Free Republic

An assistant professor at a Virginia university is taking heat for saying it isn’t necessarily immoral for adults to be sexually attracted to children — prompting college officials to put out a statement clarifying the claim. Allyn Walker, who teaches sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, made the controversial comment while discussing “minor-attracted persons” and pedophiles during a Nov. 8 interview with the Prostasia Foundation, a San Francisco-based child protection organization. Walker was discussing their book, “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity,” when he insisted it’s important to use that terminology instead of...

Germany and France have decided that because of the excess risk of myocarditis the Moderna vaccination should not be given to people less than 30 years old. News reports suggest that myocarditis is 5 times more common with Moderna than Pfizer at these ages. Given that Pfizer is available, tolerating the excess harms of Moderna for people in this age group is obviously unsound policy. Accordingly, Germany and France have made the right decision.There are immediate policy implications for the United States, if we have the courage to heed them.First, the USA has to grapple with the question: Are we...

Onetime White House strategist Stephen Bannon threatened to make the charges against him “the misdemeanor from hell” for the Biden administration as he exited his first court appearance after being indicted for defying a Congressional subpoena. The Department of Justice on Friday scored an indictment against Bannon after filing two charges of criminal contempt of Congress, saying the former Trump staffer failed to “comply in any way” for a request for documents and a deposition from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “I'm telling you right now, this is going to be the misdemeanor from...

CNN legal analyst Paul Callan on Monday praised the prosecution in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, where closing arguments has been underway.... When asked by CNN anchor John King how the prosecutor, Thomas Binger, has been performing in presenting his closing arguments, Callan praised Binger while taking a shot at Schroeder. “I think he’s doing reasonably well. I mean, he’s doing is something that the judge didn’t do, which is speaking in a way that people can generally understand. I find that his contention about [Joseph] Rosenbaum is kind of implausible on its face,” said Callan, referring to Rittenhouse’s first...

Unfortunate SonThe Ballad of Kyle Rittenhouse I stand with Kyle Rittenhouse. He is plainly innocent of murder and is being grotesquely persecuted as part of a pathetic political witch hunt. Extinct human civilizations are littered with the broken bodies and crushed skulls of children cruelly tortured and sacrificed in blasphemous rituals. Sacrifices were required to deflect and distract public anger over the elite’s glaring failures, to fulfill a narrative—or both. Our bankrupt elites today demand a similar sacrifice, for the same reasons. We are witnessing the slow-motion public scourging and torment of a boy with a good and noble heart....

Climate Models Overlook Benefits of CO2 and ‘Lukewarming,’ Data Scientist SaysRather than relying on climate change models that could be the basis of expansive and costly regulations, policymakers should instead question those models, focusing on the legitimacy of their underlying assumptions. So said The Heritage Foundation’s chief statistician at a recent climate change conference in Las Vegas that preceded the international summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that concludes today. While the Biden administration continues to pursue regulatory policies based on a concept known as the “social cost of carbon,” increased carbon dioxide emissions have led to a “greening of the planet,”...

Persons who have contracted Covid and recovered would seem to be a relevant factor in determining the course of the current pandemic. For centuries it has been known that survivors of virulent diseases routinely acquire immunity to the pathogen. Serums derived from their blood have often been used to assist others to survive. Yet, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says it has not looked into this. The CDC's information officer Roger Andoh admitted that "we don't have a single instance in which a survivor of covid was found to transmit the infection to another person. In our defense,...

Former attorney general Bill Barr says Fox News host Maria Bartiromo called him up "screaming" about imaginary voter fraud, according to his account in a new book."Betrayal", by ABC's chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl, highlights Bartiromo's damaging role as a promoter of reckless lies about the election.In the book, which comes out on Tuesday, Karl writes that "Bartiromo had once been a widely respected and trailblazing financial journalist. As a correspondent for CNBC, she was the first television reporter to report live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Now she had her own show on Fox News...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is frog-marching her vulnerable members to a political suicide vote on a bill that’s likely dead on arrival in the Senate.On November 2, five House Democrats—enough to block the passage of the spending spree that the party hopes to enact via the budget reconciliation process—wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, urging her “to only bring a bill to the floor for which we have a strong level of confidence…will be ruled in order by the Senate parliamentarian and earn passage in the U.S. Senate.”The lawmakers have justifiable reason for concern. Major pieces of the 2,135-page...

Global supply chain problems have threatened to dim a holiday light display that is a community favorite. Pat Farley starts shopping for Christmas decorations early for his front yard holiday attraction, Farley Christmas Wonderland. Advertisement "Christmas. Like this past Christmas Day, I ordered a bunch of trees and some of them I got and then some of them I haven't seen, and I'm not going to see them this year,” said Farley. He placed orders for Christmas trees in December 2020, some haven't shown up yet. He ordered other decorations in January 2021 but says it took until November 2021...

