Free Republic

Spoiler alert: It's not about immigration.

A legal challenge by a Northern Ireland gay rights activist who claimed he was discriminated against when a bakery refused to make a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage has been dismissed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The court declared the action inadmissible and said the applicant, Gareth Lee, had “failed to exhaust domestic remedies” available through the UK courts. In the ruling, published yesterday, a majority of seven judges said Mr Lee had not invoked his rights under the ECHR “expressly at any point in the domestic proceedings”.By relying solely on domestic law, they said,...

Critics excoriated California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats Thursday over a set of videos showing the shocking aftermath of looted trains in Los Angeles. The videos, posted on Twitter by local CBS photojournalist John Schreiber, showed massive amounts of opened packages, cardboard, and packaging materials strewn around the tracks. "Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to [Lincoln Heights] to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, [UPS] boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains," Schreiber...

As the midterm elections approach later this year, some states and jurisdictions have required voting ballots to be made available in other languages besides English. The Latino population continues to grow in the United States and some counties have mandated that ballots in Spanish are available at polling sites. However, Spanish and non-English ballots are not required across the nation, though some advocates say that multilingual ballots are critical for democracy. "We need to have bilingual ballots, bilingual material across the country, it should be a national requirement and a national norm," said Domingo Garcia, the national president for the...

Republican Rep. John Katko of New York announced on Friday that he's retiring from Congress at the end of his term, which former President Donald Trump is touting as "great news." "Great news, another one bites the dust," Trump said in a brief statement following the announcement. "Katko, from Upstate New York, is gone!"

LOS ANGELES — Cannabis advocates, small farmers and business owners called Thursday for an overhaul of the California marijuana tax system as they struggle to keep afloat amid rising operating and regulatory costs. They gathered outside the State Capitol in Sacramento to make their case and warn that the industry could collapse if steps aren't taken soon. “We’re here today because the craft cannabis industry here in California is in crisis and on the brink of collapse,” said Amber Senter, a co-founder and the executive director of Supernova Women, a nonprofit organization that works to create opportunities for people of...

An Indonesian woman has been flogged 100 times in Aceh province for adultery while the male involved, who denied the accusations, received just 15 lashes. Ivan Najjar Alavi, the head of the general investigation division at the East Aceh prosecutors’ office, said the court handed down a harsher sentence for the woman after she confessed to investigators she had sex outside of her marriage. Judges found it difficult to convict the man, who was then the head of the East Aceh fishery agency and also married, because he denied all wrongdoing, Alavi said. Aceh is the only region in Muslim-majority...

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, the city’s top prosecutor, was indicted on Thursday on federal charges of perjury and filing false mortgage applications related to her purchase of two Florida vacation homes. Mosby, a Democrat elected to her post in 2015, is accused of falsely claiming twice to have suffered a work-related financial hardship from COVID-19 in order to request early withdrawals totaling $90,000 from her city employee retirement account. In both instances, the indictment stated, Mosby fraudulently cited a federal CARES Act provision allowing for emergency distributions of up to $100,000 from her retirement plan in the event of...

Dr. Robert Malone, who has 10 patents relating to mRNA vaccine technology under his name, and former Trump administration economic adviser Peter Navarro have come together to create a "declaration of independence" from the federal government's COVID vaccine mandate. In it, the two explain that the "quasi-vaccines" pose a significant threat to the American people than public health officials have disclosed."In this declaration of independence from a "Forced Universal Vaccination Policy," we hold these truths to be evident," the opinion stated, as per the Washington Times.Malone and Navarro then argued that COVID "appears to be a bioweapon genetically engineered at...

The FBI recorded a historic high of on-duty police officers intentionally killed while in the line of duty last year reporting 73 officers killed The number of accidental on-duty police deaths increased as well with 56 There was also a drastic increase in 'unprovoked' attacks on officers last year The FBI has opened an investigation into the spike in 'unprovoked' police killings Complications from COVID has remained the top cause of death for officers in the last two years; police unions have continued fighting vaccine mandates Last year, 13 cities in the United States shattered their annual homicide records The...

