Free Republic

Oral argument before the Supreme Court this week showed why it is nonsense to claim that anti-vagrancy laws violate the Constitution‘s Eighth Amendment provision against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Indeed, in the vernacular sense, what is cruel and unusual is a judicial edict that says law-abiding citizens must put up with public spaces featuring major health hazards, including even the plague. Yet that’s what some lower courts, bizarrely, say citizens must do. By any normal reading, the Eighth Amendment is intended to forbid overly harsh penalties, not to determine what sorts of conduct can or can’t be outlawed. Unfortunately, the...

Explanation: In northern hemisphere spring, bright star Regulus is easy to spot above the eastern horizon. The alpha star of the constellation Leo, Regulus is the spiky star centered in this telescopic field of view. A mere 79 light-years distant, Regulus is a hot, rapidly spinning star that is known to be part of a multiple star system. Not quite lost in the glare, the fuzzy patch just below Regulus is diffuse starlight from small galaxy Leo I. Leo I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy, a member of the Local Group of galaxies dominated by our Milky Way Galaxy and...

A viral recording purporting to show a Maryland school principal making racially charged remarks has been determined by police to be a fake, according to WBAL-TV. According to police, the recording was generated by the school's former athletic director, Dazhon Darien, who was upset that his contract was not renewed. Darien has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies in connection with the incident, including stalking, theft, disruption of school operations, and retaliation against a witness. The principal, Eric Eiswert, became the subject of national controversy in January after a recording that purported to be his voice was circulated widely...

President Joe Biden’s administration is delaying its potential plan to ban menthol cigarettes after concerns about the political implications ahead of the 2024 election. The administration planned to announce Friday that it will delay its decision on the rule, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ. While the administration plans to argue that it needs to consult more outside groups on the implications of the rule, there is no current timeline to revisit the issue, the sources told the WSJ. Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Xavier Becerra confirmed the news in a statement Friday afternoon, saying the potential...

Top aides to Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall to replace White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre by recruiting outside allies to nudge her out the door ... Jean-Pierre, who made history in May 2022 by becoming the first black and first openly gay person to hold the position, had developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings — offering what her superiors viewed as a less-than-compelling pitch for the 81-year-old Biden as he readied his re-election campaign. De facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the...

MUKILTEO — Calling all unicorns. Mukilteo police want you on the force. What’s up with that? A uniformed unicorn police officer with rainbow hair is featured in a new recruitment strategy that reads: “Unicorns may not be real but a career with the Mukilteo Police is pure magic.” The city has two openings on its force slotted for 32 commissioned police officers. Entry-level pay is $81,544 to $105,295. Rookies must be at least 21 with a high school diploma or equivalent. “There’s a whole population who would be amazing police officers that had probably never even thought about the job...

The lawyer representing special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday asserted that the reason former President Donald Trump is the first president to face criminal charges is because his predecessors did not commit any crimes. Department of Justice counselor to Smith, Michael Dreeben, went before the Supreme Court to argue presidents should not have constitutional immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted during their presidency. Dreeben suggested that no president until Trump has ever committed crimes when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioned him about no other president having faced prosecutions. “Over the not-so-distant past … certain presidents have engaged in...

A mechanical engineer with a zeal for quality, Petersen was only the second person outside the founding Ford family to lead the automaker. Donald Petersen, a former chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Co. whose focus on quality, unbridled product design and a collaborative workplace helped the company recover and prosper during the mid- to late 1980s, has died. He was 97.

[Verse 1] Moving forwards, using all my breath Making love to you was never second best I saw the world crashing all around your face Never really knowing it was always Mesh and lace

This is a different kind of cancel culture. Even President Ronald Reagan’s failed assassin-turned-folk singer is too afraid to step foot in the Big Apple — calling it a “cesspool of crime” after canceling an upcoming gig. “I’m afraid of New York City and I just don’t want to go there right now,” John Hinckley Jr. — who tried to kill Reagan in 1981 — told The Post days after pulling the plug on a June show scheduled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Hinckley announced the performance on X last week but pulled out because “he said New York is...

