Free Republic

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass used Walter Lopes’ Pacific Palisades home as a prop to pat herself on the back for helping the neighborhood rebuild after the January wildfires. But The Post can reveal that Lopes’ house is the only structure standing for blocks and blocks in the charred, desolate neighborhood. And even he isn’t buying Bass’s narrative that rebuilding is going swiftly and smoothly. Lopes said he was only able to get started so quickly because he was rebuilding his house exactly as it was constructed just a few years ago — and he’s shelled out millions of...

Sen. John Fetterman acknowledged Monday that “parts” of the Democratic Party’s base have turned their backs on Israel, an issue he described as one of “moral clarity” for him. Fetterman (D-Pa.) argued during a bipartisan “The Senate Project” event with Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) that those who lament the “tragedy in Gaza” should blame Hamas and its benefactor, Iran. “The Jewish community must feel constantly under assault,” said Fetterman, 55, during the event, which was streamed on Fox Nation and moderated by “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “I visited Penn, and I said hello with 300 [Jewish] students, and...

Kamala Harris has triggered further speculation that she is not running for governor of California and has higher political ambitions. Rumors of a 2028 White House run started circulating after she delivered a lackluster three-minute virtual address to the Democratic state political convention that was politely received by the audience. In a steady, monotone voice, she spoke about the Trump administration’s recent actions against universities and praised activists efforts to fight the president’s agenda. “While this administration in Washington tries to divide us, we hear know that we are stronger when we stand together,” she said, a flashback to her...

...We’ve hammered the habitat. Overfished the salmon. Mismanaged hatcheries. And most of all, harnessed the immense power of this river, turning its cold, fast waters to miles of warm, slackwater reservoirs...The Columbia is not just one story. But there are trends, and with around 150 hydroelectric dams, the basin today in many places is hostile to native species. People since the settlers’ arrival extensively dammed the Columbia and its tributaries, including its largest, the Snake, and exploited its fisheries, promising we could have it all. Abundant salmon and cheap hydropower, slackwater navigation from the Pacific Ocean all the way to...

MAGA firebrand Steve Bannon called on President Donald Trump to condemn Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian airbases and “pull all support” after reports that the White House was not informed in advance of the offensive. More than 40 warplanes, including Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, were reportedly damaged or destroyed across four airbases in Murmansk and Irkutsk, thousands of miles from Ukraine’s border. The operation, which Ukraine revealed it had been in planning for 18-months, came just one day before Monday’s peace talks were set to begin in Istanbul. Axios reported on Sunday that sources within the administration...

I spoke with journalists and shared some details of today’s negotiations with the Russians in Istanbul: an unconditional ceasefire, the exchange of prisoners, the return of children, and, importantly, the return, not exchange, of civilians. Then comes a leaders-level meeting. As for a meeting of the leaders, the Russians believe that this can be worked on by the end of this month or early next month. As for the ceasefire, they basically don’t see it happening yet. According to the Russians, they’re ready for a 2–3 day ceasefire just to collect their dead from the battlefield. I think — idiots,...

President Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own MAGA image. Will he now do the same to the conservative legal movement? During his first term, Trump benefited immeasurably from his association with Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society official whose advice on judicial nominations helped Trump to transform the U.S. Supreme Court into a conservative legal juggernaut that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, overturned affirmative action in higher education, and expanded the right to keep and bear arms. Such rulings will likely be remembered as Trump's most far-reaching accomplishments as president. Yet now, Trump is denouncing both...

The Tulsa Race Massacre might have happened 104 years ago, but innocent people must still pay, according to Tulsa’s Mayor Monroe Nichols IV, who was just elected in November. “For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city’s history,” Nichols said over the weekend. “The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality, and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state, and federal governments.” “Now,” he says, “it’s time to take the next big steps to restore.” “The private charitable...

Britain will build new attack submarines, invest billions on nuclear warheads and move towards “war-fighting readiness,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, as he braces for a landmark report into the state of the country’s military. Starmer’s government said it would build “up to” 12 new attack submarines as part of its AUKUS partnership with the United States and Australia, replacing the country’s current class of seven subs from the late 2030s. And he will launch a “historic renewal” of the UK’s nuclear deterrent backed by a £15 billion ($20.3 bn) investment, Starmer said in a speech in Scotland on...

MAGA insider and former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Monday that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Kyiv’s strongest backers in Congress, should be “arrested” if he doesn’t stop traveling overseas and “stirring it up” in Ukraine. Bannon expressed his frustration over Ukraine’s stunning drone attack on Russia’s strategic bombing fleet, which destroyed 40 aircraft deep inside Russian territory, giving Ukrainian forces a potential morale boost. Bannon said the White House should condemn the military strike and crack down on Graham’s diplomacy. The senator applauded Ukraine’s resourcefulness in pulling off a successful attack Sunday. “The White House...

