Free Republic

This has been a debate for decades. Did this man survive his parachute hijacking attempt? After years of studying the case files on this crime, I believe that he lived and provide my reasons behind thinking this.

They named the collapse – then they bought the churches.Siraj Wahhaj, Mamdani’s favorite imam, says 100,000 churches will close this decade. Forty million Americans already left the pews. Those sanctuaries are not sitting vacant. They are being seized, flipped into mosques, and celebrated as conquest.Then the sermons start. Christians branded as idolaters. Enemies. Christ denied. Annihilation preached from buildings that once held the Cross…

# CHAPTER TWO ## The Historian The Calder County Historical Museum stood on the west side of the courthouse square in a building that had outlived almost every purpose for which it had been constructed. A brass plate near the entrance claimed the structure dated to 1911, when the county still had enough coal money passing through it to build banks from dressed stone and oak rather than drywall and laminated counters. The bank failed during the Depression, reopened under another name, failed again, and eventually became county property. During the years that followed, the building served as a tax...

Let’s start with the obvious: “Basket of deplorables” is a weird turn of phrase. There are baskets and there are deplorable people, but pairing the two is the oddest of linguistic odd couples. Hillary Clinton said those three words in the final months of her 2016 presidential campaign, making rhetorical and political history. There were two kinds of Donald Trump supporters, she explained: Voters who feel abandoned and desperate, who she placed in one metaphorical basket, and those she called “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic” — her “basket of deplorables.” Trump — the same man who announced his candidacy...

Republican Bruce Blakeman could pull off a stunning upset in New York’s closely watched governor’s race — with the conservative challenger just four points behind Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul in a new poll. Hochul only leads the underdog and current Nassau County executive 49.6% to 45.7% among likely voters, according to the survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the Blakeman campaign. The remaining 4.7% of likely voters are undecided, the poll, based on interviews with 800 likely voters from Aug. 27-31, shows. The nail-bitingly close results reflect growing dissatisfaction with Hochul’s ability to lead the Empire State. More...

A conservative-leaning independent candidate in Columbus, Georgia, got tired of watching his campaign signs vanish. He hid Apple AirTags inside them. The trackers did not ping a dumpster or a random yard. They led straight to the home of a well-known local reverend and her husband, a retired Columbus State University educator. Stephen Acorn is running as an Independent write-in against longtime Democrat incumbent Debbie Buckner for Georgia House District 137. After signs kept disappearing near Matthews Elementary School and County Line Road, Acorn cut open replacements, slipped AirTags inside, and waited. “I feel like I outsmarted the perpetrator,” Acorn...

Iran announced Monday it will establish a new “restricted zone” near the Strait of Hormuz within the coming days — as the flailing nation desperately tries to expand its control over the critical chokepoint. The exclusion zone will span from where the US blockade of Iran begins to other areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV. Rezaei said that any ship that sails into the restricted zone will be placed on a sanctions list. “Any ship that enters this area with the intention of...

A Westchester County police bigwig’s bust for allegedly driving her son to a botched gang drive by in the Bronx has Democrats running for cover — and Republicans saying I told you so. Ex-Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard is facing attempted murder charges in the shocking June 29 shooting, but prominent Democrats in the region are staying mum and refusing to condemn the disgraced cop because the suburban city is a coveted party stronghold. “Democrats are the first to preach ‘no one is above the law’ until it screws them politically,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre told...

When we return to work after the Labor Day weekend, the hope is that America will start paying attention to the stark choice offered at the midterm elections in November. There are just two months left until voters decide whether the Trump administration can continue the free enterprise agenda that is sparking an economic boom and keep reversing the woke cultural insanity that ruined so many lives — or whether the big-government socialists who call themselves Democrats will cripple all that progress and mire the country in another round of debilitating impeachment politics. While historical precedent and the pundit class...

Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s family has called for D4vd to get the death penalty — on the eve of what would have been her 16th birthday. In an exclusive statement to the California Post, her parents said it would be the “perfect” punishment for the locked up singer, who is accused of killing and dismembering her last year. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is currently weighing whether to pursue the death penalty or life imprisonment for the performer, whose real name is David Burke, ahead of his trial later this year. Celeste would have been turning 16 on Monday,...

FORT WORTH, Texas (RNS) — At 9 a.m. on a scorching summer Saturday, nearly 100 people were already lined up outside Goldee's BBQ, a small, wooden-shack restaurant. First in line was 30-year-old Thanh Huynh, who had been sitting in a lawn chair on the joint's rustic porch since 6:30 a.m. "I have, like, a whole list, and I'm going to spend lots of money here. It'll be worth it," he said, laughing while rattling off a long order of meats and sides from his phone's Notes app as a sweet, smoky scent from nearby pits hung in the air. Opened...

