Free Republic

Unique among great American cities, corruption is baked into the foundational lore of Chicago. It's a truth that every generation gets to rediscover at intervals spaced far enough apart as to make this revelation more demoralizing than it should be. It's true today, and it was true in a 1938 film set in 1871, about the most important historical event in the city's history that didn't involve a councilman, mayor or governor going to jail. "From the moment of its incorporation as a city in 1837," wrote Ovid Demaris in his 1969 book Captive City: The Startling Truth about Chicago...

The fix is in. Joe Biden is expected to address Trump’s ‘hush money’ verdict from the White House. This is Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign since his administration is a dumpster fire. Biden’s only hope is to jail Trump because Americans don’t want four more years of Bidenomics. ..... Snip..... Judge Juan Merchan has so far refused to release the jury instructions to the public after Bragg’s prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys sparred over the order during a conference earlier this week. ADVERTISEMENT Jury instructions can make or break a case for either side. Judge Merchan however sided with Bragg’s prosecutor Matthew...

From the transcript" "...little black kid got suspended Co he told his teacher the one in the picture that her breath stink and he got suspended for it I think he's in eighth grade yeah he's got an underbite from hell and her teeth look like they going her guns look like they going to burst man he tell she a smoker that is that is like the worst case of Ginger vitis I've ever seen her gingivitis is so bad her eyes are starting to cross..." 😂😂😂

Details of the turmoil in Joe Biden's famously-insular family keep being made public by the president's own Justice Department. Why it matters: Some legal experts argue that the level of personal details in the filings ahead of Hunter Biden's criminal trials are meant to embarrass rather than prosecute, a feeling shared by many people close to the president's family.

CLAIM: President Joe Biden claimed during a commencement speech at the United States Military Academy West Point that he turned down an offer to play football at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. VERDICT: False. Biden has previously told different versions of this claim to graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. In his claim, Biden says he applied to the Naval Academy in order to play football. He was appointed to the Naval Academy by former Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs (R) in 1965. However, the president graduated from the University...

YOU ARE SPECIAL "I don't know why I was even born," the young sailor confided! "I'm ugly. I'm not talented. I've never been what you would call smart. I don't really have any friends. And I can't seem to do anything right. I feel like I've spent my whole life letting people down. Sometimes I wonder if even God could love me!" That conversation took place more than a decade ago, but I still remember it as if it were yesterday. That one and a lot of others over the years with the same message: "I'm no good; I'm...

Donald Trump supporters overwhelmed the Washington Hilton Saturday for the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, D.C. Not all party faithful in attendance were pleased with the convention’s offer to Trump to speak, which energized the small party’s usually relatively sleepy convention but left party members greatly outnumbered by supporters of the president.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said Friday he has signed a first-of-its-kind bill making abortion pills controlled substances into law. The law puts the abortion pill regimen -- mifepristone and misoprostol -- in the same category as opioids and other addictive medications. "Requiring an abortion inducing drug to be obtained with a prescription and criminalizing the use of an abortion drug on an unsuspecting mother is nothing short of common sense," Landry said in a statement posted on X. "This bill protects women across Louisiana and I was proud to sign this bill into law today." The law makes it illegal...

While Donald Trump mounts an interlocutory appeal that he hopes will end with Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ (D) disqualification from prosecuting him, Willis is challenging the dismissal of several charges against the former president and his allies. In a Thursday filing in Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s court, Willis filed her notice of “cross appeal” to overturn the judge’s March 13 ruling favorable to the defense — this, as the defense guns for the DA’s ouster. “The state’s cross appeal corresponds to the Defendants’ interlocutory appeal of this Court’s ‘ORDER ON DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS AND DISQUALIFY...

Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks took aim Wednesday at her Republican opponent, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, over his position on abortion. Alsobrooks spoke at an abortion rights rally, where she criticized Hogan's statements that abortion should be legal up to 26 weeks of pregnancy, the standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. That decision was overturned in 2022, and now states can make their own laws regulating abortion, which has galvanized Democrats nationwide, who are campaigning to protect abortion access as Republicans seek to limit or ban the procedure. "I don't believe that...

