Free Republic

The optics of President Biden's speech attacking MAGA Republicans last week have drawn criticism for inserting Marines into what was obviously a political speech rather than a presidential address to the nation. Even the usually reliable apologist for Democrat excesses CNN thought he had gone too far. Anchor Brianna Keilar observed that "the military is supposed to be apolitical. Positioning Marines in uniform behind President Biden for a political speech flies in the face of that." Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the imagery as "appropriate for the occasion. Our democracy is under attack from an insidious domestic threat. The inclusion...

Another Russian energy boss has died in mysterious circumstances after "falling overboard" from a boat, according to local media reports. Ivan Pechorin's body was found washed up around 100 miles from Vladivostok in Russia's far east, on Monday after a two-day search, local outlet VL.ru reported. Pechorin fell off his moving boat on September 10 as it sailed near Russky Island, the outlet reported. He was the Aviation Director for Russia's Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (KRDV), which described his death as an "irreparable loss." The KRDV is President Vladimir Putin's project for developing the rich energy and mining...

Following a failed appeal, Ohio’s Oberlin College is finally set to pay $36.6 million in damages that the courts have awarded to a local bakery in a defamation case. In a Sept. 9 statement, Oberlin announced that it had “initiated” payments to Gibson’s Bakery, a 137-year-old, fifth-generation family business that was wrongfully accused of racial profiling after a shoplifting incident involving black students. In April, an Ohio appeals court upheld a jury’s finding that the college, in its handling of student protests over the 2016 incident, committed libel, slander, and interference with business relationships against the bakery. On Aug. 30,...

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul threatened a wave of oversight on Wednesday after Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to disclose whether members of the FDA are receiving royalties from the companies that created the COVID-19 vaccines. Fauci was testifying before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee when Paul asked whether there were any financial conflicts of interest between members of the FDA committee and big pharma. “We’ve been asking you and you refuse to answer whether anybody on the vaccine committees gets royalties from the pharmaceutical companies,” Paul said. “I asked you last time and what was your response? ‘We...

@cspan Complete exchange between Sen. @RandPaul and Dr. Anthony Fauci at Monkeypox hearing. Sen. Paul plays @cspanwj clip of Dr. Fauci. Fauci: "That film that you showed was really taken out of context...Reuters fact-checked, looked at that..." Paul: "Actually, words don't lie." Clip...

A reader writes: I live in a small city which doesn’t have many employment opportunities. The city has a high unemployment rate, and it’s rare to find work that isn’t in shops, farming, etc. Six years ago, the city council launched a project to fund start-up business ideas for marginalized individuals, including those with disabilities. One of these ideas has become extremely successful. It’s essentially four neurodivergent eccentrics who live every day like it’s Halloween. They are commissioned by various organizations around the state to create bespoke services and goods. They’ve attracted something of a following with projects coming in...

FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS JOHN 3:13–17 Friends, today we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. How strange this feast would have sounded to someone in the ancient world! The triumph of the cross! It would have been analogous to someone speaking today of the triumph of the electric chair or the exaltation of the noose. The cross terrified people in Greco-Roman times, and that was the point. The cross was state-sponsored terrorism, a form of capital punishment reserved for those who had in the most egregious ways undermined the authority of the Roman state. So why...

The far left is eager to repeal 2A. We are not as free as we think. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an organization headquartered all the way in Geneva, will be tracking all gun purchases made on credit. The ISO develops standard documentation that is globally recognized. Gun sales were previously listed as “general merchandise,” but the ISO is changing the code. If you purchase a gun through a credit card, an international agency will document the purchase. Cash is still an option for now, but I expect it will become increasingly difficult to gain access to firearms –...

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Wednesday on his show “Morning Joe” that it was “obvious” former President Donald Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice based on the back and forth with the Department of Justice over classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. Co-host Willie Geist asked, “The filing lays out again how long it took to get this stuff. It comes out in dribs and drabs. You get some of it in January, 15 boxes of highly classified material. That’s not all of it. They go back in June. They get 50 boxes. They say 50 boxes are remaining....

