Free Republic

Yesterday evening I killed a skunk in my backyard and left it to be picked up this morning. I set my trail camera out because when I killed a skunk previously, it was gone by morning and I was hoping it would happen again.Sure enough, it was gone but no photos on the camera. There was a brief blur but nothing else.This is a mystery to me and the only thing I can think of is that an owl might have swooped in and snatched it up.Any thoughts? I know the camera was working because later last night it captured...

The Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia worked for a Saudi government-controlled school just after 9/11, at a time when the Islamic academy was already controversial for being controlled by the Saudi royal family and for its extremist textbooks which taught hatred of non-Muslims. Abigail Spanberger, a former Democratic congresswoman from Virginia, is currently the favorite to be the state’s next governor, according to polling averages. When it was revealed during her first congressional run in 2018 that she had worked for the Islamic Saudi Academy in northern Virginia during the 2002-2003 school year, Spanberger said that she was “proud” and...

The Engines of Wealth: From Conquest to CodePreface: Understanding the DNA of Human ActionHuman history is shaped by the tension between constant biological drives and changing social environments. Across centuries, people have sought the same essentials — food, clothing, shelter, and security — yet the mechanisms to achieve them have evolved dramatically. Civilizations rise and fall not because human nature changes, but because the systems that organize labor, energy, and capital shift in response to crisis, innovation, and opportunity.This essay traces three transformative forces that have repeatedly restructured societies and economies: war, which expanded wealth through conquest; plague, which redistributed...

Antifa activists are hosting a three-day training conference for fellow antifascists in Philadelphia this week, despite Democrats insisting that antifa is not an organization. The annual Philly Skillshare Convergence will occur over the coming Friday through Sunday, according to an advertisement circulating in antifa circles. So-called “skillshares” are educational sessions where activists gather to learn street-level strategies, often militant in nature. This year’s skillshare in Philadelphia is slated to offer a series of hourlong workshops, including a lesson on evading law enforcement and eluding capture.

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Greta Thunberg will be deported from Israel, where she is currently being detained in a bedbug-infested holding cell, on a Greek government-funded flight after her failed attempt to breach the maritime blockade around the Gaza Strip with an aid flotilla. The 22-year-old Swedish climate activist is set to leave the Jewish state on Monday aboard a flight from Ramon Airport to Athens, alongside 27 activists from Greece who were among hundreds that took part in the coordinated Global Sumud Flotilla, YnetNews reported. About 170 flotilla activists have already been deported back to their home countries. Thunberg’s boat was one of...

[H/T bitt] ~~~ QuotesNunes: "...in August of 2016. In the Obama Whitehouse, with Biden and a bunch of other cast of characters there including Comey, including Brennan, where they are told by Brennan that, 'Hey, there's a hoax going on.' .... the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC are looking to frame President Trump, or at that time, Candidate Trump, with this Clinton email scandal, if and when these emails come out, they wanted to make it look like it was the Trump campaign was working with Putin. They knew that in August of '16." Nunes: "...The other important date...

A 14-year-old girl died just days after she had a boob job and butt lift without her father’s knowledge — with her mom’s plastic-surgeon boyfriend now under investigation for possible negligent homicide, according to reports. Paloma Nicole Arellano Escobedo died Saturday in a hospital in Durango, Mexico, after being in a coma with a swollen brain and heart problems following the secret surgery a week earlier, according to local newspaper El Siglo de Durango. “At the funeral, some relatives told me her breasts were larger than what she had before, and when I mentioned it to her mother, she told...

Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has slammed the Trump administration for using federalized National Guard troops from Texas to 'invade' liberal states. In a late night X post on Sunday, Pritzker revealed 400 members of the Texas National Guard will be deployed to Illinois and Oregon, among other locations, to deal with anti-ICE protesters and Trump's so-called war on crime. 'We must now start calling this what it is: Trump's Invasion,' Pritzker said. 'No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate. 'It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the...

Some estimates suggest that half of all white-collar jobs will disappear as artificial intelligence advances. How will older white-collar workers displaced in the AI revolution fare? Our recent book, “American Idle: Late-Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era,” summarizes interviews we conducted with 62 baby boomers who lost their white-collar jobs during another unemployment crisis: the 2008 Great Recession and its sluggish recovery. Statistics show that workers over age 50 experienced the highest rates of long-term joblessness. Their layoffs also coincided with a precarious stage of the life course: “too young to retire but too old to start all over,”...

