Free Republic

A police traffic stop in suburban Chicago turned into federal charges after cops found law enforcement badges and about $800,000 in counterfeit U.S. Savings Bonds in the driver’s car, according to a newly-filed criminal complaint. Robert R. Krilich, 58, is charged with possessing a counterfeit U.S. security intending to defraud. Rosemont police pulled Krilich over on Tuesday afternoon because they didn’t see a license plate on his car, officials said. Things snowballed from there. First, Krilich told the officers that he just picked up his car from O’Hare after returning from Las Vegas, and he believed someone stole his plates...

Allright FReepers. I noticed that I have the dubious distinction of being the last man to receive a post from Humblegunner. Seeing that I feel sort of like a Giovanni Martini of some sorts, I wanted to see if anybody has heard from our old sarcastic FRiend? Anybody?

DISAPPOINTMENTS Disappointments come to all of us; and the more I see of life, the more convinced I am that one of the most important lessons anyone can learn is how to handle these disappointments. One of the great disappointments in my youth happened during my sophomore year in high school when I was running for class president. The class elected a cute brunette cheerleader. Another popular girl, another of the cheerleaders, came in second. And I trailed the field with only four votes. That was quite a blow to a cocky young boy to be defeated by not...

The Idaho Freedom Caucus calls upon the Idaho Commission for Libraries to end its membership and cut all ties with the Marxist-led American Library Association (ALA). We call on local public and school libraries to do the same. We have significant concerns about the election of Emily Drabinski, a self-described “Marxist lesbian,” as the next president of the ALA. Her election raises issues about libraries’ involvement in exposing children to explicit materials and injecting hard-left politics and sexuality into publicly funded libraries. With her election, have concerns about libraries’ adherence to their educational purpose and their responsible use of taxpayer...

The BRICS alliance, an association of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is witnessing an increasing number of nations showing interest in joining its ranks. The surge in interest corresponds with an increasing number of countries willing to adopt the BRICS currency for international trade, potentially diminishing the dominance of the U.S. dollar. South African ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed to Reuters that the BRICS alliance has received both formal and informal applications. The decision to create a new currency will be a collective one, made by the five nations at the upcoming summit...

With no significant breakthrough after six weeks, it is worth asking whether Ukraine’s counter-offensive can ever succeed, for it certainly doesn’t look to be succeeding now. Compare the glacial but costly progress today to the lightning victories at Kharkiv and Kherson last autumn. Back then Kyiv’s forces were advancing against a withdrawing enemy that was pulling back to redeploy troops, trading space for time. Having now built up their forces through mobilisation and dug extensive defence lines, this time the Russians aren’t going anywhere. That has left Ukraine with one option: launching frontal attacks against heavily defended positions, almost akin...

With no irony whatsover, Kamala Harris stated yesterday in Florida what most of us have been thinking all along. HARRIS: "Let me start by saying this: I am a product of a public school education. I was sharing with some of the teachers earlier. My first grade teacher, Mrs Francis Wilson, god rest her soul, attended my law school graduation. I am a product of teachers and an educational system that believed in providing the children with the full expanse of information that allowed them to then and encourage them to then reach their own conclusions. Any exercise critical thought....

CNBC has declared that Texas is the worst state in the United States to "live and work." Last Friday, the news outlet published its annual list of "America's 10 worst states to live and work in for 2023." Unsurprisingly, the list features 10 red states — but, surprisingly, claims the Lone Star State is the worst of them all. So what exactly makes Texas so bad? Is it the freedom? No income tax? Lots of space to build? Nope. According to CNBC, Texas is the worst U.S. state to live and work in because of its laws protecting unborn life,...

In a lawsuit alleging police brutality in their response to vandalism, arson, and assaults committed in New York City by persons protesting the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, New York City has agreed to pay each of the arrested rioters $10,000 rather than go to trial. Elena Cohen, the chief attorney for the plaintiffs, argued that "the arrests violated the demonstrators freedom of speech and assembly. The City's contention that setting police cars on fire, vandalizing precinct houses, throwing rocks, bricks, bottles at and stabbing, punching, and biting officers, and lobbing gasoline...

Anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is tied with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in the Republican primary race, a Kaplan Strategies survey released Thursday found.The survey concluded that Ramaswamy has made “significant strides” since jumping into the presidential race, going from the bottom tier to tying for second place with double digit support alongside DeSantis.As is consistent in other surveys, former President Donald Trump leads the pack with a double-digit advantage — 36 points ahead of his nearest competitors — with 48 percent support.Ramaswamy ended up tying with DeSantis for second place with 12 percent support.RELATED– Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Ron...

