Free Republic

Christie Brinkley played her first acting role in the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation as "The girl in the red Ferrari" opposite Chevy Chase. She reprised that role in the 1997 sequel Vegas Vacation; later spoofed it in a 2008 DirecTV commercial, using footage from Vacation; again in a 2015 Infiniti commercial as the wife in the Infiniti (the blonde in the convertible for this spoof is model Scarlett Burke); and again in the ABC series The Goldbergs in 2019. The Girl in the Ferrari - Christie Brinkley - National Lampoon’s Vacation, 1983

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s June 2 primary election is approaching, with ballots set to begin arriving for registered voters Monday. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, voters will receive four key pieces of mail: a state voter information guide, a county voter information guide, a sample ballot and an official ballot. “Democracy is a messy business, and it can take some work,” political analyst Steve Swatt said. “And it’s incumbent on us as voters to do our homework.” At the top of the ticket is the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, a contest that analysts say remains...

One case of Hantavirus has been confirmed, with five more suspected cases under investigation, it said. One British national is reportedly in intensive care. The outbreak was reported aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was travelling from Argentina to Cape Verde. Hantavirus infections are usually linked to environmental exposure, such as contact with urine or faeces from infected rodents, but in rare cases can spread between people, leading to severe respiratory illness. The MV Hondius is run by Dutch-based tour company Oceanwide Expeditions. According to an itinerary on the Oceanwide Expeditions website, MV Hondius departed from Ushuaia in Argentina...

If everything goes to plan, Alex Bellini could become the first person to live on an iceberg, where temperatures hover between 5 to −4 degrees Fahrenheit and gale-force winds blow. The 38-year-old Italian public speaker and adventurer, who crossed two oceans alone on a row boat and ran across the U.S. in 70 days, recently spoke about his project, Adrift, a years’-long ambition to live in a survival capsule on a Greenland iceberg. Once a suitable iceberg is selected, Bellini plans to conduct research on climate change‘s affect on ice sheets and to test the limits of human endurance and...

Estibaliz Kortazar, a far-left Spanish activist, did what good comrades do, she opened her home to a North African migrant. Once he got what he wanted, the man started sexually harassing her, insulting her, and beating her. Then he threw her out, changed the locks, and took over the house. She called the police for help. Their response? “We can’t do anything without a court order.” Now she’s sleeping at relatives’ houses, seeing a psychologist after a nervous breakdown, and has launched a petition to fast-track the legal process and get her home back.

Archaeologists in Egypt recently uncovered a massive statue believed to depict King Ramses II, the pharoah believed to be a major character in the Old Testament. The statue was found at the Tel Pharaoh site in Husseiniya Center, Sharqia Governorate, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said on April 22. The site is in Egypt's Nile Delta, northeast of Cairo. Officials also described the statue as "remarkable" in size, weighing between 5 and 6 tons and measuring over 7 feet long. In a translated statement, the ministry described the statue as being in a "relatively poor condition of preservation,"...

Compilation of television appearances by Orange Man Great.

The two service members were reported missing Saturday near the Cap Draa Training Area by Tan Tan, a city in southwestern Morocco, according to Africom. U.S. and Moroccan forces have completed search and rescue operations on the ground, in the air, and using maritime assets. The two service members were participating in African Lion, Africom’s largest annual joint exercise, designed to “strengthen interoperability” among U.S. forces, NATO allies, and African partner nations, according to the Army. The exercise is hosted by Morocco, Ghana, Senegal, and Tunisia.

A 14-year-old California girl was dismembered with a chainsaw in a backyard inflatable pool after threatening to expose her alleged child predator ex-boyfriend, according to Los Angeles prosecutors. David Anthony Burke, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter known as "D4vd," faces charges of murder, child sex abuse and the unlawful mutilation of human remains after prosecutors allege he sexually abused the teen for months before killing her, cutting up her remains and allowing them to decompose in the trunk of his Tesla. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. The morning after allegedly killing Celeste Rivas Hernandez, he sat...

Six months before Election Day, America’s $39 trillion national debt has moved from an abstract fiscal concern to a dinner-table anxiety… A new national survey released Thursday by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation found that 92% of registered voters are concerned that the national debt is fueling inflation and driving up their personal cost of living, including prices for groceries, energy, housing, and transportation. The figure includes 94% of Democrats, 92% of independents, and 89% of Republicans — a degree of bipartisan alignment rarely seen in today’s fractured political environment… The concern extends beyond deficits in the abstract. Eighty-eight percent...

