Free Republic

New York City officials plan to reraise a pride flag at the federal monument at Stonewall in Manhattan, setting up a potential fight with the White House at the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement nearly 60 years ago. Federal officials quietly took the flag down after the Trump administration in January issued guidance drastically limiting the types of flags that could be displayed at sites managed by the National Park Service. But Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in an interview Tuesday that he and other New York City-area politicians would reraise the flag at the federal monument...

Nancy Lacore, a former Navy vice admiral who was removed from her post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is challenging statewide fixture Rep. Nancy Mace in South Carolina's 1st District congressional race later this year. Lacore, a native of Albany, New York, was designated a Naval Aviator in 1993 and served numerous roles, notably as the 16th Chief of Navy Reserve on Aug. 23, 2024. As commander of the Navy Reserve Force, she led approximately 59,000 Reserve Component personnel who support the Navy, Marine Corps and joint forces. She is centering her campaign on Pentagon oversight, veterans reform and fiscal...

Investigators have released a surveillance photo showing a potential suspect in the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping investigation on Tuesday, marking a major update in the unusual case. The image was circulated less than a day after a ransom deadline to pay Guthrie’s abductors $6 million in bitcoin passed with no sign of the 84-year-old. The FBI said Monday that it had not identified any suspects in the bizarre kidnapping case, which began ten days ago when Guthrie’s family reported her missing after she did not show up for church and wasn’t at her Tucson home. There has been no evidence Guthrie...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just purchased a mansion located in South Florida’s most exclusive neighborhood, signaling that the multi-billionaire may be permanently moving out of California as the state weighs implementing a one-time 5% “billionaire tax.” Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan purchased an estate located in Indian Creek, on an island off of Miami. Indian Creek is home to about 41 homes owned by the top elite such as Jeff Bezos, Tom Brady, Carl Icahn, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. The two acre property located along Biscayne Bay, which includes several private properties, is estimated to have sold for...

Top Trump border official Rodney Scott said, 'I'm very proud of the service that I provide' Progressive Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., exploded on U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, calling federal immigration officers "thugs" and telling the commissioner he "better hope" for a presidential pardon during a particularly heated House hearing on Tuesday.Thanedar, who is originally from India and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980’s, drilled into Scott, saying, "You better hope you get pardoned because you will be held accountable for the absolute disregard of the law your agencies have shown over the past year."The exchange...

So what does a 2,400-year-old wooden bird that once flew have to do with us today? The answer is more than one might expect.The vision of Archytas fundamentally shaped our world by proving that mechanics is a creative force that could drive humanity forward. He founded the field of mathematical mechanics, bridging the gap between abstract theory and real-world applications through tangible inventions. That ancient pigeon, described by the Roman writer Aulus Gellius as being propelled by a jet of steam, was the ancestor of every modern engine, drone, and robot.Although this may sound like an exaggeration, it truly is...

In 1849, Cayley built his first full-sized glider based on the same designs he created back in 1799, and successfully flew a 10 year old boy on one short flight. In 1853, he built a larger glider and sent his coachman flying 900 feet across a Brompton dale. Some say it was his grandson and not the coachman who took flight. Still others insist it was neither, but the butler instead.

A former Florida police chief said he received a call from Donald Trump in 2006 in which the now-president told him "everyone" knows about the disgraced financier's behaviour, according to an FBI document released in the latest batch of Epstein files.The document is a written record of a 2019 FBI interview with the former Palm Beach police chief, who alleges Trump called him after the department launched an investigation into Epstein and said: "Thank goodness you're stopping him, everyone has known he's been doing this."The officer's name is redacted, but the document identifies the interview subject as the Palm Beach...

Key Points Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday said he supported the SAVE America Act, but that there is not enough support in the Senate to change the filibuster and clear a path for the controversial bill. .The House is expected to vote this week on the legislation, which would require people to prove their citizenship to register to vote and show ID at the ballot box. .GOP hardliners have called for a return to the “standing filibuster,” which requires Congress members to be physically present and talking on the Senate floor to delay legislation.

More than two dozen privacy and advocacy organizations are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to remove a network of covert license plate readers deployed across Southern California that the groups believe feed data into a controversial U.S. Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program that scans the country’s roadways for suspicious travel patterns.“We ask that your administration investigate and release the relevant permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits. An Associated Press investigation published in November revealed that the...

On October 8, 2020, the FBI announced what sounded like the plot of a Hollywood thriller. Thirteen men arrested in a supposed evil plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Cable news went into full panic mode. The phrase “right-wing domestic terrorism” was stamped across every screen in America.And just like that, the narrative was set.But as the years have passed, that fake news storyline has crumbled. Court docs have exposed a stunning level of federal involvement in the alleged plot.Sounds familiar, right? We saw the same “fedsurrection” unfold on January 6th. The FBI certainly has a “style,” don’t they?Court...

