Free Republic

The Chrysler brand is ditching gas engines and going to an all-electric lineup. And Japan’s Sony Group Corp. plans to jump into the electric-vehicle fray, creating its own car unit. Stellantis said in July that it plans to spend more than $35.5 billion through 2025 to release an array of new plug-in models. Ford has said it would spend $30 billion on electric vehicles through 2025. GM has said it plans to spend $35 billion by the middle of the decade to introduce 30 plug-in models globally and has set a 2035 target date for phasing out gasoline- and diesel-powered...

Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) will be holding a presser on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, after former President Trump announced that he would be canceling his news conference scheduled for the same day. The two conservative members of Congress are set to hold “a Republican response on the anniversary of the January 6th protests” on Thursday afternoon, according to a release from Gaetz’s office. Trump, who was slated to hold a news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday, announced on Tuesday he would be canceling it, criticizing...

Big Tech censorship has ratcheted up over the last week: big time. In the name of combating COVID-19 “misinformation,” Twitter banned the accounts of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dr. Robert Malone. Meanwhile, Facebook banned the advertising account for a children’s book series promoting ‘Heroes of Liberty’ like free-market economist Thomas Sowell. (Facebook has reversed the decision under massive backlash. You can buy the books for your kids here). I spoke with Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican, about why this alarming uptick in Big Tech censorship is so concerning—and why the free market, not Big Government, is the...

As omicron’s spread outpaces an overwhelming demand for COVID-19 tests, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has a solution that contradicts advice from myriad public health experts: test fewer people. In a Monday news briefing, the surgeon general took aim at mass testing and said the Florida Department of Health will soon recommend people forgo testing unless it will be what he labels “high-value.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends people get tested if they have symptoms, have had close contact with someone with COVID-19, or if they are not fully vaccinated. Some federal vaccination mandates require weekly...

A slew of young women have taken to TikTok to reveal how they benefit from being really, really, really good-looking. The content creators have shared videos discussing their “pretty privilege,” saying they’re showered with free gifts and attention simply for being conventionally attractive. Chicago-based beauty Anjola Fagbemi, who uses the handle @bejewelledbud, created a viral TikTok video listing all the freebies she received last summer courtesy of her “pretty privilege.”

Cadillac debuted its InnerSpace autonomous car concept at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in a short film that is as dramatic as the two-seater luxury vehicle. InnerSpace is designed with a cocoon-like cabin that immerses passengers sitting in a loveseat, who are watching a panoramic screen that stretches across the front. The curved display allows passengers to select from Augmented Reality Engagement, Entertainment and Wellness Recovery themes for their drive. Cadillac announced InnerSpace in a cinematic-like teaser, complete with sensational music and effects, about a wealthy couple exploring the world while traveling in the autonomous vehicle. GM, which owns Cadillac,...

With over 1,200 daily COVID deaths for many weeks, the U.S. is on track to reach a total of 1 million COVID-related deaths by the end of March. A shameful record for 2022.To think that every week over 8,000 Americans are dying, mostly in hospital ICUs, is unbelievable – but that is no excuse for the lack of serious attention by the mainstream media. Take a moment to reflect that this is more deaths than those in the 9/11 attacks and Pearl Harbor, combined. And it is happening every week.Hospitals have become killing machines, places where the kiss of death...

In a Wednesday op-ed for Politico, invoking the media’s obsession with January 6, Brooklyn College political science professor Corey Robin flashed just how little he understood about how and why America’s founders set up the system of government they did. Or perhaps the goal was to just undo that great architecture and supplant it with something inferior. You know how irked Robin is with our system of government right away just by reading the title: "Republicans Are Moving Rapidly to Cement Minority Rule. Blame the Constitution." And since this is January 6 week where it is mandatory for all liberals...

“O, What a Tangled Web…”: Thirty-Three Falsehoods in the CDW’s Responsa ad DubiaOn December 18, 2021, the Vatican released the text of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments’ “Responsa Ad Dubia on certain provisions of the Apostolic Letter Traditionis Custodes [TC] issued ‘motu proprio’ by the Supreme Pontiff Francis, to the Presidents of the Conferences of Bishops.” The Responses were prefaced by a cover letter from the Prefect, Archbishop Arthur Roche.It was not long before the internet was abuzz with articles pointing to various flaws in the text.[1] It explicitly contradicts canon law and (ironically...

An investigation spanning over a year has revealed that several Seattle police officers participated in a coordinated misinformation effort during the height of social justice protests in 2020. The ruse — which took place on June 8, 2020 — was first pointed out on social media by activist Matt Watson, when police officers were heard using radio transmissions to describe the movements of a group of right-wing Proud Boys protesters. Officers over the radio described how the group was marching through Seattle, appeared to be armed and agitated, and was moving in the direction of the then-newly-established Capitol Hill Occupied...

