Free Republic

A ratbag group of cop-hating Black Lives Matters activists were handed the floor at City Hall as they launched a campaign to block extra funding to hire more police in Los Angeles. Everyday Angelenos were left frustrated as they were locked out of the first public budget hearing — while lefty activists led by Black Lives Matter–Los Angeles and People’s Budget LA were given 20 minutes to air their radical views. At stake is the city’s $14.9 billion budget, the single most consequential decision City Hall makes each year. The group, led Friday by Melina Abdullah, demanded the council shift...

It starts with a crusade against ‘ghost guns.’ It ends with government bureaucrats able to see everything you do. One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house.” —James Otis, patriot. As an American citizen, whenever legislators deploy the ever-flimsy progressive banner of “public safety,” I feel decidedly unsafe. Newly proposed and enacted legislation targeting 3D printers and CNC machines would impose restrictions more severe than those the Supreme Court rejects for actual guns. In conjunction with restrictions on tools, states would create a category of computer source code illegal to possess. The excuse?...

Fifty years ago on Saturday, an innocuous fourth inning at Dodger Stadium gave way to an indelible moment in baseball -- and American -- history. On April 25, 1976, the Dodgers hosted the Cubs in the rubber match of a three-game series. In the bottom of the fourth inning, two fans jumped the left-center field fence and hurried onto the outfield grass. Chicago center fielder Rick Monday noted a sound that didn’t match the rhythm of the game. He glanced to his right and saw the trespassers huddled over, unfurling an American flag. “I can see the guy pull out...

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Born in 1913, Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella is the world's oldest nun, according to Guinness World Records. On Sunday she celebrated her 113th birthday. "I have given up counting my years," said Piscatella. Piscatella joined the order of the Sisters of St. Dominic in Amityville in 1931 at the age of 17. "I was a teacher and a Dominican sister, I had to show them that the fact I had half an arm couldn't in any way impede me in any way, there was nothing I couldn't do that a person with two hands could do," Piscatella said. An accident...

An Australian entrepreneur who launched a prominent vegan chicken nugget startup has been accused of strangling his social media star girlfriend inside a luxe Manhattan hotel — where he was allegedly hiding out from claims he fleeced investors in his crypto company, The Post has learned. Ben Pasternak, 26 — whose plant-based business Simulate was once valued at $250 million — was arrested Tuesday on allegations that he assaulted his ex, influencer Evelyn Ha, on March 31 after she tried to film him on her phone inside the ritzy Baccarat Hotel on West 53rd Street. The millionaire magnate had been...

Riddle of the day: When is deed theft not actually deed theft? Answer: When state Attorney General Tish James tries to have it both ways. That’s what happened Friday when the AG was asked about fellow lefty Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé’s arrest. Ossé was cuffed Wednesday as he tried to prevent an eviction he claimed stemmed from “deed theft.” At the time, James’ office issued a statement denying the case involved any such thing. It said the matter involved a property dispute between heirs and relatives of the home’s former co-owners. Yet on Friday, James sang a different tune. “Technically...

Opera singer Jessye Norman says https://youtube.com/shorts/rzgees_8oII?si=7Aahdum4rPW92GZ7 it has "too much territory". (Its tessatura = an octave, Do to Do, 12 notes from Ab to Ab, PLUS an additional "fifth", 7 notes from Ab to Eb). Marian Anderson effortlessly sang https://youtu.be/_iYcheeUS5A?si=t2zq5uuyr-DPnQ-v?t=29s The Star Spangle Banner with her 3 octave vocal range. "Registers" is a confusing term. It usually means, one's personal range. But I was taught that a register is a narrow range in which you sing with the same tone; then you have to switch to different positioning of the vocal "mechanism" to go to "another register". You can hear...

A California winery co-owned by Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, has shut its doors for good amid scrutiny of the congresswoman’s family wealth. The winery ceased business operations on April 4, two months after Republicans sent a letter demanding answers into the discrepancies between Omar’s congressional financial disclosures for 2024 and the one she filed just one year earlier, according to California business records. In a February letter to Mynett, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said financial disclosures filed by his wife Omar “show eStCru LLC and Rose Lake Capital LLC, which you hold ownership stakes...

ransomnote: end of the video congratulations below~April 24, 2026

We Might Be Wrong About Humanity's Near Extinction | 34:00 New Scientist | 484K subscribers | 330,045 views | April 8, 2026

Once the epicenter of a catastrophic nuclear disaster, Chernobyl in Ukraine was left uninhabitable for humans. But in the silence that followed evacuation, nature began to reclaim the land. Przewalski's horses, once nearly extinct, now roam freely, grazing among overgrown buildings as forests reclaim old roads. Wolves, lynx, moose, and red deer have also returned, along with free-roaming dogs and even brown bears, a species absent from the region for more than a century. Still, the recovery is not without complications. Radiation remains an invisible presence, and scientists continue to observe its subtle but lasting effects, such as birds developing...

