Free Republic

I embarked on a vanity project to record some of my chess games against Shredder, my cell phone app. The games are recorded in algebraic notation, but I prefer the traditional English descriptive notation, so I asked ChatGPT to make the conversion. It kept correcting itself through multiple iterations. I finally had to stop it. I turned to Grok to get the conversion done. It seemed to work, so I asked Grok to illustrate the game with board positions at critical points in the game. It turned into a major league fail on steroids. I won't bore you with the...

Apparently, we can finally talk about it in the mainstream media. For years, we were censored, called names, and polls were done asking people whether we belonged in concentration camps. Half of Democrats believed it should be a criminal offense to question the efficacy of the vaccine. Seriously. Almost half of Democrats once believed that if you were a vaccine skeptic, you belonged in a camp and should have your children taken away. One of my own family members believed that. Other findings from the poll:Other punitive measures in the same pollFrom the same survey, with Democrat shares described in...

Back in late January, we reported on how House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (KY-01) announced that the committee was going to be looking into the sudden wealth of Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05).It was revealed at the time that her husband, purported venture capitalist Tim Mynett, "went from nearly broke to being worth up to $30 million in just a year, according to her 2024 disclosure forms."Specifically, Comer noted that "There are a lot of questions as to how her husband accumulated so much wealth over the past two years. It’s not possible. It’s not. I’m a money guy....

[Catholic Caucus] Has the Merciful Approach to Anti-Catholic Errors Worked for the Church?For centuries, the Catholic Church boldly condemned error to safeguard truth and souls. But beginning with Vatican II, a dramatic shift took place—away from doctrinal clarity and toward a new “pastoral” approach rooted in mercy over judgment. From Pius IX’s Quanta Cura to today’s Synod on Synodality, this article examines whether that shift preserved the Church… or helped unleash the very crisis now engulfing it.Blessed Pius IX began his 1864 encyclical “condemning certain errors,” Quanta Cura, with a paragraph that made it perfectly clear that he understood the...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran state media says its nuclear facilities were attacked Friday, just hours after Israel threatened to "escalate and expand" its campaign against Tehran. IRNA reports that a heavy-water plant and yellowcake production plant were struck. Yellowcake is concentrated form of uranium after impurities are removed from the raw ore. Heavy water is used as a moderator in nuclear reactors. Word of the attacks came after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed talks on ending the war were going well and gave Tehran more time to open the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has given no sign...

MARCH 26, 2026 – Population growth slowed in a majority of the nation’s 3,143 counties and the District of Columbia between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, according to the Vintage 2025 population estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.Among the 2,066 counties that grew between 2023 and 2024, nearly 8 in 10 saw their growth slow or reverse direction in 2025. In many cases, counties already in decline saw losses accelerate.Meanwhile, 310 of the 387 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (metro areas) had slower growth between 2024 and 2025 than during the prior year. The three metro areas...

🚨 JUST IN: The Idaho Legislature has PASSED legislation enacting CRIMINAL penalties if a man goes into a women's restroom under the guise of transgenderism That's right, CRIMINAL penalties for the transgender cult! Do it in all 50 states 🔥

Pope Leo honors new female pro-abortion ‘archbishop’ of CanterburyTo pretend that this is somehow a blessed vocation and praise Mullally in it and invoke God's blessing and the inspiration of the Blessed Virgin Mary on it is unspeakably evil.Pope Leo XIV has issued a congratulatory letter to Sarah Mullally – the first woman ever appointed “archbishop of Canterbury” and a vocal supporter of abortion and the LGBT agenda. In the letter, Leo praises Mullally’s “weighty” responsibilities, and explicitly invokes the Blessed Virgin Mary as a source of “inspiration” for her new role.The March 20, 2026 message, published on the Vatican...

World War III will break out if US President Donald Trump "continues his insane course of criminally changing political regimes," the deputy chairman of Russia's powerful Security Council said Monday. Speaking in an interview with the Russian state news agency Tass, Dmitry Medvedev described Washington's actions as "a war by the US and its allies to preserve global dominance." "If Trump continues his insane course of criminally changing political regimes, it will undoubtedly begin. And any event could be the trigger. Any event," he warned. According to Medvedev's assessment, the vulnerability of US and Israeli officials "has significantly increased" since...

A majority of the American public, polls suggest, have been against the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign in Iran from the day it started. Republicans, however, have largely stuck by their president as the war approaches the end of its fourth week. But that may be changing. At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas, some of the party faithful expressed concern about why the US started this war, how Donald Trump is going to end it and whether the effort has been worth the costs. "I just wish that there was more transparency on why we're doing what...

