Free Republic

California’s reputation began sinking well before COVID-19 restrictions hastened the descent. Homelessness has soared; cost of living has squeezed even many middle-income earners; taxes have towered above those of other states, with lawmakers now threatening to raise them higher; and crime has risen. Last month, Chief Executive magazine ranked California the least business-friendly state. For eight years now, these phenomena have spurred emigration. The exodus from the Golden State has perturbed the left for the bad light in which it casts progressive domestic policy, but also the right for the impact California’s departees stand to exert on their new, often...

Some areas of the country haven’t given up on investigating voter fraud during the presidential election, including Arizona and Georgia. But it’s not easy, because the left is going all out to stop them. Here in Arizona, the main opposition is coming from the Arizona Secretary of State, far left Katie Hobbs. This woman is frightening. She is trying to make a name for herself since she wants to run for governor in 2022. The Arizona Senate ordered an audit of Maricopa County ballots earlier this year, taking possession of 2.1 million ballots and nearly 400 election machines and turning...

A 28-year-old man was shot and killed by a man riding an e-bike in Manhattan Sunday morning, cops and police sources said. The victim was in a parked car at 2253 Third Avenue in East Harlem around 11 a.m. when the suspect on a red and black e-bike shot him, the sources said. A clerk at a discount store near the shooting scene heard the rapid gunfire and walked out to see the victim struggling to take his last breaths. “I heard the shots. Boom! Boom! Boom! Maybe six,” said the clerk. Hours after the shooting woman-led community members and...

TrialSite has learned of material information regarding mRNA vaccine safety revealed by a freedom of information act (FOIA) filed by a group of Canadian physicians (who) have become concerned about COVID-19 mRNA vaccine safety. This new safety information involves the Pfizer mRNA-based vaccine. The FOIA documents reveal animal study results demonstrating Pfizer mRNA-based vaccine does not remain at the injection site, but rather appears to spread widely after injection. According to the documents, pre-clinical studies show the active part of the vaccine (mRNA-lipid nanoparticles), which produce the spike protein, spreads throughout the body and is then concentrated in various organs,...

Source: Provided by Robert OrlandoMost Americans recall no more than three World War II generals: Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and the best-remembered ultimate warrior: General George S. Patton. Memory is legacy; memory is honor; memory warns the young and naive. Of all the great WWII legends, Patton, aka “Old Blood and Guts” and Winston Churchill alone, have stories and characters grand enough to take over and “own” Academy Award-winning film classics. Eighty years before today’s “anything goes,” culture, Patton proclaimed, “you can’t run an army without profanity, and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn’t fight...

“And while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). Jesus Christ, as the sinless sufferer, is the only model we need as we endure life’s trials. Prior to his death in 1555, the English Reformer and martyr Hugh Latimer expressed his convictions this way: “Die once we must; how and where, we know not. . . . Here is not our home; let us therefore accordingly consider things, having always before our eyes that heavenly Jerusalem, and the way thereto in...

How? If we could ask those we honor this Memorial Day how best to do it, what would they say? This year, I submit that they would answer differently than they might have in most years past. I suspect many would say to forget their names and their deeds for now. They would ask us, instead, to see what they would no doubt see with clarity: that America, particularly Illinois, is allowing the slow undoing of the what they died for. They would ask us to honor them by committing ourselves to reversing course. They would ask us to consider...

Democrats have walked out of the Texan House of Representatives, blocking a bill on voting that has been criticised as racially discriminatory. The Republican-led bill, which was passed in the state Senate, introduces sweeping restrictions on ways for voters to cast their ballots.

China has raised the number of children each couple can have to three from two. The move is a major bid to reverse the country's falling birth rate and turn around an aging population in the world's most populous nation.China scrapped its longstanding one-child policy in 2016 in favor of a two-child limit, but that didn't spark a continued rise in births. The one-child policy was started in 1979 to halt a population explosion.

Two Ohio lawmakers plan to introduce a resolution this week calling for a convention of states to address the size of the federal government. State Reps. Riordan McClain (R-Upper Sandusky) and Craig Riedel (R-Defiance) said they plan to introduce the resolution, which would create a convention that could discuss the topics of "limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, term limits for Congress and other government officials, and fiscal restraints for the federal government." "The size and scope of the federal government have long been unsustainable, and we have waited long enough for Congress to fix itself," McClain...

