Free Republic

RainFurrest 2015 was one for the books. The convention, filled with full-grown adults dressed as bears, wearing diapers and taking drugs, catapulted the often sex-crazed subculture cast into the public eye. It was meant to be an annual convention designed for and by furries. But the debauchery that ensued left animal loving organizers banned from ever holding another event in the city of Seattle after brass at the hotel they defiled spread word about what happened the social gathering. Permanently plastered in the annals of internet history, the event started to go off the rails when someone purposely loosened a...

Hundreds of migrants, most from Africa and Venezuela, swarmed into Powell Barnett Park in Seattle on Monday and hastily erected a tent encampment before issuing a list of demands including free housing, food, and other needs. The park, situated in Seattle’s Central District neighborhood, was invaded in a planned takeover by more than 200 migrants who brought in wood pallets and erected tents on top of them. One of the migrants, Republic of Congo Central African native Don Tstay, told the media they plan to stay until their demands are met. “So far they haven’t kicked us out, and we...

One strategy for state officials looking to transition Washington’s transportation sector to electric vehicles is by subsidizing them with taxpayer dollars.This week, Gov. Jay Inslee announced $45 million in subsidies through a Department of Commerce grant program for families deemed “low-income” to purchase an EV. “Washingtonians really get it when it comes to electric vehicles,” Inslee said at a Wednesday news conference in Tukwila.The program provides up to $9,000 for families to lease an EV, or $5,000 to purchase one. The grant program allows them to purchase either new or used EVs. The funding would be available to those who...

A prominent pro-Kremlin propagandist has been unmasked as a 37-year-old Navy veteran and tropical fish seller from New Jersey. Divorcee Sarah Bils is known to her 100,000 devoted fans online as 'Donbas Devushka', or Donbas Girl. She posed as a Russian Jew from the occupied Ukrainian city of Luhansk and a geopolitics expert. -snip- She left the military in November last year with an honorable discharge but only after being demoted. Bils claims she was 'kicked out' of the Navy due to her 'leftist views.'

A social-media account overseen by a former U.S. Navy noncommissioned officer—a prominent online voice supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine—played a key role in the spread of intelligence documents allegedly leaked by Airman First Class Jack Teixeira. A purported Russian blogger known as Donbass Devushka, which translates as Donbas Girl, reposted the files from obscure online chat rooms. The blog is the face of a network of pro-Kremlin social-media, podcasting, merchandise and fundraising accounts. But the person who hosted podcasts as Donbass Devushka and oversees these accounts is a Washington-state-based former U.S. enlisted aviation electronics technician whose real name is Sarah...

The man fatally shot by Seattle police officers at a Tukwila hotel last week was a retired U.S. Navy physician who is tied to an address in Hansville, Kitsap County, records show.Bruce Coval Meneley,67, was identified Tuesday by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, which determined he died from multiple gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide. Task force members were conducting a sting operation at the Double Tree Hotel in Tukwila to arrest a suspect who thought he was going to meet two young girls, ages 7 and 11, in a hotel room, according to an item posted...

King County filed charges against 6 people for the blockade which trapped motorists and emergency vehicles for over 5 hours. Two Seattle public school teachers and an Antifa militant with ties to the MS-13 gang were among those charged for shutting down the Interstate 5 freeway in January as part of an anti-Israel demonstration. On Friday, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) filed misdemeanor charges against six people in connection with the January 6 blockade, during which hundreds of anti-Israel activists flooded the northbound lanes of the freeway and trapped thousands of motorists and emergency vehicles for over 5...

Nonprofit on boards in the city of Seattle are facing huge bosses because tenants in the city are not paying rent. Following the pandemic eviction moratorium, a lot of tenants became used to someone else paying their bills for them and continue to not pay to this day. This has hurt the revenue of the nonprofits

We have often discussed how cities and universities will use the threat of protests to block or shutdown free speech, particularly of conservative speakers or groups. We now have a major decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that could prove an important precedent in resisting the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. In Meinecke v. City of Seattle, the court ruled against Seattle in a case involving the arrest of a pro-life protester. Matthew Meinecke was harassed by Antifa and other counterprotesters, but police arrested Meineche when he refused to yield...

