Free Republic

Vatican Questionnaire Offers Non-Binary Gender OptionROME — A new Vatican questionnaire offers respondents a third option when declaring their sex, namely: male, female, and other.The questionnaire, titled “The Church listens,” aims to collect people’s opinions about the Church, the results of which “will be sent to the Synod of Bishops, which will meet in Rome in October 2023, to give new life to the Church.”“Pope Francis wants to know how we see the Church and what we think the Church should do to bring her closer to us so that we can move forward together,” explains the survey, which is...

Hunter Biden reportedly met with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, in the White House on multiple occasions immediately following meetings with Romanian officials, presumably pertaining to a high-profile deal he was involved in with Romanian real estate mogul Gabriel Popoviciu. Hunter met with Biden three times from July 2015 to March 2016 about helping Popoviciu with a “conviction stemming from his purchase of a 550-acre parcel of government-owned land for a steep discount,” the New York Post reported from Hunter’s laptop from hell:

The owner of a Hollywood restaurant is being hailed as a hero after security footage captured him chasing down a robber and restraining him until help arrives. As the robber begins to walk away, Tim Ratcliff, who owns the neighboring business Hollywood Shin, immediately begins pursuing him, and the chase doesn’t last long.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the COVID-19 testing executive order Monday ... Phil Murphy has removed regular COVID-19 testing requirements for a swath of public employees, including unvaccinated school employees, child care workers and state contractors. Murphy signed an executive order Monday lifting the state's mandate that all school districts and state contractors ensure their employees are either vaccinated against COVID-19 or receive regular testing. The order comes days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) loosened its guidance on reducing spread of the virus. Murphy's order takes effect immediately for schools and child care workers, but the effect...

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Monday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that former President Donald Trump and his former attorney Rudy Giuliani were “screwed” legally while discussing the Justice Department investigation into classified materials that resulted in a raid on Mar-a-Lago and the Georgia alternate electors investigation announcing Giuliani was the target. Guest host John Heilemann said, “The one thing that was on no one’s radar screen was the thing that now, according to George Conway, is the shortest distance between Donald Trump and an orange jumpsuit, does this surprise you that it turns out to be classified materials and foreign...

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Monday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that if Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) loses her primary on Tuesday, the Republican Party was in a “bad place,” given she “is standing up against evil.” Cheney is the vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol and voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, who endorsed her challenger, attorney Harriet Hageman.

~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Carlisle Barracks, PennsylvaniaCarlisle Barracks is a United States Army facility located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The site of the U.S. Army War College, it is the nation's second-oldest active military base. The first structures were built in 1757, during the French and Indian War between Great Britain and France in the colonies.Carlisle, established in 1751 at the intersection of Indian trails along the Letort Creek, became a jumping-off point for traders and settlers heading west over the Allegheny Mountains. In 1757, the British established a military post at Carlisle under Col. John Stanwix during...

Men are lonelier than ever as they struggle to meet the higher dating standards of modern women, according to a psychologist. American psychologist Greg Matos wrote in a recent Psychology Today article that the current state of young and middle-aged men's love lives shows they need to 'address a skills deficit'. He said: 'I hear recurring dating themes from women between the ages of 25 and 45: They prefer men who are emotionally available, good communicators, and share similar values'.

The scene: As the curtain rises, we see an empty podium, a few paces ahead of the front stoop of the village hall in the remote village of Chelm. The village of Chelm is a small town of a thousand or so, far from any real civilization, but closely situated to the things that really matter to politicians - the newspaper bureau office, the national banks, the lobbyists, the four and five-star restaurants. Eventually, we see the Mayor of Chelm's press secretary, Benito Bugiardo, come out from the wings to appear behind the podium, as a few reporters walk on...

The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice released a report in June 2018 that stated that the FBI had “identified ’81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails that were classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels…and sent to or from [Hillary] Clinton’s personal server.” The IG cited the information from a “letterhead memorandum” (LHM) that the FBI produced about its investigation of the matter. The IG report also noted that “[n]one of the emails…included a header or footer with classification markings.” “According to the LHM,” said the IG report, “the FBI, with the assistance...

Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday said Americans might be ready “to turn the page” on former President Trump as he decides whether to run for president a third time. “People conflate Trump with people’s overall sense of happiness in the country. Donald Trump’s been a friend of mine for 25 years, and I’m always very open about this on my show. But, you know we’ll see whether that’s what the country wants,” Ingraham said during an appearance on Lisa Boothe’s podcast. “The country I think is so exhausted. They’re exhausted by the battle, the constant battle, that they...

Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) said Monday on FNC’s “Special Report ” that the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home showed an “inconsistent” application of the rule of law. Baier asked, “Are you concerned about the handling of classified materials highest levels if, in fact, there is not a paper trail that the president declassified those specific documents?” Scott said, “I AM NOT. What I am mostly concerned about is the infrequent, inconsistent application of the rule of law as it relates to President Trump. I can’t imagine how it feels to see a 232-year precedent go down...

A “study” finding that COVID mitigation efforts in schools, including forced masking, were highly effective in stopping disease spread — and cited by the CDC and most states as the scientific basis for school mask mandates — was authored by LA County bureaucrats, including the daughter of the county’s Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. Although study authors are required to disclose any conflicts of interest — and Ferrer is given a shout-out in the acknowledgements — the study states that no conflicts of interest were disclosed. Like her mother, Kaitlin Barnes is not a medical doctor. Barnes does not even...

WARNING! This thread contains spoilers for: Better Call Saul Breaking Bad and El Camino Proceed at your own risk.

Politically motivated gangsterism will only backfire, though at what price? When body-armored paramilitary agents with automatic weapons showed up to raid the house of Donald Trump, former president and rival of sitting U.S. President Joe Biden, many conservatives likened it to the beginning of a banana-republic rule in our country. Conservative columnist George Will is more measured in calling it one more colossal blunder on the part of the Biden administration. Blunder or political move, the weaponization of the legal system for political motives has caused civil wars and destroyed at least one law-based republic in history. Rome’s republic collapsed...

Black Americans living in highly segregated neighborhoods report more nearby crime and drug abuse, worse air quality, a greater lack of affordable housing, and fewer safe places for their children to play locally compared to their Black peers living in white neighborhoods. That’s according to a new report from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which detailed the differences in survey responses between Black people living in majority non-white neighborhoods and Black people living in majority-white communities. In the survey, Black adults in predominantly non-white neighborhoods also gave lower ratings to...

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon estimated last week the probability that the US would head into a recession, according to a Yahoo Finance report published Saturday. Dimon reportedly said on a client call Tuesday that the economy was "strong" but "storm clouds" were on the horizon, including federal monetary policies, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and rising oil prices. The categorization is an apparent downgrade from Dimon's previous comments in June when he warned of an "economic hurricane."

Grace Hartsock was knocking on doors to encourage Kansas citizens to vote for a pro-life amendment when, she says, she was attacked. The 18-year-old from Austin, Texas — a rising freshman at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas — walked away from one house after encountering a woman who opposed the amendment. That is when she heard “yelling and cursing” coming from inside, she told CNA. “As I was walking back towards the street, the woman’s adult daughter came out of the house, still yelling, and started following me,” Hatsock recalled of the July 31 incident in Leawood, Kansas. “She pushed...

Early this week, Joe Biden claimed the U.S. had "zero inflation" in July. The claim was a direct contraction of federal Consumer Price Index data that showed annual inflation dropped only marginally to 8.5 percent. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was on ABC News’s “This Week” to talk about a range of issues of concern to the voters, including inflation. Host Jonathan Karl began his questions on the economy by citing an ABC News/Ipsos poll from early August where only 37% of Americans approve of Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and 70% thought the economy under Biden had...

After a brain hemorrhage, neural support cells called astrocytes enhance healing by transferring their mitochondria to damaged neurons. The healthy mitochondria stimulate the production of a free radical-fighting enzyme, according to new research published in The Journal of Neuroscience. An artery in the brain bursts. Blood rushes into the tissue, inducing free radicals that cause even more damage. The hemorrhage damages mitochondria, the site of energy production in cells. Astrocytes transfer their mitochondria to damaged neurons after a hemorrhage. These healthy mitochondria contain a "healing" peptide called humanin and an enzyme called manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) that help neutralize free...