Free Republic

Democrat Katie Hobbs’s campaign for Arizona governor announced Sunday that she would not debate her Republican opponent Kari Lake. Hobbs’s campaign manager, Nicole DeMont, stated that the Democrat would not share the stage with a “conspiracy theorist” after the campaign faced mounting pressure to debate from Arizona’s Clean Elections Commission (CEC).“Unfortunately, debating a conspiracy theorist like Kari Lake – whose entire campaign platform is to cause enormous chaos and make Arizona the subject of national ridicule – would only lead to constant interruptions, pointless distractions, and childish name-calling,” DeMont said in a statement.She noted that Hobbs, who is Arizona’s secretary...

<p>Every generation thinks they have it the hardest when it comes to finding love, but it’s hard to look at mine and conclude that we don’t have a good case. Never before have young people been having so little sex—at least not since we began counting such things. Never before have young people been lonelier. Never before have we been stalked so thoroughly by our past selves, every blunder cataloged in perpetuity.</p>

Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the eastern part of the country has been very successful so far. They have retaken about 3,000 square kilometers of territory from Russian forces. The operation, so far excellent and aided by U.S. intelligence, bears all the hallmarks of a U.S. Special Operations Command deception operation, according to a former U.S. official.

Old Map Islands The study was inspired by the Gough map, which depicts two “lost” islands in Cardigan Bay offshore west Wales, United Kingdom. A new study of coastal geography finds that the lost islands mentioned in Welsh folklore and poetry are plausible. New evidence on the evolution of west Wales’ coastline has shown a Welsh tradition going back to the medieval era of a landscape lost to the sea is plausible. The researchers from Swansea University and the University of Oxford suggest how two islands came into being and subsequently vanished using geological data and a medieval map....

Speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser in 2008, Barack Obama sought to explain the reluctance of working-class Pennsylvanians to rally to his cause. "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and ... the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them." "And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment ... as a way to explain their frustrations."

Exciting times. By this scribbler’s tracking, the British just shuffled their head of state and their head of government in the same week for the first time since Oliver Cromwell. Of course, Boris Johnson is less fearsome than the Council of State, and Queen Elizabeth II by all accounts met a peaceful death after a long life, not the stuff of a proto-Los Zetas snuff film. On American Labor Day—the austere zenith of the British Empire (relocated) commemorating “labour”—we west of the Atlantic could read of Prime Minister Johnson and the Queen. By market close in London on Thursday, the...

In his first official royal decree, King Charles has replaced Meghan and Harry in the line of succession with two of the late Queen's corgis. "Fluffy here shall immediately assume the title of Duke," said Charles, presenting the corgi with a scepter. "There now! Who's a good future King of England?" The nation of England erupted into celebration upon hearing the news. "After the sadness of the past week, it feels good to have something to be happy about," said citizen Gerald Funderburk. "The thought of the monarchy falling into the hands of Harry or Meghan, those blithering idiots…we can...

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria which aired Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called out former President Donald Trump for “praising” Vladimir Putin just ahead of the invasion of Ukraine. I believe he had enough time, plenty of time, to understand who Putin is,” Zelensky said. Speaking further of Trump, Zelensky described, “I think he was sitting at such a high position where it’s not even possible not to recognize that [Putin] is the opponent in terms of values to your own people. He [Trump] has all the might of this country — intelligence, data — to create...

More than 150 Michigan Republicans launched a new campaign effort to boost the reelection prospects of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) against GOP opponent Tudor Dixon, who is backed by former President Trump. Republicans for Whitmer is led by a leadership council of 35 Republicans from Michigan, including business leaders, former lawmakers and staff who served under former state GOP governors John Engler and Rick Snyder. Bill Parfet, the chairman and CEO of commercial real estate company Northwood Group, said he was supporting Whitmer because she was seeking to build a common bridge between Democrats and Republicans.

The race for Vermont’s “solid Democrat” U.S. Senate seat is heating up as the Republican nominee, Gerald Malloy, is attempting to close the gap before Election Day in two months. The most recent Trafalgar Group poll of Vermont’s open U.S. Senate found that the Republican nominee is only 6.5 percent down from the Democrat nominee, Rep. Peter Welch, who also sits just below the 50 percent mark.

President Joe Biden expressed frustration about the state of American airports on Monday, even though he made funding for trains a greater priority in his infrastructure bill. “America invented modern aviation, but we’ve allowed our airports to lag behind our competitors’,” Biden said. The president spoke about airports during a visit to Logan International Airport in Boston to promote more government infrastructure spending. He griped that the United States did not have any airports listed as the best in the world. “Today, not a single solitary American airport, not one, ranks in the top 25 of the world,” he said,...

