Free Republic

If Iran takes military action directly against Israel, the US public seems to feel it has less skin in the game than in previous years. The 2024 Chicago Council Survey, conducted June 21–July 1, 2024, finds a majority of Americans are now opposed to using US troops to defend Israel if it is attacked. An overall 42 percent of the US public would favor using US troops to defend Israel if it were attached by Iran (56% oppose). While a slim majority of Republicans would favor US forces defending Israel in this scenario (53%), only four in 10 Independents (42%)...

Explanation: A Halley-type comet with an orbital period of about 133 years, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is recognized as the parent of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. The comet's last visit to the inner Solar System was in 1992. Then, it did not become easily visible to the naked eye, but it did become bright enough to see from most locations with binoculars and small telescopes. This stunning color image of Swift-Tuttle's greenish coma, long ion tail and dust tail was recorded using film on November 24, 1992. That was about 16 days after the large periodic comet's closest approach to Earth....

In any and every corner of Ukraine, one would be very hard-pressed to find an ordinary person, civilian or military, who doesn’t want this cruel and brutal war to end. Ukrainians want nothing more than to be able to live without fear of night-time missile attacks, to see their loved ones return home from the front not just for a short vacation but for good, and most of all, to stop the neverending conveyor belt of funerals and obituaries for the country’s best and bravest people. But Russia’s maximalist aims haven’t gone anywhere; in fact, there is a good chance...

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that “voters” and “the American public can sniff inauthenticity” in Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (Ohio). “I think, in politics — as we all know, we’ve all been around it a long time — voters … the American public can sniff inauthenticity,” Psaki said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “This guy is … not authentic.” Vance has faced criticism for his performance on the campaign trail. In one notable incident, he faced blowback over a quip about Diet Mountain Dew and Democrats saying “it’s racist to do anything.” He has...

I've said it out loud. I'm sure you've said it out loud. But it's one thing for a private citizen like you or me to say it — and it's quite another for a former and probably future president of the United States to say it out loud. In public. On camera. For the whole world to hear and see. It was a glorious thing to say, too — and for more than just the obvious reason that it happens to be true. But I'll get to that in a moment. "The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden," former...

In a decision that could end a years-long battle over commercial extraction of water from public lands, the U.S. Forest Service has ordered the company that sells Arrowhead bottled water to shut down a pipeline and other infrastructure it uses to collect and transport water from springs in the San Bernardino Mountains. The Forest Service notified BlueTriton Brands in a letter last month, saying its application for a new permit has been denied. District Ranger Michael Nobles wrote in the July 26 letter that the company “must cease operations” in the San Bernardino National Forest and submit a plan for...

Heart-pounding footage shows the moment a shooter unloaded his weapon on a man who was trying to defend his girlfriend from two creeps inside a Queens convenience store this week. The clip, obtained by The Post Thursday, shows the 34-year-old victim entering the One World Convenience store in Richmond Hill and apparently exchanging words with two men standing near the door. Then the gunman kept firing, pelting the victim with bullets until he fell face down onto the ground. “Right away he pulled out the gun and started shooting more than eight times,” a store manager, who declined to give...

[Catholic Caucus] Will the Vatican Ban the Apparitions of Akita?In a Vatican statement issued on August 2, DDF prefect Cardinal Victor Fernadez said that the Puerto Rican missionary Elenita de Jesus "is not the Virgin Mary." What’s the big disclosure? Elenita never called herself the Virgin Mary. Fernandez' claim is true and the claim apparently was made to give credibility to the Vatican's new norms for evaluating apparitions because the DDF plan is to denounce the authentic Marian apparitions of our time. Fernandez has made it clear that any revelation that speaks of God's justice or that challenges the hierarchy...

The FBI allowed Asif Raza Merchant, the Pakistani man charged with plotting with Tehran to assassinate Donald Trump and others, to enter the U.S. in April with special permission known as “significant public benefit parole” even though he was flagged on a terrorism watchlist and recently traveled to Iran, according to government documents reviewed by Just the News. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force interviewed Merchant, fingerprinted him and inspected the contents of his electronic devices when he arrived at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport, in Houston, but then let him leave with the special parole that expired on May...

