Free Republic

The San Francisco Center, once a thriving mall home to the largest Nordstrom in America, is a shell of its former self after a string of high-profile departures.. Staff and shoppers in the mall, where five more stores closed in January .. crime and falling foot traffic is ruining the palatial building.. The mall lost $1 billion in value last year ... The mall's cavernous, marble-floored atrium is eerily quiet. There's not a single shopper in sight and a litany of abandoned stores lay mostly empty, but for a few leftover cardboard boxes or fading signs which serve as a...

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made headlines early this month when he sought to school X chief Elon Musk on the wonders of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies and insisted that it is not really race-based hiring. But the video of the woman he put in place to guide his DEI policies shows she did, indeed, use DEI policies to hire strictly based on race and gender to the exclusion of white males. Cuban engaged with Musk in a series of X posts on Jan. 4, where he defended DEI hiring policies and said there is “zero” evidence that...

A U.S. official confirmed to Fox News the drone from an Iranian proxy that killed 3 American servicememebers in Jordan and injured others got past the air defenses for Tower 22 because it was mistaken for a U.S. drone expected to return to the base at the same time. The Wall Street Journal initially reported on this development on Monday. A U.S. official confirmed the information to Fox News.

Reports say Ukraine's top general Valery Zaluzhny has been sacked

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) reportedly remains interested in launching a 2024 presidential bid on a “No Labels” ticket if President Joe Biden, 81, has a “health scare.” If he enters the race, Manchin would siphon votes from Biden, potentially dooming the president’s reelection campaign. Democrats have raised concerns for months about Biden’s 2024 chances due to poor polling about his age and physical stamina: Redfield & Wilton Strategies: A majority of Democrats are “concerned” about Biden’s ability. YouGov: Fifty-five percent say Biden’s health and age “severely” limit his ability to do the job. NBC News: Most registered voters have “major”...

For three years, Joe Biden and his repulsive Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, have encouraged the Third World to enter America illegally. At least 8 million have answered their siren song. Only now that the sheer numbers of illegal aliens causing mayhem and busting budgets in Democratic cities like New York have become an electoral liability has Biden had an epiphany. So he is doing what he does best: telling lies to weasel out of blame. Now he claims he needs Republicans in Congress to give him the “authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed … I...

HONOLULU (AP) — The last of the 100 known victims of the wildfire that destroyed Maui’s historic town of Lahaina in August was identified Friday as a 70-year-old woman whose husband, sister and several other relatives also died in the fire. Maui police said they identified the victim as Lydia Coloma based on the context of where the remains were found, rather than through DNA or other positive identification methods. Her husband, along with a sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew, also died in the fire, said her sister-in-law, Tina Acosta, in Honolulu. Coloma was from the Ilocos Sur province in...

When the U.S. Military requested a new cartridge for the battlefield, Remington and Sig Sauer responded with their own variations of .277” diameter projectiles. Remington’s 6.8 SPC didn’t make the cut, and Sig went above and beyond, designing a revolutionary new cartridge and a rifle to boot. Just because the Army opted to go with Sig’s .277 Fury doesn’t mean it’s going to be the best option for the consumer. In fact, there are a few reasons it may not be best for our guys in the field. Nonetheless, we’re excited to see the .277 Fury hit the market. These...

Texas is a state of mind and is currently under invasion. Encouraged by BIG AGRA Senator Lankford (RINO-Oklahoma). Texas factory activity contracted in January after stabilizing in December, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, dropped 17 points to -15.4—its lowest reading since mid-2020. Other measures of manufacturing activity also indicated contraction this month. The new orders index ticked down from -10.1 to -12.5 in January, while the growth rate of orders index remained negative but pushed up eight points to -14.4. The capacity utilization index...

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced on X that he will file suit against the Biden regime following the news that an Al-Shabab Islamic terrorist crossed over Biden’s open border and roamed free in the United States for nearly a year before his arrest. Andrew Bailey tweeted this out on Monday. AG Andrew Bailey: I didn’t serve in the United States Army during the War on Terror just to sit by and allow terrorists into our nation because Joe Biden refuses to secure the border. See you in court, POTUS. I didn’t serve in the United States Army during the...