A 77-year-old man was attacked and killed Sunday by a wild kangaroo that authorities believe he kept as a pet at his home in southwest Australia, police said. His death marked the first fatal kangaroo attack in Australia in 86 years. A relative of the man found him with “serious injuries” on his property in Redmond, a semi-rural area about 250 miles southeast of Perth. Investigators believe the kangaroo turned on him and attacked him hours before he was found by his relative.

Cal State Fullerton junior Kristen Wilcox has some simple advice for fellow Titans who are considering a study abroad program as part of their college education path. “If the idea or thought of it scares you a little, it means you’re supposed to go,” Wilcox said. Wilcox recently returned from Ghana, where she spent the last academic year immersing herself in West African culture, all while earning credits toward her bachelor’s degree in journalism. Wilcox admitted there are many assumed barriers when it comes to the costs associated with studying abroad. But once she learned more about the opportunities available...

Negotiators from railroad carriers and unions met in Labor Secretary Marty Walsh’s office Wednesday as the sides tried to negotiate a deal ahead of Friday’s strike deadline. The meeting started just after 9 a.m. ET. The railroads, for their part, “have no plans to lock out workers Friday should negotiations not be successfully completed,” the Association of American Railroads told CNBC. Dennis Pierce, the unions’ top negotiator, said members have warned 10% of the workforce could leave if the issues aren’t resolved before the deadline. Sick time policies and quality of life concerns were the biggest sticking points remaining. “Our...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked today during the daily press briefing about the Inflation Reduction Act. The question came today as the latest consumer price index showed an increase of 0.1% for August and 8.3% over the past year. The reporter asked, “Some of the savings that you are pointing to wouldn’t kick in until 2024 or 2026, so is it fair to suggest to people somehow that they are going to see some inflation reduction right now while they are hurting the most?” Jean-Pierre responded, “That is actually not true. This is just for some folks...

Joe Biden baffled millions of Americans Tuesday when he bizarrely claimed that his Inflation Reduction Act helped “reduce inflation at the kitchen table.” Recent data shows the food price index is the highest it’s been since 1979. “It’s been good for the country! Republicans should have joined us on this bill! It cut cost for families, it helped reduce inflation at the kitchen table!” claimed Biden. VIDEO AT LINK............ Watch his comments above.

President Joe Biden remains silent after Democrat senate candidate in Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan called for Americans to “kill and confront” supporters of former president Donald Trump and his MAGA political movement. “We’ve got to kill and confront that movement,” Ryan said during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC when asked about the “extremist” political movement in the Republican Party to “Make America Great Again.”

The Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has acknowledged publicly for the first time that the agency gave false information about its COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring. Dr. Rochelle Walensky admitted that her agency falsely claimed it was carrying out robust safety monitoring in 2021 and that it only actually did so from March 2022 – but it still refuses to release the full data. The Epoch Times has the story.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the [CDC’s] Director, said in a letter made public on September 12th that the CDC did not analyse certain types of adverse event...

In 2007, the U.S. Congress mandated the blending of biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into gasoline. One of the top goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But today, the nation´s ethanol plants produce more than double the climate-damaging pollution, per gallon of fuel production capacity, than the nation´s oil refineries, according to a Reuters analysis of federal data. The average ethanol plant chuffed out 1,187 metric tons of carbon emissions per million gallons of fuel capacity in 2020, the latest year data is available. The average oil refinery, by contrast, produced 533 metric tons of carbon. The ethanol plants´ high emissions...

Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance responded on Tuesday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Hannity” to his opponent Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), saying that the “exhausted majority” needed to “kill and confront” the extremist Republican movement. Vance said, “This is a guy who, when he runs his scripted TV commercials, says that he wants to appeal to Trump voters, he wants to appeal to the entire state of Ohio, and yet when he’s unscripted, he’s saying that we need to confront and kill the entire movement. A majority of the people of Ohio, of course, voted for that movement in 2016...

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), who told MSNBC on Tuesday that Americans needed to “kill and confront” the so-called “MAGA Republicans,” blamed then-President Donald Trump’s rhetoric for inciting the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2019. In August 2019, a gunman with radical anti-immigrant views opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 23 and wounding 23 others. He claimed he was radicalized before Trump emerged into politics, and explicitly disavowed Trump as his inspiration.