The Defense Department undercounted the number of abortions that it authorized between 2016 and 2020, new data shows. Following a lawsuit from the Oversight Project, a division of The Heritage Foundation, the Department of Defense said that it had identified a total of 77 abortions performed in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) during the four-year period between 2016 and 2020. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.) That number includes 17 abortions that had previously not been included in the DOD’s figures. The babies aborted were either the children of a service member or of the service member’s dependents. Eighteen...

Hunter Biden’s defense lawyers reiterated their stance Friday that the Special Counsel’s Office should not be allowed to rail against his “extravagant lifestyle” at his nearing Delaware gun trial by bringing up prejudicial and “salacious” allegations of spending on “adult entertainment” and “escort services.” The filing comes two days after special counsel David Weiss rejected the notion that the words “extravagant lifestyle” are necessarily prejudicial. Prosecutors warned that they do intend to use “relevant evidence” of Biden’s spending at trial, coupled with the “admissions” about crack addiction in Biden’s book “Beautiful Things.” Here’s how Weiss forecast his intentions regarding evidence...

It's a religion. Always was. X link. "“George Floyd died for each and every one of us. He was God’s chosen vessel.” Things get weird at ASU as they unveil an exhibit in Floyd’s memory." Oh Praise Thee, Most Holy Floyd, Patron Saint of Fentanyl! X links. ..... As it is written in the Holy Book of Floyd: "He was knelt on for our transgressions, he was handcuffed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his overdose we are healed."

On May 22, the nations of Norway, Spain and Ireland announced their intentions to recognize a Palestinian state. As reported in the Epoch Times, the announcement prompted “Israel to immediately recall its ambassadors to the three nations.How should we respond?

One of the co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case would like to modify a February motion to dismiss the indictment in light of what they say is a new argument by the government. In a three-page notice of supplemental authority filed Friday, attorneys for Waltine “Walt” Nauta, former President Donald Trump’s personal valet, say the government recently shifted the statutory authority relied on for count 38 of the superseding indictment. In turn, the defense says, they are providing additional citations that deal with the statutory change. The notice argues, relatively tersely, that special counsel Jack Smith and his team...

Hitting 150 mph is tough. Stopping from 150 mph is even more punishing. Which is why we decided to do both, back to back. 00:00 Intro 01:44 History and testing methodology 03:43 Honda Civic Type R, 52.7 sec 04:50 Hyundai Elantra N, 47.0 sec 05:49 Volkswagen Golf R, 40.2 sec 06:46 Bentley Bentayga S, 32.8 sec 07:50 Kia EV6 GT, 31.2 sec 08:43 Toyota GR Supra, 31.1 sec 09:34 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, 29.7 sec 11:07 Bentley Continental GT Speed, 24.8 sec 12:07 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, 24.7 sec 13:09 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, 24.4 sec 14:33 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, 22.5...

Billy Price, the former first-round draft pick for the Cincinnati Bengals, has announced his retirement from the National Football League at the age of 29 due to a severe pulmonary embolism, a condition that nearly cost him his life. Price, who was drafted by the Bengals in the first round in 2018 as a center, revealed that he underwent emergency pulmonary embolism surgery on April 24 to remove a saddle clot that was entering both of his lungs. Pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot gets lodged in an artery in the lungs, blocking blood flow and causing severe health...

On this date in 1979, John Spenkelink was electrocuted in Florida — the first man executed involuntarily in the U.S. since 1967. A series of court decisions in the 1970’s had scrapped the country’s old death penalty institutions and obliged legislators to restructure the process. Now, the new architecture was in place and the decade-long hiatus in actual executions was drawing to a close. Gary Gilmore had earned trivia-question notoriety as the first put to death under the new regime two years before, but Gilmore was always an outlier, a bizarrely active exponent of his own death who greased the...

I posted the breaking news regarding the death of Grayson Murray over three hours ago. In fact, it was within five minutes of it being announced on CBS Soorts. It has been removed and replaced by two other threads one, beginning at 5:35 and the other at 6:01. I would just like to know why. Thank you.

Diminished but not deterred, Hamas is still putting up a fight after seven brutal months of war with Israel, regrouping in some of the hardest-hit areas in northern Gaza and resuming rocket attacks into nearby Israeli communities. Israel initially made tactical advances against Hamas after a devastating aerial bombardment paved the way for its ground troops. But those early gains have given way to a grinding struggle against an adaptable insurgency — and a growing feeling among many Israelis that their military faces only bad options, drawing comparisons with U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They supported Israel’s retaliation for...