Free Republic

Last month, in response to the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinon ending Roe v. Wade, the Louisiana legislature briefly considered a bill that would define a fetus as a person for the purpose of the state’s homicide law...... on page 16 of the draft opinion, Alito cites a brief by John M. Finnis and Robert P. George that argues that fetuses are legal people. Finnis and George are clearly wrong, though. This issue has already been considered and decided by the Reconstruction-era Congress. They definitively determined that fetuses do not count as “persons” for purposes of the 14th...

The committee investigating January 6 and the attack on Congess opened with bombshell video footage on Thursday that showed a number of his most trusted aides and advisers, including his daugher Ivanka Trump, explaining that they knew the election was not stolen. ...She spoke of her perspective being changed after hearing that Bill Barr, who was Trump’s attorney general for most of 2020, until he resigned that December, had explained to her father repeatedly that he had lost the election. “I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying,” Ivanka Trump told congressional investigators. The committee showed...

A U.S. Navy helicopter crashed during a training mission in the Imperial County desert north of Yuma Thursday afternoon, the second military aircraft to go down in the area in two days, the Navy said. All four crew members on board survived the crash, although one sustained injuries not considered life-threatening and was taken to a hospital, according to Cmdr. Zachary Harrell, a spokesperson for the San Diego-based Naval Air Forces command. The MH-60S Seahawk helicopter is assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 3, based at Naval Air Station North Island, Harrell said. The crash was reported around 5 p.m....

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday compared his current actions to Peter the Great's conquest of the Baltic coast during his 18th-century war against Sweden. After visiting an exhibition in Moscow dedicated to the 350th birthday of tsar Peter the Great, Putin told a group of young entrepreneurs that "you get the impression that by fighting Sweden he was grabbing something. He wasn't taking anything, he was taking it back." When Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg and declared it the Russian capital "none of the countries in Europe recognized this territory as belonging to Russia," Putin said. "Everyone considered...

Longtime liberal radio host Bill Press wrote an op-ed Thursday calling for the Second Amendment to be outright repealed. "The only effective way to deal with the Second Amendment is to repeal it — and then replace it with something that makes sense in a civilized society," Press wrote for CNN in an article titled "There’s no way to fix the Second Amendment. Let’s just get rid of it." [cut] Press cited Carol Anderson, an academic who "describes the ‘anti-Blackness’ at the heart of the Second Amendment." He wrote that "the amendment has nothing to do with self-defense or allowing...

My new book tells the story of what happened the last time an American president attempted to pack the Supreme Court. It had lasting consequences even though it didn't pass in the Senate. It ended up bullying, intimidating and threatening the Supreme Court to the point that the Supreme Court changed its interpretation of the Constitution I cover this history and more in "Saving Nine", which will help you understand why packing the Supreme Court is such a terrible idea.

A man lost a chunk of his leg when he was attacked by an alligator outside a Florida hotel after mistaking the reptile for a dog, police said. The bizarre incident unfolded as the man was walking outside the Warm Mineral Springs Motel in North Port around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday and noticed a dark figure shuffling around in some bushes, WFLA reported, citing the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. Thinking that it was a dog attached to a long leash, the man didn’t move out of the way when the gator charged toward him. Then the alligator bit his leg and...

A woman arrested for possession of crack cocaine pleaded guilty to COVID-19 relief fraud after police found multiple stolen identification cards in her car. Danielle Tooley, 37, of Batavia, New York, was questioned by police officers during a traffic stop. After finding drug paraphernalia in the vehicle, police arrested Tooley and found evidence of the identity fraud in the same car. "The scheme came to the attention of law enforcement on Nov. 24, 2020, when Tooley was arrested for criminal possession of a controlled substance during a vehicle traffic stop on Clinton Street in Bergen, New York," the Department of...

The National Pulse is reporting on a new study out of Kansas that completely contradicts the conventional wisdom regarding mask mandates and COVID-19. According to the study, fatalities were actually ~50 percent higher in places with mandates vs. those without mandates, and there are a few reasons to suspect why that might be. The observational study – “The Foegen Effect: A Mechanism by Which Facemasks Contribute to the COVID-19 Case Fatality Rate” – was published in Medicine in February 2022, authored by German doctor Zacharias Fögen. The paper analyzed “whether mandatory mask use influenced the case fatality rate in Kansas”...

As the Jan. 6 select committee prepares to unveil some of the findings of its investigation into the riot at the Capitol by those who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday offered his spin on who was to blame for the attack: everyone. During a news conference on Capitol Hill, McCarthy was asked whether he still agreed with his own public and private comments following the Jan. 6 riot that former President Donald Trump bore some of the responsibility for the violence. “Look, I’ve answered that many times,” McCarthy responded....

