Free Republic

At an annual gathering of Republican governors in Orlando, donors and lobbyists mingled with governors past, present and future while weighing ways to wrest Mr. Trump from the party’s base. Their main complaint was not over policy or even style, but losses the party has taken since Mr. Trump won the White House in 2016. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a Republican often mentioned as a potential 2024 candidate, said she did not believe Mr. Trump offered “the best chance” for the party in 2024. “If we narrow our focus there, then we’re not talking to every single American,”...

Scientists have confirmed that a “stabilizing feedback” on 100,000-year timescales keeps global temperatures in check Peer-Reviewed Publication MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY The Earth’s climate has undergone some big changes, from global volcanism to planet-cooling ice ages and dramatic shifts in solar radiation. And yet life, for the last 3.7 billion years, has kept on beating. Now, a study by MIT researchers in Science Advances confirms that the planet harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to pull the climate back from the brink, keeping global temperatures within a steady, habitable range. Just how does...

Just how effective have Western sanctions been against Iran — and for that matter, Russia? The US has spearheaded efforts to deny both countries access to Western technology, especially that with dual-use capabilities for military purposes. In the case of Iran, those sanctions and trade restrictions go back decades.And according to an exclusive from the Wall Street Journal today, they appear significantly ineffective. Ukrainian and Western experts have begun looking at the remains of Iranian drones that targeted infrastructure in the Russian invasion, and a lot of the parts come from Western supply chains:New intelligence collected from downed Iranian drones...

There is plenty of well-deserved soul-searching going on inside of the national Republican Party after the wimpy red wavelet barely dampened the political beach on November 8th. National GOP leaders are pondering changes in leadership at the top and state officials are taking stock of precisely how many clearly winnable races slipped away from them by the narrowest of margins. But that’s not to say that all of the Democrats are engaging in victory dances this week. There were significant red waves taking place in states like Florida, even if they were few in number. The other place where Republicans...

Joe Biden was grinning like a Cheshire cat. His smug smile won’t last. The president’s gloating over the mid-term election results will not stop a House investigation into Hunter’s influence peddling schemes that netted the Biden family tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests. And the federal courts have already shut down his student loan forgiveness scam as yet another of Joe’s nakedly unconstitutional abuses of power.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) plans to introduce legislation that is meant to prevent Donald Trump from holding office again. He sent a letter to his Democrat colleagues in Congress on Tuesday night, the night that Trump announced his candidacy for President in 2024. Cicilline’s letter previewed the bill for his colleagues but didn’t say when he plans to introduce it. He listed a deadline of Thursday at noon for lawmakers who wish to cosponsor the bill.Cicilline is not exactly an impartial observer. He was a House impeachment manager for Trump’s second impeachment trial. He is citing the 14th Amendment to...

I believe that the essential loving nature of men and women can be redeemed through the right mix of freedom and moral regeneration. The power of the beauty driven humanity God has implanted in us gives this a chance. In America, the modern freedom movement has grown from the likes of Barry Goldwater, Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul to towering figures like Donald Trump and Ron De Santis fighting back to maintain core western values and social norms. Australia has a politically fractured range of small parties regularly out politicked by the mainstream Left. Please pray for us. And learn....

Mormon Church calls radical same-sex ‘marriage’ bill the ‘best way forward’While the church said its doctrine on marriage ‘is well known and will remain unchanged,’ it believes the radical so-called Respect for Marriage Act ‘is the best way forward.’SALT LAKE CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, long seen as a bulwark for conservative family values, sent out shockwaves Tuesday when it gave its support for radical legislation currently before Congress that would enshrine gay “marriage” into federal law. The affirmation comes despite the church’s previous moves to fight LGBT infiltration in the culture.The LDS made...

There is nothing funnier than watching leftist Punchinellos beclown themselves over the latest “We’ve got Trump NOW!” hijinks. Remember when the FBI raided Trump’s home supposedly looking for “nuclear secrets” a few months back? Guess how that turned out? I’ll let the quislings at the Washinton Post spell it out:Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.In other words, Trump was keeping souvenirs, as...

As regular readers know, I have an illogical love for my home state of California, and despite the loud and persistent calls from many conservatives to abandon it, I steadfastly refuse. Still, I am not under any delusions about the efficacy of our government or the sensibility of our laws – and they tend to get more stupid as the years go by.Right now, the country’s waiting for California to finish counting ballots from an election held over a week ago, and House races called just last night determined GOP control. Why is it taking so long? What’s with this...