It's the Memorial Day image that made Americans online everywhere put their hands to their hearts. A photo that amateur photographer Frank Glick snapped in 2011 of a bald eagle resting on a veteran's gravestone suddenly went viral after the Department of Veterans tweeted it earlier this week. And it's easy to see why. The shot depicts a bald eagle, America's iconic symbol of freedom, perched atop a gravestone, pensively looking out over the expanse. According to an interview with Fox News, Glick snapped the image early one morning at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minnesota before attending a...

This past winter about 80 percent of pharmacies I checked were out of Covid vaccines. The few with available doses had their appointment slots fully booked. The first vaccines to reach the public were rationed. Vaccine eligibility was initially restricted to those considered most at risk. In late March states began opening eligibility to all adults, including Texas where I live. On March 26th I happened to swing by Dougherty’s pharmacy in Dallas to pick up my dog’s medication. About 100 people formed a makeshift line outside the pharmacy. The line started inside near the back of Dougherty’s and spilled...

Here are the bloodiest battles, as measured by the grim count of dead American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, in United States history.

It’s interesting how we move from the self-sacrifice of soldiers who’ve died for our freedoms into a month of self-obsession from LGBT activists who demand we give up our freedoms. We go from memorializing the courageous to merchandising the outrageous. In the process, we’re told to be good automatons and embrace “equality.” But are things really becoming more equal? Corporate America doesn’t rebrand itself for a whole month in red, white, and blue to show any devotion to the USA. They don’t ever celebrate America’s rich religious heritage. They don’t raise flags and release special product editions for other people...

Our cities are filled with extreme violence, and the blood of the innocent flows in our streets, and yet most Americans still seem to be in denial about what is happening. This isn’t just a momentary spike in violent crime that we are witnessing. The increase in violent crime that we experienced in 2020 was unprecedented, and things have been even worse in 2021. If you are not familiar with those numbers, here is a reminder… Police and public reported data details that from January through March of 2021, the homicide rate rose by 28% from the same period last...

Too many people want us to forget our history or devalue its importance. Like most of you, I will enjoy a "family day" and eat too much. We have a grandson now. This is also the first holiday that I won't have my parents around. My mom died in mid-May and my father back in 2015. Our routine is to turn on the grill and eat some burgers. Often, I watch those military documentaries or a good war movie. A few years ago, we watched the series "John Adams". My parents always told us family stories. They would say something...

The role of the World Health Organization (WHO), whose stated objective is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health, has been challenged, especially by the U.S. The WHO has played an important role in public health issues, including the eradication of smallpox, the virtual elimination of polio, the development of an Ebola vaccine, and research on HIV/AIDS. But it has been blamed for inadequate handling of the current pandemic, for not sounding the alarm when the virus appeared and not acting quickly to deal with it, and with being compliant to China, covering up the...

A family from New Jersey learned the value of a legally armed population while vacationing in Florida. New Jersey is one of a handful of states where it is nearly impossible to obtain a permit to carry a gun for self-defense. From foxnews.com:Eric Orgen said he, his wife, and his daughter, 16, had just left a synagogue in Bal Harbour and were walking on the sidewalk when a group of men driving by started shouting and throwing garbage at them.“They just started screaming some derogatory things towards Jewish people out the window,” Orgen told WPEC-TV of West Palm Beach. “My...

"I've been hearing about this stuff happening in California and New York and all over the place. I didn't realize it was happening in my own backyard." And in Saint Tammany Parish, Louisiana, neither did parents. It took a young, courageous Spanish teacher to stand up and say, "Not in my school district" to open the eyes of Americans all across the country. Now, a month later, his viral video is sparking a nationwide movement to expose the Left's biggest lie: it's not happening here. It is, Jonathan Koeppel insists. People just don't know it. Jonathan didn't plan to be...

Last summer, Turkish authorities transformed Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as one of Christendom's greatest cathedrals — into a mosque (again). On that Friday, July 24, 2020 (which for millions of Eastern Christians is now deemed a "day of mourning"), Muslims met inside the desecrated church, where they were led in prayer by a sword-waving imam, to spasmodic cries of "Allahu akbar." The Turks, beginning with their president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have been presenting this bit of cultural appropriation as their "right." Imam Ali Erbas, Turkey's president of religious affairs, has...