Free Republic

The Biden administration has made a deal with Iran to release $6 billion in frozen funds in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. The agreement issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer sanctioned Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of U.S. sanctions includes the release of five Iranian citizens held in the U.S. The Iranian-Americans include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58, along with environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on the deal late last week, but Congress was not notified of the decision until Monday,...

Anybody ever watch Rusty Repair? i don't know where they get these guns from, but the assortment is amazing as it is mysterious as they won't say anything as to their provenance... some are only restored to display functionality, others they fire i've watched near everyone they've made, good stuff

“Be careful with Spahalski, Mr. Morgan,” warned the prison guard as I prepared to meet one of New York’s most infamous serial killers. “He’s a very dangerous man. He once broke out of handcuffs with his bare hands.” As I tried to imagine just how strong you’d have to be to do that, Robert Spahalski was led into the small interview room. He’s a tall, very muscular man and radiated quiet, deadly menace. His crimes were particularly heinous and unsettling because he repeatedly murdered people — at least four, probably more — whom he knew, including sexual partners and neighbors,...

They were all good bois and girls. Rest in peace, puppers.

It’s not the 10 or 20-year marker but that is no reason miss the lesson of September 11, 2001 most relevant in 2023 moving forward: the failure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As the people might recall, the bureau also slipped up on the prequel. In 1993, the FBI failed to prevent Islamic terrorists from bombing the World Trade Center, which claimed six victims. The lessons went unlearned. For all its money, power and resources, the FBI failed to prevent terrorists from hijacking airliners and crashing them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. “September 11, 2001, was a...

U.S. — Democratic leadership in multiple sanctuary cities complained Monday about undocumented immigrants destroying the very sanctuaries established for them. "Our system is being totally overwhelmed. We are literally dying," said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. "I'm beginning to think supporting illegal immigration — excuse me, undocumented people of migration — was a bad idea." "I mean refugees. What are we calling them again?" According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, undocumented immigrants (or illegal aliens, as racists describe them) reached 2.7 million in 2022. For 2023, the number is likely in the hundreds of millions of billions. "I...

Do governors have the authority to suspend parts of the federal constitution? Legally, the answer is absolutely not. Four new lawsuits filed in federal court from New Mexico will likely result in a reversal of Michelle Lujan Grisham’s absurd declaration that the Second Amendment does not apply in her state during a temporary “emergency” she declared unilaterally. What about the political answer to such a declaration, apparently without any consultation of the state legislature, let alone the US Constitution? Governors operate under authority granted by both the federal and state constitutions, not the other way around. A personal order to...

Mallory Haas, 38, from The Ships Project said she was "surprised" to see the creature - which she had never seen before in the wild. Mallory, originally from Ohio, US, said: "I'd never seen a lobster underwater that blue. I've seen some in a tank with bits of blue on them, that is quite common, but totally blue is very rare. "I've seen one in a tank before that was very white, like a ghost, but this one was almost aqua blue - all down her legs. The fisherman who gave her to us said he had decided to release...

Abandoned by their families in hospital wards or on roadways, the kids at HaitiChildren have been diagnosed with a variety of disabilities, including Down syndrome, multiple sclerosis, autism and brain injury from seizures. At least one little boy is HIV positive. Those who do not use a wheelchair have difficulty walking. They are conditions that not only require specialized care but also make them outcasts. Stigmatized, they are called kokobe, meaning “cripple” in Creole. A gang invaded the orphanage last week, pointing their guns and searching the place as they taunted the kids in wheelchairs. “The gangs have been shouting,...

Gun violence has been declared a public health emergency in New Mexico following the death of an 11-year-old boy.New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham made the announcement following the death of a young boy in a shooting on a highway. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina confirmed in a press briefing that a boy was killed and a second woman was taken to hospital in critical condition. They were attacked while traveling westbound on Avenida Cesar Chavez near University Boulevard. Neither of the victims have been named.

Keeping your dog quiet after 6pm and going on three walks a day, are just some of the strangest dog laws from around the world, new research revealsThe latest list of the most bizarre dog laws from around the world has been revealed. From not being allowed to pull an ugly face at a pooch to walking them three times a day, even at a glance, it's not hard to see why these are indeed some of the strangest dog laws. For some living in certain countries, you risk getting into a spot of trouble if you can't prevent your...