NEW YORK -- Within days, Donald Trump could potentially have his sprawling real estate business empire ordered “dissolved” for repeated misrepresentations on financial statements to lenders, adding him to a short list of scam marketers, con artists and others who have been hit with the ultimate punishment for violating New York’s powerful anti-fraud law.An Associated Press analysis of nearly 70 years of civil cases under the law showed that such a penalty has only been imposed a dozen previous times, and Trump’s case stands apart in a significant way: It’s the only big business found that was threatened with a...

Former national security adviser John Bolton called for “disproportionate” strikes inside Iran after a drone attack killed three U.S. service members in Jordan over the weekend. Bolton said Sunday night on NewsNation that the U.S. needs to carry out retaliatory attacks in the wake of the deadly drone strike. He said the U.S. needs to “impose enough pain on Iran” to ensure it does not attempt a similar attack on the U.S. again. “To be clear, I don’t think it should be proportionate. I think it should be disproportionate. That’s how you create deterrence in the mind of your adversary,...

A court in Hong Kong has ordered the winding up of Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, dealing another blow to investor confidence as China’s ailing real estate sector continues to weigh on its economy.

Overlooking a refugee camp housing 15,000 people in northern Jordan, the secret outpost of Tower 22, on the border with Iraq and Syria, has long been strategically important to the US.Little is publicly known about the military base, but its location just 12 miles from the better-known Al-Tanf US garrison in south-eastern Syria suggests it provides logistical support – as well as border security for Jordan.Officially, the Jordanian government does not acknowledge Tower 22’s existence. Yet Al-Tanf has been a key US base in the fight against the remnants of Islamic State (IS) in the region and has been repeatedly...

Bill Clinton spoke of “the right side of history” almost two dozen times while president. Some say the phrase can be traced to 1984, when race baiter and Democrat Jesse Jackson used it to describe the rise of the Marxist Sandinistas, who were destroying Nicaragua. But the expression was supercharged by Barack Obama. Since, we’ve had a deluge of status seekers eager to align themselves with The One to show they’re on “the right side of history.” Except they’re not. But they are on the right side of inconsequence. Americans have advanced far beyond the subsistence lives so many lived...

In the wake of Elon Musk’s strategic staff reduction at Twitter, one can’t help but ponder the implications of applying a similar approach to the colossal entity that is the U.S. Government. Musk’s move, trimming 75% of Twitter’s workforce, has seemingly resulted in improved functionality, prompting contemplation on the prospect of a leaner, more efficient government. Contrary to the idealized image of a limited federal government, the United States now boasts the largest government in world history. The statistics are staggering, with approximately 3 million federal government employees and a colossal expenditure of 6.13 trillion dollars in 2023—exceeding the GDP...

The troubles for Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis just keep piling up. The state Senate of Georgia is establishing a committee to investigate Willis for "various forms of misconduct relating to the prosecution of cases related to the 2020 Presidential Election." The investigative committee, which will be made up of six Republicans and three Democrats, will have full subpoena power and the authority to compel testimony under oath. ... Among the misconduct the committee will investigate is the improper hiring of special assistant district attorney Nathan Wade, with whom Willis is alleged to have had an affair. This...

called doc complaining of sore spot behind my left nipple. he sent me for an x ray, it came back clear. i quit smoking. 2 months later i had a scheduled check up, and was sent for an mri. doc called , said i had lung cancer now. have been waiting over a week for a call to schedual a biopsy. probably at back of line cuz of illegeals. how ironic that i quit smoking, have clear x ray, then 2 months later get lung cancer. request prayers.

Now that Joe Biden is past the point of no return on the polls, most of the speculation on Michelle Obama replacing him on the ticket is palaver. It tends to be done by people who are open fawners to, or absolute haters of, the woman, and thus, bad prognosticators, or else by people who don't know much about Democrat power politics which is not given up lightly. But then there is Chicago essayist John Kass, who knows what he is talking about. He's got a deliciously good column on Michelle Obama and all her many 'terrors' -- of a...

South Korea's customs office has busted a chip smuggling operation that involved 53,000 chips worth $11.6 million, making it by value the biggest chip smuggling bust yet (via BusinessKorea). They found strategic chips using US tech were being routed through Korea to China. This smuggling operation was so massive that an entire company, known only as 'Company A,' rather than a single individual was behind it. All executives at the company have been charged by prosecutors for the crime which was perpetrated over three years. From August 2020 to August 2023, 'Company A' legally bought U.S.-made chips and imported them,...