Free Republic

Eight benches recently appeared on curbs in San Francisco, all bearing the DIY-craftsman style of something hammered together in a backyard, from plans pulled off the Internet. Which, in all likelihood, is how the benches were made. No individual has publicly taken credit for this unofficial seating, installed near bus stops in the Mission and throughout the East Bay. Yet each bench has a stencil for the “San Francisco Bay Area Bench Collective” website, referring to a loose group of urbanists and do-gooders who believe their furniture provides a “much-needed” space to rest. To city officials who have to monitor,...

President Trump on Tuesday gleefully needled his longtime foe, New York Dem Sen. Chuck Schumer, by predicting that “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would beat him if she takes him on in 2028. Trump, going off on a tangent during a discussion on the deadly floods that unleashed hell on Texas Hill Country last week, said the Senate minority leader has a penchant for blaming him for crises. “I saw a Palestinian senator, his name is Schumer. He’s a great Palestinian,” Trump said of the pol, who is the highest elected Jewish official in the country. “He’s become a Palestinian, he...

What about her little black book?The 97-page book, contains the names and contact details of almost 2,000 people including world leaders, celebrities and businessmen.No one believes there is not a client list.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is one of many on the right who are questioning the Justice Department’s claim that sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein did not have a client list. An Axios report published on Sunday revealed a memo indicating that the Justice Department and FBI “have concluded they have no evidence that convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered.” “What about her little black book?” Greene asked in a Tuesday post on X. “The 97-page book, contains the names and contact details of almost 2,000 people including world...

A great travel miracle has occurred – and the author, who flies frequently and disgruntledly, couldn’t be more thrilled. The TSA will no longer require airline passengers to remove their shoes when going through security. Shoes on/shoes off has been the bane of every commercial airline passenger’s existence since British terrorist Richard Reid attempted to detonate his shoe bomb on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. Since then, it’s been federal policy to X-ray your Nikes and, repulsively, your flip-flops. Either that threat has passed – or maybe it wasn’t ever that much of a threat. Regardless,...

The largest teachers union in America has voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League — which called the move “profoundly disturbing” as antisemitic attacks in the US are at a record high. The National Education Association, which is also the US’s largest union with more than 3 million members, approved a proposal Sunday to drop the ADL as an education partner, accusing the New York-based Jewish civil rights group of using the term antisemitism to punish any and all criticisms of Israel. “Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil-fuel industry to...

Zohran Mamdani has an odd new Guardian Angel. GOP mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa defended his Democratic socialist foe Zohran Mamdani over his Columbia college admissions scandal — warning the relentless attacks by other rivals will backfire. “Why are we making this an issue?” fumed the Guardian Angels founder in an exclusive interview with The Post. “They are piling on, and now he is a martyr.” SNIP But Sliwa, a political firebrand not typically known for measured responses, warned moderates from focusing too much on such small-potato issues. “Yes, he shouldn’t have put down that he was African American, but it’s...

Ten individuals have been charged for their roles in the shooting of an Alvarado police officer at the Prairieland Detention Center. Today’s announcement was made by Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy E. Larson, Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI R. Joseph Rothrock, and Enforcement Removal Operations Dallas Acting Field Office Director Joshua Johnson. According to a criminal complaint filed today, the defendants, dressed in black military-style clothing, began shooting fireworks at the facility, as part of an organized attack.

A tell-all describes how the war in Gaza loomed over the 2024 campaign and strained Biden’s reelection bidJosh Shapiro’s Judaism was not a factor in Kamala Harris passing him over as a running mate, according to a 2024 election tell-all, contradicting a narrative Republicans eagerly peddled. If anything, Harris rejected Shapiro because they had too much in common — both were former attorneys general who hoped to be president. That and poor chemistry knocked Shapiro out of the running, according to How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by political reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and...

President Donald Trump accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday of talking "bullshit" about Ukraine, saying that the United States would send Kyiv more weapons to defend itself. Trump's expletive reflected his growing frustration with the Kremlin leader over the grinding war that Moscow launched more than three years ago. "We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters during a televised cabinet meeting at the White House."He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless." Trump reiterated that he was "very unhappy"...