Here’s the quick and dirty take of the U.S. Supreme Court’s two COVID-shot mandate decisions on Thursday: If one works for a private company with more than 100 employees, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) may not order them to get jabbed with a COVID shot, but if you’re a health care worker at a health facility that receives Medicare and Medicaid funding, you can. Apparently, Americans cease to have bodily integrity and religious rights if they work at hospitals that serve Medicare and Medicaid patients, but not if they work for private companies. There’s a word for that:...

US officials accused Russia on Friday of planning 'false-flag' attacks to justify invasion of Ukraine Agents trained in urban warfare and sabotage are preparing to hit Russian proxy forces as first step, they said It would mimic the Russian playbook used in 2014 when it annexed the Crimean peninsula Kiev has been on alert since Moscow moved 100,000 troops, missiles and heavy weapons close to its border Meanwhile, Ukrainian websites were hacked with the message 'be afraid and expect the worst' The Kremlin denied it was preparing to launch false-flag attacks, calling the reports 'unfounded' And Russian foreign minister Sergey...

Covid Chaos: Conspiracy or Reality? (Part 1) – Twila Brase and Marjorie Holsten Jan Markell hosts a health expert, Twila Brase, and an attorney, Marjorie Holsten, to talk about Covid chaos. One health expert, Dr. Peter McCullough, calls the vaccine the “biggest biological disaster in human history.” Why are truth-tellers called sensational or conspiratorial? Hear first-hand stories of Covid abuse and needless deaths happening in hospitals. Has it become legal and profitable to let patients die? Calling this two-year nightmare a “plandemic” only draws scorn.

VIDEOJoe Biden sometimes blurts out embarrassing truths such as the fact that his voting bills are all about "WHO COUNTS THE VOTES!" And because Senator Kyrsten Sinema blocked this scheme by supporting the filibuster, liberals are predictably angry at her as you can see in this entertaining compilation of their whines.

There’s no reason for Kamala Harris to participate any longer in the failing presidency of Joe Biden. If she chooses to assert her constitutional authority and seeks to build a majority political coalition, she can unify the country, ensure American prosperity and win election to the presidency in 2024. Starting today she can simply decide unilaterally to dominate policy-making in what’s left of the Biden era. This week brings more reports of her struggle to add value to Team Biden. But this team is losing and she can best help the country and herself by entering the political equivalent of...

I love this clip from Frasier. My son found this the other day and it is hilarious. I'm a big Burn Notice fan :) It's 46 minutes long. Bruce Campbell & Jeffrey Donovan at Denver Comic Con

This is specifically the #1 precursor, for all the reasons previously mentioned. Do not be alarmed; be prudent. What are you seeing in your area? Feel free to note in the comments section what is happening in your area. Hopefully, most of us are much better positioned than the average person who has not been following this as closely over the past several months. Initial food instability signs in the supply chain. Things to look for: (1) A shortage of processed potatoes (frozen specifically). 1.a And/Or a shortage of the ancillary products that are derivatives of, or normally include, potatoes....

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- For the second time this week, the Ohio Supreme Court has thrown out a Republican-drawn political map as an illegal gerrymander. In a 4-3 decision on Friday, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered state lawmakers to draw a new congressional map, saying the one signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in November violates the state’s new anti-gerrymandering rules, approved by voters in 2018. Justices sided with voting-rights groups and a group led by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder who had sued, saying the map disproportionately favored Republicans while “unduly” splitting three Democratic counties -- Hamilton, Summit and Cuyahoga...

Former “Bachelorette” contestant Clint Arlis has died, his sister Taylor announced. He was 34. “It is with great sadness, to tell you that my family has lost my best friend and older brother Clint on the morning of January 11th,” she wrote on Facebook. “Please respect our family’s privacy as we try to cope with this great loss.” Taylor added that details of his service would be provided later but didn’t reveal a cause of death.

Clay Aiken has decided to run for Congress again in North Carolina