Free Republic

Almost exactly one year ago, Adrian Soto allegedly killed his girlfriend’s ex in front of multiple witnesses in a grocery parking lot in Chicago. But, even though officials say the murder was captured on video and was seen by people who know Soto personally, he was not charged with the crime until this week. In the interim, prosecutors say, Soto shot up his ex-girlfriend’s house, killing a man sleeping inside. He is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder and a host of other felonies. Picking up the kids On the afternoon of November 7, 2021, Soto rode along...

The study found that 0.8% of same-sex patients with high-risk sexual activity were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, while only 0.49 heterosexual men who engaged in high-risk sexual activity had Crohn’s disease. The research will enable the development of individualized, precision medicine for the management of inflammatory bowel disease in this underrepresented minority patient group. According to a recent study from Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH), gay men are more than twice as likely as heterosexual males to develop inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) when both groups participate in high-risk sexual activity. The study was recently...

“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” Luke 17:33Jesus never fails to say things that cause us to stop and think. This phrase from today’s Gospel is one of those things. He presents us with an apparent paradox. Trying to save your life will be the cause of you losing it, but losing your life will be the way you save it. What does this mean?This statement especially goes to the heart of trust and surrender. Basically, if we try to direct our lives and our future by our own effort,...

Jessica and Seth Erickson's 1.90-carat diamond found at Crater of Diamonds State Park ************************************************************** Jessica and Seth Erickson, of Chatfield, MN, recently embarked on an 11-state road trip for their 10th anniversary. Having first heard about Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park years ago, they planned a special stop at America’s only public diamond mine along the way. On the morning of their visit, the couple found a brown diamond weighing nearly two carats. The Ericksons arrived at Crater of Diamonds early on a Friday morning. They spent the morning digging dirt and by 11 a.m. were wet sifting at...

Emboldened by a historic Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, federal courts from coast to coast are erasing Joe Biden's efforts to expand his executive powers to encompass everything from imposing vaccine mandates to canceling personal debt without Congress' blessing. With each ruling, judges are sending an unmistakable message to the 46th president: America has no kings under its Constitution. Biden's latest repudiation came Thursday night in Texas, where a judge offered a history lesson ripped from the Federalist Papers in striking down the administration's student loan forgiveness plan that would have shifted more than $400 billion in personal debt...

VIDEO AT LINK.................. Nov. 10 (UPI) -- An Iowa woman who was verified as the oldest living person in the United States earlier this year celebrated her 115th birthday. Bessie Hendricks celebrated her 115th birthday with a party at Shady Oaks Care Center, where she lives in Lake City. The party was attended by all three of Hendricks' surviving children, including daughter Joan Schaffer, who celebrated her 90th birthday the previous day. "I don't know how you put it into words," Schaffer told KCCI-TV. "It's marvelous that we still have her." Hendricks' own mother died when she was 13, leaving...

“Let them eat cake,” famously attributed to Marie Antoinette by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, has become universal shorthand for a monarch’s total disregard for her famished citizens stealing and wreaking havoc in the streets to survive. World leaders are making the same faux pas this week at their opulent stay in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27, the United Nations’ climate change conference. While they eat the best food in the world and enjoy luxurious tourism opportunities, they will leave the conference telling billions of people that the only way to combat the “climate crisis” is to stop eating meat, stop production...

The Rupert Murdoch empire and GOP establishment are going all-out in an effort to destroy President Trump and his MAGA movement. GOP Elites HATE that they cannot control Trump. They miss the days of obedient voters and their never-ending wars and trade deals that decimated the middle class. The GOP elites have never accepted MAGA nation. They are embarrassed by their voters. They would rather play controlled opposition than to listen to the majority of Americans who support President Trump and still believe his election was stolen. On Thursday Rob Schmitt from Newsmax opened with a 14-minute segment on how...

This would be the first time since 1986 — and only the second time since 1934 — that the opposition party has had a net loss of governor’s seats. Only once in the past 100 years has the opposition party lost both Senate seats and governor’s mansions: 1934. Republicans could feasibly do that. The opposition party has gained state legislative chambers in every midterm election held since 2002, flipping an average of more than 12 chambers. Republicans have currently lost at least three chambers — both chambers in Michigan, and the Minnesota state Senate — and appear as though they’ll...

