Free Republic

video link in story RNC Research video: Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams: "There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body."

Ukraine’s president implored the world Wednesday to punish Russia for its invasion, even as the leader vowed his forces would win back every inch of territory despite Moscow’s decision to redouble its war effort. In a much-anticipated video address to the U.N. General Assembly hours after Russia announced it would mobilize some reservists, Volodymyr Zelenskyy portrayed the declaration as evidence the Kremlin wasn’t ready to negotiate an end to the war — but insisted his country would prevail anyway. “We can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms,” the president...

The Martha’s Vineyard experience marks a unique opportunity for modern bicoastal progressivism. Martha’s Vineyard has been all over the news. The tony resort community so loves aiding and comforting the undocumented immigrants who were flown in from Florida that it hugged them—for barely 48 hours. Oddly, the Left became unhinged when red-state governors—whose states the last two years were flooded with some 3 million illegal aliens—finally decided to spread welcoming chores among affluent blue-state communities. It was a natural fit. Most, like Washington, D.C., and New York, were on record as sanctuary city jurisdictions. In the abstract, they endorse open...

Southern California’s homebuying market collapsed this summer to the slowest sales pace on record. And it’s no stunner considering the typical house payment jumped by almost 50% in a year. From June through August, 54,416 residences were sold in the six-county region. That’s 20% below the same period in 2021, and the lowest count since at least 1988. That’s even slower than the bubble-bursting days around the Great Recession, and it’s slower than the often-forgotten deep homebuying slump of the early 1990s. The summer’s house hunters balked as the typical Southern California monthly payment rose by $1,055 in a year...

... To critics, Huang said he feels the higher price is justified, especially since the cutting-edge Lovelace architecture is necessary to support Nvidia’s expansion into the so-called metaverse. “A 12-inch [silicon] wafer is a lot more expensive today than it was yesterday, and it’s not a little bit more expensive, it is a ton more expensive,” Huang said. “Moore’s Law’s dead,” Huang said, referring to the standard that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. “And the ability for Moore’s Law to deliver twice the performance at the same cost, or at the same performance, half...

When I was young, the New York Attorney General’s office had a reputation for integrity. But somewhere along the line, the office went completely off the rails. Eliot Spitzer was elected AG in 1998, and spent his two terms in frightening misuse of the office to further his naked political ambitions, mainly through shaking down financial institutions on the thinnest of pretexts. After eight years improperly using this tactic to keep his name in the headlines, he was then elected Governor; whereupon his successor — Andrew Cuomo — followed the same playbook for one term, and with the same result...

Actor Matthew McConaughey, who has publicly considered running for governor of Texas, told attendees at San Francisco's Dreamforce conference that it may be inevitable he runs for president sometime in the future. Dreamforce is corporate tech giant Salesforce's annual convention featuring a slew of celebrity speakers and performers. McConaughey spoke to Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff, a close friend, about his activism. When Benioff asked McConaughey about the 2024 presidential election, the actor did not make any definitive statements on that cycle specifically, but teased his presidential aspirations more broadly. "Yeah I'll consider it in the future, I'd be arrogant not...

HEADQUARTERS, Saturday -- Evening -- via FREDERICK, Sunday, Sept. 21 -- Morning. The Fourth Michigan, with a few men from SYKES' Brigade, crossed the river at Shepardstown ford late yesterday afternoon, for the purpose of making a reconnoissance. They met with a stout resistance from the enemy, but succeeded in reaching this side of the river with but slight, loss, bringing with them four pieces of artillery, which they took from the rebels. The occupation of the Virginia shore was attempted again this morning, with less success. Acting Brig.-Gen. BARNES, with his own and a portion of SYKES' Brigade, some...

The Arizona gubernatorial candidate and the Republican attorney general candidate were not going to accept the reporter’s premise. A huge rhetorical error is to get entangled in your opponent’s fake premise. We all recognize that problem with the hypothetical “when did you stop beating your wife” question, but Republican politicians often find themselves playing defense against a fundamentally flawed question. Kari Lake, however, does not do that. Her response to a reporter’s loaded question about Blacks and police shows how to avoid this rhetorical trap. Lake, who is running against Katie Dobbs to be governor of California. appeared at a...

