Free Republic

Doug Ingle, who sang, wrote and played organ on “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” the haunting 1968 hit by rock band Iron Butterfly, died Friday, as previously reported by Ultimate Classic Rock. Ingle was 78. A cause of death hasn’t been released. On Facebook, the musician’s son, Doug Ingle Jr., wrote, “It’s with a heavy heart & great sadness to announce the passing of my Father Doug Ingle. Dad passed away peacefully this evening in the presence of family.” Ingle’s son concluded his Facebook tribute with, “Thank You Dad for being a father, teacher and friend. Cherished loving memories I will carry the rest...

On this date in 1213, the hermit Peter of Pontefract (or Peter of Wakefield) was hanged by King John. Reluctant Magna Carta signer and ridiculous Robin Hood villain, John has never been the most highly regarded sovereign. (A recent BBC poll saluted him as the 13th century’s very worst Briton.) The papacy ranked among John’s many irritants. A 1205 dispute with Pope Innocent III over the successor to the late Archbishop of Canterbury — John wanted control of ecclesiastical appointments in his own realm, a little preview of coming attractions in English history — extended so far as Innocent’s excommunicating...

On this date in 1994, an uncooperative Charles Rodman Campbell was lashed to a board to keep him upright, and hanged by the neck until dead at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. According to this Seattle Times timeline of his life and crimes, Campbell had been getting in trouble since he was a child, to the extent that by the time he was seventeen his mother had given up on him and never wanted him back home again. His crimes began with burglary and drug use but quickly escalated into violence. True crime author Ann Rule wrote a...

Why is the Palestinian movement so incorrigible? Namely, what explains the savagery of Hamas’s October 7 rapes and murders? Why has the Palestinian Authority rejected every offer of a sovereign state alongside Israel? And here in America, why do Palestine activists demand not just statehood, but the extermination of Israel? The answer to these questions lies in the origins and history of the Palestinian national movement. Though rarely reported today, that movement was largely shaped by three of the twentieth century’s most lethal extremist ideologies: Islamism, Naziism, and Communism. The Palestinian movement was born after the First World War amid...

The witchcraft trouble [in Bermuda in 1651-55] began in May 1651, when Goodwife Jeane Gardiner, the wife of Ralph Gardiner of Hamilton Tribe, was accused of bewitching a mulatto woman named Tomasin. Jeane Gardiner was heard to say “that she would crampe Tomasin” and reportedly “used many other threatenninge words tending to the hurt and injurie of the said mullatto woman.” Gardiner’s victim was then “very much tormented, and struck blind and dumb for the space of twoe houres or thereabouts.” Jeane Gardiner may have been known in her neighborhood as the wife of Ralph Gardiner, a laborer who had...

Ever wondered what was in the Vatican Secret Archives or the Pope’s Treasury Collection? “Baldwin’s Treasure” is the premier collection of sacred antiquities made of silver and precious gems from all over Byzantium. These include the finest works in ivory and enamel, jade, gold leaf, and glass. Has anyone ever heard of this? Probably not, but those who have been in the company of an elite few. This article is about a mysterious and enigmatic collection of ancient, rare objects belonging to Christian and Jewish heritage. A little backgrounder, though, is necessary. First, when was the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire...

Where our Sailors Rest. “If you ever want to sleep with a blonde again, you had better shoot down these bastards as soon as they come up” – a destroyer captain motivates his exhausted crew shortly before a kamikaze attack. The sea-battle toll for Okinawa that ended on June 21st 1945 was 36 U.S. warships sunk and 368 damaged. Almost 5,000 sailors were killed in action and another 5,000 wounded. War naturally conjures images of courageous infantrymen. Gettysburg, Flanders Fields and not the Coral Sea or Leyte Gulf. Too often forgotten are the heroic Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine...

On this date in 1979, John Spenkelink was electrocuted in Florida — the first man executed involuntarily in the U.S. since 1967. A series of court decisions in the 1970’s had scrapped the country’s old death penalty institutions and obliged legislators to restructure the process. Now, the new architecture was in place and the decade-long hiatus in actual executions was drawing to a close. Gary Gilmore had earned trivia-question notoriety as the first put to death under the new regime two years before, but Gilmore was always an outlier, a bizarrely active exponent of his own death who greased the...

This week, former President Trump held a campaign rally in the Bronx Borough of New York City. An estimated crowd of 25,000 enthusiastic fans attended. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) called the attendees "clowns" and the rally "a waste of time." "Anyone who thinks that enthusiastic voters are going to decide this election is sadly mistaken," Hochul proclaimed. "In the 2020 election Trump had slews of rallies with tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters. Then former Vice-President Biden had only a few dozen attendees at his infrequent campaign appearances. Yet, he easily defeated Trump when the votes were counted." "The secret...