Explanation: If you have looked at the sky and seen a group of stars about the size of the full Moon, that's the Pleiades (M45). Perhaps the most famous star cluster in the sky, its brightest stars can be seen even from the light-polluted cities. But your unaided eye can also see its nebulosity -- the gas and dust surrounding it -- under dark skies. However, telescopes can catch even more. The bright blue stars of the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, light up their surrounding dust, causing it to appear a diffuse blue that can only be...

President Trump sure knows how to spoil an economic mood. Three days after he signed the GOP’s big budget bill, saving the economy from a scheduled $4.5 trillion tax increase, Mr. Trump was back playing the role of Tariff Man. On Monday he announced 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea, while adding to renewed will-he-or-won’t-he uncertainty for the U.S. economy and trading partners. In letters to Japan’s Prime Minister and South Korea’s President, Mr. Trump huffs and puffs again about bilateral trade deficits, which he mistakenly thinks are a sign of foreign exploitation. “We must move away from these...

A beloved restaurant in California, that claims the invention of an iconic Los Angeles staple, has announced it will close its doors for good after 117 years as rampant crime continues to wreck havoc in LA. Cole's French Dip, inventor of the French Dip Sandwich, announced it will permanently close on August 3 due to the rampant crime in the area that has been felt by businesses throughout LA. 'After exhaustive deliberation and numerous attempts at last ditch efforts, our beloved Los Angeles institution, Cole's, Originators of the French Dip, has made the difficult decision to close its doors,' a...

King Henry VIII and his iconoclast-in-chief, Thomas Cromwell, would be stunned: Nearly 500 years after the English Reformation, Canterbury Cathedral, the mother church of the Protestant Church of England, will be given over to a Roman Catholic Mass, celebrated by the pope’s own representative in the country in honor of the martyr Thomas Becket, who died in the cathedral in 1170. Not least among the historical oddities of the day will be that the Mass will award those in attendance a plenary indulgence. When Henry broke with Rome in 1535 to create the Church of England, it led to the...

For those that dont want to go to the link.... content as follows.... China’s Ministry of State Security Directed the Theft of COVID-19 Research and the Exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities, Known Publicly as the Indiscriminate ‘HAFNIUM’ Intrusion Campaign

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday that she was unaware of whether the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset — while downplaying a missing minute of prison surveillance footage from the night of his death in 2019. Bondi released the jailhouse footage Monday along with a two-page memo asserting that Epstein kept no “client list” — despite her prior remarks indicating she had such a list “on my desk.” “To him being an [intelligence] agent, I have no knowledge about that. We can get back to you on that,” the AG said during a cabinet...

TRUMP AND PAM BONDI ANSWER QUESTIONS ON EPSTEIN.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shipped thousands of viral samples to a lab in Wuhan over the course of a 10-year program even though it had no formal agreement with the lab in place, according to previously unreported documents. The documents show that USAID funded the exportation of 11,000 samples from Yunnan Province, where some of the closest relatives of the COVID-19 virus circulate, to Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, with no apparent plan for ensuring the samples were not misdirected to bioweapons and remained accessible to the U.S. government. A $210 million USAID public health program...

The Big Beautiful Bill is making waves, and it's bringing some important changes for retirees—especially when it comes to tax deductions. In this video, I'll break down exactly how this new legislation affects retirement savings, tax breaks, and the financial future of retirees by drawing out the various deductions in context with your income. If you're wondering how the Big Beautiful Bill could impact your taxes, pension plans, or deductions, this video is for you! How the New Tax Law Will Actually Affect Your Tax Bill ($6,000 Senior Deductions, Roth, IRA) | 17:31 The Retirement Nerds | 198K subscribers |...

he Supreme Court on Tuesday backed President Donald Trump’s effort to carry out mass firings and reorganizations at federal agencies, putting on hold a lower court order that had temporarily blocked the president from taking those steps without approval from Congress. In an unsigned order, the high court said that lower courts had stopped the plans based on the administration’s general goals, rather than specific agency “reduction in force” efforts to drastically cut government employees. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a member of the court’s liberal wing, dissented. The case stems from an executive order Trump signed in mid-February that kicked...