A group of House Democrats on Tuesday announced they would move to codify federal protections for transgender people. The proposal, dubbed the “Transgender Bill of Rights,” would codify the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision that protects employees against discrimination for being gay or transgender. The proposal would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly include protections for gender identity and sex characteristics, expand access to gender-affirming care and ban conversion therapy. It would also require the attorney general to designate a liaison dedicated to overseeing enforcement of civil rights for transgender people and invest in...

Nike will lay off about 740 employees at its world headquarters in Oregon, a letter showed on Friday, as the top sportswear maker looks to rein in costs after warning of a revenue dip in the first half of fiscal 2025. The "second phase of impacts" would begin by June 28 at its headquarters, Michele Adams, Nike's vice president for people solutions, said in a legally mandated notice to state authorities. The company's shares were up marginally in after-hours trading. They have declined nearly 13% this year. Nike had in December announced a cost savings plan for $2 billion over...

Donald Trump on Friday endorsed a primary challenger to Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, one of two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach the former president over his role in the Jan. 6 riot. In a Truth Social post, Trump threw his support behind Jerrod Sessler, a former petty-officer in the Navy who has gone after Newhouse for his impeachment vote. "Jerrod Sessler is a fantastic candidate and will be a GREAT Congressman for Washington State’s 4th Congressional District," Trump wrote, while also citing Newhouse's impeachment vote. Newhouse's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday...

Members of a regional women’s country line dance team were reportedly kicked out of a Seattle dance convention after organizers claimed their American flag-themed shirts made some attendees feel "triggered and unsafe." Over the weekend at the Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle, the Borderline Dance team was set to perform, but were essentially told they weren't welcome by organizer Rain Country Dance Association, an LGBTQ+ dance community, over their matching American flag themed shirts, Jason Rantz reported for 770 KTTH. "Unfortunately, what our team was met with upon arrival was that our flag tops were offensive to some of the...

Washington neighbors take 'matters into their own hands,' demand squatter be removed from home. Landlord Jaskaran Singh and journalist Jonathan Choe discuss a Washington community coming together to demand a squatter be removed from a local home. [Today, April 5, 2024, FoxNews [TV] had an update of the story.]

We're not really sure how to categorize the latest craziness out of the state of Washington. Is it government incompetence? The dangers of artificial intelligence? 'Come to Seattle for hot, sexy singles'? Maybe we should just go with 'all of the above.' (OK, not that last one, that wasn't nice.) Yes, just when you thought the state that brought us 'CHAZ' back in 2020 couldn't get any more batpoop insane, a new report from local radio host Jason Rantz shows us that Washington has not yet begun to plumb the depths of its depravity. EXCLUSIVE: Washington Lottery was forced to...

Two days after being sworn into the Thurston County Sheriff's Office (TCSO), Christopher Burbank resigned from the position. The TCSO on Wednesday said the former Tacoma Police Department officer came to the decision "based on community response and death threats made" to his family. Burbank was one of three Tacoma police officers cleared of criminal charges in the 2020 death of Manuel "Manny" Ellis, a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained facedown on a sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.

Seattle Public Schools is dismantling its gifted and talented program, which administrators argued was oversaturated with white and Asian students, in favor of a more “inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive” program. The district began phasing out its Highly Capable Cohort schools and classrooms for advanced students in the 2021-22 school year due to racial inequities, the school district notes. The program will completely cease to exist by the 2027-28 school year, with a new enrichment-for-all model available in every school by the 2024-25 school year. “The program is not going away, it’s getting better,” school officials said on the district...

Democrats run the state of Washington with almost no Republican opposition, and, apparently, there are so many unreported hate crimes that lawmakers have set up a snitch line. We don’t have anywhere near these problems where I live — you know, in MAGALand — but wherever Democrats run things, you get hate, racism, and bigotry, on top of crime, poverty, drug addiction, and homelessness.

On Thursday, the Biden administration restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back under former President Trump. Among the changes announced, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft time-intensive plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines and alligator snapping turtles in the southeastern U.S. and spotted owls. The blanket protection regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes...

The new head of Boeing’s troubled commercial airplane unit said the planemaker faces a “pivotal moment” as it works to boost quality and address significant concerns from regulators and airline customers after a panel flew off a 737 MAX 9 jet in January. “This is a pivotal moment for us, and we have serious work ahead to build trust and improve our operations,” said Stephanie Pope, who was named president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes ... Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced he would leave by the end of the year, while the company’s long-time head of commercial airplanes, Stan...