Free Republic

As ordinary Venezuelans dig their neighbors out of their monster two-earthquake rubble with their hands, the Venezuelan government is doing all it can to sit on its hands, loot the victims, obstruct the rescue teams, harass the aid givers, block the reporters, and hide the body count. It's a foul picture, but one incident stands out: #AHORA | Parte de la delegación de rescatistas de EEUU enfrenta a Diosdado Cabello y le reclama porque le están saboteando sus esfuerzos de rescatar a las víctimas. “¿No quieres que vaya y ayude a la persona que está allí?”. pic.twitter.com/TzuSG3WKzM — Orlando Avendaño...

President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed U.S. Rep. John James, who is running for governor in Michigan."It is my Great Honor to endorse America First Congressman, John James, who is running to become the next Governor of the Beautiful State of Michigan!" the president declared in part of a Truth Social post. "John James has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of Michigan — HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!"James thanked Trump, calling him "The greatest President of my lifetime" in social media posts.

Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count mail ballots that are cast by Election Day but arrive later, rejecting a GOP challenge to Mississippi law's for late-arriving ballots.In the closely watched election dispute known as Watson v. Republican National Committee, the high court split 5 to 4 in finding that Mississippi's measure does not conflict with federal statutes that set Election Day as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in certain years.Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices to uphold Mississippi's...

Street preachers Richard Penkoski and David Grisham allege Fort Worth police officers violated their First Amendment rights during Trinity Pride Fest on June 27 by preventing them from preaching on public streets and sidewalks surrounding the event and later issuing one of them a citation for disorderly conduct related to noise. ... Video of the encounter spread quickly on X after Carlos Turcios of The Dallas Express posted footage from the event. By Monday morning, the post appeared as the No. 2 item in X’s News category, according to a screenshot reviewed by The Dallas Express. Elon Musk replied to...

Ford said it leaned too hard on artificial intelligence for vehicle quality control and has spent the past three years hiring 350 veteran engineers to fix the resulting problems, the company said this week. Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said the company had misjudged what AI alone could deliver. "Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product," he told reporters. Many of the company's most experienced engineers had left Ford before their knowledge could be used, BBC reported. The automated quality...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A woman judge has ruled that being late is "totally fine." In one of the most predictable rulings in years, a lady judge wrote in the majority opinion that it's okay to run late because women might need to powder their noses or do other woman things. "We as a society must allow for being late because sometimes women have to change dresses or re-curl their hair," explained lady judge Amy Coney Barrett. "America cannot be governed by the rigid tyranny of calendars or clocks, but instead must follow the needs of females who are trying to...

Explanation: Why is the Cigar Galaxy billowing red smoke? M82, as this starburst galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81. This doesn't fully explain the source of the red-glowing outwardly expanding gas and dust, however. Evidence indicates that this gas and dust is being driven out by the combined emerging particle winds of many stars, together creating a galactic superwind. The dust particles are thought to originate in M82's interstellar medium and are actually similar in size to particles in cigar smoke. The featured photographic mosaic combines images taken in visible...

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating whether Hampshire Police’s wrongful arrest of white murder victim Henry Nowak was influenced by nearby anti-immigration protests.

In two unanimous decisions Monday, the state Supreme Court ruled that the effort violated the “single subject” requirement in the state constitution The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday threw out a trio of ballot measures that aimed to redraw the state’s congressional map and give Democrats three more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, removing Colorado from the nationwide battle over redistricting and delivering a victory to Republicans. The initiatives, funded by a group linked to U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, would have temporarily paused the state’s independent redistricting process, which voters added to...

Bill Maher discovers America is a great place to live thanks to videos from European and Japanese soccer fans. But, true to form, he can't appreciate the silver lining, he has to point out the black cloud.

The personal relationship between Jefferson and Adams had soured under the weight of political rivalry—exacerbated by the brutal campaign of 1800. For years after the election, the two men remained estranged. The physician and mutual friend Benjamin Rush played a pivotal role in bringing the two former friends back together. Encouraged by Rush, Jefferson and Adams began corresponding in 1812, initiating a remarkable exchange of letters that spanned 14 years and addressed topics ranging from politics and philosophy to their reflections on aging and legacy. Through this correspondence, Jefferson and Adams confronted their differences—both political and personal—with candor and a...

