Free Republic

@SenRandPaul Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people. 7/29 at 10 AM

"People don't use it to make serious trades, they don't use it to buy their dinner and pay at the supermarket...What it does is allows crooks to move money around..."

IVBWF YNAXU. UMNBC ZVUFA. NU’X UMF BVUDAVZ JAIFA. —XVGDFZ KFWCFUU

Furious Napa Valley vineyards facing oblivion as crucifying new fees drop: ‘Can see where this ends’ California’s Napa Valley is fermenting into a full-blown revolt as furious vineyard owners warn a new fee could leave them paying tens of thousands of dollars a year — the latest financial punch threatening to crush the struggling wine industry. Farmers across the iconic Northern California enclave say they are staring down financial disaster as the state moves to crucify them for their use of groundwater. Under a new law coming into effect later this summer, wineries will have to pay just under $99...

NASA is racing to save an aging telescope from falling back to Earth with a daring rescue mission. The $30 million salvage operation gets underway as soon as this week with the planned launch of a robotic lifesaver. NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue hunting for some of the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will chase after Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands aboard an airplane-launched Pegasus rocket. Liftoff could occur as early as Tuesday. Scanning...

Nice to see the UK has its priorities right. Britons have been ordered to remove air conditioning from their homes - despite the country baking in up to 40C heat this week - under a fresh Net Zero crackdown. Planning officials at councils have told residents to take down their cooling units over concerns about carbon dioxide emissions. They say AC, despite the heat, should serve only as a 'last resort'. But not enough of a "last resort" to, you know, keep you from roasting to death, apparently. Instead, authorities ordered citizens to exhaust all other forms of avoiding heat...

@OcrazioCornPop Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) just gaveled in her SECOND pro forma session in two days for @LeaderJohnThune, BLOCKING work on the SAVE America Act AND Trump's recess appointments! The Senate is OFF FOR 19 DAYS! SHOULDN'T @realDonaldTrump use Article II Section 3 and CALL THEM BACK NOW TO Pass the SAVE AMERICA ACT!?

John Stockwell, who publicly resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency in 1977, accusing it of deceit and illegality, after a career as a covert operative in Vietnam and Africa, died this month in Austin, Texas. He was 88. .... Mr. Stockwell’s break with the C.I.A. — during a period when several former officers published damning exposés of what was informally known as “the Company” — was public and showy. His resignation letter ran in The Washington Post. He wrote a tell-all book, “In Search of Enemies” (1978), which the C.I.A. sought to suppress. He was interviewed on the CBS news...

The United Nations International School, a private school for the children of employees of the global body, canceled an end-of-year school dance after students wrote antisemitic and homophobic messages in each other’s yearbooks. The incident occurred during yearbook distribution to M4 students, the school’s eighth-grade class, last week. Administrators at the school were alerted by the early afternoon that hate speech, including swastikas and antisemitic and homophobic remarks, had been written in the autograph sections of multiple yearbooks, according to emails sent to parents and staff, which JNS viewed. The school immediately confiscated as many yearbooks as it could and...

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. (CBS12) — A Florida woman was arrested Tuesday after deputies say she removed her pants, spat on a deputy, and was struck by a deputy during a confrontation. According to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to the Texaco gas station at 101 Ponce De Leon Blvd. around 2 p.m. after receiving reports of a disorderly woman causing a disturbance outside the business. Deputies say employees reported that 33-year-old Iesha Field was yelling at customers, behaving erratically, and disrupting the business. Employees requested that she be trespassed from the property, and deputies issued a trespass warning....

The false Sullivan had never previously affiliated with the Republican party until his decision to run against the incumbent Dan Sullivan. He employed a consultant who is a well known supporter of Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the same office.

When American and Israeli warplanes struck Iran on Feb. 28, Israeli officials let themselves believe the alliance was entering a golden age. Four months later, they are bracing for a future where Israel stands more alone than ever. The vice president of the United States set the stage last week, telling Israel it has almost no friends left in the world, and that it should think hard before turning on the one it has. But the problem for Israel is much bigger than JD Vance, according to seven people, including U.S. and Israeli officials and others familiar with the relationship....

The loud radicals are easy to identify. They openly criticize capitalism. Whether one agrees with them or not, at least they are honest about what they espouse. The greater danger comes from what I call the Trojan Horse Politicians. These are the polished, camera-ready public officials who rarely describe themselves as radicals. They speak instead of “fairness,” “equity,” “compassion,” “democracy,” and “reimagining” institutions to reassure you that they’re not radical. Their rhetoric is designed to be reassuring. Their tone and presentation is carefully crafted to appear moderate and pragmatic, even when a student of history knows differently.

This is a short excerpt on Free Republic's entry in Grokipedia. It far outclasses Wikipedia's perverted, overly long entry. Read the whole entry at the link. I did. And I approve. "Free Republic is a moderated online forum and discussion platform founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson, a private citizen and computer programmer from Fresno, California, serving as a gathering place for self-identified conservatives to post links to news articles and participate in commentary ..."

HEMXM LXM HQP ZYDJG PC TKGYW. IPPJ TKGYW, LDJ HEM PHEMX ZYDJ. —JKZM MOOYDIHPD

FADEL: So, Emma, you've been reporting this out. Are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting married at Madison Square Garden on July Fourth weekend? FITZSIMMONS: They have booked the Garden for July 3. We believe this could be a large reception with, you know, more than 500 guests. It's possible that they could exchange their vows in advance of that. But they're having a big party a week from today at Madison Square Garden. FADEL: But fans are skeptical. They'll believe it when they see it. There's another rumor that maybe, instead of a wedding, Taylor Swift might be planning...

Andrew and Tristan Tate have lost a legal bid to be told the names of their UK accusers, which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have withheld to remove the risk they could be made public.

I had a conversation today with a Southwest agent as I'm cancelling my SW credit card. Told her that the renewal fee was too high ($200+) and that with recent changes there was no difference IMO between them and the other carriers and she had great reasons to stay with them. First, all their Call Center agents are Americans and located in the states. Second, all of their airplanes are American made, Boeing 737s and that they were in a process to replace existing fleet with new and pointed out other carriers using foreign purchased planes. Anyway, we're going to...

This year, Cadillac introduced the 2026 CT5-V Blackwing F1 Collector Series, celebrating the brand's first Grand Prix in the USA. It's not a phone-in special edition either. In addition to special design features, Cadillac added a new supercharger that ups the power to 685 hp and 673 lb-ft of torque. Only 26 will be built, and it's guaranteed to increase in value. The standard car is already the last of its kind, and this is by far the gnarliest version of it.

A federal judge declared a mistrial for the man accused of deliberately igniting the Palisades Fire after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Jonathan Rinderknecht was arrested in October 2025 and charged with destruction of property by means of fire, and he pleaded not guilty after being charged in the Palisades Fire in January 2025. Ten of the California jurors thought Rinderknecht was not guilty, while two thought he was. "The evidence is strong that Jonathan Rinderknecht is responsible for igniting the fire on January 1, 2025, which eventually became the Palisades fire," United States Attorney Bill Essayli said...