Anthony Fauci said on Monday that families who are vaccinated against COVID-19 can “feel good about enjoying a typical” Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. President Biden’s chief medical adviser warned that the U.S. is still counting tens of thousands of new cases per day and recommended masks in indoor congregate settings. But he said the fully vaccinated should feel comfortable gathering with other vaccinated family and friends in private settings this holiday season. "If you get vaccinated and your family's vaccinated, you can feel good about enjoying a typical Thanksgiving, Christmas with your family and close friends,” he said at...

Some coal and gas power stations in Britain were paid double the price of exchange-traded electricity to help plug a gap left by a drop in wind generation on Monday. Britain is set to end the use of coal within three years and make power generation free of fossil fuel by 2035. But for now it falls back on high-emission coal when wind drops or demand increases. Wind generation on Monday was meeting just 6% of total demand, National Grid data show, while gas contributed 55% and coal 2%. It’s Finally Getting Cold and Europe Doesn’t Have Enough Gas U.K....

Alberta latest province to ink $10-a-day child-care deal with federal… Al Jazeera says its chief in Sudan taken to prison A McMaster University laboratory combating vaccine-related blood clots is getting a boost from the federal government to expand its testing centre. The $1.5-million grant from the Public Health Agency of Canada earmarked for McMaster's Platelet Immunology Laboratory (MPIL) will aid studies on vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), identified in a small number of COVID-19 vaccine recipients. The affliction came to the forefront amid the pandemic when VITT was associated with some 30 patients and five deaths in Canada but not definitively...

The migrants were reportedly given packets on how to get past TSA and enroll kids in schools.. Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, said Monday that he has uncovered a secret operation by nonprofits to house and move migrants within the United States, providing them with a packet on how to navigate and assimilate into the country. During an appearance on "Fox & Friends" Monday, Gooden said that he was contacted by a whistleblower from San Diego who provided him with details on the kind of information the nonprofit groups were providing to the migrants. The Texas representative subsequently hopped on a...

Project Veritas and founder James O’Keefe can no longer even be mentioned on Instagram following the FBI’s raid on his home and organization headquarters earlier this month. When one tries to tag the whistleblower organization or O’Keefe on the platform, a notification pops up stating they can’t be mentioned because they have “repeatedly posted content that goes against our Community Guidelines on false content about COVID-19 or vaccines.”

In Democrat-run Kenosha, Wisconsin, residents are boarding up windows in preparation for riots in the event a jury acquits Kyle Rittenhouse. You see, if you vote for Democrats, this is your life now. Out here in Rural MAGA Country, we don’t have these problems. We live in relative peace and harmony with people of all races and backgrounds. Our air, water, and streets are safe and clean. We all own guns, but there’s no mass shooting crisis or hate crime crisis, and no riots or looting.

Democrats this week are “freaked out” over Democrat retirements and the prospect of Republicans reclaiming the House. Rep. David Price (D-NC), who has decided to retire from Congress next year, fears Democrats have done a poor job governing with inflation soaring and wages declining. The impact of the Democrats’ failure to govern has Price feeling that Donald Trump’s working-class party will win back Congress, which is “a very alarming prospect for the country,” Price claimed to the Washington Post.

Prosecutor Thomas Binger made the unusual argument on Monday in a Kenosha, Wisconsin county court that the mob had the “right” to chase Kyle Rittenhouse after he shot Joseph Rosenbaum, and that he had no right to defend himself against them. Binger, delivering his closing argument in the 10-day murder trial, argued that Rittenhouse had provoked the violence that led to the shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and the severe wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz near midnight on Aug. 25, 2020, during riots that were led by Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the small Midwestern city. Though all...

Gun culture was a key part of Jair Bolsonaro's winning campaign to become Brazil's president. Three years later, what impact has he had on the nation's relationship with firearms and how much has US politics played a part? Rice and beans hold an important place in the heart of most Brazilians. In this deeply divided country, where almost everything is politicised, at least the famous "feijao" is a food loved by everyone. That is, until recently - when Jair Bolsonaro tried to put a political spin on the humble bean. "The left says that people don't eat guns, they eat...

At some point in the near future—whether a few days or a few weeks—the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will release a complete score of the spending spree legislation Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and House leaders introduced on Nov. 3. The document will represent the first complete CBO analysis of any of the multi-trillion-dollar spending bills that Democrats have spent the fall writing, then re-writing. Two budgetary analyses suggest CBO could find the most recent version of the legislation increases the deficit. A Penn-Wharton analysis of the White House’s policy framework concluded it would spend $1.87 trillion over ten years while...