President Trump on Monday blamed the antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colo., a day earlier on former President Biden’s border policies, calling the incident that injured several people an example of the need for secure borders. A man used a “makeshift flamethrower” and incendiary devices Sunday to attack people demonstrating for the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas. The suspect, Mohamed Soliman, reportedly yelled “free Palestine” during the attack, the FBI said Sunday. Soliman is an Egyptian national who entered the U.S. in 2022 and overstayed his tourist visa, The Colorado Sun reported, citing federal authorities. He had filed...

A Dutch weather forecaster has accused Belgium of inadvertently stealing wind from its neighbours’ wind turbines in the North Sea. Wind farms in Belgium are reportedly taking up to 3 % of wind energy from Dutch installations, according to Remco Verzijlbergh, CEO of Dutch weather forecasting service Whiffle. In an interview with Belgian broadcaster VRT, Verzijlbergh said: “A wind turbine is designed to extract wind from the air. If you measure behind a wind turbine, the wind blows less hard. Behind a wind farm with many wind turbines together, you really see lower wind speeds.” Verzijlbergh explained that Belgian wind...

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ congressional campaign has been fined $68,000 for violating several federal campaign finance laws during her 2020 reelection bid. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) recently published investigation documents showing Waters’ 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, understated contributions and spending by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Waters campaign has agreed to pay the fine and “send its treasurer to a commission sponsored training program for political committees,” nonpartisan campaign finance research group OpenSecrets reported. Waters’ 2020 campaign accepted $19,000 worth of excessive contributions throughout 2019 and 2020, and made $7,000 worth of “prohibited cash disbursements”...

Their book is nothing more than a ‘partial hangout’ written to disguise media lies about Biden’s decline. Now that Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have published Original Sin, which confirms what most Americans already knew — that former President Joe Biden was cognitively unfit to carry out the duties of his office — the corporate media are attempting to deflect attention from their complicity in a dangerous cover up. The “original sin,” according to Tapper and Thompson, was Biden’s decision to run for reelection in 2024 and the dishonesty of his aides. A far more egregious sin, however, was the...

The first section of the document contains the "basic parameters of the final settlement", the second section of the document, devoted to the terms of the ceasefire, contains two scenarios the events might followMOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. The Russian memorandum on a future settlement, handed over to the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations in Istanbul, implies Ukraine's neutrality and a ban on any military activity by third countries on its territory. Russia's proposals, set out in the document obtained by TASS, envisage elections in Ukraine, followed by the signing of a peace treaty. The first section of the document contains...

Dear FRiends, We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. This means no spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers. And because we are not a 501C, we have preserved our God-given, constitutionally protected right to free speech without government intervention. If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today: Click here: to donate by Credit CardOr here: to donate by PayPalOr by mail to: Free Republic, LLC...

The departure comes on the heels of a Florida jury awarding a U.S. Navy veteran at least $5 million over a report that said he operated in a "black market." CNN chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, whose 2021 report portraying a U.S. Navy veteran as illegally exploiting Afghans was found to be defamatory earlier this year, is leaving the network. “Tough to say goodbye but it’s been an honor to work among the very best in the business,” Marquardt wrote in a Monday post on X (formerly Twitter). “Profound thank you to my comrades on the National Security team...

It took a federal jury an hour to convict a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy of using excessive force after he assaulted and pepper-sprayed a woman outside a supermarket in Lancaster in 2023.The prosecutors made their case in a three-day trial in February, ultimately persuading jurors to find Trevor Kirk guilty of a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law. Kirk faced up to 10 years in prison.But on Monday, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson sentenced Kirk to four months in prison, after last week granting the government’s request to dismiss the felony charge. With that...

At this time a massive emergency response is currently underway in Weslaco, Texas, where a standoff has unfolded involving a male suspect stranded atop a water tower. Authorities say the man climbed the structure earlier today and became stuck, prompting law enforcement and rescue teams to respond. Negotiations are ongoing, and the motive behind their actions remains unclear. Emergency crews are now working to bring them down safely, with specialized equipment on standby as a precaution.

The plan, the first large-scale attempt to address the impact of the 1921 atrocity, will raise private funds for housing assistance, scholarships and economic development.The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, killed up to 300 Black residents and destroyed a neighborhood. More than a century later, the city’s mayor announced a $105 million reparations package on Sunday, the first large-scale plan committing funds to address the impact of the atrocity. Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor of Tulsa, unveiled the sweeping project, named Road to Repair. It is intended...