Free Republic

On Veterans Day we remember from WWII the hazards faced by the young men who became our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. For example, the 8th Air Force suffered over 26,000 dead compared to the Marine Corps losing nearly 20,000 killed in the Pacific. Their bombers were mainly crewed by teenagers and men in their early twenties, but of all crew members the ball turret gunner confronted the most dismal fate.The emerging certainty the United States would be drawn into WW II promoted creation of an autonomous Army Air Force. Until the war in Europe began, dominate Army doctrine gave the...

The best things in life are free — but are they actually? Realtor.com reports a five-bedroom residence in Nantucket, Massachusetts — one worth $5 million, no less — is available for free. Yes, its owners are looking to give away the five-bedroom spread. But does that mean anyone can simply move into the Cliff Road dwelling located a stone’s throw from the ocean? No. In this case, a prospective owner has to move the home off its foundation and transport it elsewhere in the next 180 days. Each year, as Nantucket’s summer tourist season draws to close, a new season...

The Political Landscape has Become Confusing. I’ve been noticing a divergence among “the right” since the ‘oughts. I never bothered to build a taxonomy for it, but somebody else has. Such might be useful—at least as a rudimentary model to be refined. Since I began working on my upcoming graphic novel, I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts while adjusting line art, coloring and shading. Within the last week or so, I’ve discovered Nick Freitas. His podcasts have been enjoyable partly because his co-hosts have offered takes just as interesting as his, if not more so. When I heard them...

LAS VEGAS, NV — Following a recent performance by a legendary band of their greatest hits, fans posted online about how they couldn't believe how much the lead singer had aged in the last 50 years. Though the crowd appeared to enjoy the show, attendees later expressed shock that the band's frontman looked so much older and worn down by life than he did when the band first hit it big in the 1970s. "Man, he really looks old now," said one fan in a social media post. "It's a far cry from the way he looked a half...

"Don't kill it, don't squish it, don't cut it up," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller warned residents via NBC as a toxic flatworm spreads across North Texas. While this invasive species has been in the US for years, the state's fatally heavy rains, fueled by climate change, are enabling the hammerhead flatworm (Bipalium kewense) to thrive and spread. This brown and black-striped, flattened land planarian with a distinctive half-moon-shaped head can reach lengths of up to 40 cm (15.7 inches). Like many flatworm species, it can regenerate a whole new worm from slices of itself. Decapitating the worm will only...

Her recent appearances on Bill Maher, The View, and CNN are clear indicators Greene wants to win over anti-Trump Americans. Greene has been increasingly critical of her own party. MTG bashed Republicans for not having a “plan” to replace Obamacare, which she said made her “angry.”

For the first time in decades, the Democrats have lost their bid to engineer a federal government shutdown, blame the Republicans for it, and win political concessions for doing so. Now that they’ve lost, they’re blaming moderates in their own party for the miscalculation. Let the blaming begin. As is often the case, CNN’s unflappable, lonely conservative, Scott Jennings, predicted the outcome of the shutdown last week after Democrats posted big wins in blue states in the off-year elections. “I’m sure the Democrats will be happy to open the government now, the election is over,” he said, even as the...

Legendary actress Sally Kirkland has died. She was 84. Kirkland passed away Tuesday at 1:50 a.m. PT, her rep, Michael Greene, confirmed to TMZ. Greene said Kirkland “will be deeply missed.”

New research suggests that drinking coffee may actually help protect against atrial fibrillation (AFib), a common heart rhythm disorder that causes the heart to beat too quickly and irregularly, sometimes leading to stroke or heart failure. For years, doctors have advised people with AFib and other heart issues to stay away from caffeine, fearing it could worsen symptoms. But a new study from UC San Francisco and the University of Adelaide has found the opposite: participants who drank one cup of caffeinated coffee a day had a 39% lower risk of developing AFib. Why Coffee May Help the Heart"Coffee increases...

There’s an anti-Left storm brewing among the once conservative/libertarian Generation Z, which follows a predictable and dangerous path that’s left a trail of destruction throughout history. It came to light in the split between Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson last week over Carlson’s platforming of Nick Fuentes, the virulent antisemitic, pro-Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler-adoring, Holocaust-denying influencer, who’s become the heroic voice of Gen Z’s heterosexual white Christian men who have been devastated the hardest by America’s decline. Shapiro called Carlson out for giving Fuentes an uncontested platform, leading to a bitter parting between two friends who had fought to preserve...

