Free Republic

U.S. Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden flips a Democrat seat in the US House to the GOP. American Military News reports:U.S. Navy SEAL veteran Derrick Van Orden has flipped a Wisconsin congressional seat to Republicans as that party edges closer to control of the House of Representatives.The SEAL veteran defeated Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff in a contest for the open seat left behind by retiring Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, who had held the seat since 1997, the Associated Press reported.The flip of a Democrat-held seat comes as Republicans are hopeful to flip control of the House of Representatives.Van Orden...

Francis’s Synodal Tent Evicts Catholicism to Make Room for Everything ElseIn his Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, Bishop Rudolf Graber quoted a 1968 article in the Paris journal of the Freemasonic Grand Orient de France, “L’Humanisme,” describing the changes which would eventually take place in the Catholic Church:“Among the pillars which collapse most easily we note the Magisterium; the infallibility, which was held to be firmly established by the First Vatican Council and which has just had to face being stormed by married people on the occasion of the publication of the encyclical Humanae vitae; the Real Eucharistic...

Russian troops DESTROY Ukraine dam then flee Kherson dressed as CIVILIANS in the face of furious Ukraine fire as liberated locals celebrate and shamed Putin suffers 'significant reputational damage' from retreat -Russian troops destroyed a key Ukrainian dam before fleeing Kherson dressed as civilians as they fled region -Video showed moment Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River was blown up by retreating Russian soldiers -Antonovsky Bridge has also been destroyed, which is the other main crossing point into Kherson Region -Satellite images emerged showing damage to Nova Kakhovka dam analysts say was 'deliberately destroyed' -Breaching Soviet-era dam could see...

Donald Trump called for a new election in Arizona in two Truth Social posts. Trump said they “stole the election from Blake Masters.” From Trump on Truth Social: So in Maricopa County they’re at it again. Voting Machines in large numbers didn’t work, but only in Republican districts. People were forced to wait for hours, then got exhausted or had other things to do and left the voting lines by the thousands. Even Kari Lake was taken to a Liberal Democrat district in order to vote. Others weren’t so lucky. This is a scam and voter fraud, no different than...

A road in St. Johns County that was destroyed by Tropical Storm Nicole has been repaired in just 7.5 hours and is now accessible, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced on Friday. The storm made its way through the Sunshine State on Wednesday and Thursday, compounding the issues previously caused by Hurricane Ian over a month ago. Photos surfaced on social media this week, showing mass flooding and sections of coastal roadways completely destroyed, seemingly fallen into the sea. A section of Vilano Beach in St. Johns County was particularly battered: However, on Friday, DeSantis announced that the road had been...

After most of the midterm elections concluded, Donald Trump turned to the social media platform Truth Social to criticize Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who many speculate will be competing with Trump for the GOP nomination in the 2024 presidential election. He also targeted Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin (R), who could throw his hat in the ring for the presidential elections as well.On Thursday, Trump posted a lengthy message on Truth Social, nicknaming DeSantis “DeSanctimonious.” He diminished DeSantis’ handling of Covid and insisted that he is responsible for the Republican governor’s success. Trump said,“Now that the midterms are over, and a...

(Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas ruled on Friday that President Joe Biden's administration had wrongly interpreted an Obamacare provision as barring health care providers from discriminating against gay and transgender people. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo ruled that a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2020 holding that a law barring workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender employees did not apply to the healthcare law. Kacsmaryk said Congress, when adopting the law, known as Obamacare, in 2010, during the tenure of former Democratic President Barack Obama, could have included "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" in the...

Syracuse University students are not interested in a mandatory diversity course, with some criticizing it as too focused on finger pointing and singling out individuals. “While Syracuse University structures its First-Year Seminar 101 course around students sharing their experiences with their cultures and identities, students taking the course said nobody wants to speak,” The Daily Orange reported. “In some classes, students said they don’t know each other’s names.”

WASHINGTON — Democratic billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried says he could spend $1 billion or more in the 2024 election, which would easily make him the biggest-ever political donor in a single election. Bankman-Fried, 30, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, said in a podcast interview released Tuesday that he expects to give “north of $100 million” in the next presidential election and that he has a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion, with his spending likely to be on the higher end if former President Donald Trump runs again. That kind of money would be "in a league of its own,"...

How did we lose our nation? What if there was a system designed to outsource the process of vetting those applying for federal government positions? What if the process of Federal background checks for applicants were no longer carried out and investigated by personal, but by specially designed software? How many here have heard the story of Blake Percival? From 2001-2011, Blake worked for USIS, also known as US Investigations Services, where he rose through the ranks to the position of Director. USIS was a Company contracted by the government to conduct National Security Clearance Background Investigations on prospective and...