Going a bit farther. At the Federalist this week, I wrote about the truly amazing debate between the top candidates in CA-11, competing to see who will replace Boxwine Pelosi: “The California Primary Election Season Is Screaming A Warning For The Nation.” And I said that “if you have a couple of hours to clearly understand the dark future of the Democrat Party, this is it.” It really is, if you feel like torturing your brain for two hours. But, excerpts follow the big video, I think I can give you the whole flavor in just a couple of minutes....

Sometimes you have to wonder what the point of fighting the decline of Western Civilization is. It seems inevitable, and enough people seem to tolerate it that it's easy to think about giving up, moving someplace where the deterioration will take longer or be avoided by a large enough concentration of people who share our values, so sanity will prevail. I continue to believe this attitude is wrong, morally, strategically, and tactically. It may be tempting to go down that path, but we are not put on this Earth to do easy things; we are put here to do important...

In the photo above, there is no light in former President Barack Obama’s eyes. That’s what struck me. Obama’s eyes are black holes framing his gleaming white teeth as he stares at President Donald Trump. All you see is Obama’s teeth flashing. I found the photo on Wikimedia Commons, after the Democrat left failed to assassinate the president for the third time in the past 22 months. The Democrats responded to the assassination attempts by scoffing, smirking, laughing, protected and supported by legacy corporate media, and accusing Trump of staging the attempts on his own life. But none dared...

The Times of India reports that researchers led by epigrapher K. Muniratnam Reddy from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have decoded a Sanskrit inscription written in Brahmi characters on a seal discovered in what is now Pakistan. The translation reads, "Devadaruvane Svami Kotesvarah," indicating that the fifth-century a.d. seal belonged to a temple dedicated to Shiva, a principal Hindu deity. Reddy and his colleagues explained that the inscription refers to a pivotal story about Shiva set in the Devandaru forest that is recorded in a sacred text called the Skanda Purana. The seal is thought to be the oldest...

A rescue team on Saturday released from a barge in the North Sea a humpback whale that had been stranded in shallow waters near Germany since March, witnesses said. Nicknamed Timmy by German media, the whale was spotted swimming near Germany’s Baltic Sea coast on March 3, far from its natural habitat in the Atlantic Ocean. The mammal’s health deteriorated as it became repeatedly stranded in shallow waters near the coastal city of Wismar, and unsuccessful efforts to coax it toward deeper seas were livestreamed across the globe. The environment minister for Germany’s Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state gave the green light...

It is shocking how many people with major media platforms would rather see Iran win its battle to preserve its nuclear program than have President Trump achieve some kind of success. Thomas Friedman essentially conceded in a recent New York Times column that he is torn, because he doesn’t want to see Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strengthened” by success against Iran. This is disgusting. Imagine how an American soldier on the front line feels when he hears or reads about this moral betrayal from mainstream liberal figures in the American media. Both the U.S. and Israel are...

In the summer of 2025, OpenAI released ChatGPT 5 and removed its predecessor from the market. Many subscribers to the old model had become attached to its warm, enthusiastically agreeable tone and complained at the loss of their ingratiating robotic companion. Such was the scale of frustration that Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, had to acknowledge that the rollout was botched, and the company reinstated access.Anyone who’s been told by a chatbot that their ideas are brilliant is familiar with artificial intelligence sycophancy: its tendency to tell users what they want to hear. Sometimes it’s very explicit – “that is such...

University of California Regent Jay Sures asked the right question this week about free speech on campus: Does it apply to everyone equally? Or just the far left? Specifically: If a Palestinian terrorist has free speech at UC Berkeley, why can’t a former Israeli hostage have free speech at UCLA? Sures was reacting to the shocking appearance — via remote link — of would-be Palestinian terrorist Israa Jaabis, who tried to ignite a gas tank to kill Israelis. She ended up burning herself and a police officer. For some reason, students at UC Berkeley thought it was important to hear...

Puppetgate produces another hit track "Commie Mamdani" featuring Zohran the Moron on the mic! *DISCLAIMER: This video is a fictional puppet satire. All characters are imaginary and no one was harmed* Transcript of lyrics linked below video.

The implications of the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais overturning race-based voting districts are far more profound and far-reaching than anyone has yet realized. This week, the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, ended decades of race-engineering in how congressional districts are drawn. The opinion is likely not only to benefit Republicans by increasing their representation in Congress, but it also should end racial engineering in a multitude of local institutions, to the benefit of all. It signals the beginning of the end for progressive governance, begun by President Woodrow Wilson (ironically, a segregationist), whose vision...