Free Republic

Yesterday, for the first time since the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin received "peace proposals." We have already talked about the fact that Putin initiated behind-the-scenes talks through proxy intermediaries in various formats, with an attempt to reach agreements on freezing hostilities in Ukraine or to find a possibility of concluding a peace agreement, of course, taking into account the interests of the Russian leadership. The "peace proposal" received yesterday comes from the intermediary country, but the channel that was used for the transfer and the persons participating in the process do not cause doubts about...

What is diversity, and why is it so good for college students? That’s one of the questions at the heart of the Supreme Court cases over race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, and it was asked early and often during the nearly five hours of oral arguments last week. “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times, and I don’t have a clue what it means,” Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said to UNC’s lawyer, North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park. “I’d like you to give us a specific definition of diversity in the context...

As the United Nations COP27 climate conference kicked off this week in Egypt, UN Secretary-General António Guterres proclaimed that the world is on a "highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator." To keep temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100, we need to pump the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions. Hard. Earth will exceed the 1.5 degree mark in the coming decades -- an "overshoot" scenario -- before potentially coming back down by the end of the century. Can we limit this overshoot? And how might we do that? A study, released...

In Tuesday's midterm elections, grassroots parental rights organizations successfully secured key victories in school board races across the country, reported the Daily Caller News Foundation. Moms for Liberty, a group fighting to preserve parental rights in the public education system, and the 1776 Project PAC, a political organization fighting against critical race theory in classrooms, supported school board candidates in several races. While not all midterm election results have officially been called, the organizations reported that many of their endorsed nominees already won and successfully flipped school boards to conservative majorities in Florida, Maryland, Indiana, and Michigan. "Last night was...

The effects of climate change are steadily worsening and now threaten nearly every aspect of life in the U.S., according to a stark draft of a federal climate report released Monday. And many of the nation’s most vulnerable residents, including low-income people, people of color and indigenous communities, are suffering the worst effects. “As climate risks continue to increase in scale and frequency, multiple climate hazards and cascading climate impacts are disrupting essential societal systems in every part of the country,” the report states. The draft constitutes the fifth installment of the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report produced...

Boston has agreed to pay $2.1 million in legal fees and other expenses after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the city for refusing to allow a Christian flag to fly outside City Hall. The settlement included an agreement to pay Harold Shurtleff and his Camp Constitution non-profit for legal costs incurred during the dispute. “We are pleased that after five years of litigation and a unanimous victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, we joined with Hal Shurtleff to finally let freedom fly in Boston, the Cradle of Liberty,” Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver, whose organization represented Shurtleff, said in...

The October Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices came out yesterday and its a doozy. The Net Percentage of Domestic Banks Reporting Stronger Demand for Mortgage Loans is sinking faster than Joe Biden’s oratory skills as The Fed tightens their monetary belts. Jumbo mortgages, those that are greater than FHFA’s conforming loan limit, are tanking as well. And today, the University of Michigan (BOOO!!) consumer survey for housing buying conditions fell to the lowest level in recorded history. Given the latest inflation numbers (improving from disastrous, 8.2% YoY to really horrible, 7.70% YoY), and unemployment rate rising...

The series finale of Paramount+ "The Good Fight" left social media users stunned on Thursday for featuring a plot in which a character claimed to be sexually assaulted by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, only to confess he was lying later on in the show The finale of the courtroom drama's sixth and final season premiered on Thursday with the episode titled "The End of Everything." In a clip widely shared online, the episode features the main character Diane Lockhart, played by Christine Baranski, meeting with Felix Staples, a flamboyant, gay provocateur who has made appearances in earlier seasons of...

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...

So there's no misunderstanding, I realize that there is a lot of bad with what happened on Tuesday. I could probably add a few thousand words on top of the excellent piece that Dr. John offered, and I was among the many who stayed up late on Tuesday looking forward to a tsunami of MS-13NBC tears. Obviously, I was disappointed like the rest of us Normals, but a piece by Ace, The Other Side Gets the Ball Too, put things in perspective for me. (emphasis mine) We got a little self-deluded about abortion having all but vanished as a factor...

How Elites Will Create a New Class of Slaves | Whitney Webb | PodcastJournalist Whitney Webb has worked to uncover some of the most dangerous stories of our lifetime, and she joins Glenn to reveal just how eye-opening it’s been. Her new two-volume book, “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” examines Epstein’s elaborate network of corruption and power, from Bill Clinton to Ghislaine Maxwell and many more. Her research into transhumanism has given her a terrifying perspective on the World Economic Forum and tech elites, including Elon Musk. And...

A popular question now, especially with Fetterman and Kathy Hochul, not to mention Gretchen Whitmer and so many others.Here are some unpopular answers. Yes, there’s plenty of election rigging via Infinite Election Period and ballot harvesting, remote voting and all that, but yes there are plenty of people who vote for them. Why? 1. Yellow Dog Democrats – There are more Democrats who vote straight party line than Republicans. While there have been some backlashes over crime, school shutdowns, masking and mandates that get massively amplified via conservatives on social media or moderate Democrats like Bari Weiss’ Common Sense and...

Two days after Republicans dramatically underperformed in the midterms, but even as control of Congress remains too close to call, Sen. Josh Hawley has completed his autopsy and offered it to his party’s leaders for consideration. The topline: The failure is all their fault. The Missouri populist believes the Republican Party offered voters plenty in the way of generalized gripes about Democrats and President Biden – but no actionable alternative. Hawley blames that on what he calls “Washington Republicanism,” specifically Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He also thinks it was a bad idea to talk about making changes to Social Security...

A CNN piece on Wednesday spoke with critics knocking the lottery system as a form of systemic racism that targets poor Black and Brown communities across America. The largest Powerball jackpot lottery ticket ever was recently sold in Altadena, California, with one lucky resident winning a historic $2.04 billion. The odds were 1 in 292.2 million. Researchers told CNN that despite the extremely low chance of winning, state lotteries still aggressively market the lottery and sell tickets to low-income communities at higher rates, thus misleading Americans to believe it will help them quickly generate wealth.

Star Spaghettification Black Hole - This animation depicts a star experiencing spaghettification as it’s sucked in by a black hole during a ‘tidal disruption event’. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser Scientists hope to improve their understanding of the growth of supermassive black holes in massive galaxies by studying intermediate-mass black holes. After lurking undetected in a dwarf galaxy, an intermediate-mass black hole revealed itself to astronomers when it gobbled up an unlucky star that strayed too close. Known as a “tidal disruption event” or TDE, the violent shredding of the star produced a flare of radiation that briefly outshone the combined stellar...

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...