Free Republic

For the longest time, Seattle has held a terrible grudge against police. It all started back in 2020, when the whole “defund the police” campaign was in full swing following the death of George Floyd. The Seattle City Council acted quickly, slashing the police budget by a whopping 20%. This, in turn, led to less support for our officers, resulting in hundreds of officer resignations. And where has that gotten them? Nowhere…fast. Several businesses have closed down in the area due to the increase in rampant violence. And now a new report suggests that, under the leadership of a Democratic...

The History Guy remembers the battle of the Meuse Argonne, the largest and deadliest battle in the history of the United States army. The episode discusses events and shows photographs depicting a period of war, which some viewers may find disturbing. The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration. The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered (formerly "Five Minutes of History") is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen...

Most visitors hit the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Vatican, then leave Rome thinking they have seen it all. This guide goes deeper. You will discover 10 hidden gems in Rome that most tourists miss, including secret viewpoints, underrated museums, underground Rome history, and quiet local corners you can actually enjoy without the crowds.From the haunting Non-Catholic Cemetery and the Pyramid of Cestius to the Aventine Hill Orange Garden and the Knights of Malta keyhole view, this is off the beaten path Rome at its best. We step into Baroque Rome at Chiesa del Gesù, explore the Baths of...

Happy 17th of June, marking independence from Denmark in 1944!

New details have come to light about the alleged terror plot that was intended to target the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House on Sunday, including the identity of the ringleader, a foreign national named Abraham Alvarez of Omaha, Nebraska. The Department of Justice announced in a press release on Sunday, "According to the charges, Tycen C. Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio; Bryan Omar Roa, 24, of Calimesa, California; Michael Alan Thomas, 32, of Pinon Hills, California; Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, Missouri; and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, of Omaha, Nebraska, conspired to plan and execute a...

Voters in Alameda County were back at the polls Tuesday — just two weeks after the primary election — to decide who will replace disgraced ex-congressman Eric Swalwell, whose career imploded after disturbing allegations of rape and sexual assault derailed his candidacy for California governor. Despite months of controversy surrounding the Democrat, voters in deep-blue East Bay aren’t breaking their habit. With 80% of ballots counted as of 8:32 p.m., Democrat Aisha Wahab led the field with 42.6% of the vote, short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff under California’s top-two system. Trailing the frontrunner, Melissa Hernandez held...

What took them so long? Reports are surfacing that White House aides are suddenly alarmed over the likelihood that top secret conversations on national security were taped and leaked to the New York Times. Axios quotes an administration source as saying that, “We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded, and we have no idea which ones.” The outlet also writes that, “We hear President Trump is furious about the blow-by-blow accounts.” The president has every right to be furious, but he shouldn’t stop there. Situation Room meetings are classified, and the mere possibility that details of...

Rapper Mystikal — best known for his 2000 hit “Shake Ya Ass” — has been sentenced to two decades behind bars over a 2022 rape case. According to ABC affiliate WBRZ, the Louisiana hitmaker was handed down a 20-year sentence on Tuesday for third-degree rape. Per the outlet, the rapper, whose given name is Michael Lawrence Tyler, responded in court Tuesday after the victim requested the maximum sentence. “If I did that to you, I deserve the max sentence,” he said. The Grammy-nominated rapper pled guilty in March in an Ascension Parish, Louisiana court — though on Friday, ahead of...

Hillary Clinton bashed former President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid as a “terrible mistake” that had major repercussions for the country and his legacy. Clinton contended that Democrats would’ve been able to defeat President Trump if Biden had stepped aside and allowed a new generation of political talent to emerge. “He made a terrible mistake,” Clinton told New Yorker editor David Remnick at a 92nd Street Y, New York event. “He made a terrible mistake for himself, his legacy, and for the country.” “We would have had a real contest,” she mused about what would’ve happened if Biden didn’t run....

There's a reason they call the lands surrounding the North Pacific the "Ring of Fire," and no, it's not because of a Johnny Cash song. No, the reason for that appellation is that the northern coasts of the lands on the Pacific are hotbeds of tectonic and volcanic activity. Nowhere are Americans more aware of this than in California, which has been hit by some pretty serious temblors in the past. Now, it looks like another big one may be on the way. Geologists are looking at the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults, and they are a tad worried...

