Free Republic

I have posted clips from my documentary before on YouTube and have been asked many questions in the comments about it. So I decided to tell the background story. My video presents the entire interview. It is a strange and sad story and my doc details the efforts that my team over a nine-month period to investigate it. We concluded that, even with the minor errors that Nettie Mitchell may have made in telling it, the basic story was true. I took the interview that you are watching here to the executive producer of PBS American Experience series and she...

0:00 Introduction 1:35 Rowena (Belle's Niece) Speaking 2:25 Belle Buford Thom Collins Speaking This is Belle Buford Thom Collins, born in 1878, speaking about her childhood in 1880s Los Angeles. Her father, Cameron E. Thom, was the Mayor of Los Angeles between 1882 and 1884. Mrs. Collins' niece, Rowena, is the person speaking in the beginning of the recording. Audio has been remastered. This was recorded on November 26, 1964. The original tape contained several gaps, so some areas begin in mid-sentence. All photographs are of early Los Angeles, between the 1870s to the late 1890s.

March 21, 2024 Press Release WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland opening an inquiry into the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) use of artificial intelligence (AI) to surveil Americans' financial information. The Committee and its Select Subcommittee have reason to believe that the IRS and Department of Justice (DOJ) are actively monitoring millions of Americans' private transactions, bank accounts, and related financial information—without any legal process—using an AI-powered system. This AI-powered warrantless financial surveillance is highly concerning and raises serious doubts...

Sunk deep into shaven and elaborately tattooed skulls, a hundred pairs of eyes – hollow and dark –are boring directly into mine. The men they belong to have committed crimes evil almost beyond comprehension. Members of two of the most savage rival gangs the world has seen, El Salvador’s Ms-13 and Barrio 18, they raped and tortured, murdered and mutilated, cut bodies to pieces and strewed them around the streets to strike terror in the neighbourhoods they controlled. On my journey to the world-renowned prison that holds them, the Latin American country’s new Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), my government escorts...

In a previous video I introduced the oldest voices that can still be heard through recordings made on Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s phonautograph and Thomas Edison’s early tinfoil phonograph. This time, we look at how efforts to promote Edison’s new “perfected” phonograph in Britain led to the preservation of the voices of many famous Victorians - from poets and composers like Robert Browning and Arthur Sullivan, to major political figures like William Gladstone. We will also see how his rivals finally succeeded in recording the voice of Queen Victoria.

Matthew Taylor Coleman, the California QAnon follower accused of killing his two small children with a speargun, is still incompetent to stand trial, his attorneys say — and they have only days to agree to a treatment plan for him. According to documents filed in federal court last month, attorneys on both sides have repeatedly asked the court to extend the deadlines for trial, because the 43-year-old is unable to help prepare his own defense. The next hearing is on Feb. 18, and the judge has said there will be no more extensions in the case. Feds are noting that...

On Tuesday, December 3, China announced stringent export restrictions on “dual-use” technologies for both civilian and military use, specifically targeted at the United States. These restrictions double down on previously announced controls on these metals, going so far as to ban shipments of antimony, gallium, and germanium to the United States. The new restrictions marked several firsts in the trade war—the first time Chinese critical minerals export restrictions were targeted at the United States rather than all countries and the first time restrictions on critical minerals were a direct response to restrictions on advanced technologies. Critical mineral security is now...

The Good Nazi” is one of those rare films that weave together science, history and extremely personal human stories. During the Holocaust, a german army Major named Karl Plagge, arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania as part of the occupation force. When he saw that the SS was hellbent on murdering every Jewish man, woman and child, Plagge decided to save Jews, rather than murder them. So he ran a covert operation. On the surface, he was commandant of a forced labor camp called “HKP”. In reality, he was sheltering hundreds of Jewish families. By the end, many were saved in hiding...

A female driver was killed and her passenger seriously injured after they were tossed from a Tesla that flipped and then burst into flames on the FDR Drive in Manhattan early Tuesday, cops said. The Tesla struck a guardrail and flipped on the FDR near 70th Street on the Upper East Side just after 2:30 a.m., the NYPD said — with photos showing huge chunks of the electric vehicle scattered across the road. Both the woman and her 26-year-old passenger were ejected from the car, which burst into flames

Senator Lindsey Graham, @LindseyGrahamSC , is a Director at the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit funded by USAID. 🔹 Government Funding: $130.7M reported on IRS Form 990 🔹 Active Grants: $9.2M 🔹 EIN: 521340267 | UEI: V2DWM1KMJNK5 Many Congresspeople are not neutrals when it comes to closing down USAID, because they are a part of it. That is a fact. (and there is more.....)