47, on June 10 in Chambers County, Alabama, about 125 miles from his home in Macon, Georgia. The autopsy and investigation showed that “the female victim was strangled, and it appears the male was attempting to dispose of the body in a remote location,” Mike Segrest told Al.com. “He died of a heart attack while doing it,” Segrest said. “Their bodies were right there together.” Authorities believe Folds’ murder was the result of a domestic dispute, but it was not known where the strangulation took place. The bodies were found just a few miles from where the murdered mom lived.

The bizarre string of incidents, which began on June 13 in the municipality of Lagos de Moreno, has left authorities investigating at least five cases over a span of 10 days. VIDEOS AT LINK......................... Photos shared on X show some of the men with moustaches and cat whiskers drawn on their faces. A mysterious vigilante known online as the "Mexican Batman" or the "Batman of Lagos de Moreno" has become the subject of a police manhunt in Jalisco, Mexico, after allegedly hunting down suspected motorcycle thieves, beating them, and duct-taping them to street lampposts. The bizarre string of incidents, which...

Former President Obama has frequently and falsely asserted that his administration had no scandals. His recently opened eight-story Presidential Library took $850 million to build. Chicago's much more impressive 100-story Trump International Tower also took $850 million to build. As is normal for Democrats buying stuff, many of the contractors who worked on Obama's Library have not been paid. Obama pointed out that "we promised that building this structure would provide jobs and it did. It is not the fault of the Obama Foundation that the funds ran out before everyone could be paid. Considering the historic nature of my...

The left has their pro-terrorist One Battle After Another, an overlong, mediocre, $100 million studio movie told by a major director (Paul Thomas Anderson) using one of the world’s biggest movie stars (Leonardo DiCaprio). The result? It flopped at the box office and was still predictably showered with unearned critical praise and major Oscar wins. Basically, One Battle After Another is angry that America enforces the law by deporting illegal immigrants and demands violence against the government to make it stop. Today we have a rebuttal, and a pretty effective one… Best of all, it’s deliciously subversive. Citizen Vigilante is...

The American flag: To some, it’s Old Glory. To others, it’s a MAGA hat on a stick. To fly or not to fly an American flag? That was never a question for Bruce Watson, who has put his national pride on display for years — and nudges neighbors in his small New England town to do the same. “I’m very proud of our flag,” the writer said. “It’s the symbol of ‘We, the People.’” But as the polarized nation marks its 250th birthday, Watson, 72, worries his Stars and Stripes may now need an asterisk. “If we do fly the...

Archaeologists have uncovered six previously unknown Bronze Age mining sites in Extremadura in southwestern Spain. The discoveries were made during a February survey led by researchers from the Maritime Encounters program at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. These sites could help answer a long-standing question about where the metal used in Scandinavian Bronze Age artifacts originally came from.Fieldwork took place from February 9 to 16 in the region surrounding Cabeza del Buey in the province of Badajoz. The project was carried out in partnership with the Universidad de Sevilla and specialists from the Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Badajoz.Researchers documented...

Vladimir Putin has admitted Russia is facing fuel shortages as Ukraine steps up its long-range drone campaign, with repeated strikes setting oil refineries ablaze and forcing multiple regions to introduce unprecedented petrol rationing. Speaking to Russian state television late on Sunday, the Russian president acknowledged for the first time that Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure were affecting domestic fuel supplies. “Of course, they create problems, that’s obvious,” Putin said. “Right now we’re observing a certain shortage, but it’s not critical.” Putin said Moscow would seek to ease the shortages by boosting fuel imports, while redoubling efforts to protect refineries from...

During the Biden years, Kash Patel accused Jan. 6 provocateur Ray Epps of being a federal asset. Referring to the fact that Epps was taken off the FBI’s Most Wanted list in early 2021, Patel said there was only two ways someone could get off that list—either they died or they’re working for the government. Now that he’s FBI director, Patel has gone silent on Epps. But a New Jersey investigative journalist is trying to force disclosure with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.Miller filed his lawsuit after the FBI denied him those records on...

A Paris official has said she holds the US partially responsible for the record-breaking heatwave in France. The comments were made as part of a scathing rebuke to American tourists, immigrants and expats who have been criticising France for its lack of air conditioning across the country. Over the past week, the transatlantic discourse online has also been heating up, with some Americans – many living in desert and tropical climes in the southern US – mocking the French and Western Europeans for not being able to withstand temperatures to which they are accustomed to every year. “Dear American journalists...