Free Republic

A fishy ruling from California: A California court has ruled bees can legally be considered fish under specific circumstances. The ruling, released May 31, reversed an earlier judgment which found bumblebees could not be considered "fish" under the California Endangered Species Act. "The issue presented here is whether the bumblebee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls within the definition of fish, as that term is used in the definitions of endangered species in section 2062, threatened species in section 2067, and candidate species (i.e., species being considered for listing as endangered or threatened species) in section 2068 of the Act," wrote California's...

The almost 1,000 companies that have opted to pull out of Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are not just benefiting from a reputational boost. They are also being rewarded by financial markets, while those who remain behind are being punished.

Shocking footage shows a woman being pushed onto subway tracks in New York The victim, 52, was rescued by bystanders and suffered a broken collar bone The unknown suspect calmly walked away and the NYPD are still looking for him

Mexico’s president is reviving calls for a continental superstate that would combine North American employers and South American employees – and sideline tens of millions of middle-class Americans. “I will go in July to visit [President Joe Biden] at the White House and I want to discuss with him the issue of the integration of all America,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at a press conference in Mexico’s presidential palace. He continued: “My position is that, just as how the European community was created … we have to do that in America.” However, any unification could only come after...

It was a relatively quiet session for stocks with futures trading modestly lower overnight as yields eased their Monday surge and when the biggest news was Australia’s unexpected 50bps rate hike (double consensus) before all hell broke loose at 7am, when Target cut guidance for the second time in two weeks due to the infamous bullwhip effect we had warned about just a few weeks ago, sending TGT stock crashing more than 9% and encouraging the cold risk-off wind that pushed S&P futures 0.8% lower to session lows around 4,080… … while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1% as Treasury yields...

The US State Department once again is resuscitating the idea of reopening a Jerusalem consulate. But according to Al-Arabiya, the US is committed to the reopening of the US consulate in Jerusalem. Ned Price, the State Department spokesman told reporters last Tuesday that, “We continue to believe it can be an important way for our country to engage with and provide support for the Palestinian people.” If that is to happen, the Biden administration will be responsible for rewarding the Palestinians for their intransigence and terror, as well as undermining Israel’s sovereignty over a united Jerusalem. The Bennett government...

The following book review of The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire by Mitri Raheb was first published by the Middle East Quarterly. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Raheb, a Lutheran clergyman and academic in Bethlehem, argues that “Christian persecution is a Western construct that says more about the West than about the Christians of the Middle East.” Whatever persecution Christians may experience has little to do with Islam and is rather a byproduct of political developments that were and are almost always precipitated by Western or Israeli...

In Iran, the Islamic Republic has mired the country in misery. Iranian rulers would rather sacrifice their people’s economic well-being to their mad pursuit of nuclear weapons. Tens of billions of dollars have gone into the nuclear program, money that was not available to spend on food and medicine subsidies, on housing, on education and medical care. Furthermore, the continued nuclear program has led to the imposition of Western sanctions that have greatly reduced Iran’s exports of oil and natural gas. In 2019 there were widespread protests against the regime, suppressed with great violence. Now protests are spreading again. They...

The Bible In Paintings 2 ENCOURAGEMENT FOR APPRECIATING AND APPLYING GOD'S MESSAGE 1st KINGS CHAPTER 3 The LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. “Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place...

President Joe Biden has written an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal detailing his plan to fight inflation. Well, perhaps the word "detailing" is too generous. The preponderance of the column features Biden taking credit for economic growth that can be attributed to the reopening of the economy that was shuttered by the governing class during COVID. Biden, of course, not only championed those closings but was critical of Republican governors who opened their states before he deemed it appropriate. But with midterms approaching, there's been a concerted effort underway to exonerate the president, and thus Democrats, of any culpability...

I wrote this essay some weeks ago, but I kept waiting to publish it til tragic mass shootings were no longer in the news. But that day looks as if it will never come, so I am publishing it anyway, with grief and mourning for those lost to gun violence, as we must nonetheless have this difficult conversation. The last thing keeping us free in America, as the lights go off all over Europe- and Australia, and Canada - is, yes, we must face this fact, the Second Amendment. I can’t believe I am writing those words. But here we...

Old Joe Biden has been a liar his entire public life, from his plagiarism in law school and on the presidential campaign trail to his lies about the accident that killed his first wife and the innumerable lies he has told while pretending to be president. It is no exaggeration to say that Joe Biden is one of the most untrustworthy men on the planet. On Friday he reinforced that reputation with a major speech on the May jobs report, in which he had the breathtaking audacity to say that the smoking ruin of an economy over which he is...

7 June 2022Tuesday of week 10 in Ordinary Time The ruined arches of Fountains Abbey Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green.First reading1 Kings 17:7-16 ©The widow gives food to Elijah, and is fedThe stream in the place where Elijah lay hidden dried up, for the country had no rain. And then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, ‘Up and go to Zarephath, a Sidonian town, and stay there. I have ordered a widow there to give you food.’ So he went off to Sidon. And when he reached the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks; addressing her...

The Washington Post suspended reporter Dave Weigel for one month without pay over a “reprehensible” retweet, according to reports. Weigel’s work email reportedly auto-responds to incoming emails with the following message: “I am out of the office and will return on July 5.” Weigel’s suspension comes just a few days after fellow Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez reprimanded him on Twitter over a tweet he retweeted. On Friday, Weigel shared a tweet sent out by YouTube host Cam Harless that joked, “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.” Sonmez posted a screenshot...

The CDC is advising travelers to wear masks as it confirms there are now 31 cases of monkeypox in 13 states in the United States.

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Since progress is reportedly being made on the Russian-Turkish talks to open up a “grain corridor” in the Black Sea, it makes sense why Moscow might have ordered its naval forces to pull back a bit to show that it’s negotiating in good faith, although there hasn’t yet been any confirmation from the Kremlin about this. Kiev claimed that its forces coerced the Russian navy to “retreat” 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian Coast, though this development hasn’t been independently confirmed. In the event that there’s any credibility to Moscow’s reported naval movements, then it’s unlikely that they were done under...

Gov. Ron DeSantis red-lined the $35 million budget item approved by the House and Senate to build a youth sports complex in Pasco County. The Rays clearly hoped to move their spring training headquarters there from Port Charlotte. DeSantis gave two reasons for the veto. The first: the Governor said he doesn’t “support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums, period.” He’s not wrong there. But the other reason was more in line with his “think like I do, or else” agenda. After the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, the Rays donated $50,000 to Everytown for Gun Safety. They tweeted: “We...

A governor’s veto of a Constitutional Carry bill is a setback for Second Amendment supporters and Constitutionalists. A veto is also a signal the hard work of education has mostly been successful. How else would pro 2A bills reach anti-gun Governors’ desks?The Constitutional Carry movement was a dream in the thoughts of Second Amendment and Constitutional activists at the turn of the millennia. Today, half of the United States are members of the Constitutional Carry (permitless) club.During the last eleven years, there have been several governors who vetoed Constitutional Carry bills.This correspondent found 14 vetoes of Constitutional Carry bills. Nine...

The Irish state is planning on reimplementing harsh COVID-style lockdown rules should the Ukraine crisis cause a major fuel shortage. The Europhile government of Ireland is planning a return to draconian COVID-style lockdowns should a fuel shortage arise out of the ongoing Ukraine crisis, a leak revealed to the public on Monday has claimed.