Free Republic

I didn’t expect the highlight of my Tuesday night would be watching an actor portraying Luigi Mangione sing a ballad about hash browns, followed by a tap dance number featuring his cellmates Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried (who happen to be falling in love). The plot is totally outrageous, but as “Luigi: the Musical” goes on, it becomes cathartic to sit in the warm haze of the Independent with over a hundred strangers and laugh, groan and marvel at the spectacle American life has become.

I’m gonna be a dick today, because that’s a personal choice. It’s the middle of June and the COVID-19 vaccine is available (and free!) to anyone in the United States over the age of 12. This is a miracle. If you’re fully vaccinated like I am, you can throw parties now. You can travel. You can eat out. You don’t have to quarantine at home, counting toilet paper rolls and making hatch marks on your bedroom wall and wondering when you’ll be free of this bloody pandemic. It’s over for you. You won. You could even celebrate by going to...

Animal-rights protesters, some chained together on the racetrack, disrupted racing and COVID-19 vaccinations on Thursday at Golden Gate Fields. A group called Direct Action Everywhere set up pickets around the track, and four members chained themselves together and lay down on the track near the five-sixteenths pole at noon, about 45 minutes before the first race. The people on the track also set off purple smoke flares, while another group of protesters waved signs near the entrance that said, “Shut Down Golden Gate Fields.” Because of the coronavirus pandemic, there were no spectators at the track for the day’s card....