Free Republic

Groups of leftist activists and rioters in Portland, Oregon, continue to oppose law enforcement officers in the city, but the latest reported action by demonstrators apparently was crafted to send a disturbing message to police. Journalist Andy Ngo, who lives in the city and uses social media to give updates on the activities of Antifa and other activists, said the group used a severed pig’s head to send a message to police Friday morning. “Antifa protesters dumped a bloody severed pig’s head on an American flag outside the Justice Center in downtown Portland. They put a cop’s hat on it...

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that he and his family have required continued security in the face of harassment and death threats from people angry over his guidance on the coronavirus pandemic. “The unseemingly things that crises bring out in the world, it brings out the best of people and the worst of people, and getting death threats to my family and harassing my daughters to the point where I have to get security — it’s amazing,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Harvard’s School of Public Health website that was...

Dr. Anthony Fauci ran into a buzzsaw named Rep. Jim Jordan when the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared Friday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The Ohio Republican asked Fauci a simple question, “Do protests increase the spread of the virus?” After repeating the question, Fauci said, “I think I can make a general statement — ” When the doctor paused for a moment, Jordan used the opportunity to point out that on June 6 alone, there were “a half-million protesters.” “Crowding together, particularly when you’re not wearing a mask, contributes...

July 29 (UPI) -- A North Carolina man on the hunt for the final top prize in a scratch-off lottery game said he visited about 40 different stores before scratching off the $5 million winner. Kevin Clark of Candler told North Carolina Education Lottery officials he read there was only one top prize remaining in the $5,000,000 Mega Cash scratch-off game, so he set off Thursday to buy as many of the $20 tickets as he could locate. "I had a real good feeling it was going to be in the western part of the state," Clark said. "I went...

If you happen to be an aspiring domestic terrorist, particularly in or around Boston, with a hankering to blow up a marathon or some other large, public event, it’s been a pretty good week for you. First we learned that Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death penalty sentence has been revoked. (At least temporarily.) And now we find out that the elite Boston Transit SWAT team that was widely celebrated for bringing Tsarnaev to justice has been unceremoniously disbanded. Officers assigned to the highly-trained unit were told to turn in their special equipment and return to more regular duty. (CBS...

The Cato Institute just released a new report showing that 62 percent of Americans are inclined to self-censor what they say politically “because others might find them offensive.” Even moderate leftists report they feel increased fear of offending the offendable, while only the most “staunch liberals,” as Cato described them, feel free to speak their minds. The “very conservative” have been pushed deepest in the closet: they are most likely to refrain from saying what they think politically, at nearly twice the rate of the “very liberal.” Buried deeper in the report, however, is a stunning data point that might...

ustice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, battling a recurrence of cancer, was hospitalized Wednesday to undergo "a minimally invasive non-surgical procedure" and likely will be released from the hospital later this week, the Supreme Court announced. "Justice Ginsburg underwent a minimally invasive non-surgical procedure today at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to revise a bile duct stent that was originally placed at Sloan Kettering in August 2019. According to her doctors, stent revisions are common occurrences and the procedure, performed using endoscopy and medical imaging guidance, was done to minimize the risk of future infection. The Justice is...

<p>In a presidential election year, there’s always a push to get people registered to vote.</p> <p>For one Atlanta family, that push got a little interesting.</p> <p>Ron Tims said he checked his mail Wednesday and found a voter registration application addressed to Cody Tims — his cat, who died 12 years ago.</p>

"This individual's behavior was reprehensible and not at all a reflection of how our employees treat our customers on a daily basis," a Starbucks spokesman said. A former employee of a Starbucks in Park Ridge, New Jersey, is accused of spitting in drinks served to police officers, authorities said. Kevin Trejo, 21, of Westwood, was arrested and charged Monday after an investigation found that he spat in the drinks of officers who patronized the store where he worked, Park Ridge Police Chief Joseph Madden said in a statement. Madden thanked the management of the store for "their sincere cooperation" and...

Hutton Gibson, a Roman Catholic traditionalist and outspoken critic of the modern church who gained wide notoriety as the father of the actor Mel Gibson and for his anti-Semitic views, died on May 11 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 101. His death, at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center, was not publicized at the time. It was confirmed by a search of a California records database. Requests for information from several family members, including his son Mel, were not answered. Hutton Gibson belonged to a splinter group of Catholics who reject the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of...