The Alvin Bragg lawfare case against President Trump is already falling apart in its New York courtroom. It was obvious from the start of this latest garbage lawsuit against President Trump that there was never a case against Trump but the Marxists in New York insisted on pushing forward with the case anyway. Now they are hoping that a corrupt court and leftist jurors will find Trump guilty of the latest made-up crime they are throwing at him in hopes to sway uninformed Americans to vote for Old Joe in 2024. On Thursday David Pecker destroyed the prosecution’s case. Pecker...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday his state “will not comply” with recently unveiled changes to Title IX by the Biden administration. “Florida rejects [President Biden’s] attempt to rewrite Title IX,” DeSantis said in a video posted to the social platform X. “We will not comply, and we will fight back.

WASHINGTON — President Biden recalled Friday that “lovely women” mailed him “very salacious pictures” when he was a young and unmarried senator — and that he handed the images over to the Secret Service — in a bizarre interview with Howard Stern. “A lot of lovely women — but women would send very salacious pictures and I’d just give them to the Secret Service. I thought somebody would think I was —” the 81-year-old president said before trailing off. It’s unclear why the Secret Service, whose role is to protect the president and investigate counterfeiting and fraud, would have any...

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Friday that the US is sending Ukraine its largest aid package to date — worth $6 billion — that will include munitions for Patriot missile defense systems that Kyiv has said could change the course of the war, but not the systems themselves. The massive package comes just two days after a separate $1 billion tranche for Ukraine was announced upon President Biden signing a $95 billion foreign aid supplemental funding bill into law. “The announcements this week underscore America’s enduring commitment to Ukraine’s defense,” Austin said after a meeting of the Ukraine...

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - A new lawsuit has been filed against several prominent figures in Fulton County, including Commissioner Marvin Arrington, District Attorney Fani Willis, the Fulton County Ethics Board, and Fulton County itself. Georgia Rep. Mesha Mainor, the victim in a criminal case involving stalking, filed the lawsuit. She alleges mishandling of the case by Commissioner Arrington initially and later by DA Willis. [snip] The lawsuit provides a timeline dating back to January 2019 when Mainor hired businessman Corwin Monson as a campaign volunteer. Despite their prior association, Mainor dismissed Monson in February 2019 due to his disruptive behavior,...

Judge Juan Merchan on Thursday afternoon said he will consider four new Trump gag order violations as he weighs whether to hold the former president in contempt. ..... Snip..... [Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule · Merchan signed an Order to Show Cause compelling Trump to attend a hearing on three new alleged gag order violations. (Below 1 & 2) Merchan has yet to rule on the prosecution's earlier motion alleging ten violations and now there are new ones. (3 & 4) 8:19 AM · Apr 26, 2024]

King Charles’ health conditions are progressively deteriorating, leading Buckingham Palace officials to keep a regularly updated plan for his impending funeral — preparations for which started the day after Queen Elizabeth was buried, insiders said. The 75-year-old monarch has remained largely out of the limelight since announcing his cancer prognosis in February to hide his declining condition, with multiple sources telling the Daily Beast the situation is “not good.” “Of course he is determined to beat it and they are throwing everything at it. Everyone is staying optimistic, but he is really very unwell. More than they are letting on,”...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced that the main event in the relationship between Russia and China in 2024 will be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to China. The announcement came at a meeting of the Council of Heads of Subjects of the Russian Federation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lavrov emphasised that the visit coincides with the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, as reported on the ministry’s official website, TV BRICS reported. “The main event of bilateral relations this year will be the state visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the...

On the cold dead surface of Mars, something remarkable happens each spring. The red planet becomes infested with giant black spiders. At least, that’s what it looks like. In reality, vast fields of dark, spider-like formations become etched into the Red Planet’s landscape. No, they are not alive, nor actually spiders, but instead a geological phenomenon that occurs nowhere else in the solar system. With the recent orbital passes of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), scientists are now closer than ever to understanding these mysterious features known as “araneiforms.” Araneiforms are...

Remember when the Secret Service was the elite of the elite? It was the one government agency everybody could agree on. Those brave men and women put their bodies on the line to protect the president, and therefore the stability of the free world.But somewhere along the way, the agency seems to have lowered its standards a bit.Brie Stimson, Fox News:A U.S. Secret Service agent with Vice President Kamala Harris’ detail was removed from their assignment after engaging in a physical fight with other agents while on duty Monday…Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the U.S. Secret Service, called the...