Free Republic

Americans should not fear the past. I remember the first time I came across a “trigger warning.” I was on a university campus in the ‘90s, attending the first lecture of a new history professor. As I perused her course syllabus, I was impressed with the reading list and organization. Then I spotted an incongruous “warning” to women and African Americans suggesting that they might find some of the material offensive. At first, I thought it was an inappropriate joke. I asked someone about it, and I was informed that “trigger warnings” had become increasingly common in the classrooms of...

Scorching summer heat and prolonged drought have dramatically lowered the Tiber River in central Rome, revealing the long-submerged stone remains of a nearly 2,000-year-old bridge once known as Nero’s Bridge. According to a report from CNN, the rare sight has drawn locals and tourists to the riverbanks for a fleeting glimpse of the ancient structure that normally lies completely underwater. The Tiber’s flow, fed by tributaries from the northern Apennine Mountains, has dropped below 80 cubic meters per second—roughly half the seasonal average—according to Rome’s civil protection coordinator Giovanni Giganti.

The feds are probing a shadowy nonprofit’s $100 million anti-Israel “war chest” allegedly amassed by a glamorous ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a racecar-driving billionaire and a Texas private equity mogul, The Post has learned. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating a UK-based outfit known only as PFF, scrutinizing whether it illegally funneled donor funds to Al-Haq, a Palestinian group sanctioned by the US in September, sources said. Two sources with direct knowledge said federal agents are investigating more broadly whether the fund’s organizers employ opaque UK corporate entities to obscure cross-border financial flows. One insider said the “linchpin”...

Alaska Democratic Senate hopeful Mary Peltola rejected support this week from former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the state by double-digits in her failed 2024 presidential campaign. “Alaska is a must-win Senate seat for Democrats to retake control of the Senate,” Harris wrote in a fundraising email, urging the public to “help Mary Peltola get the support she needs” by splitting a donation between Peltola’s campaign and the ex-veep’s Fight for the People PAC. Harris continued, “So if there’s anyone who can flip Alaska and secure the Senate majority for Democrats – it’s Mary. But she cannot do it...

A Georgia financial advising CEO was sentenced Friday to 20 years behind bars for masterminding a $380 million Ponzi scheme to fund his lavish lifestyle of yachts, private jets and luxury shopping. Todd Burkhalter, the founder of Atlanta-area Drive Planning LLC, orchestrated one of Georgia’s largest schemes and stole millions from over 2,000 investors in the years-long con. Burkhalter, 59, was ordered to serve two decades in federal prison by US District Court Judge Tiffany R. Johnson, while two of his executives were sentenced to less than five years for their roles this week. Burkhalter’s attorneys had asked for a...

...at the Carrarzu Iddia archaeological site in Bortigali, a short distance from the town of Macomer. The monument still preserves its burial chamber and exedra and provides new insights into Nuragic civilization...The monument, which had long been completely hidden by vegetation, was rediscovered thanks to survey activities...The tomb is located on the southern slope of Crastu Littu, at an elevation of approximately 740 meters...The funerary monument is constructed of trachyte blocks... the burial chamber and the monumental semicircular exedra preceding the entrance...are still clearly visible......the space is divided into two levels near the entrance -- a construction solution that has...

A young man who once wondered if he would live past 1941 will be turning 105 years old Saturday. James (Pat) Bollich grew up in Louisiana. He trained at Fort Polk and arrived in the Philippines in November, 1941, less than a month before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Jamie Bollich wrote, “U.S. and Filipino forces retreated to the Bataan Peninsula when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, but after four months their food and ammunition ran out and the 70,000 troops were forced to surrender.”

A Pablo Picasso painting stolen while on loan from the Guggenheim Museum more than six decades ago has resurfaced, and the museum has gone to court to get it back. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation filed suit in New York State Supreme Court this week, according to Hyperallergic, against Massachusetts residents Lawrence Jay Handler and Wendy Cohen Handler, who the museum says currently possess Femme dans un fauteuil (Woman in an Armchair), a small 1918 painting that disappeared from the University of Pittsburgh in 1961. The story begins on February 5 of that year, when a graduate student and dormitory...

You said:H.Res.414 calculates slavery reparations for the years of 1619 up to 1865. What is the argument for why the United States should pay on behalf of the British Empire?ChatGPT said:There is an important distinction here: H.Res. 414 does not actually argue that the United States should compensate people for slavery because Britain committed it. Its argument is that the United States, after independence, inherited and continued the institution and therefore assumed responsibility for its own conduct and its continuing consequences.The key passage is unusually explicit. It says that, beginning with the nation's founding in 1776, federal policies "produced and...