Despite the emptying of prisons and rising crime in America’s major cities, Jared Kushner, possibly the most influential man in the White House, continues to demand “second chances” for criminals. But anyone who understands our criminal justice system knows that, with rare exceptions, violent criminals are accorded endless chances and are still not locked up. Here is a case of a man who was given 230 chances. The result? Three best friends weren’t given a second chance at life. Frostproof, Florida, is a tiny city of 3,000 people in lake-filled Polk County, Florida. The last thing Sheriff Grady Judd expected...

Hundreds of former members of the George W. Bush administration have formed a super PAC to support former Vice President Joe Biden, saying they are alarmed by President Trump's conduct in office. The group, dubbed 43 Alumni for Joe Biden, officially launched Wednesday. The group includes former Cabinet officials and other senior administration members who say they think the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee can "restore dignity" to the White House

A charred body was found in the wreckage of a Minneapolis pawnshop this week — nearly two months after the building was burned down in the protests that followed George Floyd’s police-custody death. Investigators were acting on a tip when they found the man’s body in the rubble of Max It Pawn on East Lake Street in south Minneapolis, police spokesman John Elder told the Star Tribune. “The body appears to have suffered thermal injury and we do have somebody charged with setting fire to that place,” Elder told the paper. The man’s identity was not immediately released pending the...

Three teens have been charged in the case. Tyreiel N. Brown, 19, faces two counts of aggravated battery in a public place. Chelsey A. Gordon, 19, faces the same charges. Both also will face charges of mob action by two or more people. A third person, a juvenile, also has been charged. WARNING: The video contains graphic violence and language that some viewers will find offensive.

Former NBC Sports hockey analyst Jeremy Roenick is suing NBC for wrongful firing after the network terminated his employment earlier this year. NBC said Roenick made indecent comments on the air, but they did not take action against a gay colleague who made similar remarks. What did he say? The former hockey star was fired in February over comments he made on the Barstool Sports’ Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, where he joked about wanting to have a threesome with his wife and NBC Sports colleague Kathryn Tappen. “I’m swimming with my wife and Kathryn, and they’ve got their bikinis on, and...

Leaders in the black community are calling on the NYPD to bring back the plainclothes Anti-Crime Unit that was eliminated last month as shootings and murders spike across the city. About 600 undercover officers from the unit were set to be transferred to other assignments including detective work and policing neighborhoods. The anti-crime unit had been criticized as stoking distrust in law enforcement in minority communities. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, one of the African-American voices calling for action on gun violence, criticized the police force’s decision to completely disband the unit. He deplored the recent deadly shooting of a...

"Mostly peaceful." Those are the two words we've heard ad nauseam from the media and politicians about the Black Lives Matter protests that have swept the nation in the wake of George Floyd's May 25 death after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest. By the way, that description is entirely accurate. And, to the extent that there are issues with certain violent protesters, those aren't reasons to stop the demonstrations or condemn them in toto; taking to the streets in order to demand redress for political or social grievances is a God-given...

The California Faculty Association, a union for faculty in the California State University system, is calling for free tuition for black and indigenous students, a mandatory ethnic studies course, and for the defunding and removal of armed campus police, among other demands. They are laid out in an eight-page document titled “California Faculty Association statement of anti-racism and social justice demands in the wake of anti-black racism, violence, and murder.” The association has said that it is not enough to only condemn the death of George Floyd at the hands of white police. “It’s time to transform higher education to...

Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, which means every single person tested was positive. Other labs had very high positivity rates. FOX 35 News found that testing sites like one local Centra Care reported that 83 people were tested and all tested positive. Then, NCF Diagnostics in Alachua reported 88 percent of tests were positive. How could that be? FOX 35 News investigated these astronomical numbers, contacting every local location mentioned in the report. The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors...

Ye’s running. Kanye West is officially on the ballot as a presidential candidate in the state of Oklahoma. Only hours after the rapper filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission, he formally entered the presidential campaign. A public affairs officer for the Oklahoma Board of Elections told New York that a representative for West showed up at the Oklahoma Board of Elections with a properly executed statement of candidacy and the $35,000 filing fee. This was the last day that independent presidential candidates could file to appear on the ballot in the Sooner State. A copy of...