Former Virginia Congressman and Navy Seal Scott Taylor tweeted a photo of a list of classes he said are being taught at West Point, and his tweet is going viral: The classes, lectures, seminars (?) are: —Deconstructing Patriotism: Exploring Postmodernism and US Army Recruitment Amidst the Lack of a National Narrative —Uniformed Perspectives: The Evolution of Cross-Dressing in the Military and Gender Norms —Do My Leaders ‘Get’ Me?: Unpacking the Importance of Representation in the Military —Harder Rights: An Approach to Espoused Values and Behavior Inconsistency What in the world??! Is this a warfighting military academy or a woke liberal...

On this date in 1871, the doomed Paris Commune martyred Archbishop Georges Darboy. When Darboy (English Wikipedia entry | French) was tapped for the job in 1863, there had already been two recent occupants of the seat of Notre Dame killed violently over the generation preceding.* A “learned, conscientious, and respected prelate,” Darboy’s own cross to shoulder was the collapse of the Second Empire with France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. That conflict in turn triggered the 1871 working-class revolution in Paris which briefly drove the established government to the old Bourbon haunts at Versailles while maintaining the capital as...

Chikli posted a letter found in the British archives to coincide with Yom Hashoah. The confidential letter was sent to the British Prime Minister by the Foreign Office. The letter said that al-Banna had sent secret messages to the Germans from his apartment in Cairo, which served as a front for a law office. Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 in order to re-establish the caliphate after the fall of the Ottoman empire. The organisation was inspired by Nazism and antisemitic tropes from the Prototocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf. It advocated violence and martyrdom in...

This is the story of Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr - the uncle of President Joe Biden who was supposedly shot down during World War II and eaten by cannibals. In this video, we break down the real story of his A-20 Havoc and their final mission.

“My condolences.” “I’m so sorry for your loss.” “My sympathies.” “May he rest in peace.” Raised as we are in Western civilization, we have an instinctive response when we hear of someone’s death, whether by natural causes, by accident, or even by murder. We think first of his or her family and friends, we naturally empathize with their sorrow, and we wish them these words and more, heartfelt and seriously. We would be sad if a loved one died, and we assume that everyone must have loved ones. Our sympathy is automatic. One wouldn’t think this would be a problem,...

One hundred years ago today, former Member of Parliament Edla Sofia Hjulgrén was shot during the Finnish Civil War. At the time, Finland was still a Grand Duchy within tsarist Russia. When the Russian revolutionaries who conquered power in St. Petersburg in 1917 proved reluctant to agree to Finnish independence, the Finns just declared it, and a civil war ensued in the first months of 1918 — between Soviet-backed Red Guards and German-backed White Guards. The Whites won a nasty war thick with atrocities on both sides. Although she was a pacifist, our Sofia Hjulgrén was among hundreds of Red...

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Aides to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra routinely inquired about how at least one agency under his control was putting President Joe Biden’s executive order on elections into action. At least one message suggested that Becerra’s office and the agency within HHS wanted to know whether private organizations that received government grants were working to get out the vote through public service announcements or other means. On Nov. 30, 2021, two months after the White House announced a vague description of how federal agencies would implement Biden’s executive order on turning out the vote,...

Fox News host Jesse Watters weighed in on recent reports that the FBI authorized the use of “deadly force” in the raid of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. According to court filings, the Department of Justice authorized “the use of deadly force” when FBI agents swarmed Trump’s home as they searched for classified documents in 2022. According to an operations order revealed in evidence as part of Trump’s criminal case, agents were tasked with seizing “classified information, [National Defense Information], and US Government records.” The filing by lawyers for the former president said authorities also were told to conceal their...

(DCNF)—George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said he was concerned about jury instructions related to intent which could allow the 12 members to use a lower standard of proof to convict former President Donald Trump. New York Judge Juan Merchan, attorneys with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Trump’s lawyers met Tuesday to discuss what instructions would be given to the jury after former legal adviser to Michael Cohen, Bob Costello, finished his testimony. Turley expressed his concern to Fox News host Neil Cavuto, citing Merchan’s pattern of granting Bragg’s prosecutors leeway. “The government is arguing...

This article might be the most controversial and incendiary but most accurate ever written in the last 120 years regarding the Islamic belief system. All I request from our readers is to judge its contents not based on emotions or perceptions but entirely upon its accuracy grounded upon the Islamic scripture and sources. 20% of humanity is Muslim, and 80% is none Muslim. Both Sunnis and Shia Muslims are the enemies of 80% of humanity, whom they call Kuffar/Infidels. Among the 20% of Muslims, 85% are Sunnis and 15% are Shia. Each considers the other Kuffar. Therefore, according to Islam,...

On this day in 1650, James Graham, Earl of Montrose, was hanged in Edinburgh. The tragic “Great Montrose” was renowned for his tactical genius on the battlefield during the civil wars that cost King Charles I both crown and head. Although Montrose would die as a royalist he first entered the lists in the 1630s’ Bishops’ War as part of the Covenanter army resisting the king’s bid to impose top-down religious governance on Scotland. But Montrose was the moderate and post-Bishops War found himself a leading exponent of the pro-reconciliation faction, bitterly opposed by the chief of the Campbell clan,...