Free Republic

The Pentagon is now conducting an expedited review of the awards of Medals of Honor to soldiers who took part in the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee, during which Seventh Cavalry soldiers killed an estimated 150-300 members of the Sioux Native tribe. The fact that it is being incredibly rushed and requires the results to be submitted no later than October 15, 2024—three weeks to the day before the election—

DNA analysis of human remains unearthed in the twentieth century in northwestern Mexico at the Mogollon culture site of Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, suggests that the individual's parents had been closely related, according to a Newsweek report. The study of the bones, led by Jakob Sedig of Harvard University, determined that the boy had lived locally, and was between the ages of two and five at the time of death, which occurred between A.D. 1301 and 1397. Discovered beneath a roof support beam, the child was thought to have been a member of an elite family who was sacrificed to...

Cosmos Magazine reports that the Altar Stone at Stonehenge, which weighs more than six tons, may have been transported to southwestern England from Scotland. The Altar Stone currently rests under two toppled sarsen stones at the site. Anthony Clarke of Curtin University and his colleagues analyzed the composition of the minerals in the Altar Stone with mass spectrometry, and found that it has a distinct chemical fingerprint matching rocks in Scotland's Orcadian Basin, which is located more than 460 miles away. "Given its Scottish origins, the findings raise fascinating questions, considering the technological constraints of the Neolithic era, as to...

Chicago businesses are already boarding up their storefronts downtown ahead of Monday’s opening of the Democratic National Convention in anticipation of mass rioting and violence. Plywood shielding first began showing up Thursday morning as the city’s shopping district opened for business. “As we know, this city has a poor track record when it comes to protecting businesses,” Scott Shapiro, owner of Syd Jerome, told Chicago’s WLS-TV. “We felt it was more prudent to board up, since our customers and their employers have told them to stay home throughout the convention for their own safety,” Shapiro added. It makes perfect sense...

-snip- After my first trip to Ukraine, a few readers wrote in or left comments urging me to check out the assessments of retired colonel Douglas Macgregor, contending he had the real scoop. I wasn’t familiar with Macgregor, but a bit of digging illuminated the retired colonel’s very consistent assessment of how the war is going: March 4, 2022: “The first five days Russian forces I think frankly were too gentle. They’ve now corrected that. So, I would say, another ten days, this should be completely over.” March 15, 2022: “The Ukrainians are being crushed. Even the Washington Post and...

Australian police have launched an appeal over CCTV footage which shows an alleged arsonist dropping and rolling after setting themselves on fire during an attack on a barber shop. The footage, taken just before midnight on July 6, shows two individuals pulling up to the ‘Gold Blade’ barber shop in Gungahlin, Canberra, on push bikes. During the frantic exit, the individual can be seen diving through the smashed glass panel and onto the pavement, before rolling over several times in an attempt to stop the flames from spreading.

The Democratic National Convention meets next week to nominate Kamala Harris for president, drawing renewed scrutiny to the party’s platform. Last month, the Democratic Party released a draft of its 2024 platform that vows to nationalize abortion-on-demand across all 50 states, support taxpayer-funded abortion, protect the predatory transgender industry, and continue “fighting” against parents who seek to keep pornography out of their children’s school libraries. The draft platform, released on July 13, places a high premium on abortion and extreme gender ideology. “The word abortion is mentioned 13 times. [The concept of] reproductive rights is mentioned 14 more times. The...

The replacement of Joe Biden on the Democrat ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris has led to the emergence of organizations with the aim of subverting the Evangelical vote for the Democrats. Last week, Evangelical Dark web showed how Christianity Today was touting the faith of Kamala Harris in a fluff piece. As we will show, the support of Christianity Today and other institutions runs much deeper. On August 14, Evangelicals for Harris has an event with many speakers, many of whom are familiar. Image (on link) Ekemini Uwan is the cohost of Truth’s Table a popular Black religious podcast....

Donald Trump could be blindsided by an 'October surprise' that would obliterate his chances at retaking the White House, a former Bush administration official has said. Legal scholar John Yoo sounded the alarm that the former president could wind up in prison - as soon as next month. Trump has been desperately seeking to hold off his sentencing hearing until after the election, following his conviction by a Manhattan jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records. But the controversial Judge Juan Merchan has consistently denied his appeals. While speaking to Fox News host Bill Hemmer on Thursday, Yoo said...

