Free Republic

San Francisco has suffered another blow as one of the most luxurious department stores downtown is banning window shoppers. Saks Fifth Avenue in Union Square has decided to change its customer experience by moving to 'appointment-only' this summer... Locals will have to pre-book appointments ... Customers can no longer walk in and browse the luxury items... It comes as areas in San Francisco have become known for their squalor and misery - so much so that local businesses are unable to recruit staff and residents have felt forced to flee. ... It follows Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Palo Alto...

THE LOSER WHO NEVER GAVE UP For "Sparky", school was all but impossible. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics in high school, getting a grade of zero. He also flunked Latin, algebra and English. And his record in sports wasn't any better. Though he did manage to make the school's golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the season. Oh, there was a consolation match; he lost that too. Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. It wasn't that the other students disliked him; it's just that no one really cared...

"Karens for Kamala?" actress Connie Britton joked. Britton was one of two celebrities, several politicians, and, reportedly, more than 100,000 others on a Zoom call advertised as a way for white women to "show up for Kamala Harris." What transpired echoed advocacy around Hillary Clinton eight years ago. It was also oddly reminiscent in tone, if not substance, of missteps we've seen from conservatives like Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio), in which those who aren't on board with your side are assumed to simply be deficient human beings. *** The virtual gathering was organized by gun control activist and Moms Demand...

Two NASA astronauts who were supposed to return from the International Space Station over a month ago are still orbiting Earth as engineers finish working on problems plaguing their Boeing Starliner capsule, officials said Thursday. Test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were supposed to visit the orbiting lab for about a week and return in mid-June, but thruster failures and helium leaks on Boeing's capsule prompted NASA and Boeing to keep them up longer. No return date yet.. NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said mission managers were not ready to announce a return date. ... Starliner launched...

A Hamas command and control center embedded within a school in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah was struck by Israeli fighter jets a short while ago, the IDF says. The Hamas-run media office in Gaza claims that 31 people were killed in the attack. According to the IDF, the strike killed Hamas operatives hiding within the United Nations school being used as shelter for displaced Palestinians. The military says that the command room was used by Hamas operatives to plan and carry out attacks against IDF troops in Gaza and against Israel. Additionally, the IDF says the site was used to...

Miscalculations in the value of weaponry the United States has sent to Ukraine has again been uncovered, increasing the Pentagon's purse to supply its besieged ally by another $2 billion. At more than $53 billion in military assistance, the United States is by far Ukraine's largest backer in its two-year war against Russia. Last year, the Pentagon notified Congress that it had overvalued some of the defense articles it sent to Ukraine by about $6.2 billion. Because of this miscalculation, the Government Accountability Office was directed by Congress through the passing of the omnibus Consolidated Appropriation Act spending bill late...

***** Tunes For Our Troops ~ The Freeper Canteen Music Dedication Presents: Open Mic! ~ *****~ Support The Artists You Hear Throughout The Canteen ! ~ ***** Warning: Not all music may be appropriate for children! Please click with caution. Thank you! Tunes For The Troops This music is provided for the entertainment of our Troops, Veterans, Allies & their families! Enjoy the variety of musical selections that the Canteen DJs provide throughout the thread. Please ping any DJ with your requests for the Troops! All music is removed on Monday.Thanks to all the DJs for their time &...

President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Kamala Harris makes Harris – the first black and female vice president – the heavy favorite to become the new Democrat nominee. While conventional wisdom suggests that Harris would be able to reverse Biden’s dramatic polling collapse with black voters over the past four years, polling data indicates that a Harris-led ticket might actually continue former President Donald Trump’s surging popularity with that demographic. Throughout Biden’s presidency, Harris has remained consistently less popular with blacks than Biden. A 2021 poll showed that just 38 percent of blacks believe...

President Joe Biden told the American people Wednesday night that he graciously decided to bow out of the 2024 election because he wanted to unite his party and focus on his job as president. It was baloney. In the most obvious display of pure political muscle, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her disciples forced President Biden into withdrawing from the presidential race. More...

