Free Republic

At Greece's largest coal mine, controlled explosions and the roar of giant excavators scooping up blasted rock have once again become routine. Coal production has been ramped up at the site near the northern Greek city of Kozani as the war in Ukraine forced many European nations to rethink their energy supplies. Coal, long treated as a legacy fuel in Europe, is now helping the continent safeguard its power supply and cope with the dramatic rise in natural gas prices caused by the war. Electricity generated by coal in the European Union jumped by 19% in the fourth quarter of...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Cornyn is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who negotiated with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) last year on legislation to expand background checks for commercial sellers but without success. Cornyn scored one of the few notable accomplishments on gun violence legislation in recent years when he coauthored and helped pass the Fix NICS Act in 2018. The legislation required federal agencies to produce plans for uploading all relevant information to the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System. McConnell tapped Cornyn to lead the negotiations for Republicans shortly after a bipartisan group of senators met...

The Senate unveiled Tuesday the language of the bipartisan gun control deal Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) struck with Democrats at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) behest. NPR reports that the gun control expands background checks for gun buyers ages 18-20. The legislation also expands the prohibited buyers list by adding dating relationships under the domestic violence clause, thus closing the “boyfriend loophole” Democrats have been arguing against for years. The legislation also contains financial incentives for states that agree to adopt red flag laws. Rep. Matt Gaetz anticipated the financial incentives for red laws, telling Breitbart News Saturday that...

Queen Victoria would not always be considered the best symbol of genuine progress and democracy in every conversation. But a half naked statue of her in Melbourne, Australia, serves as a reminder that many of the city's forebears were far more open minded than the narrow prudish leftist mob rule which persecutes some of the most talented men here now for their heterosexuality and other reasons such as refusing to be vaccinated and being a highly successful catholic leader. A. Robert Doyle, the longest serving Mayor of Melbourne was driven from office by allegations, which he denied and which witnesses...

House Republicans have named the congressional aide to Rep. Jake Auchincloss, Massachusetts Democrat, who allowed TV’s Stephen Colbert’s comedy crew into one of the House office buildings after hours. Republicans said Tuesday that Auchincloss Chief of Staff Tim Hysom was responsible for letting seven producers and staffers of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” back into the House Longworth Building last week after U.S. Capitol Police directed the TV crew to leave the complex earlier in the day. Rep. Rodney Davis, Illinois Republican and ranking member of the House Administration Committee, said he is 100% sure Mr. Hysom is the...

Somewhere over the last few days — since back when he was telling friends that he was emphatically out on the LIV Golf series — Brooks Koepka found a metaphorical horse’s head in his bed, an offer he couldn’t refuse from the Saudi dismemberment enthusiasts behind the breakaway circuit. Since Koepka does not suffer fools gladly and has been vocally contemptuous of LIV Golf’s leading figures — Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson and Golf Saudi CEO Majed Al Sorour — we must assume the offer was sufficiently high for him to sleep soundly. For those who know Koepka well, one brief...

A new police report that was exclusively obtained by The Epoch Times has proved that “plainclothes” members of a special law enforcement Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) were secretly embedded among protesters for the purposes of conducting video surveillance on January 6th. The newly uncovered report, titled First Amendment Demonstrations, was issued on Jan. 3, 2021, by DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief of Police Robert Contee under the Homeland Security Bureau’s Special Operations Division. It detailed the MPD’s response to the planned MAGA protest, which included specifics about covert operations that occurred on and leading up to January 6th. According...

Nearly 10 days after a “framework” agreement on additional federal gun laws was reached by a group of 20 members of the United States Senate, the text of the bill was released by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) Tuesday night, and the Senate is currently (as of press time) taking a vote on whether or not to begin debate on the bill – even while analysts are still digesting it. For those who don’t want to read for themselves or wait for trusted analysts, Murphy posted a tweet thread asking people to “let [him] tell you what it does.” Pardon us...

Thomasville attorney Chris West won the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, defeating former U.S. Army captain and Yale Law student Jeremy Hunt in Tuesday’s runoff election. With an estimated 98% of the vote in, West leads Hunt 14,608-13,853. Hunt conceded just before 10:20 p.m. but did not mention West by name in his speech. West, 38, won despite finishing second in the May primary and being outspent by nearly 10-1 by Hunt. Hunt, 28, finished first in May’s primary with 37% of the total ballots cast and was the favored candidate of several national Republican politicians, carrying endorsements...