A Democratic National Committee employee filed a complaint this week to block the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein from appearing on the Wisconsin state ballot, arguing that the party cannot legally nominate electors. The same employee also filed a complaint against the Cornel West campaign. According to the Associated Press, the complaint against Stein was filed by David Strange, the Wisconsin deputy operations director for the Democratic National Committee. Strange claims that the Green Party lacks the authority to nominate presidential electors and therefore cannot legally put forward a slate necessary for Stein to appear on the ballot. He argues...

A new Emerson College Polling/RealClearPennsylvania survey finds 49% of voters support former President Donald Trump, and 48% support Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the Keystone state. With undecided voters’ support allocated, Trump extends to a two-point lead, 51% to 49%. With third-party candidates on the ballot, 47% support both Trump and Harris respectively; 3% support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. No other candidates received above .3% support.

Dear FRiends, We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. This means no spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers. And because we are not a 501 C, we have preserved our God-given constitutionally protected right to free speech without government intervention. If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today: Click here: to donate by Credit CardOr here: to donate by PayPalOr by mail to: Free Republic,...

[Catholic Caucus] ‘This is sick’: Vatican uses Rupnik image to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption‘The people behind Vatican News continue to taunt the victims of rapist Marko Rupnik,’ lamented one Catholic media company.On Thursday the official Vatican media outlet published an article to commemorate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, headed by Rupnik’s depiction of the scene. Vatican News chose to honor the Slovenian priest in this way even though dozens of accusations of sexual abuse have been lodged against Rupnik, who has been expelled from the Jesuit order. The outlet’s decision was immediately decried...

Let's brainstorm a label for Harris. I'll go first:

As the US government weighs its options following a landmark “monopolist” ruling against Google last week, online publications increasingly face a bleak future. (And this time, it’s not just because of severely diminished ad revenue.) Bloomberg reports that their choice now boils down to allowing Google to use their published content to produce inline AI-generated search “answers” or losing visibility in the company’s search engine. The crux of the problem lies in the Googlebot, the crawler that scours and indexes the live web to produce the results you see when you enter search terms. If publishers block Google from using...

EXCLUSIVE — Under Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the state of Minnesota awarded over $2 million to an Islamic group that fundraises for a charity linked to an al Qaeda affiliate, according to funding records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. The Islamic Association of North America, the recipient of the state grants from 2019 to 2024, is fundraising after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year for Rahma Worldwide, a Michigan-based charity that says it is shipping humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to flyers. In a since-deleted Facebook post in October 2023, Rahma Worldwide President Shadi Zaza revealed his charity...

Republican pollster Frank Luntz said early Friday that if he was to give advice to former President Trump, he would tell him “to stop behaving like a petulant child.” “If I were advising him, which I am not, I would look him straight in the eye and say, ‘Sir, you need to shut up. You need to stop behaving like a petulant child, and start focusing on what the American people want, in a way that they want to hear it,’” Luntz said on “CNN This Morning” with anchor Kasie Hunt. Republicans have pushed Trump to focus on policy differences...

Less than a month after announcing his retirement from touring due to serious health issues, Jack Russell, the frontman of Great White, has died. He was 63. “With tremendous sadness, we announce the loss of our beloved Jack Patrick Russell — father, husband, cousin, uncle, and friend,” a post on the singer’s X, formerly Twitter, page on Thursday read. “Jack passed peacefully in the presence of his wife Heather ann Russell, son Matthew Hucko, cousin Naomi Breshears Barbor, and dear friends Billy and Cherly Pawelcik.” White announced his retirement and revealed his health issues on his Facebook page on July...

Kamala Harris finally came out with a policy position. Her prior one was one that she swiped from her opponent, former President Donald Trump — no tax on tips. Her new policy was going after "price gouging" by corporations, saying that she'd crack down on "excessive prices" and "excessive profits." What qualifies as "excessive"? This smacks of the Soviet Union and communism, in addition to being truly bad policy. In the U.S., the government doesn't control/dictate to private companies. Now, what's pretty funny is that the Washington Post recognized this too, in an op-ed entitled: "When your opponent calls you...

[Catholic Caucus] Excommunicated woman ‘priest’ lauded in heterodox Catholic newspaperThe National Catholic Reporter has written sympathetically about ‘Father Anne’s' willingness 'to pay the price’ of excommunication to follow her call’ to the ‘priesthood.’Anne TropeanoThe heterodox National Catholic Reporter (NCR) has described an excommunicated woman who goes by the name “Father Anne” as a “priest” while shining a sympathetic light on her claims to sacramental priesthood.On Friday NCR published a news piece about the hopes of “Father Anne” (Anne Tropeano) — whom the newpaper describes without qualification (or even scare quotes) as a “priest” — that the Catholic Church will allow...