‘Israeli forces have uncovered network of tunnels in Jabalia region, northern Gaza Strip, and retrieved bodies of 5 Israeli hostages,’ says Israeli army spokesmanThe Israeli army announced Sunday evening that it retrieved the bodies of five Israeli hostages from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. The announcement came a day after the Al-Qassam Brigades said that it lost contact with a group responsible for five Israeli hostages and that the hostages might have been killed in Israeli strikes. “Israeli forces have uncovered a network of tunnels in the Jabalia region, northern Gaza Strip, and retrieved the bodies of five Israeli...

On "Forbes Newsroom," political scientist Charles Lipson reacts to President Joe Biden's Oval Office address after he dropped out of the presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris' 2024 campaign.

Losses have been described as “significant”; from her limited point of view, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith estimated the extent of the damage to be a potential 30 to 50 per cent, but the official toll will come from Parks Canada. And though the fire blew in from Alberta’s forest protection zone, Jasper National Park is the responsibility of the federal government. Thus it’s Ottawa that’s in charge of the park’s forest management and, crucially, fire mitigation ... Warnings of a mega-fire have rumbled for years in Jasper. Preventing fires has been the priority for many of the years since the...

Now that Old Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race due to his ailing mental state, Democrats are proposing more debates against President Donald Trump. Donald Trump already knocked one Democrat candidate out of the race. He now has an opportunity to take out their next candidate. But Trump is not so eager to make plans to debate Miss Word Salad Kamala Harris. He’s not even sure she will be the Democrat candidate! The Trump campaign released a statement on Thursday that was one for the history books. Responding to the scheduling of a future debate, the Trump camp...

The FReeper Canteen Presents... ~ Tell Us Your Favorite... "Stop / Go" Songs ~ Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly.

12 years before Joe Biden made her the Border Czar, San Francisco DA Kamala Harris let illegal immigrant drug offender clear their records in order to protect them from deportation. Let's repeat that: Kamala Harris made a special effort to make sure that illegal immigrants who COMMITTED CRIMES in America got to stay here. Thankfully, the press can't delete newspaper front pages from 15 years ago. [Front page report at URL]

Five Reasons Why the Gaza Pier Failed July 16, 2024 In this episode, Sal Mercogliano - a maritime historian at Campbell University (@campbelledu) and former merchant mariner - discusses the underlying causes for the failure of the US military Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS) Gaza Pier.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Touting President Joe Biden’s ‘Investing in America’ agenda, and speculation that he may be selected as a VP candidate, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will visit Central Indiana next week. The exact location of the visit to Central Indiana is not mentioned in a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation, other than it is a ‘future EV battery manufacturing facility in Indiana.’ Buttigieg is the former mayor of South Bend, Ind.

Unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) are calling on governments to usher in “digital IDs” for members of the general public. The WEF argues that “every citizen” should be issued with digital ID as the world prepares for “cashless societies.” The new form of ID is part of the digital public infrastructure (DPI) plan being pushed by the WEF, United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), and Gates Foundation. While it will initially be used for IDs, DPI will be expanded to also support digital payments via central bank digital currency (CBDC). The plan to roll out DPI infrastructure...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ Marines & Kids---OOH RAH! U.S. Navy Intelligence Specialist 2nd Class Joshua Coats, right, assigned to U.S. Southern Command, supervises a relay race with elementary school kids during Fleet Week Miami at Miami, May 6, 2024. Fleet Weeks are a tradition of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, where major U.S. cities host Marines, Sailors, and Coast Guardsmen for one week of community-wide events. Fleet Week Miami, in its first year, is an opportunity for residents and visitors to meet with service members, foster community relationships, and...

For free speech advocates, there are few images more chilling than that of Nina Jankowicz singing her now-infamous tune as “the Mary Poppins of Disinformation.” The woman who would become known as the “Disinformation Czar” sang a cheerful TikTok parody of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to rally people to the cause of censorship. When the press caught wind of President Biden’s plan to appoint Jankowicz as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s new “disinformation board,” Fox News said she “intended to censor Americans’ speech.” The backlash was swift. Plans for the board were suspended, and Jankowicz resigned in 2022. She then sued...