… After decades of failure, Democrats finally managed to do something to address the biggest challenge facing the planet. In August, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that contained significant environmental provisions, including incentivizing clean energy and reducing carbon emissions. But the bill — dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act — proved to be a compromise package that failed to even acknowledge the climate crisis in its name. With Democrats bracing to lose their razor-thin majority in the House and a challenging 2024 election-season looming, the party will need to energize younger voters and empower a new generation of...

22 September 2022Thursday of week 25 in Ordinary Time St. Emmeram's Basilica (Regensburg) Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: C(II).First readingEcclesiastes 1:2-11 ©Nothing is new and all is vanityVanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity! For all his toil, his toil under the sun, what does man gain by it? A generation goes, a generation comes, yet the earth stands firm for ever. The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises. Southward goes the wind, then turns to the north; it turns and turns again; back then...

On Wednesday, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis issued a statement claiming that he would work with Florida lawmakers to penalize credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard should they apply a new sales code to distinguish firearm purchases at U.S. gun stores. The announcement follows claims in the media that Visa, MasterCard, and American Express will create a new merchant category code for gun sellers. According to gun control advocates, the new sales code provides banks and credit card firms with tools to identify irregular patterns of purchases, such as a potential mass shooter stockpiling weapons and ammunition and...

Before Donald Trump descended the golden escalator at Trump tower in June 2015, the GOP had gone more than a quarter-century without a rock star. Now, it has two, and that is the challenge. Fresh from his deft Martha’s Vineyard gambit, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew into Kansas on Sunday to rally support for Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, now running for governor against incumbent Democrat Laura Kelly. Saul Alinsky, the acknowledged master of forcing poseurs to honor their own policies, could not have done better than DeSantis. No political stroke in memory has succeeded in exposing liberal hypocrisy quite...

A 38-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly shooting a Houston man to death, then stealing his car with a toddler inside and leaving the child to die. The suspect faces murder and tampering with evidence charges, according to Houston police, and his identity will be revealed when those charges are filed. Police received a call about a shooting near the corner of El Camino Del Rey Street and Chimney Rock Road in west Houston at 1:46pm on Tuesday. .....................

An Idaho mom says she took her 7-year-old son to a craft store to cheer him up after he was bullied at school. They were having a great time scouring the aisles for the perfect fabric for a new Spider-Man dress she was going to make for him, Piper Phillips said in a now-viral TikTok video. But they ran into more bullying when they got to the fabric-cutting counter at the Joann Fabrics in Moscow, Idaho, she told Insider. The incident led Joann’s to fire the worker for making “inappropriate, judgmental and derogatory remarks.”

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – A new report revealed on Wednesday shows dozens of scientists have left Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico and fueled military technology innovation in China. The shocking details show how American taxpayers may have unintentionally helped China’s military become more of a threat to the U.S. over decades, as government-funded defense research later made its way to China’s labs. The report details how China poached talent from New Mexico and then stole American ideas for cutting-edge technology, shining a light on the security of top-secret U.S. research on sophisticated weapons at the country’s top...

Italy's right-wing parties will stage a joint rally Thursday in a final push ahead of elections forecast to install a one-time fan of Mussolini as the country's first female prime minister. Giorgia Meloni's eurosceptic, ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy was leading the last polls published two weeks before election day Sunday. She and her allies, Matteo Salvini's anti-immigration League and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, look almost certain to form the first far-right led government in Rome since World War II. The elections in Italy, the eurozone's third largest economy but plagued by weak growth, colossal debt and unstable politics, are...

Seoul (AFP) – North Korea's Kim Jong Un declaring he will never give up his nukes and enshrining a "first-strike" doctrine into law are part of a worrying new escalatory dynamic in nuclear weapons policy around the world, analysts say. Since the height of the Cold War, nuclear arsenals have served primarily as a deterrent to be used only as a last resort -- but when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, everything began to change, experts say. Russian officials have refused to rule out the possibility of a nuclear strike against Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made thinly...

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:1-3). Nicodemus came to Jesus as one of those superficial believers mentioned in John 2:23–25. But the Lord refused to accept Nicodemus’s...

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