Free Republic

Happy Birthday, and many more to our wonderful host and great patriot—creator of Free Republic—Jim Robinson! Post your good wishes here!

The senior government executive who organized the lavish Las Vegas conference at the center of a General Services Administration spending scandal took dozens of trips for the agency. The boss's wife accompanied him on some of them — and taxpayers picked up the tab. Deborah Neely wasn't always just sharing husband Jeffrey E. Neely's hotel rooms at resorts from Las Vegas to the Pacific islands. She handled party arrangements, directed event planners to spend government money and arranged lodging for relatives on the GSA trip to Las Vegas in 2010, an unusual role revealed in transcripts of interviews that the...

The city of Miami is planning an official celebration at the Orange Bowl whenever Cuban president Fidel Castro dies. Discussions by a committee appointed earlier this month by the city commission to plan the event have even covered issues such as a theme to be printed on T-shirts, what musicians would perform, the cost and how long the celebration would last. Such a gathering has long been part of the city's plan for Castro's death, but firming up the specifics has been more urgent since Castro became ill last summer and turned over power to his brother, Raul. City Commissioner...

While news cameras were filming the event, Marine Jeff Key physically grabbed a cameraman from San Francisco local affiliate KGO. Key objected to the cameraman’s shooting position, which was on the same site where the protesters have erected crosses listing the names of fallen soldiers in Iraq. Here's a photo from right before the altercation took place: I asked Mark Matthews of KGO about the alleged assault, “I’m not happy about it. We’re happy to abide by the rules when we know what the rules are. But there was no message communicated to us to stay out of the crosses....

2002-03-11 21:32:00 Homeless man in Novosibirsk region eats an armchairTwo homeless men fought for an empty beer bottle on the railway station of Novosibirsk. Forty-five-year-old Mikhail Galbur drank the beer and did not give the empty bottle away to his 26-year-old namesake, as he demanded it, but put it in the bag. The young man was furious, he swore at his “pal,” and then thought that he should be punished, so he stabbed him in the back. The wound was not serious, but homeless Mikhail had to go to the hospital anyway. The “hero” of the incident was sent for...