Free Republic

Tesla founder Elon Musk's mother spoke out against The New York Times this week after the newspaper claimed in a recent story that her son was "detached from apartheid’s atrocities" during his youth in South Africa. The Times promoted the story Thursday morning on Twitter, where it also suggested Musk was "surrounded by anti-Black propaganda" as a child. She also pointed out that Musk was just a child and should not be held responsible for the actions of his government. "@nytimes are you going to blame children for decisions made by governments?" Maye Musk asked. Her tweet was in response...

Totally blind to their illiberality, false “liberals” have for many decades made it their business to convince (hoodwink?) Americans into believing that in order for America to “move forward” we need to dump what it was established for: a nation of representative government, whose citizens hold ultimate power. The venue for this propaganda has been TV, the press, the schools, the workplace, and the churches. Funding has been provided by globalists, outside and inside our borders – a history suppressed and now quite saddled by a “Ministry of Truth.” (Who, for infamous example, has not heard of the self-appointed global...

For my work in corporate social responsibility, I was recently reading The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi’s critique of capitalism, when something he wrote gave me one of those really uncomfortable “Aha” moments. Polanyi was discussing the alternatives to capitalism -- left socialism and right socialism (which we call “Fascism”). His point was that these two socialisms were created to undo the disruptions of capitalism which had privileged “money power” to degrade human sociality into atomic individualism driven by self-seeking greed. When I read his observation that the Fascist phase of anti-capitalism brought about “Irrational philosophies, racialist aesthetics, anti-capitalist demagogy, heterodox...

The United States has committed numerous Acts of War against Russia this year. This is not a value judgment. I make no claim here about whether the United States has acted wisely, or has acted with justification. I simply note it. And the world may now be tumbling into an interlocking cycle of escalation beyond control and foreseeable consequences, just as it did in 1914. That the United States has committed Acts of War in no way justifies Russia’s actions; neither is it to say therefore that World War III and nuclear war have become inevitable, though Russian state media...

The machete-wielding man who sliced a cop’s hand in Coney Island on Thursday – and was then shot in the leg by the officer – has been slapped with multiple charges while recovering in the hospital, authorities say. Richard Paris, 57, was holding the 16-inch weapon and a smaller blade when three cops began struggling with him on West 8th Street in the Brooklyn beach town around 1 p.m., police said. “It was this intense prolonged struggle that one of the officers was sliced on the hand,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters Thursday. “Fortunately the officer, who was a...

CONCORD, N.H. — Late Thursday night, the state Senate repealed the law providing for a 'buffer zone' around abortion clinics on a narrow 12-11 vote. Republicans cited the 2014 Supreme Court decision striking down Massachusetts' buffer zone law to back this move. Democrats said New Hampshire’s law is different from the Massachusetts one in that case in that it does not mandate a specific buffer zone distance. The governor has said he will veto this bill once it reaches his desk. This legislation comes as a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked this week.

Another video only update. Summary: Ship is now pretty much completely pumped out and riding high in the water. 95% of the water has been removed, most of the crews are leaving, they're still chasing small leaks/the remaining 5% of the water. Ship has a tiny list to starboard. The last of the on-board diesel fuel and hydraulic fluids is being removed so it won't continue to pollute. The entire ship is likely going to be getting repainted and they're going to resume cleaning the mussels off the hull. They are now starting to investigate why the ship sank -...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday signed a $1.2 billion tax relief package, the largest tax relief package in the state’s history, which, in part, makes key baby items tax free for one year. The governor signed what he described as the “largest tax relief in the history of the state of Florida,” giving relief to millions of Floridians on key items that have skyrocketed over the course of Biden’s presidency. That includes “really critical needs like gas, diapers, disaster supplies, tools for skilled trades, [and] recreational activities.” “Families are going to be able to save for things that...

An 83-year-old American nun has been kidnapped by armed men during a nighttime raid in Burkina Faso in West Africa, the bishop of the local diocese said Tuesday. Sister Suellen Tennyson, a nun from a parish in Yalgo in the country’s north, was taken by the unidentified men on Monday night. Tennyson, who belongs to the Catholic congregation Marianites of Holy Cross, has served in a community of nuns in Yalgo since 2014, according to the diocese.

