Free Republic

The ultra-progressive mindset maintains its grip on institutional power, but in terms of what people actually believe, it’s on the downswing. About a decade ago, something began building steam in America’s elite cultural and intellectual institutions—universities, national newspapers and magazines, museum boards, award committees. Callout culture, cancel culture, identity politics, social justice, critical race theory, postmodern neo-Marxism, wokeness: whatever you want to call it, it was happening. Wokeness developed new and previously extreme ideas around race and gender, and especially around how people ought to conduct themselves in their everyday interactions when race and gender were considered (and race and...

Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to a drug charge Thursday in a Russian court. "I'd like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn't want to break the law," Griner said in court. "I'd like to give my testimony later. I need time to prepare." "If she wants to return home and she believes they're working on a prisoner swap, the faster that this proceeding ends, the faster she can get home," said William Pomeranz, an expert on Russian law. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said members of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow attended...

Experts have revealed how shoppers have to 'build a relationship' with luxury watch brand Rolex by spending up to £100,000 on less desirable timepieces in order to pick up the latest models - as the brand tries to maintain exclusivity in the Instagram age. While the uninitiated might assume that the luxurious fashion brand would happily take anyone's money, industry insiders have explained how the process of buying an expensive watch from the designer might be slightly be complicated than that. Experts said that with demand outstripping supply, the brand has had to place limits on who can buy what...

The detained American basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a court near Moscow on Thursday, her lawyer said. “I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Ms. Griner said in English, which was then translated into Russian, Reuters reported. Ms. Griner has been detained in Russia since Feb. 17, accused by the Russian authorities of having a vape cartridge with hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. Aleksandr Boikov, her lawyer, said cartridges appeared in Ms. Griner’s luggage “because of carelessness.”

Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff under former President Trump, appeared Wednesday on CNN Tonight and spoke about his old boss possibly making another run at the presidency in 2024. Mulvaney made headlines recently for being one of the few Republicans urging others to pay attention to the Jan. 6 Committee hearings, and has said they could mean trouble for the ex-president. “What you’re seeing, I think, is folks, especially in my party, are looking at Donald Trump as damaged,” Mulvaney said, “and something that might weigh down the party going into the midterms and into 2024.” Though...

Mortgage rates are falling … to pieces. Along with the US economy. As the US approaches recession and the Atlanta Fed real-time GDP tracker falls to -1.9%, we are seeing mortgage rates falling to 5.30%. Real Q2 GDP? Still in the doldrums at -1.9%. Biden is likely walking after midnight trying to find someone to blame for his declining economic prospects ahead of the midterm elections.

University of Otago-led research has uncovered the strongest evidence yet that household overcrowding is a major risk factor for acute rheumatic fever and streptococcal infections of the skin. Lead researcher Professor Michael Baker of the University of Otago, Wellington, says it is the first time researchers have investigated risk factors for Group A streptococcal infections of the throat (strep throat) and skin (strep skin) that can cause rheumatic fever. The studies found that both rheumatic fever and strep skin were linked with barriers to accessing primary health care and a family history of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, a...

FOURTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MATTHEW 10:7–15 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus sent the twelve to evangelize the countryside. To evangelize is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead.When this kerygma, this Paschal Mystery, is not at the heart of the project, Christian evangelization effectively disappears, devolving into a summons to bland religiosity or generic spirituality. When Jesus crucified and risen is not proclaimed, a beige and unthreatening Catholicism emerges, a thought system that is, at best, an echo of the environing culture. Peter Maurin, one of the founders of the Catholic Worker movement, said that the...

A star of a Netflix series about young cheerleaders was sentenced on July 6 to 12 years in prison. Jerry Harris, 22, was ordered imprisoned for 12 years, followed by eight years of supervised release. U.S. Judge Manish Shah, an Obama appointee, handed down the sentence in federal court in Chicago. Harris, a surrogate for then-candidate Joe Biden, was arrested in 2020 after authorities said he sent explicit videos and photographs to a young boy and solicited explicit materials from the male. Pleaded Guilty Harris pleaded guilty in February to one count of receipt of child pornography and one count...

The U.S. Supreme Court may have overturned Roe v. Wade, but abortion has not been completely eliminated — not if leftists in corporate America have anything to say about it, at least. Following the collapse of Roe, many businesses reportedly announced funding for abortion-related travel expenses, in a major victory for leftists pushing corporate America to adopt woke environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. ESGs provide a smokescreen for left-wing bigwigs in C-suites to force radical leftist politics on shareholders, according to former McDonald’s CEO Edward Rensi. Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks called ESG “the greatest threat to our freedoms...

