Free Republic

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law Thursday making the state a refuge for transgender kids and their families who travel there to receive the gender-affirming care they’re banned from accessing in their home states. The new law, which will go into effect on Jan. 1 next year, takes direct aim at Alabama and Texas for those two states’ efforts to criminalize parents who allow their transgender children to receive hormone therapy and other types of gender-affirming treatments.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to restrict prosecutors from using rap lyrics as evidence against criminal defendants in California.

A top FBI official accused Trump-hating former agent Peter Strzok of doing long-term damage to the bureau’s reputation with a “sustained pattern of bad judgment” and “selfishness” in the newly released draft of the 2018 letter firing him. David Bowdich, who was deputy director of the bureau when he penned the brutally harsh draft of the dismissal letter, told Strzok the damage he caused to the bureau would last for years. He referred specifically to Strzok’s use of “an FBI device,” an apparent reference to the shocking text messages sent on bureau cell phones between Strzok and his paramour, Lisa...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law Friday that will decriminalize jaywalking across California, ending the familiar practice of police handing out tickets to pedestrians on the argument that the law is enforced more often against minorities than other people. The new law, AB 2147, known as the “Freedom to Walk Act,” could bring an end to a cultural difference that has marked otherwise libertine Californians as being uniquely deferential to laws governing pedestrian traffic. The difference between Californians, who ostensibly tend to obey “don’t walk” signals, and urban dwellers elsewhere in the country, who are notoriously defiant when it...

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) wanted regulatory reform, in part to reverse some of the Biden Administration's reversals of Trump-era reforms intended to expedite permits for fossil fuel projects. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) needed Manchin’s vote in the 50-50 Senate to enact his latest spending extravaganza, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was primarily a massive climate and “green” energy subsidy arrangement. It gives Schumer allies some $370 billion in wind, solar, battery, and other funding, tax credits, and subsidies. In exchange, Schumer would offer a path for Manchin’s reform bill. Manchin voted YEA and promptly got bushwhacked. Once he’d helped...

Several instances of political violence, many with victims supporting conservative causes, have occurred since President Biden warned of the threat supporters of former President Trump pose to the country including attacks on anti-abortion activists, political canvassers, and the murder of an 18-year-old in North Dakota. "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," President Biden said during a September 1 speech in Philadelphia that earned widespread criticism from conservatives and even some on the left. "They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat...

German Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed concern over the looming energy crisis this winter, telling German media that the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility that Germany may run out of gas. Habeck spoke on Friday, appealing to Germans to reduce their consumption of natural gas ahead of this winter a day after the German government launched a new price break programme to help Germans with the rising costs of energy.

On September 27, two explosions severely damaged Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, setting off wild speculation about possible sabotage. Another two breaks in the pipeline, a tad to the north in Sweden’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), were later identified but no explosions were reported. According to news sources citing Danish officials, each explosion was equivalent to 500 kilograms of TNT, the size of very large anti-shipping mines. Not only the US Navy (together with its NATO allies) but also the Russian Navy conduct naval exercises in the Baltic Sea...

Michel Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of immunology and pharmacotherapy at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, suspects his third dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may have sent his cancer into overdrive. Goldman, 67, is one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research and a lifelong promoter of vaccines. But he told The Atlantic he wants discussion of the COVID-19 vaccine to be transparent — so he went public about his suspicion that the Pfizer booster shot he received on Sept. 22, 2021, may have induced rapid progression of his angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL), a type of lymphoma he’d been...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom allowed local refineries to produce their “winter blend” of gasoline a month early in a bid to reduce gas prices, which have soared back to near-record levels even as prices in the rest of the country have slowly fallen from their peak. The move repeats a similar effort by Gov. Jerry Brown ten years ago, and is an admission that the state’s environmental regulations are partially to blame for the fact that California has higher prices than the rest of the country — more than $2.50 higher, as of today.

WASHINGTON — Republicans are abandoning their long crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making the 2022 election the first in more than a decade that won’t be fought over whether to protect or undo President Barack Obama’s signature achievement. The diminished appetite for repeal means the law — which has extended health care coverage to millions of people and survived numerous near-death experiences in Congress and the courts — now appears safer than ever. With just more than a month before the next election, Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail aren’t making an issue of Obamacare. None...

In Ashikaga Flower Park there is a tree called the “Great Wisteria.” The tree is over 150 years old and its three large trellises are spread out to cover over 600 tatami mats or more than 1000 square meters.

The unwillingness of America's elites to confront the severe harm caused by the COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic restrictions makes them "complicit in a massive crime," charged liberal journalist and author Naomi Wolf. In an interview with Eric Metaxas, Wolf, whose grandmother lost nine siblings in the Holocaust, compared the behavior of the nation's ruling educated class during the pandemic to the passiveness of Germany's highly civilized and educated population in the 1930s. Wolf, who was in Metaxas' graduating class at Yale, said their classmates "are the worst offenders." "Right now it's really red state and purple state America, and working...

My mother always said to give people “the benefit of the doubt.” She felt that “judge not, lest ye be judged” from the Sermon on the Mount was a valuable core principle that she lived by. Assume the best in people, until you learn otherwise. Well, in today's world, it gets tougher and tougher to follow that pledge. You trust, and sometimes you get burned. Late Friday, the walleye fishing world was sent reeling after a cheating scandal was exposed in front of God, country, and a mob of justifiably furious walleye fishermen. Two guys – we can no longer...

The Bible In Paintings 2 ENCOURAGEMENT FOR APPRECIATING AND APPLYING GOD'S WORD MARY VISITS HER COUSIN ELIZABETH L U K E CHAPTER 1 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and ELIZABETH WAS FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Government in the Sunshine Meeting Notice Advanced Notice of a Meeting under Expedited Procedures Closed meeting of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, October 3, 2022, will be held under expedited procedures, Meeting Date: Monday, October 3, 2022 Matter(s) to be Considered: 1.Review and determination by the Board of Governors of the advance and discount rates to be charged by the Federal Reserve Banks.

CHICAGO -- At least 23 people have been shot, four fatally, in weekend shootings across Chicago, police said. A $7,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to the arrest of the person who police said shot and killed 3-year-old Mateo Zastro, leaving his family torn. It all unfolded at about 8:30 p.m. on Friday night, with an apparent road rage incident near Cicero Avenue and West 71st Street on Chicago's Southwest Side, police said. "The mother attempted to flee from the other vehicle of the road rage incident," said 8th District Chicago Police Department Commander Bryan Spreyne. But,...

HEADQUARTERS OF GEN. MCCLELLAN's ARMY, Gen. PLEASANTON crossed the Potomac this morning at Shepherdstown, with a force of cavalry and artillery, for the purpose of making a reconnoissance in the enemy's rear -- information having been received that their army had fallen back from the line of the river. Wednesday Evening, Oct. 1.: He came up with them, near Shepherdstown, and drove them to Martinsburgh, from which place they were soon shelled out by the artillery. His loss was two men wounded. The rebels had one man killed and two wounded. A rebel Lieutenant and two men were taken prisoners,...

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a lawyer and conservative activist. She was called to testify before the “January 6 Committee” on Thursday. The first question is: about what? As to what purported criminality is she a witness?NPR says that the committee’s chief focus was Thomas’s communications with John Eastman, quoting California Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar:“I’ll say broadly that the committee has been very clear that we’d like to hear from Ginni Thomas, her discussions and coordination to Mark Meadows and specifically to John Eastman,” he said.Eastman is a law professor who had an interpretation...