PINEVILLE, La. - Police are investigating a Louisiana restaurant after officers discovered a deer believed to be roadkill stored in a freezer alongside food items intended for customers, authorities said. Dig deeper: The Pineville Police Department said the investigation began after officers learned of a viral social media post showing individuals skinning an animal behind a local restaurant. On April 21, officers were dispatched to the 2900 block of Cottingham Expressway after receiving a report that a restaurant employee had been seen skinning a dead animal. When they arrived, officers found evidence suggesting the animal was a deer, which was...

The redistricting vote in Virginia was not only dishonest, it was unconscionable and shameless. I don't know how any democrat can look themselves in the mirror or sleep at night after the way that vote was worded.The vote should have been worded this way :DO YOU AGREE THAT THE REDISTRICTING PLAN PUT FORTH BY THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD BE APPROVED--GIVEN THE FACT THAT IT IS LIKELY THAT HALF THE POPULATION OF VIRGINIA WILL GET ONLY 9% REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS? THE OTHER HALF SPONSORING THIS VOTE WILL GET 91% REPRESENTATION.YES OR NO.I just cannot believe the wording that was actually used. It...

Three years since the first flight of Starship, the next generation is here. New ship. New booster. New engines. New pad and new test site. SpaceX engineers are working to solve one of the most difficult engineering challenges in history: developing a fully, rapidly reusable rocket. “Test Like You Fly” launches a series that takes you inside the factories and onto the launch pads where humanity's future in space is unfolding.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said on Thursday that he was appalled by a report about the death of 31 slots who died under the care of Sloth World, a tourist attraction in Orlando that wasn’t yet opened to the public. The slots were from South American rainforests, and perished in storage warehouses between December 2024 and February 2025, according to an incident report by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “These sloths — naturally solitary animals — were put in the worst conditions possible,” Frost said in a Thursday post on X. “They were taken from their natural habitats...

Steven Mills, Tiffany Score suing Fertility Center of OrlandoA Central Florida couple suing an IVF clinic over an embryo mix-up now knows who their baby girl’s biological parents are, their attorney said. The couple gave birth to the girl in December through the Fertility Center of Orlando, only to discover the child was not biologically related to them. Genetic testing later confirmed the mix-up. Steven Mills and Tiffany Score’s attorney confirmed to News 6 that the biological parents of the baby have been identified. Additional details about those individuals were not given. “The results of testing delivered to us today...

Keeping it simple for the developers can lead to very complex headaches laterPWNED Welcome back to PWNED, the column where we celebrate the people who’ve taught us how not to secure a server. If you’ve ever tied your own shoelaces together, then tripped over them, or attempted to dive into a swimming pool but hit your head on the diving board, we’ll be talking about your cyber equivalent. This week’s connected kerfuffle comes courtesy of Gregory Shein, founder and CEO of software development firm Nomadic Soft. One of his clients made the fateful decision to prioritize convenience over security,...

You might expect the left leaning New Yorker magazine to be at least somewhat sympathetic to the plight of Venezuelan President (via fraud) Nicolas Maduro, currently residing in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center while awaiting his court trial for drug trafficking, narco-terrorism, and weapons offences. But Diego Lasarte's Tuesday story seems less about sympathy and more about generating laughter whether intentional or not as you can see in "What Nicolás Maduro’s Life Is Like in a Notorious Brooklyn Jail.The jail is "notorious," and Maduro is not? The possibility of laughter immediately emerges when Lasarte reveals that Maduro's temporary roommate was a...

The history of recorded jazz is hard to pin down. So many conflicting stories make up a rich patchwork that guides us towards the truth of how jazz began.So much of our history is about establishing records: we are fascinated by who was first to do a particular thing. Yet all too often the history that’s passed down is actually less accurate than we would like it to be. As the popular truism goes, “History is written by the victors,” and the history of recorded jazz is no different. Most of those who have written about it will tell you...