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner over “misbehavior in office in the nature of dereliction of duty and refusal to enforce the law.”House Resolution 240 lays out dozens of complaints about the Soros-supported DA, including, “exhibiting unethical conduct by lacking candor to the courts” and “committing professional misconduct in violation of rule of professional conduct and engaging in impropriety and appearances of impropriety.”The resolution also accuses Krasner of ignoring the plight of the crime victims he is sworn to represent, and contributing to the sharp rise in crime through negligence and even...

Several sheriffs in Oregon said they will not enforce the state’s new gun law that places a limit on magazine capacity, arguing that the provision violates the Constitution’s Second Amendment.Oregon voters approved Measure 114, also known as the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, during the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The rule, among other restrictions, outlaws magazines that hold more than 10 rounds—similar to rules that have been implemented in New York, California, and other Democrat-controlled states.Several county sheriffs have publicly announced they won’t enforce the law or parts of the law.“The biggest thing is this does absolutely nothing to address...

The FBI’s director on Nov. 15 declined to answer when he was asked whether the bureau had confidential informants among the supporters of then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.“Did the FBI have confidential human sources embedded within the Jan. 6 protesters on Jan. 6 of 2021?” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) asked Christopher Wray, the director and a Trump appointee, during a hearing in Washington.“As I’m sure you can appreciate, I have to be very careful about what I can say, about when we do and do not, and where we have and have not used confidential human sources,” Wray...

Oregon voters narrowly passed Measure 114 this midterm election, which will require permits and firearms training before new gun purchases and ban high-capacity magazines. The Oregon Secretary of State's office said that it will take effect in just over three weeks — on Thursday, December 8. . . . . . OSP said that during the week of the election alone, there were over 18,000 transactions. As a result, there's now a considerable backlog for these background checks on people trying to buy guns. There was a big backlog right after COVID-19 restrictions took effect in early 2020, and it...

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and their Austrian colleagues have discovered a novel method of making magnets without the use of rare earth metals, an innovation that could offer a possibility for Western countries to veer away from overly depending on China for the tech-critical materials. Researchers found a way to produce tetrataenite, an alloy of iron and nickel, which can replace magnets made from rare earths. Tetrataenite usually forms naturally in meteorites. When meteorites cool down, the nickel and iron atoms order themselves in a specific structure, eventually ending up as a material that has properties almost similar...

The midterm clusterfark has drawn plenty of hot takes and instant analyses that range from insightful to self-serving to unbelievably stupid. But now that we have gotten past the initial blasts of the flamethrower, perhaps we should take a breath and sit down, and think about where we are as a movement and what we need to do as a party for 2024. There’s a lot to talk about, from procedural questions like how we intend to cope with the new world of extended mail voting to substantive imperatives like how we must repeal the 19th Amendment as it applies...

Billionaire and GOP megadonor Ronald Lauder won't help finance Donald Trump's 2024 campaign for president, his spokesman told CNBC on Wednesday. Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder fortune, is the latest Republican megadonor to distance himself from Trump as the former president launches a third bid for the White House. Lauder contributed almost $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2019 when the political organization was helping Trump get reelected, according the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets. Lauder has known Trump since college, and the two have been close for years. Lauder reportedly spoke to Trump while he was...

Frustrated residents in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou smashed temporary barriers and marched through streets in revolt earlier this week against strict COVID-19 controls, according to online videos and reports. The violence comes just weeks before next month's third anniversary of the emergence of COVID-19 — and as China continues to follow a hardline policy that has kept its borders largely closed and led to mass lockdowns and travel restrictions affecting hundreds of millions of people around the country. Last week the central government announced measures to begin to ease its so-called "dynamic zero COVID" policy, which has damaged...

Ebola monitoring underway in Colorado and the U.S. for some travelers arriving from Africa By: Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, UCHealth Nov. 10, 2022 Testing underway at a laboratory in Africa as the Ebola outbreak expands in Uganda. A health worker processes Ebola tests at a lab in Africa. In recent weeks, the Ebola outbreak in Uganda has prompted U.S. health officials to monitor some travelers arriving from Africa. Photo by Mary Claire Worrell, courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An expanding Ebola outbreak in Uganda has prompted U.S. officials to be on guard against the deadly virus...

A total of 72 dogs were living with a woman in her 80s who is possibly suffering from early stages of dementia, her daughter told Riverside County Animal Services. The pups were taken from the home by the daughter and eventually received veterinary exams, food and water at San Jacinto Valley Animal Shelter. The mostly small dogs were well fed and cared for, but in “far-from-ideal circumstances,” Lt. Lesley Huennekens said in a news release, adding that the case is not an open cruelty investigation. The dogs were mostly terrier mixes, but some were Chinese crested, a unique breed of...