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Just one of many JD Vance memes making the rounds. AI generated but pretty funny.

@JamesOKeefeIII Regardless of what you think of him, this will always be one of the most powerful speeches in the history of the Senate. Back in 2018 when this happened, friends of mine who were not political teared up after watching this.

Last week, the Television Academy announced its 78th Emmy nominations, and Taylor Sheridan's entire slate got the reception you'd give a telemarketer. “Landman,” Paramount+'s flagship drama with Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott, walked away with nothing. “The Madison,” led by Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, got nothing either. Sheridan's grand total across two of the most watched shows on television: one nomination, for stunt coordination on “Tulsa King.” Meanwhile Ryan Murphy's “All's Fair,” a show even its own network calls critically panned, picked up two nods. I coached high school track and field for years. If a kid runs...

Representative Thomas Massie on Friday questioned why Republicans continue to emphasize widespread election fraud even as the party holds total governing power across Washington, calling it a contradiction at the heart of the GOP's message. “I mean, we won all the damn elections and we’re in charge,” he said. “And what are we doing with it? We're bankrupting the country, we're starting new wars, we're violating the Constitution. We're not cracking down on the fraud."

At least 100 members of the last sitting Congress, are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people, representing at least 8% of Democrats in Congress and 28% of Republicans. The group includes Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and James Lankford, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president except Donald Trump are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.Governors of 11 of the 50 U.S. states in 2022 were descendants of slaveholders, as were two U.S. Supreme...

A welder miraculously walked away after his car exploded in a quiet New Jersey suburb on Monday morning — waking up residents to debris flying into their homes, according to authorities. A 28-year-old man was inside his vehicle on Congressional Lane in Totowa, about 20 miles from Manhattan, around 5:30 a.m. when it was suddenly blown apart, the Totowa Police Department said in a statement. The man was able to escape from the wrecked vehicle on his own and was taken to a local hospital for treatment and observation, cops said. The victim, who is a welder, was alert and...

Medicare and Medicaid are losing billions of taxpayer dollars to criminals because they can’t keep pace with their high-tech scams, a Post investigation has found. International criminal networks employ hackers who steal sensitive patient data then sell it on the dark web or use it to then bill for fake medical equipment or services in people’s names. Scammers even use AI voice bots to coax info out of seniors on the phone, posing as US healthcare workers, often from thousands of miles away in Europe or Asia. They use the same techniques on the insurance companies, with one Philippines-based outfit...

A same-sex couple in Ontario has sued their surrogate mother after she refused to abort their baby diagnosed with a cleft lip, a relatively minor and easily correctable condition with surgery. The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court in May, seeks approximately $600,000 in damages. It alleges the surrogate failed to keep the couple informed about the baby’s health, put the child at risk, failed to follow their directions on medical care, violated confidentiality and caused one parent serious emotional distress. The conflict began in late June 2024 when an ultrasound at about 22 weeks showed the baby had a...

The Democratic Party is at war with itself — and in Maine, the fight has spilled into the open. Graham Platner, an alleged rapist with a Nazi tattoo on his chest, won the Democratic nomination for United States Senate last month, beating the candidate the party establishment had recruited by a commanding 53-point margin. For months, Republicans and others had warned that Platner was unfit for the job. The Democrats did not care. As soon as party leaders saw polling that suggested he could beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November they embraced him, hosting him in Washington, DC, and...

Roger Stone repostedVoices of WW2@VoicesofWW2·Jul 12On this day in 1944, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died in his sleep in a stone farmhouse in Normandy. He was 56 years old, and he had spent almost his entire adult life trying to be worthy of a famous last name.He was the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. In the First World War he went to France and was gassed and badly wounded at Soissons leading his men. That same summer his younger brother Quentin, a pilot, was shot down and killed over France. Ted came home with lungs and a leg that never...

POLK COUNTY, Fla. — Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) said a Lakeland middle school assistant director is accused of striking a deputy on the hand and resisting arrest at a traffic stop. PCSO said Lasahy DeVeaux, 36, of Lakeland, was stopped by a deputy at about 1:09 p.m. on July 11 going westbound on I-4 near Polk City. DeVeaux’s license was revoked on Nov. 26, 2024 for five years for being a habitual traffic offender, PCSO said. Her license has been suspended three times since then, in March 2025, June 2025, and August 2025, for failure to pay traffic tickets....

No worries. Mitch will be back in office soon enough.

Updates from Iran

Dearborn Muslim Police Chief Proudly Announces 45% Arab Force & Hijab Respect in Policing

Explanation: What do auroras look like from above? Behold! From the ground, auroras dance high above clouds, frequently causing spectacular displays. From space, they look a bit different. As the International Space Station (ISS) circles the Earth every 90 minutes, it sometimes sees auroras below that are active on the night side. A one-hour time-lapse video showing auroras from above was captured about two weeks ago from the orbiting ISS. The ISS -- and all objects in low Earth orbit -- will pass well above green auroras but just a bit above red glowing auroras. The auroras' electron and proton...

CNBC’s ranking of the 10 worst states to live in 2026—all of them Republican-led—has drawn criticism from conservatives. The broadcaster gave each state a Quality of Life score based on factors including crime rates, air quality, healthcare access, worker protections and civil rights laws. The Quality of Life category was one of 10 in the outlet’s annual America’s Top States for Business study. Tennessee was ranked the worst state to live in after receiving a score of just 64 out of 290. CNBC noted that Tennessee had one of the highest violent-crime rates in the nation, citing FBI statistics, as...

Summarise the video This video provides an analysis of the recent escalation in the conflict between the United States and Iran, following the collapse of a ceasefire (1:54). The presenter argues that recent U.S. strikes represent a strategic effort to dismantle Iran's infrastructure rather than a simple retaliatory measure (1:12). Key areas targeted include: Chabahar Port: The destruction of the maritime control tower at Iran's only deep-water port with Indian Ocean access, which served as a critical bypass for the Strait of Hormuz (0:12-0:37, 3:25-4:09). Rail Corridor: Strikes on railway bridges in Golestan province that facilitate trade connections between Iran,...

I clicked on my bookmark for Free Republic. The splash page came up. And then in dawned on me: Free Republic is 30 years old this year!

A detailed view of Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry. Image credit: Unknown author via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) ============================================================================ The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most famous textile works in the world, and for the first time in more than 900 years it has returned to England to be exhibited at the British Museum. The work of art depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings of 1066 and the Norman conquest of England. It also depicts an important astronomical event, the return of Halley’s comet. Although not in the right place. First of all, despite...

Did Sen. Lindsey Graham Die Yesterday in a Russian Airstrike While He Was Visiting a Secret Kamikaze Drone Factory? Researchers are examining the timeline to discover whether or not Graham, who was reportedly still in Ukraine in the early afternoon, would have been able to make it back to DC where he reportedly died of “cardiac arrest” before midnight. Sen. Graham is widely seen as one of the top architects of the NATO/NeoCon strategy to use Ukraine as a pawn to trigger a larger war between Russia and the West. His death is a major blow to warhawks in London...