s] the safety of both...

French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late Wednesday. Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers' charter, though Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would affect only 'dozens of cases a year'.

Kyrylo Budanov, the Head of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate, has said that the upcoming NATO Summit in Vilnius will likely prove disappointing for Ukrainians, UK newspaper the Times reported on July 5. Budanov said that Ukraine will not receive an invitation to join the alliance, which will cause significant disappointment throughout Ukrainian society. “It is quite difficult for me to acknowledge the NATO Summit for a very simple reason: the expectations of our society will not be met,” Budanov said. “The summit will consist of some announcements, but nothing more. I’m confident that there will be pre-written speeches...

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