Free Republic

When Meghan McCain suddenly left The View, one TV critic hailed her turn as "a highly effective heel, a love-to-hate reality villain." But Meghan McCain's forthcoming audio memoir Bad Republican insists her liberal partners on the show were the villains. Howard Kurtz at Fox News revealed some of the details of her "scorching response." What will generate the gossipy headlines is McCain’s account of her searingly personal conflicts with Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg. And she makes no attempt to sugarcoat their tortured relationship or pretend that behind the scenes they were all gal pals. There was "toxic, direct and...

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Joe Biden's approval numbers continuing to slip through his first year in office, stuck in the upper 30s. Respondents gave Biden a negative 37% job approval rating, with 52% disapproving and 12% not offering an opinion. That's down a single percentage point from his 38% to 53% approval rating on Oct. 6. Additionally, 38% said they hold an overall "favorable opinion" of Biden, down significantly from May, when he was still fresh in office, with 49% rating him favorably. Biden's numbers may be sinking like a ship, but members of Congress are faring even...

A Brooklyn Park man has been sentenced in a fatal shooting that left a 20-year-old Columbia Heights man dead in July in downtown Minneapolis. Court records indicate Troy Lierre Fowler, 31, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison at the St. Cloud Correctional Facility for the shooting death of Mohamed Hussein Hassan. According to the criminal complaint, on July 17, Minneapolis police responded to the area of a parking ramp east of Hennepin Avenue South in the 3300 block of Sixth Street South in downtown Minneapolis on a report of a gunshot fired. A responding officer located a man...

[Catholic Caucus] Priest: Did They Suppress the Latin Mass for the Synod on Synodality?I am one of those “aging boomer” priests that, according to the stereotype, is supposed to cherish Saint Louis Jesuit music, liturgical dance and the like. Only I don’t and even in my exclusively Novus Ordo days never really did. I was spiritually and temperamentally prepared for my Bishop asking me to help with the celebration of the traditional Mass. It was a tough learning curve, thirty eight years ordained and just the NO but I did it. As other priests have said of their first celebration...

For your pleasure (or not!).

Explanation: Where did this big ball of stars come from? Palomar 6 is one of about 200 globular clusters of stars that survive in our Milky Way Galaxy. These spherical star-balls are older than our Sun as well as older than most stars that orbit in our galaxy's disk. Palomar 6 itself is estimated to be about 12.5 billion years old, so old that it is close to -- and so constrains -- the age of the entire universe. Containing about 500,000 stars, Palomar 6 lies about 25,000 light years away, but not very far from our galaxy's center. At...

In-N-Out Burger blasted the city of San Francisco's proof of COVID-19 vaccination requirements after the San Francisco Department of Health closed one of the popular California burger joint's locations for serving customers who were not carrying the proper papers. "On Thursday, October 14, the San Francisco Department of Public Health closed our restaurant at 333 Jefferson Street because In-N-Out Burger Associates (employees) were not preventing the entry of Customers who were not carrying proper vaccination documentation," In-N-Out Burger's chief legal and business officer, Arnie Wensinger, said in a statement. "Our store properly and clearly posted signage to communicate local vaccination...

Last week, a member of British Parliament named David Amess was stabbed to death during an event at a Methodist Church in Essex. The murderer is a “British national believed to be of Somali descent” named Ali Harbi Ali.And guess who’s to blame for this act of terrorism? It certainly isn’t the Muslim with the knife.Jessica Elgot, The Guardian:Boris Johnson is facing calls to enact “David’s law” to crack down on social media abuse of public figures and end online anonymity in the wake of the killing of Sir David Amess…While police are investigating whether there are any links to...

In a new letter to lawmakers, Yellen assured congressional leaders that she would extend extraordinary cash management mechanisms to ensure the U.S. government remains under the federal debt ceiling until Dec. 3.

Comedian Dave Chappelle's newest hourlong special, The Closer, pokes fun at people's pieties, sprinkled with a tenderness that Chappelle has long supplied. It's humane and irreverent and, yes, he directly deals with the criticism and cancellation attempts he's gotten from transgender activists; why wouldn't he? He's never been one to shy away from good material. If you were reading reviews of the special, you wouldn't know that. "Too often in The Closer, it just sounds like Chappelle is using white privilege to excuse his own homophobia and transphobia," sanctimoniously declares an NPR piece, clumsily arguing that he thinks that the...

