Free Republic

After being forced to host an LGBT club and violate tenets of Orthodox Judaism, Yeshiva University is fighting to preserve religious freedom.Must religious institutions abandon certain core tenets to operate in the public square? That question is at the heart of yet another lawsuit arising from the tensions between religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws.This week, New York’s Yeshiva University — an Orthodox Jewish university — filed an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court after a state supreme court judge ordered the school to recognize an LGBT student group in violation of its religious beliefs regarding sexual morality. Yeshiva has...

The chance of an economic "soft landing" has faded, and the Fed is pushing for a "growth recession." The phrase describes a period of below-average growth, rising unemployment, and slowing inflation. The Fed chair said that while it'd "bring some pain," letting inflation stay high would be worse. In an ideal world, the Federal Reserve has already vanquished pandemic-era inflation while keeping unemployment at historic lows and avoiding a recession. Hopes for such an outcome are all but entirely dashed, and the Fed has switched to plan B. The central bank's message at its annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,...

Filatiev published “Zov" on the Russian social network VK in early August. The human rights organization Gulagu helped him leave the country a few weeks later, moving him from one place to another until finally helping him reach France. He spent two days inside the Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting to be approved for entry. In Russia, he said, “I understood that no lawyer could defend me,” he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. On his wrist, he wore a silver bracelet adorned with a crucifix. Filatiev said Russia's army is degrading by the day, unable to replace the...

SEATTLE — A Seattle man accused of harassing and punching workers at local businesses could be going to trial. Police say John M. Williams first punched a worker at a hotel near 1st and Stewart, then moved on to assault more people at Bacco Café during the busy Labor Day weekend rush at Pike Place Market, according to online records. Witness video shows a chaotic scene at the popular breakfast spot around 10 a.m. Saturday, showing a man disrupting patio diners off 1st and Pine. Security acted quickly to grab him, as meals went flying and some customers jumped the...

A Mountain Home woman who refused to leave her parent’s home because they would not give her gas money, and who later assaulted a law enforcement official, has been arrested on several charges including terroristic threatening and second degree battery on a correctional officer. According to the probable cause affidavit and incident report, 34-year-old Kendra Wells was arrested Friday when she was upset at her mother when she would not help with child custody and gas money. Her parents stated they did not want her at their residence and when Wells refused to leave, she started screaming at her mother...

There are 25,975 deceased people whose names are still on Michigan's voter rolls. Of these, 23,663 had been dead for five years or more, and 17,449 had been dead for at least a decade. Federal law requires these names to be removed. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has been refusing to remove them. She has now been sued by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). Benson's motion to dismiss the case was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. "President Biden is the duly elected ruler of our democracy," Benson said. "Only he has...

Nearly every country in the world enacted authoritarian measures that proved to be useless. The data show lives were not saved.A spike in pneumonia cases in December of 2019 in Wuhan, China was quickly found to be caused by a new coronavirus. Coronaviruses usually cause the common cold, but this one could be lethal. It would eventually come to be called Covid, as I will call both the virus and the disease.Covid was very contagious. Someone with the flu infects, on average, about 1.1 other people. The first estimate for Covid was 2.5. Think of how many times you’ve had...

Hillary Clinton revealed she and her husband Bill Clinton once accidentally left their daughter at the Kremlin during a state visit to Russia years ago. The former First Lady appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, alongside her daughter Chelsea Clinton, 42, on Tuesday night. As part of the interview, the pair took part in a Mother Daughter Challenge, where they had to answer a series of questions asked by Fallon. At one point during the segment, Clinton, 74, was asked about her “craziest family vacation memory.” Taking a second to think, the mom-of-one remembered the time she and...

Long before Agents of SHIELD, Cloak and Dagger, or Daredevil, Marvel tried to make its mark on TV...with mixed results....

Gas prices are coming down slowly here in East/Central Illinois and while they are still well above prices two years ago they are down a great deal from their high of $5.99/gal a few months ago.I'm curious as to why that is and do you think they will continue to fall thru the end of the year, as a bonus question, will they go back up after the elections? Thanks!