Side by side images of the front and back of the small silver Viking coin that was found. It looks very worn, but on one side you can make out the triquetra in the middle and writing going around the edge. The next image shows the other side of the coin. It is very worn but you can make out some small circles in the top left and bottom right as well as 2 lines going down the middle and writing around the edge.A metal detectorist has discovered a small silver coin marked with the name of a famous Viking...

Senate negotiators unveiled an 80-page bill Tuesday evening responding to the mass shootings at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, capping weeks of intense negotiations. Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator, is hailing the bill as the biggest breakthrough on the issue of gun violence in 30 years and predicted Tuesday it would save lives. Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the head Republican in the talks, says the legislation will take guns out of the hands of people who are dangerous or break the law but won’t affect the gun rights...

ormer X Factor contestant and Stereo Kicks band member Tom Mann says he is “broken” after his fiancée died suddenly on the morning of their wedding day. PR executive Danielle Hampson, 34, shockingly died on Saturday morning, only hours before the couple were to be married, according to TMZ. The Saturday wedding was a backup date after the ceremony had been delayed from Sept. of 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The cause of Hampson’s death has not yet been determined, but she was not known to have any illnesses or ailments. She leaves behind an 8-month-old son. Mann...

If autonomous weapons are the future of warfare, then the United States has no choice but to grapple with their complexities. he congressionally appointed National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence recently concluded that “we can expect the large-scale proliferation of AI-enabled capabilities.” The recent Libya conflict seems to validate that conclusion about artificial intelligence (AI), with soldiers loyal to Libyan Gen. Khalifa Haftar employing a Turkish-made Kargu-2 drone that “hunted down and remotely engaged” retreating forces, according to a United Nations report. It’s not clear whether the Kargu-2 employed its autonomous capabilities, but the Turkish government acknowledged it can field...

President Joe Biden issued a veiled criticism of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Tuesday while touting the COVID-19 vaccines newly available to young children. Children as young as 6 months old began receiving COVID-19 shots on Tuesday. Biden boasted about his administration’s extensive road map for getting shots in children's arms while visiting a Washington, D.C., vaccination site, where he met with parents and young children. The federal government has already made 10 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's and Moderna’s pediatric vaccines available to states for preorder, but Florida opted out. DeSantis, who often casts himself as a foil to Biden, declared...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out the relationship between Big Pharma and federal regulatory agencies at a press conference on Monday where he announced there will not be any state-pushed mRNA vaccination programs for 6-month old babies. "What this whole year and a half has shown us is these regulatory agencies in the federal government have basically become subsidiaries of the pharmaceutical companies," DeSantis said.

“He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor” (Proverbs 22:9-10).

It’s easy to feel like you’re in the minority when it comes to the issue of transgenderism. I was banned from Twitter for speaking the truth about transgenderism. Lia Thomas’s teammates were afraid to speak out publicly in opposition to his competing against them, and have only done so anonymously out of fear of retribution. Transgender ideology is pushed by Hollywood, and even medical professionals are pressured to legitimize it. If you recognize that there are only two genders, male and female, and that impossible to change from one to the other, you might feel like you’re alone, surrounded by...

Cheers erupted on Tuesday after Pete Arredondo, the embattled police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD), was denied a continued leave of absence from his new role as member of the Uvalde City Council. Arredondo, who was privately sworn into the council one week after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School took the lives of 19 children and two adults, has not attended any meetings since joining the council and has largely remained out of the public eye amid heavy criticism of his actions as incident commander during the massacre. During a city council meeting on...

On 20th June 1567, a few days after Scottish rebels apprehended Mary, Queen of Scots, servants of James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, allegedly found a silver casket of eight letters, two marriage contracts (which apparently proved that Mary had agreed to marry Bothwell before his divorce) and twelve sonnets. The casket was found in the possession of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell and third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. What was important about these letters? Well, the eight letters found in the casket were allegedly written by Mary to Bothwell and one was said to implicate the...

Raffesnperger won his primary with 52% of the vote to prevent a runoff. Brian Kemp, who was booed at the state convention, surprisingly won his primary in Georgia after a rally with Mike Pence, by 74% to 22%. And on Tuesday, popular conservative and Trump supporter Vernon Jones — who just months ago would receive a rock star’s welcome at rallies — lost to his opponent Mike Collins. Vernon Jones lost his race 76% to 24%. So Georgia was a clean sweep against President Trump and his supporters. If we want to believe the numbers — Trump only has 24%...