Video Transcript SummaryThe transcript is from a discussion (likely an interview or segment involving Rep. Thomas Massie) about redactions in recently released Jeffrey Epstein-related documents from the Department of Justice.The speaker references a document from the 2019 child sex trafficking case (related to Epstein/Maxwell) that listed a CEO as a co-conspirator, with the name redacted.Todd Blanche (Deputy Attorney General) stated the redactions were due to victim names in the document.Blanche indicated the DOJ had just unredacted Les Wexner's name from that specific document, but noted Wexner's name already appears unredacted thousands of times elsewhere in the files, and that the...

t should not come as a surprise to see the Senator who lost her 2010 primary, then refused to leave congress and ran as a write in candidate; then supported changing the state voting system to a ranked choice structure; who then lost again in 2022 but ultimately won because Democrats all listed her as their second choice in the new structure; come out against anything that would lead to stronger voting requirements. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has now pledged to vote against the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act would bar states from registering a person to vote unless they...

While the United States isn't leading in the medal count, Team USA is looking golden at this year's Winter Olympic Games. Team USA has won seven medals so far and two of them are gold. The American team is tied for third place with Japan for total medals. Breezy Johnson won gold in women's downhill skiing on Sunday, becoming only the second American woman to accomplish the feat. It was the first Olympic medal of her career, and the first gold medal for Team USA at this year's Winter Games. She tearfully stood at the podium to accept her gold,...

[Catholic Caucus] Clandestine Ordinations Against Church Law: Lessons from Cardinal Wojtyła and Cardinal SlipyjEditor’s note: in light of the news regarding a probably SSPX consecration of bishops this year and its own probable irregularity, we re-propose this historical question given by our contributing editor, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, several years ago. According to the evidence presented herein, the Sacrament of Holy Orders has been conferred against Church law by two highly respected churchmen of the 20th century. To my knowledge, this important article has never been answered by any of the critics of the SSPX. If you know of any such...

Jamaica's iconic bobsleigh team — which inspired the hit film Cool Runnings — will make its tenth Winter Olympics appearance at Milano Cortina 2026. Nearly four decades on from Jamaica's debut at the 1988 Calgary Olympics that inspired the cult film Cool Runnings, the Caribbean country's bobsledders are now preparing for their tenth Winter Games in Italy. At the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Jamaica will compete in both the women's and men's bobsleigh events between 15 and 22 February. In the women’s monobob, the green, black, and yellow flag will be worn by Mica Moore — a former Great...

A U.S. Olympic curler has become the latest in a trend of American athletes to use the Winter Olympics as a platform to blast President Trump’s policies at home.Rich Ruohonen, 54, a member of the U.S. Olympic curling team and a native of Minnesota, used a considerable chunk of his time in front of reporters on Tuesday to speak out against the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in his home state to rid the streets of criminal illegals.“I’d like to say I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA, and to represent our country. But we’d...

The Seattle Seahawks captured their second Lombardi Trophy on Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium. They defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California. Quarterback Sam Darnold was good enough, completing 19 of his 38 attempts for 202 yards. But his celebration comes with a bittersweet consequence. He’ll actually lose a significant amount of money because California hosted this year’s big event. It is worth noting that Darnold signed a 3-year, $100,500,000 contract with the Seahawks on March 2025. According to Sportico reporter Kurt Badenhausen, the Golden State’s notorious “jock tax” means Darnold will fork over...

I've written this article three times now, going back and forth over how criticizing Turning Point USA (TPUSA) would go over with an audience full of Charlie Kirk fans, myself among them. After surveying social media and talking to a few people, I've decided it needs to be said: TPUSA's alternate halftime show was a fumble, and an ugly one. TPUSA is arguably the most prominent beacon for Gen Z and Gen Alpha conservatives, in other words, people born between 1997 and 2014. When we're looking at this audience, it's safe to say people between the ages of 17 and...

The release of millions of documents from the U.S. State Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files has resulted in scandals and fallout in multiple capitals as the great and the good of politics and high society struggle to justify their relationships with the notorious pedophile. Unfortunately, it has also triggered a massive surge in online antisemitism. At its most extreme, we’ve seen recycled classic antisemitic tropes involving child abuse conspiracies peddled by individuals like Candace Owens. But antisemitism adapts to changing times, and today, the trope of Jewish domination of global media, banking and governments is thinly disguised as attributed to Zionists...