“The White House and the Pentagon are considering sending at least 10,000 additional combat troops to the Middle East in the coming days, according to a senior U.S. defense official. Why it matters: If the Trump administration decides to send extra troops, it will significantly increase the number of combat soldiers the U.S. has in the region. It is another signal that a U.S. ground operation in Iran is being seriously prepared.”

James Tolkan, the character actor who expressed a disdain for “slackers” in the Back to the Future trilogy and portrayed Tom Cruise’s no-nonsense commanding officer in Top Gun, has died. He was 94. Tolkan died Thursday in Saranac Lake, New York, a family spokesperson announced. Tolkan also played Napoleon and his look-alike in Woody Allen’s Love and Death (1975) and was the crooked accountant known as Numbers who works for Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino) in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990). He appeared in three movies directed by Sidney Lumet: as a cop in the Pacino-starring Serpico (1973), as a...

Progressive Congresswoman and member of The Squad, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), called for “some form of reparation” to be paid to illegal immigrants for the alleged “trauma” inflicted by ICE agents during President Trump’s nationwide deportation campaign. It remains astonishing that Democrats label funding the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies as a waste of taxpayer dollars, yet have no issue using public funds to provide reparations to individuals who broke the law by entering the country illegally.

Below is the transcript of a speech I gave at a Net Zero Watch event in Edinburgh on 9 March 2026: . Good evening, and thank you for inviting me to speak today. Scotland is often described as an electricity superpower. Not only is that not true, the Scottish grid is actually extremely vulnerable, being held together by just two power stations: Peterhead and Torness. So critical is this dependence that the National Energy System Operator, NESO, will not allow both to go on maintenance at the same time. Yet within the next 5-6 years both could close. Today I’m...

Emmy award-winning director Marina Zenovich's Water & Power: A California Heist, a National Geographic documentary film executive produced by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney, unfolds like a real-life version of the 1974 film noir "Chinatown," uncovering the exploits of California's notorious water barons, who profit off the state's resources while citizens endure a debilitating water crisis.

***** Tunes For Our Troops The Freeper Canteen Music Dedication Presents: ~ Easter Warm-Up Music ~ ***** ~ Support The Artists You Hear Throughout The Canteen! ~ ***** Warning: Not all music may be appropriate for children! Please click with caution. Thank you! Tunes For The Troops This music is provided for the entertainment of our Troops, Veterans, Allies & their families! Enjoy the variety of musical selections that the Canteen DJs provide throughout the thread. Please ping any DJ with your requests for the Troops! All music is removed on Monday.Thanks to all the DJs for their time...

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Surveillance video captured thieves pocketing merchandise inside a Home Depot in California – part of a group investigators say is linked to more than $10 million in stolen merchandise. That includes arrests made right here metro Atlanta, Channel 2’s Michael Seiden reports. Investigators say this operation stretched across the country with millions in stolen goods. The man caught on surveillance stuffed his jacket with electrical breakers, each one worth about $100. During the same visit, he used a long pole to pull down boxes of electrical equipment from high shelves. When those items are locked up,...

I spent 23 plus years on the military and during that time we had extensive training on many aspects of nuclear material handling, especially before 91. One of the tools made aware to all was the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). This isn't necessarily a military unit but the make up of the team is dictated by the situation. I'd bet dollars to donuts that we may have a NEST (or two), accompanied by some type of SF inside Iran trying to secure the gayahtollah's nuke stash. What say you?

Newly-unclassified documents show that in 2022 Ukrainian officials discussed diverting hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars -- earmarked for clean energy -- back to Biden's ill-fated 2024 campaign. There is no evidence the intercepted allegations were investigated during the Biden administration. intelligence intercepted Ukrainian government communications discussing a plot to route hundreds of millions of American tax dollars earmarked for clean energy in the war-torn country and move them to the United States to enrich then-President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee, according to a declassified intelligence report summarizing the intercepts that was obtained by...

Russia is getting an unexpected windfall from the war in the Middle East. The Kremlin’s oil revenues this month hit a four-year high as oil prices jumped to $100 per barrel amid the Iran war and the de facto closed Strait of Hormuz. Moscow expects so much additional revenues from the oil price spike that authorities are unlikely to downgrade Russia’s economic prospects, hold off on planned budget cuts, and even boost military spending on the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. A month ago, Russia was considering lowering the oil price level above...