Shanghai and Beijing went back on fresh COVID-19 alert on Thursday after parts of China's largest economic hub imposed new lockdown restriction and the city announced a round of mass testing for millions of residents. The most populous district in the Chinese capital, meanwhile, announced the shutdown of entertainment venues, while news of the lockdown of Shanghai's Minhang district, home to more than 2 million people, pulled down Chinese stocks. Several local-level authorities in Shanghai, which is home to 25 million people, have also issued notices saying residents will be subject to two days of confinement and another 12 days...

The terms of the gun debate have been set so firmly and for so long that any attempt to venture past the slogans employed by the respective sides is typically met with derision. I suspect that, for many, there is very little thinking about this topic anymore; what is called argument is really just posturing or strategizing. Where there are no genuine questions being asked, there is no thinking. The participants in the debate come largely from two camps: on one side there are the gun enthusiasts for whom guns are an expression of identity and who therefore regard any...

‘One of the most recent cultural challenges to the Sixth Commandment and to the reality and integrity of the human person is the transgender ideology,’ Fr. Terrance Chartier said. BLOOMINGTON, Indiana (LifeSiteNews) – A Franciscan priest said that transgender ideology is an affront to at least four Commandments. “One of the most recent cultural challenges to the Sixth Commandment and to the reality and integrity of the human person is the transgender ideology,” Fr. Terrance Chartier of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate said during his homily on May 30 at the friary in Bloomington. Lying to someone and telling...

Moscow, June 9, Interfax - A bill prohibiting assemblies, rallies, marches and demonstrations at railway stations, in schools and in buildings of public administration bodies has been submitted to the State Duma. A relevant initiative was published in the State Duma database of the legislative activities on Thursday. Its authors are a group of State Duma and Federation Council members, in particular, Andrey Klimov, Vladimir Dzhabarov, Vasily Piskaryov, and Andrey Lugovoy. Under the bill, the current law will outline places where assemblies, rallies, marches and demonstrations will be prohibited. These places include religious buildings and facilities, as well as on...

Former Trump White House senior adviser Jared Kushner dismissed threats from then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his team to resign ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, riots as “whining,” according to testimony aired during Thursday night’s committee hearing. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a member of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riots, asked Kushner during a recorded deposition whether he was aware of instances where Cipollone threatened to resign leading up to Jan. 6.

The Holy See has confirmed the Pope's attendance at the Congress of Leader of World and Traditional Religions in September where he will be joined by representatives of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Orthodox Christians and Protestants for discussions centered on 'inter-religious dialogue.'VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – The Holy See has confirmed that Pope Francis will attend the seventh World Religions Congress in Kazakhstan this September. The pontiff is throwing his support behind the international “interfaith” meeting aimed at the “development of humanity” following the worldwide COVID-19 response. According to a joint communiqué released by the Holy See Press Office on May...

@alexbruesewitz WOW: the @January6thCmtejust doctored a clip! They removed Ray Epps from the video of the protestors first breaching the police barricade. Why did they remove Ray Epps from the video?

National Indian Residential School Circle of Survivors, Catholic bishops met to discuss Pope's apologyResidential school survivors met with Catholic bishops in Winnipeg Wednesday to discuss what they'd like to hear from Pope Francis when he visits Canada this summer. The Pope is expected to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church's role in abuses suffered at the schools, but it's the wording of that apology that was the focus of discussions Wednesday morning. After meeting over the last few days to discuss a draft of the apology, the National Indian Residential School Circle of Survivors met with three Catholic bishops in...

A pregnancy resource center in Washington, D.C., was vandalized with red paint and graffiti this week. The incident is the latest in a string of attacks on pro-life organizations and Catholic church buildings. Photos of the June 3 vandalism show a splash of red paint covering the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center’s white door. On the brick outer building, the words “Jane says revenge” are written in black spray paint. Janet Durig, the executive director of the center, told The Daily Signal she discovered it was vandalized when a neighbor called and notified her. The Daily Signal reported that the vandalism...

From Talos, the giant bronze automaton who guarded the princess Europa in ancient Greek myths, to Cylons and Terminators, the idea of artificial humans has both fascinated and creeped us out for centuries. Now, we're closer than ever to making a robot look remarkably like a human, with the development of living robot skin. This icky-looking substance is water repellent, self healing, and has a texture just like our own skin. Because it's actually made of human skin cells. "I think living skin is the ultimate solution to give robots the look and touch of living creatures since it is...