Anti-meat eaters are gonna have a cow. Fast foodies are just finding out that Wendy’s much-fabled “T-Rex” isn’t a mere myth but, instead, a hulking hot commodity on the restaurant’s top-secret menu. “Nine patties,” raved virtual chowhound @JoeOhEats before struggling to wrap his mouth around the dinosaur-esque sandwich. “Pure cow,” continued the Chicago-based content creator between messy bites of the greasy, goopy grub for more than 1.2 million TikTok viewers. It may be a feast for the eyes, but it’s likely torture on the tummy.

Anxiously anticipated federal data on student achievement show that children continued to lose ground in the years after the pandemic, particularly in reading, a troubling finding that has fed competing political narratives about education in America. The sobering report released Wednesday from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card, showed that the path to recovery remains far rockier than experts had hoped — especially for students who were already struggling the most. The data showed that reading scores, which had fallen dramatically from 2019 to 2022, fell again in 2024, with a record portion of...

What an important release this one is. Today, Benson Lossing's "Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of American Independence" is ready for a listen. This book has some really important sections in it which are not biographies at all, but a 1-by-1 explanation of what each grievance in the Declaration is in reference to. That makes this audio book surely one of a kind in that regard. As for the biographies, most as audio are inbetween 5 to 10 minutes, giving a brief overview of all of these wonderful people. Some Founding Fathers never received a major biographical...

"Why are Russians often seen as amoral, brutal, or ruthless?" In this video, I tackle this intriguing question from a subscriber's perspective as a writer born in the USSR. Join me as I uncover the deep social and historical forces that shape Russian behavior, exploring the layers of the social pyramid, the influence of state power, and its impact on morality and actions. From loyalty to authority to the importance of personal connections, I dive into the unique dynamics of Russian culture and social structures. Get ready for an eye-opening journey into the complexities behind the perceptions. Video Chapters: 00:00...

A knife-wielding teenager is facing felony charges after stabbing another youngster during a heated dispute inside of a Long Island Macy’s, cops said. The argument between two 17-year-old boys inside of the department store at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream ended when one of them whipped out a blade around 12:30 p.m. Friday, according to the Nassau County Police Department. The teen stabbed the victim twice, once in the arm and once in the back, then tried to run from the grisly scene, police said. The victim was taken to an area hospital in stable condition, according to authorities....

Better leave than wait out the clock. Aspirational workers beware, staying at one company won't get you out of a dead-end role. Gen Zers might be on the right track, as job-hopping is shaping up to be the solution to the workplace blues. Young workers are especially likely to quit a job as a way of getting ahead early on in their careers. Most (83%) consider themselves to be job-hoppers, according to a report from ResumeLab—and they're onto something. New research reveals that sticking to one boss and one company doesn’t always lead to success these days, as workers have...

2000 years ago, Jesus Christ walked on earth, fully God and fully man. In “The Life Of Jesus”, host Pete Hegseth and his pastor retrace His steps throughout the Holy Land: where he lived, where he healed, where he died, and where he rose. In Episode 1 "A King is Born", they explore the little town of Bethlehem and into the Judean wilderness.

There is a near universal majority of scholars in many fields—historians, Bible scholars, New Testament scholars, philologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, literature, folklore and oral history specialists, paleographers, linguistics scholars in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, those in the field of the Classics, a Dead Sea scroll specialist or two, and many others—from atheist to Jew to liberal to fundamentalist Christian, who all agree Jesus existed.Over the last two hundred years, there has also been a small group called “mythicists” who have asserted there was no historical Jesus. Very few mythicists are scholars; I know of two currently. They tend to be exclusively atheistic...

A mother who allegedly couldn’t be bothered to look up from her phone while her 3-year-old son drowned nearby at a Texas waterpark has been indicted nearly two years later. Jessica Weaver, 35, is charged in connection with the death of her son, Anthony Malave, who drowned in May 2023 during a soft opening at the new Camp Cohen Water Park in El Paso. One of 18 lifeguards working at the park pulled the unconscious boy out of a 4-foot-deep section of the pool. He was rushed to the hospital where he died, police said. Weaver was glued to her...

General EssaysAnalysis of general principles used by the "borrowing" thesis. Some notes on alleged parallels between Christianity and pagan religions -- an introductory commentary by a classical scholar writing for us as "Justin Martyr" On Napoleon as Myth translated by "Justin Martyr" Glenn Miller's general essay refuting the pagan-copycat thesis Creation Ministries International on Indian creation mythsOld Testament "Borrowing"Figures claimed to be sources for the Old Testament. Named entities in alphabetical order. Akhenaten -- Did the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten influence Jewish monotheism? Sargon -- Did the story of this Assyrian king influence the story of Moses? Sinuhe -- Did the...