Free Republic

The founder of an infamous Minnesota-based nonprofit convicted of hatching a $250 million welfare fraud scheme was ordered by a judge last week to forfeit her Porsche, designer handbags and millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. Aimee Bock, the 44-year-old mastermind behind the Feeding our Future scandal, was found guilty in March on federal charges of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy in connection to the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud scheme. Bock, who along with dozens of predominantly Somali co-conspirators pilfered pandemic relief funds from a federal program meant to feed hungry children in need, is awaiting sentencing for her lead...

According to a Phys.org report, Victory Nery of the University of São Paulo and his colleagues suggest that fossils discovered at the site of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia between 1999 and 2005 represent two distinct species. The hundreds of fossils in the group, including five skulls, have been dated to between 1.85 and 1.77 million years ago. Homo erectus is thought to have migrated out of Africa some 1.8 million years ago. Did other species migrate out of Africa as well at this time? The Dmanisi skulls differ from Homo erectus, do not all resemble each other, and...

In 1993, while on tour in Mexico with a Cuban ballet troupe, Cubans Ariel Serrano and his wife Wilmian Hernandez bought one-way tickets and boarded a plane to Miami... Nearly 32 years since that pivotal day—Serrano and Hernandez will again board a plane, their dreams having expanded infinitely beyond what they could ever have imagined. This time the destination is London, where they will sit in the plush scarlet seats at The Royal Opera House and watch their son Francisco, 28, a soloist with The Royal Ballet, perform his first lead role The school they initially established to train their...

The article link-click goes to a post titled "Scots, Wha Hae wi' Wallace Bled (Custom Piano Recording) - Salute to The Donald" from about three hours after the state-sanctioned homicide of Ashli Babbitt. Lyrics are from a poem by Scottish national poet Robbie Burns, deliberately framing it as a speech by Robert the Bruce before the Battle of Bannockburn (1314) in which the Scots beat the pants off the English troops of King Edward II who at 15,000–20,000 heavily outnumbered the Scots at 5,000–7,000. (It goes to a centuries old Scottish tune, "Hey Tuttie Tattie", "Onomatopoeia" for the sound of...

A study of the genomes of Italians who have reached the age of 100 has found that they carry a higher proportion of genetic material from the ancestral group known as Western Hunter-Gatherers than the rest of the population, according to a Phys.org report. Researchers led by Stefania Sarno and Vincenzo Iannuzzi of the University of Bologna analyzed the genes of 333 Italian centenarians and 690 healthy adults around the age of 50. These genomes were then compared to more than 100 ancient genomes from four ancestral groups: Western Hunter-Gatherers, Neolithic Anatolian farmers, Bronze Age nomads, and ancient groups from...

Black cherry (Prunus serotina), the largest of the native cherries and the only one of commercial value, is found throughout the Eastern United States. It is also known as wild black cherry, rum cherry, and mountain black cherry. Large, high-quality trees suited for furniture wood or veneer are found in large numbers in a more restricted commercial range on the Allegheny Plateau of Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia

[H/T Grey_Whiskers]The Insurrection ProclamationEKO@EkoLovesYou·Jan 5·Trump issued it eight months ago. Governors called it an immigration order.April 28, 2025. President Trump signs Executive Order 14287 in the Oval Office. The title reads like standard bureaucracy: “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens.”But in the third paragraph, a single phrase changes everything:Sanctuary jurisdictions are engaging in “a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law.”Insurrection. The exact statutory term from 10 U.S.C. §§ 332-333. The language that unlocks the Insurrection Act of 1807.Georgetown Law professor Martin Lederman publishes analysis within days. The executive order mirrors Section 334 requirements. The formal proclamation to disperse...

Are you bored to tears with Christmas movies?Suffering from Cabin fever? Let’s dig out some recipe books and make somethingreally different to eat! If you made something bad, give it to the dogs in the back yard! Think of all the exercise you’ll get trying to convince your dog into coming back home! It’s good exercise, too!It Really IS! Weird Vintage Recipes! click for link Candles in your cranberry Jello Mold? Sure, why not?Honestly! A Crown Roast of.....Hot Dogs??There ought to be a law!! src=http://static.demilked.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/5dd79f045d9b5-strange-vintage-food-cooking-recipes-90-5dd3f0e8d432b__700.jpg width=500> How about milk in 7-Up for the kiddies??You bet!(Is Laverne around?) Almonds in...