A popular Egyptian TV presenter has been sentenced to death by hanging after she was convicted for her role in a massive drug trafficking ring. Sarah Khalifa, a 39-year-old former host of Egyptian crime show “Mission Impossible” sobbed in court as she was ordered to be executed in Cairo, Al-Jazeera reported. “Please listen to me, sir. My parents raised me well; they are people who pray, and I don’t need drug money,” Khalifa, who has more than 2 million followers on social media, pleaded to officials. Khalifa and 11 others were sentenced to death after they were convicted of operating...

The radical left’s recent efforts to twist and downgrade 9/11 disgust me to the core — and it’s not because I was some type of hero in that tragedy: I was just a journalist then as I am now. I’m outraged because I personally witnessed true heroism on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the days that followed: New Yorkers who survived and banded together to rebuild this city. Indeed, one might ask, did these heroes do too good of a job? Consider how many in this city now indulge their luxury to forget, or even shamelessly try to paper over...

A chunk of the Kennedy Center’s ceiling collapsed after a vicious storm plowed through Washington DC, leading a spokesperson to call it another “urgent” reason why the performing arts center needs to be overhauled. Debris was scattered on the building’s red carpet in its Grand Foyer, images of the damage online revealed. Kennedy Center spokesman Roma Daravai said it was “another example of the urgent need to close for renovation and revitalization, as our Chairman President Trump has championed.” She said the failure comes from “decades of neglect and deferred maintenance by the previous leadership” — and called the building...

Migrants in the North African Spanish enclave of Ceuta were captured on video hitting a young dolphin and possibly killing it while celebrating. Video circulating online shows a group of men and boys triumphantly lifting what appeared to be a baby bottlenose dolphin calf above their heads as onlookers gleefully cheered. The dolphin swam too close to shore when a group of men allegedly pulled it from El Trampolin beach. The celebration appeared to enrage local residents, who tried to stop the group's actions during a confrontation. One of the men reportedly struck the dolphin with a stick, mortally wounding...

The revolution is getting a real-estate glow-up! The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is ditching its dingy Lower East Side headquarters and spending $22,000 a month on two new offices — in Midtown and Bed-Stuy. Co-chair Grace Mausser broke the news to her comrades at a recent meeting, as she presented the chapter’s budget — while also making the case for giving embattled co-chair Gustavo Gordillo and herself $95,000 salaries each. The new Manhattan office is in a 14-story building on West 35th Street in Hudson Yards, complete with a doorman, 24/7 security and furnished...

Lindsay Clancy supporters donating to her parents' fundraiser have raised more than $1 million with contributions rolling in almost every minute amid a newly increased target. On Friday, the fundraiser shared an update after Clancy's trial collapsed stating that its new goal is $3 million. It came as Clancy's grueling six-week trial ended in a mistrial after the 12-person jury was deadlocked because one juror held out on a unanimous acquittal. The former nurse and mother faced first-degree murder charges in the deaths of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and baby Callan, eight months. She was accused of...

Socialist Michigan House hopeful William Lawrence pined for the speedy demise of centrist Democratic lawmakers getting in the way of lefty policies in twisted song lyrics he penned and then posted on social media. Lawrence, the Democratic candidate in Michigan’s battleground 7th Congressional District, explained in a since-deleted X post unearthed by CNN Friday that he was inspired to write the profane tune after then-Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin came out against former President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion Build Back Better plan. “So long, thanks for the memories […] Our generation says f–k you for everything […] From these...

Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal took heat from black lawmakers Friday after she referred to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as an “AIPAC monkey.” Jebreal used the racial epithet during an appearance on lefty commentator Wajahat Ali’s “The Left Hook” podcast, as she criticized the black Democrat’s support for Israel and accused him of doing the bidding of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “His name is Hakeem. ‘Hakeem’ is an Arabic name which means ‘healer.’ He’s not a healer, he’s a divider,” Jebreal raged. “He is a bought and paid by AIPAC monkey,” she continued. “With all due...

Iran is facing a potential economic disaster as the besieged Islamic Republic’s fuel reserves have dwindled to a paltry two-month supply, following months of punishing US bombing campaigns and a fresh wave of crippling economic sanctions. The US unleashed a barrage of secondary sanctions in recent weeks to choke off Iran’s supply of cash, restricting the rogue nation’s access to international financing networks and even blockading its oil exports. This is preventing Iran from doing everything from buying goods to securing foreign currency, and even forcing it to import gasoline because its refinery infrastructure has been decimated and there’s no...