During the state visit of the 46th President of the United States of America, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to Israel next week, President Isaac Herzog will award him the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor in a festive ceremony at the President’s Residence in recognition of his true friendship with the State of Israel, the people of Israel, and the Jewish People; his uncompromising decades-long commitment to Israel's security; his contributions to deepening, strengthening, and enhancing the strong and unwavering alliance between Israel and the United States of America; and his struggle against anti-Israeli and antisemitic hatred around the world. The...

California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom reinforced his trend of violating his own restrictions by vacationing with his family this week in a state he placed on a no-travel list last year, CalMatters reported on Tuesday. Newsom in July 2021 barred state-funded travel to 20 states including Montana, citing laws in the states that prohibit biological males from competing in girl’s school sports. Newsom spokesman Anthony York said the vacation to an in-law’s ranch was not state-funded but did not comment on whether a security detail joined the governor’s family. Newsom has a history of flouting restrictions he has imposed as...

Norwegian Sun also known as the ICEBERG SHIP. It is in trouble as I speak. https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9218131 It sat in Seattle for close to week after the incident 10 days or so ago. Sailed yesterday on an 8 day trip. Only 24 hours out and enroute back. Says Victoria BC now

Hollywood star Natalie Portman has expressed her love that Disney-Marvel’s latest Thor sequel is being received as the “gayest” Marvel movie ever made. In an interview with the actress, entertainment journalist Andrew Freund laid out his hypothesis about Thor: Love and Thunder, which opens in the U.S. on Friday. “Is it safe to say that this is the gayest movie ever made in the MCU [Marvel comic universe]?” Portman replied, “I love that reading of it. Yes! I love that.” Freund went on to elaborate his theory, citing sequences where the characters are flying on rainbows. The actress said, “That...

'Failure will have serious consequences' Left-wing activists are threatening to shut down the Congressional Baseball Game five years after a far-left gunman shot up the bipartisan event, almost killing House Republican Whip Steve Scalise. A climate activist group called Now or Never on Wednesday unveiled a three-part plan that starts with shutting down the annual game to force action from Democratic leaders, who the group says are guilty of refusing "to act boldly" on issues like climate change, abortion, and voting rights "for fear it will be too ‘polarizing.'" Now or Never's parent organization, the Action Network, is located at...

The only clinic performing abortions in Mississippi, the state at the heart of the US Supreme Court's historic about-face on women's reproductive rights, closed its doors Wednesday for the final time. The Jackson Women's Health Organization, nicknamed the Pink House because of the building's colorful walls, performed its last pregnancy-ending procedures before a law banning all abortions goes into effect in the conservative, impoverished state in the US South. 'Today is a hard day for all of us @ the last abortion provider in Mississippi,' The Pink House Fund, which raised donations to keep the institution running, posted on Twitter....

Stiff person syndrome spectrum disorders are rare autoimmune and neurological disorders that most often cause muscle stiffness and spasms in the torso and limbs. According to a study released today, a blood treatment called plasmapheresis, also known as therapeutic plasma exchange, may be a safe way to treat stiff person syndrome spectrum disorders. Researchers also found that many study participants also experienced an improvement in symptoms or function, or both, while being treated with this therapy. For people with these disorders, symptoms may come and go early in the disease, but eventually become constant. Stiffness and spasms usually begin in...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) expressed worry over the “toxicity in our public discourse” despite having publicly yelled “F*** Clarence Thomas” the previous week. While speaking at a press conference about public safety on Tuesday, alluding to the weekend violence toward police in Chicago and the Highland Park parade shooting north of the city, the Windy City mayor expressed concern that “people are losing respect for the institutions of our democracy.” Lightfoot then said, “the toxicity in our public discourse is a thing that we should all be concerned about,” and stated how she would like to see the community...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared to respond to a report that had twins with one of his top executives. According to a report from Insider, court documents show he quietly had twins with Shivon Zilis last November. In April, Musk and Zilis filed a petition to change the names of the twins to “have their father’s last name and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name.” The petition was approved by a Texas judge. Insider noted the twins were born just weeks before Musk and Claire Boucher had their second child via surrogate. Zilis now holds...

Congress reintroduced the Civics Secures Democracy Act, a bill that creates a national curriculum in history and civics that federalizes teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Action Civics in every K-12 classroom in America. The lack of civics produces students who are ignorant about American history and government. This has led to an explosion of “woke” college students opposed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas, who support disinviting speakers they don’t agree with, and who use violence to silence them. The misleadingly named Civics Secures Democracy Act has everything to do with the federal government’s plan to...