The famous Jewish actor and humorist Gad Elmaleh, beloved in France, announced his conversion to the Catholic faith, a process in which he says the Virgin Mary played a crucial role. Elmaleh, 51, was the partner of Charlotte Casiraghi, the daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco, with whom they have a son named Rafael. His conversion to Catholicism is depicted in his new film, “Reste un peu,” (“Stay a while”). The Jewish actor, who according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo will take the name of Jean-Marie when he is baptized, has studied theology in Paris, and in 2019 he...

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...

Are you among the increasing number of people wondering why Maricopa County, Arizona can't count their votes on time? As of this writing, three days after the midterm elections, there are still over 400,000 ballots yet to be counted in Maricopa County. In fact, most of the votes might not even be counted until after the weekend according to KTAR-News radio in Phoenix, "Maricopa County now says most ballots won’t be counted by Friday: ‘The goalposts have changed.’"If you dare to criticize the apparent incompetence of the pathetically delayed ballot counting, you could be guilty of "disinformation" according to a...

The delay in counting votes isn’t the only concerning thing about Nevada’s elections. Clark County officials accepted my signature on six mail-ballot return envelopes. For the past two elections, Nevada sent mail ballots to all registered voters, unless they opted out. That means around 1.8 million ballots went out. Well more than 1 million won’t be returned. Previously, a voter could request an absentee ballot for any reason. That’s more secure because ballots went only to those wanting to vote by mail. With that many ballots floating around, there are obvious security concerns — it’s much easier to get ahold...

This week 400 private jets flew to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) carrying the elite members of humanity that are working on a plan to save the planet. Many posts to social media pointed out that travel by private jet is far more polluting than travel by commercial airlines. Climate Action Against Disinformation, a group that analyses trends in false information on social media, debunked complaints that such luxurious modes of travel demonstrate hypocrisy, saying that "the value of time for these best and brightest of our species far outweighs the extra...

The United Methodist Church moved toward becoming more progressive and LGBTQ-affirming during U.S. regional meetings this month that included the election of its second openly gay bishop. Conservatives say the developments will only accelerate their exit from one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations. Each of the UMC’s five U.S. jurisdictions — meeting separately in early November — approved similarly worded measures aspiring to a future of church where “LGBTQIA+ people will be protected, affirmed, and empowered.” They also passed non-binding measures asking anyone to withdraw from leadership roles if they’re planning to leave the denomination soon — a category...

Happy Veterans’ Day! A great day to remember that freedom isn’t free, and to thank all those people in our lives who served or are serving in our nation’s military. West Point military academy chose a method of celebrating Veterans’ Day that was a little less focused on freedom and appreciation for service members, however — the day before the holiday, West Point gave unvaccinated cadets 10 hours to agree to get the COVID-19 vaccine or face punishment and potential expulsion. Because nothing says “Thank you for your service” like threatening to ruin your life for not taking an experimental...

These posts are in Cantonese... It can be difficult to decipher by speakers of Mandarin – China’s official language and the one favored by the government – especially in its written and often complex slang forms. In nearby Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, anti-government demonstrators in 2019 often used Cantonese wordplay both for protest slogans and to guard against potential surveillance by mainland Chinese authorities. Though Cantonese shares much of its vocabulary and writing system with Mandarin, many of its slang terms, expletives and everyday phrases have no Mandarin equivalent. Its written form also sometimes relies on rarely used and archaic characters,...

It should be clear by this time that popularity has nothing to do with electability. Trump filled rally after rally in state after state with countless, full-house, full-stadium crowds, and such numbers do not lie. There really was a red wave in the midterms, but it was macro-engineered to a trickle, as should have been expected. The scam of “malfunctioning” voting machines, the shortage of paper ballots, the tsunami of mail-in and late ballots, the temporary closing and slow-downs of polling stations, and so on would have been sufficient to determine an electoral result. 2020 was an early run for...

There are three reasons why Putin is losing this war. Two of them cannot be fixed. That’s why Putin doubles down on solving the third. First: Motivation. Russian army has no business in Ukraine. No number of draftees will solve this problem. In fact, it will only make things worse, because every next batch is less motivated that the previous one. Russia is simply running out of idiots. The Kremlin has just started severe ideologization and militarization of Russian education to get the young committed to fight. Most probably, it is too late. Russian young are skeptical about this war,...