Fighting in the Second World War went on until the very end. WWII: The Last Day | 20:41 The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered | 1.64M subscribers | 14,619 views | August 14, 2026

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin defended his organization’s fundraising record despite a massive Republican advantage and implored allies to help raise more funds in the final few months before the November midterm elections. “While we’ve raised a record amount of money, and it is a record in the 198-year history of the DNC, there’s no chair or no team of officers that’s raised more money without the White House in [its] team, but the reality is we need more,” Martin said during an executive committee meeting on Friday. “I don’t want folks to think, well, we’re OK. We need...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Sheryl Williams Stapleton, a former New Mexico lawmaker, was convicted Friday morning on all 37 federal charges, including money laundering, bribery, and mail fraud. Stapleton did not respond to questions from reporters walking out of federal court Friday afternoon. According to the federal indictment, Stapleton conspired with her longtime friend Joseph Johnson to steal millions in federal money. Prosecutors said she used her position at Albuquerque Public Schools as an educational director to receive $1.2 million in kickbacks while funneling a total of $3.2 million to Johnson's company, Robotics. Johnson's company had supplied a computer program called...

Dazzling new images taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope show an astronomical object known for its striking resemblance to a lion’s face. NGC 2392, more commonly called the Lion Nebula, received its nickname from its hazy dust “mane” and the dying star at its center, which resembles a “button nose,” according to NASA. The images were taken by Webb, using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) The agency previously captured images of the feline-themed planetary nebula in 2000 using the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb’s higher-resolution images show that...

A New Jersey thief who bilked investors out of more than $650 million has been named one of the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters — the first Garden State resident to make the dubious list. Fugitive Rey E. Grabato II is accused of participating in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded some 2,000 investors, hundreds of whom were located in New Jersey, out of more than $650 million between February 2018 and January 2022, according to the FBI. The agency is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information that leads to Grabato’s arrest and conviction. Federal authorities issued an arrest...

Liberal Democrat Governor Maura Healey signs bill allowing babies to be aborted all the way up to birth. Fox News says, “Democratic Gov. Maura Healey was met with applause and smiles as she signed away Massachusetts’ gestational limits on abortion, making the deep-blue state the 10th to permit the procedure up to birth. Under the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, health care workers will have greater discretion in determining whether to perform an abortion later in pregnancy, without facing legal penalties under the state’s previous restrictions. Massachusetts is now the tenth state to allow this kind of de-humanizing law.”...

Today we laugh at Socialism/Communism (While we still can!)

Kansas students have been forced to put cell phones into lockers before they set foot in class as part of a blanket ban on the devices in schools across the state. Thousands of students in grades K-12 are banned from using their cell phones during the school day under HB 2299, which outgoing Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law in March and hailed as a tool to “reduce distractions in the classroom.” School districts are granted the flexibility to enforce the policy as they see fit. Schools in the Kansas City public school district have spent $150,000 on special...

WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center’s board moved Thursday to rename the area around the iconic performing arts center the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza” and to add Trump’s name back onto the building’s facade — after a federal judge ordered its removal. Trump’s allies on the board pushed through the changes during a meeting that lasted more than two hours, after Democrats including Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty objected to Trump’s plans to renovate and rebrand the aging facility. Trump, who chairs the board, participated virtually in part of the meeting and pushed back on...

I’ve been on a small carrier/LHA in a war zone during the first Iranian dust up. We did 105 days continuous at sea. Drank that beer on steel beach. It was hard work, but we could have done another hundred days. The only thing we ran short of was fresh vegetables and milk. I’m more concerned with this concerted effort by media...aided by a dozen pussies aboard...to undermine the esteem these sailors warrant. As always, getting the job done. Bravo Abe Lincoln, BRAVO!!

Archaeologists at Göbeklitepe in southeastern Turkey have uncovered rectangular buildings that may offer new evidence of everyday life and homes at the Neolithic settlement. The structures lie just below the modern surface in a newly opened excavation area. Researchers believe they belong to Göbeklitepe’s second phase of occupation. Unlike the site’s famous monumental enclosures, the buildings contain fewer large stone pillars and have interiors that may have supported domestic activities. Excavation director Prof. Dr. Necmi Karul said the team’s initial impression is that some may have been homes. Researchers, however, say more evidence is needed before they can determine how...