Free Republic

We're so immersed in the "Safety First!" mindset that we take it as axiomatic. The slogan is repeated endlessly. I've been hearing it since grade school. We all have. Its effects are everywhere. Playground equipment removed from schools. No Smoking signs in bars (and restaurants, and airplanes, and shopping malls, and cafes ... but bars). Speed limits and seat-belt laws and bicycle helmet mandates. Warning signs on public transit cautioning against exiting the vehicle while it's still moving. Workplace safety guidelines and environmental impact assessments and insurance compliance regulations that make it nearly impossible to build anything. "Safe spaces" in...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — One of the bidders in an oil and gas lease sale for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last year has canceled the lease it bought, the U.S. Interior Department said. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management last summer said it was moving ahead with a new environmental review of oil and gas leasing in the refuge after Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said she found “multiple legal deficiencies” in a previous review that provided a basis for the lease sale. Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of Australia-based 88 Energy Ltd., was one of three entities that won leases...

A sign outside an east Alabama gun store mocking the death of George Floyd was shared widely on social media this weekend. “Congratulations to George Floyd on 2 years of sobriety,” the sign outside Leesburg Guns stated. Floyd, 46, died in Minneapolis in May 2020 after Officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9-1/2 minutes as Floyd was handcuffed and pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin is serving 22-1/2 years in prison after being convicted of state charges of murder and manslaughter last year. Three other former Minneapolis police officers were convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights....

Child welfare officials in Oregon will stop using an algorithm to help decide which families are investigated by social workers, opting instead for a new process that officials say will make better, more racially equitable decisions. The move comes weeks after an Associated Press review of a separate algorithmic tool in Pennsylvania that had originally inspired Oregon officials to develop their model, and was found to have flagged a disproportionate number of Black children for “mandatory” neglect investigations when it first was in place. Oregon's Department of Human Services announced to staff via email last month that after “extensive analysis”...

Laughter, the Bane of TyrantsThe Babylon Bee isn’t one of my regularly visited websites, but I landed on its front page the other morning and started scrolling through headlines. Pretty soon a snicker escaped my lips, then a giggle, and then several bursts of downright hearty laughter, which a co-worker was soon sharing after I read him a choice headline.I went back to my work feeling refreshed and content. It felt good to laugh, to look at the troubles our world faces through the funny side of the lens for once.That I would find such laughter from a conservative satire...

Within minutes of the US Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, messages began pouring into the cell phone of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among those texting were Republican members of Congress, former members of the Trump administration, GOP activists, Fox personalities – even the President’s son. Their texts all carried the same urgent plea: President Donald Trump needed to immediately denounce the violence and tell the mob to go home. “He’s got to condem (sic) this shit. Asap,” Donald Trump Jr. texted at 2:53 p.m. “POTUS needs to calm this shit down,” GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of...

The global elites left Davos last week after grappling with solutions to the profound crises facing the world. They left as they arrived, unaware that the crises are entirely of their own making. Take energy, where shortages have led to the highest gasoline prices in the U.S. and UK history and to fuel poverty affecting millions of people. If not for the specter of climate change—for decades one of the globalists’ central preoccupations—the world’s energy situation would be radically different. Canada’s tar sands wouldn’t have been demonized and the country would have built the Keystone XL Pipeline and other pipelines...

Columbine. Virginia Tech. University of Texas. Sandy Hook. America’s terrible history of school shootings is a list whose members can’t be named alone. Talk about any single one, and the others always hover on the periphery. But one name rarely gets mentioned among the others, the oldest and deadliest school massacre in U.S. history: the Bath School bombing.

“‘Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full’” (Matthew 6:16). The Greek word for “fast” literally means not to eat, to abstain from food. But by the time of Christ, fasting had been perverted and twisted beyond what was scriptural and sincere. Fasting had become a ritual to gain merit with God and attention before men—it was largely a hypocritical religious show. Many Pharisees fasted twice a week (Luke 18:12),...

Scripture gives us a sobering reminder of what God truly desires from us. “So Samuel said: ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22, NKJV). Obedience is better than sacrifice. I say it is also better than blessing. This is the deepest meaning in the story of Abram offering Isaac on the altar. God said, “Go and do this.” He obeyed. Did Abram leave that altar saying, “God changed his mind”?...