The plot to attack the White House’s UFC Freedom 250 event Sunday involved at least 12 suspects across the US who adhered to an “accelerationist” ideology and hoped to bring down American capitalism, according to federal law enforcement sources. The FBI foiled their plans by infiltrating a Signal chat group planning the explosive attack — with a parent of one kid in the messaging platform reporting it to the police, sources told The Post. The suspects are in at least four states — California, Ohio, Missouri and Nebraska. They were plotting to gather in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to launch an explosive...

My brain has been percolating on this for a bit, so apologies for not having all the background here. Tuesday morning, 0645, bad night's sleep, and my brain decided it wanted to tackle AI governance. Some thoughts I couldn't shake: Every time someone tries to incorporate Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics into AI governance, it fails. Asimov himself proved why — he didn't write them as a blueprint. He wrote them as a story engine for exploring how they break. Every single Robot story was about the edge cases, paradoxes, and unintended consequences of three seemingly simple rules. The Laws...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani crony and far-left congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier has claimed the US has committed worse atrocities than the terror group Hamas. Chevalier made the shocking assertion in June 2021 — two years before the terrorists would launch their widespread Oct. 7 slaughter of innocent Israelis — while responding to a Twitter post from someone saying, “I agree the US wanton violence is categorically incomparable to the worst things Hamas has ever done or ever could do.” Chevalier wrote, “Only one is a nuclear power that’s ever used that kind of force 😶” — likely referring to the...

Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time. When did we beat Japan at anything? They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing...

On June 27, the asteroid will approach at a distance of around 0.01715 astronomical units. It hasn't been this close since at least 1600 CE. Potentially hazardous asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1) seen by the Virtual Telescope Project, when it was around 10.5 million kilometers (6.5 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project Potentially hazardous asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1) is about to make its closest approach in over 400 years, in an event only seen once every decade. At these distances, and given the size of the asteroid, it should be possible to view using a small...

Eight crew members are dead in a B-52 bomber crash shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base, northeast of Los Angeles, on Monday morning, the base said. The B-52 Stratofortress was on a routine test mission that took off at 11:20 a.m. local time at the remote air base, officials said. It is now considered a recovery operation. “It was tragic and unsurvivable,” Colonel James Hayes said at a news conference. Emergency crews responded immediately to the crash involving the bomber, which left a towering black plume in its wake, the base said. Teams are working to notify families...

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee formally requested Friday that Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz testify about his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, marking the latest step in the panel’s widening investigation into Epstein and his associates. In a letter to Dershowitz, Rep. James R. Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the committee, asked him to appear on July 9 for an in-person, videotaped transcribed interview in Washington, D.C. The committee wrote that it believes Dershowitz has information that would assist its investigation because of his role as Epstein’s attorney, public reporting, documents released by the Department...

BREAKING: A Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber has crashed in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast. VIDEO AT LINK......... There is currently no information regarding the fate of the crew. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/2066516457383448972

In 2010 the Western Writers of America surveyed its members and compiled a list of the top 100 western songs of all time. They presented it at their annual convention in Knoxville, Tennessee, and holding down the top three spots were, in descending order, "Ghost Riders in the Sky", Marty Robbins' "El Paso" and the chestnut "Cool Water", recorded most famously by The Sons of the Pioneers. "El Paso", the most cinematic of all three songs, was never featured in a movie, while Stan Jones' "Ghost Riders" has showed up in many, starting with Gene Autrey's 1949 film Riders in...

Former President Barack Obama trashed President Trump's deal with Iran during an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts. The full interview will air on Wednesday on Good Morning America. President Trump on Saturday confirmed that the Iran deal will be signed on Sunday. Trump said the Strait of Hormuz will be opened and no money will change hands as he trashed Barack Obama's disastrous Iran Nuke Deal (JCPOA). "Barack Hussein Obama’s Deal with Iran, the JCPOA, was an easy, beautiful, smooth road to a Nuclear Weapon, which Iran would have had six years ago, and would have used long before now,"...