Disney+ actress Kim Mi-soo has died at the age of 29, her agency confirms. Mi-soo had recently appeared in the Disney+ series "Snowdrop" in a supporting role. "Kim suddenly left us on Jan. 5," her agency Landscape said in a statement on Wednesday, according to Variety. "The bereaved are deep in their sorrow at the sudden sadness. Please refrain from reporting false rumors or speculation so that the family can mourn in peace." The outlet reported the statement was translated by Joongang Daily. A cause of death has not been revealed.

Howard Stern did not mince his words when it came to discussing how he feels about Oprah, and the parties she has held during Covid-19. “Over vacation I tried to decompress,” Stern said in his SiriusXM radio show during his first show of 2022. “I was watching Oprah, I follow her on Instagram. I’m really amazed by Oprah, I really am. On her Instagram she likes to take you into her house where every night of Christmas is a big party like a celebration and she flies in a different chef.”(snip) “It’s getting very confusing to me,” Stern said. “I...

An Indiana judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a relative of famed 1930s gangster John Dillinger seeking to dig up his body to confirm it is actually him. In a tan-walled Marion County courtroom, Superior Court Judge Timothy Oakes entertained arguments from the Crown Hill Cemetery, where Dillinger’s body is buried, which claimed that it has a right under state law to deny the exhumation of any body. The fight over digging up Dillinger’s remains came after the gangster’s nephew Michael Thompson filed a lawsuit in August claiming the cemetery is wrongfully preventing him from exhuming the body...

“Bishop, know thy dignity!”: On overcoming episcopal diminishment The following essay was written by a priest and published in the latest issue of the periodical Calx Mariae published by Voice of the Family. Reprinted here with permission.IN THE YEAR 372, when a “second wave” of Arianism was sweeping over the eastern part of the Catholic Church, an extremely powerful and aggressive man came to visit the bishop of a city in what is now called Turkey. The name of this powerful man, somewhat ironically, was Modestus. He was the praetorian prefect. This meant that he governed most of the...

When his girlfriend told him she was pregnant, Jean-Paul Noel-Cephise was elated. Although he was only young and the pregnancy was unplanned, he had always wanted to be a dad and felt confident they would make great parents. After all, he had a good job, was financially stable with his own home and they were madly in love. ‘I’d had a happy childhood and couldn’t wait to recreate it with my own child,’ says Jean-Paul. ‘I know some young men would’ve been horrified at the prospect of having a baby but I really wasn’t — quite the opposite.’ Sadly, though,...

The University of Central Oklahoma’s (UCO) W. Roger Webb Forensic Science Institute, in collaboration with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, is using its nationally ranked expertise to solve a mystery involving one of the nation’s most notorious outlaws. Through a donation, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum received a purse believed to belong to Bonnie Parker of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duo, who committed dozens of robberies and burglaries while running from law enforcement between 1932 and 1934. While the purse, which is stamped with Parker’s name and features what is presumed to be a single...

[Catholic Caucus] “This liturgy of Christendom spiritually energizes the remnant of faithful in secularized nations”—Christian Marquant Rorate is pleased to offer a translation of a message from Christian Marquant and we give thanks to God for his recovery from hospitalization with Covid. Our Wishes for the Year of Our Lord 2022Paix Liturgique, Letter 842, January 3, 2022Dear Friends,May the freedom of the traditional liturgy come! This is the wish of Paix Liturgique for the year 2022. It may seem utopian or very wilful to you to hear me say this, bruised as we are by the persecutions that have...

Since 2016, investigative genetic genealogy has made its (explosive) name solving cold case rapes and murders that were previously considered unsolvable. The identification of the Golden State Killer was the case that put IGG on the map, and is also arguably the most infamous to date. But a recent statement from the City of Boulder and the Boulder Police Department has people wondering if IGG can solve an even more well-known case that captivated the nation 25 years ago and still today—the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. “As the [Colorado Police] Department continues to use new technology to enhance the...

Federal Reserve officials said a strengthening economy and higher inflation could lead to earlier and faster interest-rate increases than previously expected, with some policy makers also favoring starting to shrink the balance sheet soon after. “Participants generally noted that, given their individual outlooks for the economy, the labor market, and inflation, it may become warranted to increase the federal funds rate sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated,” according to minutes published Wednesday of the Dec. 14-15 meeting of the U.S. central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, when it pivoted to a more aggressive inflation-fighting...

Editor’s note: The views expressed in the following article are that of attorney Anthony L. DeWitt and do not reflect an official stance from the USCCA. If you watched any part of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, you know there were some tremendous takeaways for concealed carriers. What follows is my analysis of the six most important lessons as a legal professional. 1. You Can Be in the Right and Still Be Wrong Kyle Rittenhouse was attacked by four different people on the night he had to shoot to save his life. His trial illustrates quite well how a person can...