Free Republic

Lake Tahoe was transformed into a “landfill” Tuesday after Fourth of July partygoers left behind a record-breaking 4 tons of trash surrounding the massive freshwater basin. Over 8,559 pounds of cigarette butts, plastic food wrappers, beach toys, beer boxes — and even barbecues — were collected Wednesday by environmental cleanup volunteers during the 10th annual July 5th “Keep Tahoe Red, White & Blue” Beach Cleanup. It took 402 good Samaritans three hours to rake up the colossal piles of trash that the Keep Tahoe Blue collective said was “tragically an all-time high.” Lake Tahoe needs your help. This is the...

WASHINGTON, Saturday, July 4 -- 10:10 A.M. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF POTOMAC, NEAR GETTYSBURGH, Friday, July 3 -- 8 1/2 P.M. The following has just been received: Major-Gen. Halleck, General-in-Chief: The enemy opened at 1 P.M., from about one hundred and fifty guns, concentrated upon my left centre, continuing without intermission for about three hours, at the expiration of which time, he assaulted my left centre twice, being, upon both occasions, handsomely repulsed, with severe loss to him, leaving in our hands nearly three thousand prisoners. Among the prisoners is Brig.-Gen. ARMSTEAD and many Colonels and officers of lesser rank. The...

The Bible In Paintings ~ Encouragement for Applying and Appreciating God's Word ~ The Best of R A P H A E L “RAFFAELLO SANZIO DA URBINO (1483 – 1520), better known as RAPHAEL, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. “Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his early death at...

Earth's average temperature remained at a record high Wednesday after two days in which the planet reached unofficial records. It's the latest marker in a series of climate-change-driven extremes.The average global temperature was 62.9 degrees, according to the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world's condition. That matched a record set Tuesday and came after a previous record of 62.6 degrees was set Monday.

Less than 24 hours after Monday’s mass shooting in Philadelphia, in which a gunman dressed in a ski mask and body armor killed five people and injured two children, right-wing pockets of social media were exploding with speculation about the suspect’s gender identity. While he acknowledged the social media images that appear to show Carriker wearing women’s clothing and jewelry, Asa Khalif, a member of the LGBTQ advisory committee for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, condemned the “violent” language coming from the “conservative press” about Carriker’s gender identity and shared what the district attorney’s office knows firsthand about Carriker’s gender...

The discovery of a stash of cocaine in the White House became public because a hazmat team was sent in on the possibility that the white powdery substance might have been anthrax or some other deadly terror weapon. Were it not for the hazmat team’s highly visible and noteworthy arrival, I believe it is quite possible that the matter would have been handled with the discretion for which the Secret Service is famous (and notorious), protecting the privacy of the First Family. Now that we know about it, there are multiple signs that a coverup is underway to protect someone...

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.

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 -...