A 1,600-year-old burial ground discovered in Eastern Bohemia is shedding new light on that era. The site was discovered in 2019 by archaeologists from archaeologists from the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové (MVČ HK), and the first findings were just made public.The site has been dated to the fifth century AD, around the time of the collapse of the western part of the Roman Empire and the start of the Dark Ages. The era was known for migration and instability...The intact grave chamber, designated grave number two, contained several items of extraordinary historical and artistic quality such as...

A man who blamed his surgeon for ongoing pain after a recent back surgery bought an AR-style rifle hours before opening fire at a Tulsa medical office, killing the surgeon and three other people before fatally shooting himself, police said Thursday. Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin says the gunman had recently undergone back surgery and had called a clinic repeatedly complaining of pain. Franklin says the doctor who performed the surgery, Dr. Preston Phillips, was killed Wednesday, along with another doctor, a receptionist and a patient. “We also have a letter on the suspect, which made it clear that he...

Georgia’s top elections official was expected to appear Thursday before a special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to meddle in the 2020 election in the state. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was summoned to the Fulton County courthouse where the special grand jury has been meeting, according to a subpoena obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request. Other subpoenas seek documents and testimony from five other people in his office. Raffensperger arrived at the courthouse in downtown Atlanta Thursday morning. When a reporter asked how the day would go, Raffensperger...

For many years there has been debate about allowing teachers to be armed to protect students. This post describes an established training program for teachers who choose to do so in compliance with school rules. The program is FASTER—short for Faculty/Administrator Safety Training & Emergency Response. Introduced in Ohio, FASTER could be adopted by every state and school, at no cost to taxpayers, and at considerable saving of lives. FASTER was created in Ohio in December 2012, following the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School. FASTER Ohio's website, FASTER Saves Lives, is the best resource for information about the program....

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Russian forces now occupy about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, almost 100 days into the war. Zelensky spoke Thursday to Luxembourg’s legislature, saying Russian troops have invaded more than 3,600 “settlements,” but that Ukrainian forces have taken back more than 1,000 of them. He said Luxembourg’s motto, “We want to stay what we are,” is what Ukraine is currently fighting for.

Make room, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. There's a new prophet in town, and his name is Chuck! On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, today's Morning Joe brought in Suzannah Lipscomb, billed as an NBC News "royal contributor." Lipscomb enthused over Prince Charles for his trendy views on climate: "His interests in things like sustainable agriculture, and climate change, and deforestation, you know, they’re not seen as eccentricities anymore. They're seen as current concerns. He is a kind of prophet in that way." Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Brain scans of people taken while they performed various tasks – and even did nothing – accurately predicted whether they were politically conservative or liberal, according to the largest study of its kind.Researchers found that the “signatures” in the brain revealed by the scans were as accurate at predicting political ideology as the strongest predictor generally used in political science research, which is the ideology of a person’s parents. . . . In fact, even when participants were asked to sit quietly and think of nothing in particular, the resulting scans showed a relationship to political ideology, said co-author James...

The United States Embassy to the Holy See raised a pride flag Wednesday to commemorate the beginning of Pride month.The official social media accounts for the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See boasted of their celebration of Pride month on Wednesday, posting a photo of the rainbow banner adorning their historic office building in Rome.(snip)Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment on the potential offense the flag could cause in the Vatican, and why the department did not fly pride flags in other, more volatile countries that actively outlaw homosexuality such as Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.

Former star lawyer Michael Avenatti, who rose to fame representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal battles with then-president Donald Trump, on Thursday got 4 years in prison for stealing from her. Avenatti was convicted in early February of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Daniels. He reportedly choked up in court during his sentencing. During a two-week trial, prosecutors said the California lawyer spun a web of lies to cheat Daniels of nearly $300,000 she was owed for her autobiography, spending it on his firm’s payroll and personal expenses. Avenatti argued in closing arguments that he was...

Ukrainians! Defenders! Every year on June 1 we celebrate Children's Day. A special day when adults pay special attention to the rights of children, safety and development of our kids. But since February 24, everything has changed in our country. And literally every day now is a day of protection for us. Protection of all our people, children, our future. Protection of a free country where every child can, when he or she grows up, live the life he or she wants. Without coercion and oppression. Everyone sees what Russia brings to Ukraine and what it wants to bring to...