Free Republic

What do you call a nation where a high school student can graduate with honors—yet cannot read or write?You call it America in 2025.This week, we learned about Aleysha Ortiz, a 19-year-old who graduated from Hartford Public High School in Connecticut with academic distinction—despite being illiterate. She is now suing the school district, alleging negligence, emotional distress, and a complete abdication of duty by the educators and administrators who were supposed to serve her. Her story, reported by CNN, is both infuriating and emblematic of a national crisis that’s been engineered from top down.Aleysha’s early assessments showed severe learning challenges....

Immigration agents nabbed a violent illegal migrant who was hiding in the sanctuary state of Connecticut after he allegedly beat a Mexican police officer to death. Orlando Diaz-Cebada, who is a member of the “Los Pochos” gang which traffics drugs for the Sinaloa cartel, had been deported from the US twice after crossing the border illegally, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. “Thanks to our brave ICE law enforcement and federal partners, this criminal illegal alien fugitive wanted for murdering a law enforcement official in Mexico is off America’s streets. This heinous murderer attempted to evade justice by hiding...

New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom said Friday that former President Barack Obama will not be coming to Democrats' collective rescue as the party struggles to find national leadership in the wake of their stinging defeat in 2024. Cottom argued that Democrats desperate for Obama to save the party are "undignified" and weak, asserting that change will not come from above, but rather from "the streets." "We must start asking how we can save ourselves. We are seeing the start of that in places like Los Angeles, San Antonio and Raleigh, N.C.," she wrote, referencing the anti-ICE protests occurring...

Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” while insisting to “keep it peaceful,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) called for more protests around the country as rioting is underway in Los Angeles tied to the Trump administration’s deportation effort. The Connecticut Democrat lawmaker argued President Donald Trump was inciting behavior so he could invoke the Insurrection Act. “I mean, my first message is to keep it peaceful,” Murphy declared. “I mean, obviously, this is a moment where we have to be on the streets all over the country to protest what’s happening to our immigrant community, but more broadly, to protest what’s happening...

The discovery of Adriana Suazo’s body in a wooded area in Milton, Massachusetts has intensified growing concerns across New England about the number of unexplained deaths in the region in recent months. Suazo, a 21-year-old Boston resident, was found by a passerby around 11:45 a.m. on Sunday, June 1, in Milton, Mass, which is approximately 8 miles south from the capitol city, according to a press release from the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office. The department said that there were no obvious signs of trauma, and the cause of death is under investigation by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner....

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — Tweed New Haven Airport was the site of another protest against Avelo airlines on Saturday. Protesters gathered to speak out against the airline’s decision to provide deportation flights for the Department of Homeland Security.

Five people were shot at a mall in Waterbury, Connecticut Tuesday, when an argument escalated into a violent outburst from a gunman, according to authorities. Gunshots rang out at the Brass Mill Center just before 4:40 p.m., hitting five people who were taken to area hospitals, WTNH reported, citing Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski, Jr. Cops said the bullets began to fly when an argument turned into a violent confrontation at the 1.1-million square-foot shopping complex with officials emphasizing at a press conference this was not a “random act of violence.” The suspect is described as a man in his 20s...

"A hypothetical small town regarded as typically dull or insignificant."That's the definition Google assigns to the word "Podunk." For many it's a mythical place filled with country bumpkins and nothing to do.As it turns out, Podunk actually exists and it's right in Upstate New York.There are no official signs to let you know you've arrived, other than map coordinates and the nod of a street sign reading "Podunk Road," but one can actually visit the hamlet of Podunk, New York. The tiny no-stoplight-town, made up of a handful of houses, is inside the town [township] of Ulysses, nestled within the...

members at a funeral in Connecticut spiraled into a melee in which one man was stabbed and a woman grazed by gunfire, police said. Witnesses and police described a chaotic scene as people threw punches and gunshots rang out as people screamed and the crowd of about 150 mourners poured out of Gospel Lighthouse Apostolic Church, north of downtown Hartford. Police said there was shooting both inside and outside the church. “You can imagine what 150 people scrambling out of the church looked like,” said police Lt. Aaron Boisvert, who said bullets damaged the interior. No arrests were announced. Police...

PORTLAND, Me. — Miss Congeniality, Jordon Hudson is not. Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend fell short yet again in the Miss Maine beauty pageant, placing third Sunday — and she couldn’t hide her disappointment. Hudson — who came in second in the contest last year — once again didn’t have quite the stuff to strut all the way to the crown.

Eighteen states sued the Trump administration Monday over its halting of permits for wind-energy projects, arguing that its actions posed an existential threat to the burgeoning industry.“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy,” said Attorney General Letitia James of New York, which is one of the plaintiffs. She said the halt threatened “the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments” and was “delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.”The halt on federal permits for wind energy was first laid out...

Meet the Connecticut Senate Democrats… This is real. What stage of TDS is this?

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — The Connecticut House of Representatives voted Wednesday to advance a new piece of gun legislation that could open firearms makers and retailers up to more lawsuits.

Democrats in Connecticut’s House will weigh a bill this week that would allow citizens to sue gun manufacturers, marketers, and dealers over the criminal use of firearms. The CT Insider noted that the legislation is being pushed as a way to create state-level options for filing lawsuits that are barred federally by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). State Rep. Steve Stafstrom (D) believes PLCAA has given too much legal immunity to people in the firearms industry: “What it has done is provide untoward protections to gun manufacturers and has deprived victims of their rights to seek...

 David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was educated there and at Yale University. Author of 1776, John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The following is adapted from a public lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 31, 2006, during Mr. McCullough's one-week residency at the College to teach a class on “Leadership and the History...

David McCullogh Historian David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was educated there and at Yale. Author of John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His next book, 1776, will be published in May 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is an abridged transcript of remarks delivered on February 15, 2005, in Phoenix, Arizona, at a Hillsdale College National...

It’s been a continuing mystery for three years, at least to me but many others too. In October 2020, in the midst of a genuine crisis, three scientists made a very short statement of highly public health wisdom, a summary of what everyone in the profession, apart from a few oddballs, believed only a year earlier. The astonishing frenzy of denunciation following that document’s release was on a level I’ve never seen before, reaching to the highest levels of government and flowing through the whole of media and tech. It was mind-boggling. For proof that nothing in the document was...

A tipsy Long Island teen went for a passed-out joyride in a Tesla — which he switched into autopilot mode on a busy Connecticut highway before going to sleep and being busted by cops, state police said. Garden City native Guido Reinoso-Gallegos, 19, was slumped over the steering wheel as the self-driving vehicle rolled down I-91 south in Wethersfield at just 30 miles per hour with its hazard lights flashing when he was arrested around 12:30 am Friday. Despite not having his hands on the wheel, Gallegos was charged with driving under the influence because he still needs the awareness...

BETHLEHEM, Conn. (WFSB/Gray News) – A father in Connecticut was arrested after he said he shot a bear in self-defense to protect his family. The shooting happened at Todd Topicz’s home in August. He said that the bear entered the home through the garage, where his two kids were at the time. “He [the bear] walked right into the garage with people in there. He didn’t care. So, who knows what would’ve happened next time,” Topicz said.

Is there a serial killer hunting in small towns across New England? A growing number of people believe this is happening. Human remains have been discovered in various places in the region and there is enough evidence to suggest that the crimes are connected. It’s creepy to think that there is some evil person out there stalking and killing people for no reason but studies have shown that there are serial killers operating in the country at any given time. Every once in a while, law enforcement connects the dots on certain cases and speculation grows. The Daily Mail reports:...