Nearly a decade ago, Los Angeles County voters overwhelmingly approved Measure M, a half-cent sales tax to fund projects focused on public transportation. The idealistic vote gave Angelenos a lot to look forward to, including a $365 million plan for an 8-mile bike path along the Los Angeles River, which would close a crucial gap between existing paths lining LA’s concrete channelized waterway. The expected opening date: 2025. But, as the year nears a close, the bike path still isn’t open. In fact, construction hasn’t even started, and the environmental review process is still in the early stages. In the...

Bundles of U.S. dollars in American bank packaging were seized from suspects in the energy-sector corruption schemes — a detail that could heighten U.S. investigators’ interest in the case. Journalist Yurii Nikholov wrote, Censor.NET reports. Cash in U.S. bank packaging seized from suspects "I still can’t grasp the scale of NABU’s hit on the corrupt. This isn’t a joke. The President’s partner from ‘Kvartal 95’ and the favorite energy minister from the circle of traitor Andrii Derkach, this isn’t some clownish jokes about ebonite sticks. I’ll publish a series of posts to break this down. The basic fact is this:...

“We live in the dumbest of times and Democrats are truly led by the dumbest of all of us.” —Sean Davis, The Federalist. You can suppose the government will re-open this week, and then what? It could close back down in January when the latest funding patch runs out. And then what? Another shut-down and another continuing resolution? The nation hopscotches toward insolvency and breakdown. The sorrows of Mr. Trump mount as his enemies devise ever-novel punishments for the people of this land. The mutual animus of the two parties spirals upward like the vortex of a developing superstorm. It’s...

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It was only just over a week ago — Halloween day, actually — that I had a post on the scariest houses in Greenwich Village. As the scariest house of all, I picked the one at 80 Washington Place, which had recently been the alleged site of rigged poker games where wealthy marks had gotten fleeced out of millions of dollars. Today, in a weekly column titled “Gimme Shelter,” the New York Post provides an update on that very house. It’s on the market! The headline is “Luxury NYC pad used in the NBA gambling scandal has listed for $22.5M...

The 42-day federal shutdown forced by Democrats thrust the economics of Obamacare into the limelight, and exposed an uncomfortable truth: An insurance industry whose executives are increasingly liberal donors has seen its earnings soar with the injection of taxpayer-funded subsidies that propped up Barack Obama's signature health program from collapse. The nation’s largest health insurance companies have seen good business since Obamacare was first passed in 2010 and fully implemented in 2014. This has come in no small part because of federal government subsidies to the insurance industry, which government estimates show totaled $1.8 trillion in 2023 alone. Those subsidies...

Certain bitter plant compounds — the kind found naturally in cocoa, apples, berries and red wine — may temporarily boost memory by activating the brain's internal "alarm system," a new study suggests. Researchers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology in Japan found that when mice consumed flavanols — plant-based compounds known for their antioxidant properties — their brains released a surge of noradrenaline, a chemical linked to alertness and focus. Within an hour, the animals performed about 30% better on a memory test compared with untreated mice, according to the findings, which were published in October in the journal Current...

A teen boy and his mother filed a federal lawsuit against Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and its police department, alleging false arrest and imprisonment after the boy was misidentified in a surveillance video and jailed for nearly a month on gun charges. The complaint filed by Mekhi Johnson and his mother, Amber Garrity, on July 31 (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star) claims Williamsport Police Bureau Agent Benjamin Hitesman ignored evidence proving Johnson’s innocence and failed to inform prosecutors, willful omissions that a county judge later said “cast a dark cloud” over local police and all law enforcement..... Based solely on that...

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them,” Laurence Binyon wrote. His words in his poem For the Fallen have become timeless and are read every year on Remembrance Sunday as Britain comes together to pay respect to all those who have died in conflict since the First World War. Some 107 years after WWI ended, those words still hold power today while reminding people about the lives sacrificed for peace. The first Armistice Day was observed on November 11, 1919, to mark the first anniversary of the end of the First World...

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