President Joe Biden was reportedly “stunned” and “plunged into sadness and frustration” after hearing that special counsel David Weiss intends to indict Hunter Biden. A court document filed last week by Weiss revealed that he plans to indict Hunter Biden before the end of September. The intention to indict the president’s son drew immediate criticism from legal experts and lawmakers, who viewed the filing of a potential indictment as another mechanism Weiss might use to shield Joe Biden’s son from justice.

. *** The President was in India for the G20 summit and held a presser in Hanoi, Vietnam during which the pre-selected reporters he called on all had at least one thing in common. Toward the end he was asked about U.S.-China relations by VOA correspondent Anita Powell, and specifically that he hasn’t spoken with Xi in 10 months. *** “And look, nobody likes having celebrated international meetings, if you don’t know what you want at the meeting. If you don’t have a game plan. He may have a game plan. He just hasn’t shared it with me,” said Biden...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set off for Russia aboard a special train, a South Korean source said, as Pyongyang and Moscow on Monday (Sep 11) confirmed a summit with President Vladimir Putin amid Russia's deepening isolation over the war in Ukraine. Kim will visit Russia in the coming days at the invitation of Putin, the Kremlin said, while North Korean state news agency KCNA said the two would "meet and have a talk", without elaborating. US officials have said the pair would discuss possible arms deals to aid Russia's war in Ukraine and provide North Korea with...

Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign is expected to fight against California’s new presidential primary rules during the state’s Republican Party convention at the end of September. In July, the CAGOP transitioned to a winner-take-all system, instead of allocating presidential primary delegates by Congressional district. Now if a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote state-wide, they capture all of the state’s delegates. If no candidate reaches that benchmark, delegates are awarded proportionally.President Donald Trump leads the field in California by over 50 points, appearing to be on track to secure all of the state’s 169 delegates. DeSantis, polling a...

Countless conspiracy theories have circulated in the wake of 9/11, the day when terrorists hijacked planes and attacked the World Trade Center in New York twenty two years ago. By David Oswald, RMIT University; Erica Kuligowski, RMIT University, and Kate Nguyen, RMIT University The collapse of the World Trade Center has been subject to intense public scrutiny over the twenty years since the center’s Twin Towers were struck by aircraft hijacked by terrorists. Both collapsed within two hours of impact, prompting several investigations and spawning a variety of conspiracy theories. Construction on the World Trade Center 1 (the North Tower)...

A recent YouTube video featured drone footage of a large number of electric vehicles sitting in a field in China. It alleged that Chinese automakers are manufacturing cars, falsifying sales records, and abandoning them in order to receive government subsidies. However, a Shanghai-based automotive industry veteran has looked into those claims and was able to debunk them as false. Shanghai-based Mark Rainford, who runs his own YouTube channel called Inside China Auto, visited the “EV graveyard” in person. He captured his own footage of the cars that YouTuber Winston Sterzel claimed, based on old images captured by drone, were 10,000...

An MMA fighter is recovering after carjackers dragged him through the streets of Philadelphia. Egor Kostyuchenko, 25, was picking up food for his side gig as a food delivery driver, and left his 2008 Mercedes C300 running with keys in the ignition and driver's side window rolled down just after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 5, according to police and those who knew him. Three men jumped inside of the car on the at 1000 block of Cherry Street, and drove down Race Street. Kostyuchenko grabbed onto the window of his car as the vehicle continued to speed away, the...

If you trust your gut when deciding if a statement is true or false, maybe that’s just because lizard aliens are running the country. Research into what makes a person accept new information as true or false has revealed that facts and reality are rather slippery concepts. In a pair of new studies, behavioral scientists investigated the relationship between “truth relativism” — the concept that truth and reality are different to different people — and the risk of falling victim to false information. “I think many people who emphasize a more relativistic view of what truth is mean well,” Julia...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign into law a bill barring public school districts from banning books and curriculum related to gender and racial diversity. Assembly Bill 1078 passed in the state Senate last week, largely along party lines, and now heads to Newsom’s desk. The bill had passed overwhelmingly in the Assembly in May – at around the same time the issue came to a head with the Temecula Valley Unified School District’s vote to reject elementary school curriculum that mentioned Harvey Milk, California’s first openly gay elected official.