As winter approaches, the conditions in the already deprived Druze villages of southern Syria are only expected to deteriorate further. Efforts for Damascus and Jerusalem to reach a security pact are reported to depend on the Syrian Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham government’s willingness to allow a humanitarian corridor into the province of Sweida, where a crisis has unfolded after months of massacres, attacks, and blockades by HTS and state-backed Bedouin groups. Members of the community told The Jerusalem Post that over 2,500 people were murdered in the violence, 291,000 people displaced, and more than 250 abducted, including women and children. Homes...

ICE Spokesman: PORTLAND — Refuse to walk? We’ll give you a ride.

(The Center Square) – Three Muslim men have been charged in connection to a shooting at a youth baseball complex in Katy, Texas, a suburb west of Houston. Shots were fired into the Ameripark youth baseball field, known as “The Rac,” when a youth baseball tournament was being played. Video obtained by KPRC 2 NBC News shows adults and children running away from the fields; “12-year-old Texas Colts players in light blue jerseys [were] running frantically for cover as bullets flew past them,” the news outlet reported. A 27-year-old coach was struck in the shoulder, taken to the hospital and...

More than a third of the world's population is affected by metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD, the most common chronic liver disease in the world. MASLD occurs when fat builds up in the liver and is associated with one or more of five conditions: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and low HDL cholesterol, known as "good" cholesterol. These conditions are characterized as cardiometabolic risk factors because they affect the heart or metabolism. MASLD can lead to serious illness, such as advanced liver, heart and kidney disease, but little research has been done to...

SNL sketch referencing Pete Hegseth, 2025 In October 2025, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch referencing Pete Hegseth’s fiery remarks at a major military gathering. The comedic portrayal attempted to lampoon the atmosphere surrounding his address, but for those who have lived and served within the disciplined culture of the U.S. Armed Forces, the nuances of that moment carried a deeper strategic weight. What many viewers saw as political theater, warriors understood as a disciplined silence under authority. Political humor has long served as both a mirror and a pressure valve in American society. In a democracy, satire often reveals...

A team of researchers explored the cellular and molecular interactions revealing how lymph nodes play a crucial role in the fight against chronic infection and cancer. The research showed that lymph nodes provide the right environment for stem-like T cells, an important type of immune cell, to survive, multiply and produce killer cells that can fight cancer or viruses. In other immune organs, such as the spleen, these cells don't develop or proliferate as effectively, making lymph nodes essential for a strong immune response and successful immunotherapy. Professor Axel Kallies said the findings have important implications for cancer therapy. "Lymph...

A research team has shown in a new randomized clinical trial that a low dose of aspirin halves the risk of recurrence after surgery in patients with colon and rectal cancer with a certain type of genetic alteration in the tumor. Every year, nearly two million people worldwide are diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Between 20 and 40% develop metastases. Previous observational studies have suggested that aspirin may reduce the risk of certain cancers and possibly also the risk of recurrence after surgery in patients with colorectal cancer harboring mutations in genes within the PIK3 signaling pathway. These genes regulate key...

As a former so-called Swiftie, it stinks to watch the once-precocious pop star devolve into musical drivel that’s at best banal and at worst agonizing.I didn’t think the bar for Taylor Swift albums could get any lower than “Tortured Poets Department.” Then she released “The Life of a Showgirl,” and I can’t stop cringing.I take no pleasure in hating the new album. I’m not one of those cantankerous Gen Xers who lives to tell the youths that music peaked in the ’80s and that there will never be talent like fill-in-the-blank artist who happened to hit the scene just as...

It seems hardly a day goes by without some sort of attack or attempted attack, and not even houses of worship are excluded from the target lists of various wackos. On Sunday morning, a possible terror attack on Washington, D.C.'s St. Matthew's Cathedral was thwarted with the arrest of a man outside the cathedral. The man was in possession of what appeared to be fireworks and "vials of liquids."A man was arrested outside of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle Sunday morning before Red Mass started, according to D.C. police.Officers were assigned at the cathedral early Sunday morning for...

Could cocoa extract supplements rich in cocoa flavanols reduce inflammation and, in turn, prevent age-related chronic diseases? In a new study from the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), investigators looked at changes in five age-related markers of inflammation among participants who received daily cocoa supplements over several years. They found that hsCRP—an inflammatory marker that can signal increased risk of cardiovascular disease—decreased in participants taking the cocoa extract supplement, suggesting its anti-inflammatory potential may help explain its heart-protective effects. Nutritional interventions have become an increasingly attractive solution for slowing inflammatory aging, so-called "inflammaging." Cocoa extract has been shown...