Desert Diamond Arena at 9400 W Maryland Avenue, Glendale, AZ 85305. Friday, August 9, 2024. Doors open at 1:30 PM. Please arrive no later than 3:30 PM. PHOENIX (AZFamily/AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, continue their tour of battleground states this week, with campaign events happening in Michigan on Thursday and Arizona on Friday.

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib reposted on Wednesday a doctored poll claiming that 47% of Israelis believe IDF soldiers have a right to rape Palestinians. It was tweeted by Noura Erakat, who later admitted on X that it was fake. Erakat posted a doctored image of an N12 poll on Wednesday, stating, “When you tell a society they have a right to commit genocide, surely they believe they have a right to rape,” suggesting that 47% of Israelis believe that it is justified to rape a handcuffed terrorist. In her post, which has since been deleted, Erakat shared an image with...

The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office identified the athlete as 28-year-old Lazar Dukic of Serbia. The medical examiner’s office had not yet listed his cause of death. An official with the Fort Worth Fire Department said they got called out around 8 a.m. to assist police because there “was a participant in the water that was down and hadn’t been seen in some point in time.”

President Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. Trump took questions from reporters for over an hour. There was wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s presser. President Trump has been answering questions from the media for over an hour… WHERE'S KAMALA? pic.twitter.com/ro9OXczDpu — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 8, 2024 Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has not answered a single question in 18 days since she forced Joe Biden off the ballot last month. Trump on Thursday agreed to debates with Fox News on September 4, ABC on September 10 and NBC on September 25. WATCH: President Trump has agreed to debates...

This vibrant reminder of the human need to create art was no match for one idiot with a smart phone and a dream. The paintings, washed out by water. © Civil Guard photo. ====================================================================================== Cops are investigating the defacement of a 6,000-year-old cave painting in southern Spain. According to authorities, the ancient evidence of the human drive to create was damaged when a local man poured water on it. Why? He was trying to gussy up the painting to take a photo for his Facebook page. The paintings are located in the Sierra Sur de Jaén mountain in Spain’s Jaén...

Former President Trump during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort Thursday said he had agreed to three separate debates on three different networks against his new opponent, Vice President Harris. Trump scheduled the press conference as his campaign seeks to make Harris’s access to the media a campaign issue. Trump had previously said he would not take part in a scheduled debate on ABC that was initially set on Sept. 10 between him and President Biden. But ABC in a statement during Trump’s press conference said both he and Harris had agreed to a debate on Sept. 10. The...

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz attends a church that preaches beliefs related to gender, race and sexuality that many Christian denominations strongly oppose. Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, identified Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul as his parish during a 2020 briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials published by Pilgrim Lutheran Church instruct parishioners not to refer to God using male pronouns, push congregants to support reparation funds, encourage them to celebrate Ramadan and include a modified gender-neutral version of the Lord’s Prayer, among other liberal practices. Pilgrim Lutheran Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church...

Bodycam footage reveals officer’s rooftop confrontation with would-be Trump assassin

This drunk driving lesson was a little too realistic. A golf cart rigged to simulate the dangers of tipsy motoring went out of control at a New Jersey police fair and struck five people — landing them all in a hospital, authorities said Wednesday. A teenager was behind the wheel with a cop riding shotgun Tuesday evening when the cart swerved off its special orange-coned course at the National Night Out event in Wildwood on the Jersey Shore, according to police. The off-the-rails vehicle plowed into four adults and a child — prompting firefighters who were already there to rush...

Governor Kathy Hochul today met with State Commissioner of Education Betty A. Rosa and leaders from the State Education Department to discuss the ongoing development of a ‘Media Literacy’ toolkit for educators to help teach students HOW TO SPOT MIS/DIS/MAL-INFORMATION online. Following a surge in online hate speech in November 2023, Governor Hochul directed the State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to work with experts to develop and distribute an ideologically neutral product which gives teachers resources to develop students’ ability to analyze, evaluate, and assess all forms of media, including information delivered through social media. “The rising...

Maj. George “Sandy” Forsyth’s 1877 diary was on its way to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., in 1960. But its owner decided it belongs in Wyoming where it was written, and it’s been in a Thermopolis bank vault for nearly 65 years. =================================================================== Gen. George A. "Sandy" Forsyth was a major when he was part of a company led by Gen. Philip Sheridan to the scene of Custer's battle at Little Big Horn a year after. He described the journey in an eloquent diary that's now in possession of the Hot Springs County Museum. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) ==================================================================== In...