Etruscan Origins | Ancient Myths and DNAStudy of Antiquity and the Middle Ages | February 20, 2022

In an ominous open letter published on wonky national security site War on the Rocks Tuesday, eight former secretaries of defense and five former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned of what they call an "exceptionally challenging civil-military environment" developing in the United States that apparently concerned them enough to publish their thoughts ahead of November's consequential midterm elections. Never mind, apparently, that the signatories were at the helm of the U.S. military for the better part of the last two decades during which that "environment" was degraded. Citing "extreme strain" to "[m]any of the factors that shape...

Gavin Newsom still says he intends to sell the California greenie energy plan as a model for the nation. Just days after signing a greenie law mandating that Californians buy only electric cars by 2035 — and calling it a model for the nation — Gov. Gavin Newsom is pleading with Californians to turn off their electricity to prevent the electrical grid from blowing out. In some Bay Area cities — Alameda, Healdsburg, and Old Palo Alto — the rolling blackouts have already started. It's a policy failure unlike any other, from a guy who makes no secret of wanting...

My newest book, The Political Seduction of the Church: How Millions of American Christians Have Confused Politics with the Gospel, has just been released. But what, exactly, do I mean by “political seduction”?Do I mean that Christians who are involved in politics have been seduced? Certainly not. I believe Christians should be involved in politics, as I have stated repeatedly for years.Am I critiquing those who supported Donald Trump, as if they were seduced into voting for him? Not at all. I voted for him myself, both in 2016 and 2020. And my book is about the church more than...

Up to 60 per cent of factories in the UK are now facing possible closure over a massive surge in their energy bills, a manufacturers’ body in the country has warned. Six in ten UK factories are now facing the possibility of winding up their operations over the rising cost of energy bills in the country, a group tasked with representing manufacturers, Make UK, has claimed.

Colleges and universities have been selling potential students a bill of goods for decades, assuring them that a college education was the ticket to economic success, and the more you paid for higher education, the bigger the payoff in increased earnings down the road. That may have been true 40 or 50 years ago. But for most students today, college has become a luxury for upper-middle class and rich families who can afford the cost of a four-year degree. It’s either paid for by daddy — who doesn’t really mind his kid majoring in journalism or environmental justice — or...

I run one of the original, Daniel Okrent fantasy baseball leagues that we started in 1988. Daniel Okrent named it Rotisserie baseball after the Rotisserie Restaurant in New York, where he penciled the first rules that became known as fantasy sports. Over the years, we learned how to spot baseball players who were on steroids. Their batting average leaped by as much as 80 points, and the power increase was obvious. We believe that McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds took high doses of steroids when they passed Babe Ruth's 60–home run record. Roger Maris obviously did not take steroids, but his...

According to President Biden’s tax return for last year, the first couple received a whopping $4,555 a month in Social Security benefits alone which put them well above what the average retired American brings home each month. And that doesn’t include all of their other streams of income. Social Security just celebrated its 87th birthday. It was signed into law in August 1935 and payouts began on Jan. 1, 1940. It has become the safety net for more than 48 million retired Americans and many depend on a monthly check from the agency to survive. The average Social Security check...

Whenever I read about protesters slinging poop, I am irresistibly reminded of Democrats, whom I've called the "Party of Poop" ever since the Bush era, when they were mailing poop, throwing poop, pooping poop, and generally bringing it to all their efforts, real or imaginary. Looking at the state of Democrat-run cities in 2022, nothing has changed. But in Holland, it's entirely possible that throwing poop really did have an effect. The farmers did it to protest a draconian climate edict, and now, the radical agriculture minister behind the push has resigned. Over the summer, Dutch farmers began to protest...

US tech companies that receive federal funding will be barred from building "advanced technology" facilities in China for 10 years, the Biden administration has said. The guidelines were unveiled as part of a $50bn (£43bn) plan aimed at building up the local semiconductor industry. It comes as business groups have pushed for more government support in an effort to reduce reliance on China. They are faced with a global microchip shortage which has slowed production. "We're going to be implementing the guardrails to ensure those who receive CHIPS funds cannot compromise national security... they're not allowed to use this money...