Aaron Rodgers had a blunt message for his critics after he beat Chicago this past Sunday. During the 24-14 win, the NFL star shouted “I still own you” after scoring a touchdown to seal the victory for the Packers. Because we live in incredibly stupid times, not everyone was impressed. For those of you wondering, the Packers quarterback doesn’t care! Rodgers told Pat McAfee the following in part during a Tuesday interview: Are we getting that soft as a society where we can’t have a back and forth now? I mean, somebody can pay for a ticket and say whatever...

If I were a convert, which I am not, I think I’d rather resent hearing the Pope tell me that I’d made a mistake in becoming one. It seems rather off-putting, don’t you think, to go ahead and pope, only to have the real one in Rome suddenly announce that maybe you shouldn’t have?What’s going on here? Is it a big deal or just a little dustup in a dirt field? Well, it certainly strikes me as a big deal, even if it wasn’t actually the Pope saying it but some high-level twit speaking on his behalf, one of...

James Murdoch, the son of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and his wife Kathryn are close to a deal to fund a climate reporting division of the Associated Press, according to Axios. The Murdoch couple will make a multi-million-dollar investment in the Associated Press as part of the deal, two sources familiar with the negotiations told Axios. The investment will go towards the creation of a new AP climate reporting hub which will employ 20 reporters. The new climate division at the AP would reportedly have other donors in addition to the Murdochs, according to Axios. James and Kathryn Murdoch...

A Spanish drone operator on Tuesday received permission to try to rescue three emaciated dogs trapped near a volcano in the Canary Islands, by catching them with a remote-controlled net and flying them out over a stream of lava. The three dogs have been stranded for weeks in an abandoned yard covered with volcanic ash on the island of La Palma. They have been fed by drones dropping packages of food, but until now no one has been able to figure out how to rescue them. Helicopters are banned from flying to the area because of hot gas that can...

A Texas nurse was convicted Tuesday of capital murder in the deaths of four patients who died after prosecutors say he injected them with air following heart surgeries. Davis, 37, was accused of injecting air into the four patients’ arteries after they underwent heart surgery at the Christus Trinity Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler in 2017 and 2018. During recovery from their surgeries, the four...suffered unexplained neurological problems and died. Defense attorney Phillip Hayes told the jury that the hospital had issues and that Davis was a scapegoat who was only charged because he was there when the deaths occurred....

Christopher Steele should print up calling cards embossed with the words, "Liar For Hire." He could do splashy commercials bragging that Hillary Clinton is a happily satisfied customer. The former British spy pocketed buckets of money from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (not to mention cash from the FBI courtesy of you, the American taxpayer) by conjuring up a phony dossier that was used to smear Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election and trigger an FBI investigation that badly damaged his presidency. When you think about it, it was one helluva grift. Until it was exposed....

Pope Demands Silicon Valley “In the Name of God” Censor “Hate Speech,” “Conspiracy Theories”Pope Francis thinks empowering giant corporations to silence free speech is Godly.Pope Francis invoked God in an effort to pressure Silicon Valley giants into censoring more content, including “hate speech” and “conspiracy theories.”Yes, really.The Pope made the remarks during a World Meeting of Popular Movements, a shadowy organization created to promote “social justice” and fight racism with the help of religious leaders.“In the name of God, I ask the technology giants to stop exploiting human weakness, people’s vulnerability, for the sake of profits without caring about the...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an emergency appeal of a vaccine requirement imposed on Maine health care workers, the latest defeat for opponents of vaccine mandates. It was the first time the Supreme Court weighed in on a statewide vaccine mandate. It previously rejected challenges of vaccine requirements for New York City teachers and Indiana University staff and students. Justice Stephen Breyer rejected the emergency appeal but left the door open to try again as the clock ticks on Maine’s mandate. The state will begin enforcing it Oct. 29. The Maine vaccine requirement that was put in...

Patients waiting at least six hours for an ambulance will become more ‘commonplace’, with exhausted and depleted hospital staff set for ‘a very long winter’, a paramedic has warned. The UK is facing a ‘bleak’ few months amid reports of increasing waits for A&E care. People who suffer heart attacks or strokes are likely to be the worst affected. Health services across the country are experiencing four- to six-hour delays in getting to patients, increasing numbers of ambulances waiting outside hospitals and a backlog of 999 calls. The warning comes as coronavirus deaths rose to their highest daily level since...

President Joe Biden is drowning in a sea of crises of his own creation, and Americans are the ones who are paying the price. There’s an ongoing humanitarian and national security calamity at the southern border. Thirteen U.S. service members are dead, and an unknown number of our citizens remain stranded in Afghanistan following Biden’s disastrous withdrawal. COVID-19 is still rampant, despite Biden’s promises that he would defeat the virus, while his vaccine mandate has divided the country. Americans are not taking the millions of jobs available and the economy is stalled, as many have chosen the option of being...