23 July 202316th Sunday in Ordinary TimeAmber altar in the St. Bridget's Church of GdańskReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(I).First readingWisdom 12:13,16-19 ©You will grant repentance after sinThere is no god, other than you, who cares for every thing,to whom you might have to prove that you never judged unjustly.Your justice has its source in strength,your sovereignty over all makes you lenient to all.You show your strength when your sovereign power is questionedand you expose the insolence of those who know it;but, disposing of such strength, you are mild in judgement,you govern us with great lenience,for you have only...

Former President Trump continues to dominate the Republican primary field and would beat President Biden in a general election, according to a new poll.If the 2024 Republican presidential primary were held today, Trump would win with 52% of voters. His nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would lag 40 points behind with just 12%, while Vivek Ramaswamy, a biopharmaceutical entrepreneur, rounded out the top three with 10% support, according to the Harvard-Harris poll released Friday. Trump would beat Biden in a head-to-head matchup by a margin of 45 to 40 percent — with a crucial 16% of voters undecided. His...

The struggle to prove the majestic bird still exists has obsessed believers and exasperated doubters for a century. Now photographer Bobby Harrison is racing to document the species once and for all before the government declares it extinct The bird has many names, often divinely inspired: the Lord God Bird, the Lazarus Bird, the Ghost Bird, the Grail Bird. Bobby Harrison is a religious man, but he doesn’t like any of them. He prefers to call it what it is: an ivory-billed woodpecker. “Well,” he says with a shrug, “it is just a bird, after all.” That might seem like...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -There are a "number of ideas being floated" to help get Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertilizer to global markets after Moscow quit a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, the United Nations said on Tuesday.The Black Sea deal was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in July last year to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are among the world's top grain exporters.Russia's withdrawal on Monday, which included revoking its guarantees for safe navigation, also ended a pact between the United Nations...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prized bridge — the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia and the Crimean Peninsula — was forced to shut down Saturday following a Ukrainian drone strike on a nearby ammunition depot, Russian-backed authorities said. Ukraine said that its army had destroyed an oil depot along with Russian military warehouses in Russian-occupied Crimea with the strike. Video on social media showed a plume of thick black smoke rising from the site of the attack. Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor of the peninsula, confirmed a drone hit the ammunition depot, which prompted an evacuation order for everyone within a...

According to the article, when the “malicious” subjects were asked to fill out demographic data, “12 respondents (24%) indicated their gender as being related to a helicopter or aircraft” ranging from an “Apache Attack Helicopter” to a “V22 osprey.” In the section declaring one’s disabilities, responses ranged from claiming to be “illiterate” to lamenting “My country is run by communists,” or even declaring that identifying as transgender is a disability in itself due to “the inability to come to terms with biological reality.” One respondent claimed to identify as a gift card as their gender. Under racial and ethnic identities...

David Weiss, the justice official prosecuting Hunter Biden for tax crimes, had his college and law school fees paid in part by bribes from tax cheats, legal documents show. Weiss' father, Meyer Weiss, worked as an IRS agent in Philadelphia from 1955 to 1984. He was caught accepting over $200,000 in bribes from businessmen seeking to break federal tax laws, and was sentenced four years in prison. Meyer spent almost $71,020 on David's college and law school tuition, in part financed by the bribe money, a 1995 US tax court ruling said. The criminal history of the Delaware prosecutor's family...

The owner of the Woodhouse spa in Birmingham told The Post that she’s been canned, and that her steaming co-workers are “pissed” about their former colleague’s increasingly suspect kidnapping account. Owner Stuart Rome said his staffers were stunned after hearing of Russell’s purported disappearance and did everything in their power to help bring her home.

@KanekoaTheGreat NEW — Leaked messages from the authors of the 2020 "Proximal Origin" paper, which denied COVID-19's lab origin, expose scientific fraud and misconduct as they express disbelief in their paper's own conclusions. Dr. Anthony Fauci, an advocate of gain-of-function research, secretly commissioned the paper and later cited it at the White House podium to dismiss the lab leak theory as a "conspiracy theory." The paper, which resulted in social media companies banning accounts and censoring discussions on the lab leak, concluded, “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” The author's...

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will be giving Ford $9.2 billion loan to build electric vehicle (EV) factories. Ford will be using this loan to build three separate factories, will substantially increase the American car manufacturer’s capacity for building vehicles that do not rely on gas. “Not since the advent of the auto industry 100 years ago have we seen an investment like that,” Gary Silberg, global automotive sector leader at the accounting firm KPMG, told Bloomberg. Ford’s dedication to ramping up EV production includes plans to make clean energy vehicles more affordable. That’s an important development as,...