After facing mounting pressure from Democrats and anti-gun activists, credit card giants Visa, Mastercard, and American Express all announced plans this week to single out their customers’ purchases at firearm stores. Using a new four-digit merchant category code, credit card companies will now categorize any purchases at gun ammunition stores, regardless if those purchases are of firearms or not, as separate from other shopping. If the credit card companies deem any of those transactions suspect, they will report them to local law enforcement agencies. Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx all adopted the new standards on Saturday shortly after the International Organization...

COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. — Deputies said a man stopped them in the middle of the night in the middle of the road to tell them that he had murdered someone.In a news release, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said that Jay Albert Stevens stopped the deputy at approximately 1 a.m. Thursday and said that he had shot and killed someone. Stevens told the deputy that he did not know the address where it happened, but led the deputy to a residence where a 61-year-old man was found dead.Stevens allegedly told detectives that the victim was his stepfather, and that he...

The American military is peddling critical race theory, white shaming, queer theory, and left-wing activism to children in its K–12 military schools. The U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) runs 160 schools on military bases across the globe serving more than 69,000 children of military personnel. It employs thousands of teachers. The DoD’s military base education budget exceeds $3.2 billion. This education system allows for easy transfer from one base to another, but it also allows for central command to dictate changes in curricular emphasis and direction. Tom Brady, the system’s director, created a new division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion...

After 36 years in Congress, all of it on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I can confidently say this is the most transformative session of Congress for our transportation system since President Eisenhower established the Interstate Highway System. Let’s review the tape. Last fall we passed the historic bipartisan infrastructure law. This transformational legislation provides $660 billion for transportation—the largest ever one-time infusion of federal funds into our nation’s transportation system. It will provide over $400 billion in funding for roads, bridges, and major multimodal projects. In my state of Oregon alone, that means over $3.7 billion to rebuild and...

The visit, which comes at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, will last for several days and aims to discuss prospects for bilateral relations to serve the Palestinian cause. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with a delegation of the Palestinian movement Hamas, headed by political bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh, in Moscow on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "On September 12, … Lavrov hosted … Haniyeh, who is in Moscow as the head of the delegation of this Palestinian movement. During the conversation, the main attention was paid to the development of the situation in the Middle East...

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — Two Volusia County men whom deputies say severely beat a Lake Mary man at a wedding on Sept. 3, have been arrested. Deputies said Joel O’Grady, 38, and his son Julian Falkinburg, 21, both of Sanford, were arrested by Daytona Beach police late Friday night. According to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, O’Grady and Falkinburg were at a wedding reception in Lake Helen when they got into a fight with another man in a parking lot. Deputies said the pair struck the victim several times in the head and face until the victim became unresponsive. Investigators...

ROMAN PETRENKO — MONDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2022, 12:09 Russian units in Kharkiv Oblast are looking for ways to reach out to Ukrainian units in order to negotiate a surrender, Operational Command Pivden (South) has reported. Source: Natalia Humeniuk, head of the press centre of Operational Command Pivden (South), on the Espreso broadcastQuote: "We continue to advance, and progress is quite convincing. This doesn’t just affect the geographical withdrawal of enemy positions: it also has a psychological effect.Enemy units which are starting to regroup are looking for ways to reach out to our units in order to conduct so-called negotiations about...

The Democrat was in Boston for an address deliberately set to echo John F. Kennedy's famous 1962 'Moonshot speech' in which he called for landing an American on the lunar surface -- something achieved in 1969. This time, Biden is pushing for government-backed efforts to coordinate and fund a multilayered fight against cancer, with the goal of halving cancer death rates in the next 25 years. As he set off from Washington, Biden issued an order meant to bolster the trailblazing US biotech sector's efforts to take on growing commercial rivals in China. The order brings federal support for 'areas...

A 54-year-old Florida man has been sentenced to 14 months in prison after an investigation found that he was putting laxatives in his son’s daily medication. According to Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Craig Alan Ripple, 54, was found guilty of felony child abuse in this case on September 8, 2022. An investigation into a potential child abuse case in August 2019, when the child’s mother reported that Ripple had been tampering with her 14-year-old son’s medication, removing items belonging to the victim and his sister, and other odd behaviors. The mother was able to provide FCSO with the tampered medication...