A Minneapolis child care center with a history of safety violations is being investigated by federal and state authorities for possible financial fraud. The FBI and the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at Salama Child Care Center at 1411 Nicollet Av. near downtown Minneapolis. Families of children at the facility were turned away for a time as authorities from both agencies carried out computers, boxes and folders of documents to waiting vans. Officials from DHS, the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis all declined to comment on the nature of the...

WILMINGTON, DE — With the successful military operation to topple the authoritarian Venezuelan government, former President Joe Biden was notified that he was being forced to pay Donald Trump the $25 million bounty his administration had put in place for capturing Nicolas Maduro. In the waning days of his presidency, Biden increased the U.S. government's bounty on Maduro to $25 million, which the former president was informed he would now have to pay out personally to President Trump for bringing the dictator into custody. "This is a bunch of malarkey, Jack," Biden reportedly said after being told to pay Trump....

KNOX CO., Ill. (KWQC) - A 75-year-old woman has been arrested after Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a medical alert activation at a home. A medical alert was triggered when a man was being assaulted in a home on Saturday, deputies said. The man was injured. After an investigation, deputies said 75-year-old Elizabeth Meminger of Wataga, Illinois, was arrested. Meminger is charged with aggravated battery, aggravated domestic battery, domestic battery and home invasion. Deputies said Meminger was taken to the Knox County Jail.

In the hours since U.S. military forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in a pre-dawn raid Saturday, officials across the landscape of Major League Baseball have scrambled to check on the safety of players, coaches and scouts throughout the country, while trying to understand how the raid and its aftermath might affect the upcoming baseball season and World Baseball Classic. Those within baseball were still gathering information on Monday, but interviews with executives, scouts and agents suggested a tenuous status quo in a country marked by unsteady relations with the United States for many years. After a four-day layoff, the...

Curtis Edward Gowdy was born in Green River, Wyo., on July 31, 1919. Gowdy was proud of his Wyoming heritage and loved the outdoors, claiming that he was “born with a fly rod in one hand; and the sports microphone came a little later.”

The Hochul administration is being accused of covering up crimes in prisons by downgrading attacks committed by inmates against guards as “harassment” or “disruptive behavior” instead of assaults. A bombshell Dec. 31, 2025 memo issued by the state Corrections Department’s deputy commissioner Michael D’Amore lays out examples of what constitutes an assault and what’s considered the lower classification of harassment or disruptive behavior. “The Department has redefined the Unusual Incident (UI) category, and created harassment as a reportable UI,” D’Amore said in the memo sent to all prison superintendents and watch commanders. For example, an inmate who rips off the...

PAID Protesters. The Timeline Doesn’t Add Up. Here me out Maduro was captured around 2 AM on a Saturday in Venezuela. By 7 AM, protesters around America were already marching in the streets with professionally printed signs. Perfect fonts. High-quality printing. Unified messaging. That doesn’t happen in a few hours. That takes planning, money, and coordination. So who lined it up? Who paid for it? And why was it ready before most Americans were even awake?

The Baltimore Ravens have fired veteran head coach John Harbaugh after 18 seasons, according to multiple reports. The decision comes two days after Harbaugh's 2025 squad was unable to secure the AFC North title, losing in heartbreaking fashion to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 18.

Somali Daycare part 2 😂 "it was easier to capture the leader of Venezuela than it is to find a kid in these day care centers."

Somali Daycare in Minnesota 😂 It's only a minute long and funny!

"Everything before the word 'but' is horse s--." -- Jon Snow, Game of Thrones. Joe Scarborough gave a perfect illustration of Snow's dictum on today's Morning Joe: "We're certainly not hoping that things [in Venezuela] unravel, butthat's what recent history has taught us." Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Hilton said Tuesday it is dissolving its relationship with a Minnesota hotel that sparked backlash from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for denying federal immigration agents from booking accommodations. “The independent hotel owner had assured us that they had fixed this problem and published a message confirming this. A recent video clearly raises concerns that they are not meeting our standards and values,” the company wrote in a statement on the social platform X. “As such, we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems. Hilton is — and has always been — a welcoming place...