Feminine products, including tampons and pads, will be placed in all boy’s restrooms at Oregon Public Schools starting in the 2022-2023 school year to comply with the state’s 2021 “Menstrual Dignity Act” law. The law requires “that both tampons and sanitary pads are available at no cost to students through dispensers located” in all student bathrooms, including boys’ rooms at elementary, middle, and high schools and every other public school building in the state. Currently, the law requires that tampon and pad dispensers are placed “in at least two student bathrooms of every public school building.” “Student bathrooms” in the...

EXCLUSIVE: Disney is severing ties with Fred Savage following multiple complaints of misconduct in his role as executive producer and director on the freshman ABC comedy series The Wonder Years, produced by 20th Television, part of Disney Television Studios. The allegations were investigated, leading to Savage’s dismissal. The Wonder Years, a reboot of the beloved 1988 series, which starred Savage, has not been renewed for a second season yet but remains in contention. “Recently, we were made aware of allegations of inappropriate conduct by Fred Savage, and as is policy, an investigation was launched. Upon its completion, the decision was...

Amid intense focus on abortion rights, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has decided to withhold the $3.5 million that state lawmakers designated for training new providers, his spokesman said. The decision effectively delays the state’s new abortion provider training program for a year and comes as the popular governor winds down his time in office and sharpens his national ambitions. The money is part of the state’s biggest expansion of abortion access in three decades. Hogan vetoed the plans this spring but was overruled by Democratic supermajorities in Annapolis who worried that what they see as Maryland’s already insufficient provider...

“Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon” (Proverbs 7:15-17 KJV).

EFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A big topic across the nation this week and in Missouri the initial draft of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Depending on the outcome, Missouri could be one of the most impacted states because of a bill passed back in 2019. The General Assembly approved legislation three years ago that would ban abortions after eight weeks with no exception to rape or incest. A day before the law was set to go into effect it was blocked by a federal judge. That bill signed by Gov. Mike Parson includes a “trigger law”...

If the Supreme Court rules to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, which it is poised to do according to a draft opinion leaked Monday, at least 26 states would likely ban abortion entirely with 13 of those prepared with “trigger laws.” That’s according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health-policy institute that has been tracking states’ anti-abortion legislation — ranging from all-out bans to multiple restrictions. The leaked draft opinion, first reported by Politico, has stirred the country into imagining a post-Roe v. Wade society, one where the constitutional right to choose whether to have an abortion without government...

...Maria Vyushkova uses open-source information to track how many Russian soldiers from the Siberian republic of Buryatia have been killed in the invasion of Ukraine. An ethnic Buryat born in Russia and member of the anti-war Free Buryatia Foundation, Vyushkova analyzes social media posts, official statements and media reports about funerals to estimate the number of Buryat deaths in Ukraine. “At the moment, activists have gathered information about 1,700 killed Russian soldiers of which 48 or 49 are Buryat. That is 2.8%. In comparison, Buryats only make up 0.3% of the Russian population,” said Vyushkova. The disproportionately high death toll...

Russia has unleashed heavy artillery barrages against multiple Ukrainian positions in the south and east of the country, amid conflicting claims over whether Russian forces were attempting to storm the last Ukrainian positions in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. (snip) While it is difficult to assess accurate casualty numbers, senior western officials who have briefed journalists recently suggested that Russian losses may have declined somewhat since the heavy casualties incurred during the failed campaign to take Kyiv. There are also suggestions that Ukrainian losses may be mounting under intense Russian artillery bombardments that have marked Moscow’s conduct of the latest...

People around the country gathered in protest of a recently leaked draft opinion from the US Supreme Court, which would overturn the federal precedent for abortion access. The opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, detailed the conservative majority view that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. The overturning of Roe would undo a half-century of guaranteed access to safe abortions in the US, and millions of people across the country could lose access to abortion care overnight. At this time, the ruling is not official, and nothing has changed for abortion rights. The final ruling from the court is expected later...

Russian armed forces arrested Canadian General Trevor Kadier in Mariupol on the night of 2-3 May 2022. He is currently in Moscow awaiting to stand trial.

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is wrong in all circumstances and that life begins at conception. Activists such as Ruth Sent Me are now suggesting that the Catholics who sit on the Supreme Court bench are using their religious beliefs to roll back the ruling which has made abortion a constitutional right in the U.S. for nearly 50 years. Brian Burch, president of the Catholic advocacy organization Catholic Vote, urged President Joe Biden, who is Catholic, to "immediately and forcibly condemn these domestic terrorist threats" ahead of Sunday's protests. "Anti-Catholic zealots are plotting to intimidate and harass Catholics across...