Fabio Panetta, an Executive Board Member of the European Central Bank (ECB), has proposed that users of the digital euro should only be allowed to spend €50 per transaction and have a maximum monthly spending limit of just €1,000 if they want to avoid having their transaction data recorded by the ECB. The digital euro is the European Union’s (EU’s) proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC) and officials involved with the project have already confirmed that it will have less anonymity than cash.

Three people were killed and eight others were wounded in gun violence in Chicago Wednesday. A man was shot in the head about 6:20 p.m. in the 3700 block of West Chicago Avenue in Humboldt Park, Chicago police said. A man was killed and two others wounded in a shooting in Rogers Park on the North Side. The three were standing in the 6600 block of North Clark Street when someone opened fire about 8:50 p.m., police said. Minutes later, a man was shot to death in a courtyard in South Deering on the Far South Side. About 9:20 p.m.,...

Unconstitutional acts don’t become constitutional because you like the results. That’s why Congress, not the president, needs to give legal status to illegal immigrants brought here as children. [In October] the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a Texas federal judge correctly found that the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals is unconstitutional. Barack Obama unilaterally created DACA in 2012. The program grants certain protections to those who came to the United States illegally as children. Eligible participants can receive work permits and protection from deportation. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen has since allowed the program to continue for those...

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Late on an October morning in a quiet neighborhood near Daytona Beach, Florida. FBI agent Steve Friend sits in his kitchen, fidgeting. He’s a wiry, energetic man, built like a marathoner, not muscled up but exuding fitness, not a sitter. This is not a person meant for desk work, much less staying home all day. But as a whistleblower whose name has been all over media after a complaint about statistical manipulation and other problems in the January 6th investigations, this will be his lot for a while. By that morning, the first rush of news stories about Friend’s case...

With House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) facing a more turbulent road to the speakership after Republicans’ lackluster gains on election night, some Democrats argue that attempting to strike a deal with the California Republican in exchange for speaker votes on the floor could be beneficial as other Democrats float attempting to nominate an alternative GOP choice like outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to serve in the role. As members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus threaten to withhold their votes for McCarthy unless he gives them concessions on a number of demands, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) floated the idea...

For months, election officials have worried that activists convinced that the election system is corrupt and broken would cause significant problems in the midterms. But the scattered episodes during the vote did not disrupt the system. The relative calm so far had election officials breathing a sigh of relief, even as they remained concerned about specious legal challenges and misinformation that could erupt in the coming weeks. They praised tactics they believe reinforced a system that was rocked by the baseless claims of fraud and widespread distrust after Donald J. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Some speculated...

I have never thought too much about my age. After all, you cannot choose when you will be born. Age is just a matter of thinking, and thinking is not my strong suit. I never really thought about being old. I’m not exactly sure what the real definition of old is. The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage recently asked me, “How old do you think you are?” I’m not quite sure what the incident was about. I never know if what she is asking is rhetorical or something actually true. To question your wife is a borderline disaster. On my...

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday revealed President Joe Biden called him to offer congratulations for apparently winning a majority in the House of Representatives. “It was kind of short. He congratulated me,” McCarthy referring to a phone call he had with Biden on Wednesday. “So for anyone who thinks we didn’t win the majority. Joe, at least, believes we did as well.” McCarthy spoke about his conversation with Biden in an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters.

Ukraine liberated the city of Kherson after Russian troops fled, with soldiers treated to a hero's welcome by jubilant as they arrived in city centre this afternoon. Flag-waving locals wept, chanted the name of Ukrainian armed forces, hugged and kissed troops as they arrived in the city's main square hours after the bulk of Moscow's forces withdrew across Dnipro River. Ukraine's artillery had pounded the city and the nearby Dnipro River overnight and into the early hours in the hopes of destroying any last Russians trying to flee. Rumours swirled that thousands of troops might be trapped in the city,...