Free Republic

NBC reporter Ben Collins said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “Republican politicians” and the “internet’s far-right machine” were targeting transgender people, which resulted in Saturday’s shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, CO. Collins said, “I do want to say, though, am I doing something wrong here? Here are some headlines that I wrote the last six months. ‘Fueled by internet’s far-right machine, anti-LGBTQ+ threats shut down trans rights and drag events.’ Remember, there was a drag event happening in Colorado. ‘Anti-trans stalkers at Kiwi Farms,’ which was an anti-trans website that stalks people, ‘are chasing one victim around the...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Tuesday on “CBS Mornings” that he did not want thoughts and prayers from those who demonize the LGBTQ community after the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs that left five people dead and 25 injured. Co-host Tony Dokoupil said, “Buttigieg is the highest-ranking openly gay man in the Biden administration, and he told us he believes that political rhetoric is providing fuel for violence.” Buttigieg said, “There has always been a relationship between the social and political demonization of a group and that group’s vulnerability to being physically attacked, and it is completely unacceptable....

Post your Thanksgiving preparations and traditions.

NASA’s Orion capsule snaps a selfie, with the far side of the Moon in the background. Image: NASA NASA’s Orion spacecraft has made it past the Moon as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, firing its engines to pass within 81 miles of the lunar surface, and is operating with high accuracy. The spacecraft performed an outbound powered flyby burn yesterday, Monday, November 21st, completing its closest flyby. The engines “all worked perfectly,” said Judd Frieling, a flight director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in a press conference. With three trajectory correction burns performed, the spacecraft has now fired...

A former teachers’ union President and gay club advisor, Roger Kavigan, who also teaches history class at Foothill High School in Tustin, California, was caught soliciting an underage boy on November 19, 2022.

Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online, The Markup has learned. The data, sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts. The information sent to Facebook can be used by the company to power its advertising algorithms and is gathered regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has...

Information has reportedly included income, filing status, refund amounts. Major tax preparation services have reportedly been sending sensitive personal financial information to Facebook as part of a potential advertising scheme, according to a report released Tuesday. Companies such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have allegedly been sending Facebook "not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts," a report from the Verge said on Tuesday. The information "can be used by the company to power its advertising algorithms," the outlet...

Following seven months of research and data collection on the feasibility of legalizing medical cannabis by executive action, Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order allowing qualified individuals to bring marijuana that was legally-purchased in another state into Kentucky without being penalized, effective Jan. 1, 2023. “January was the date we chose because we’re gonna have to work through some things,” Beshear said during his Team Kentucky Update last Thursday. “The fact that the legislature hasn’t passed a full-blown system for medical marijuana requires not only that I do, this but also makes it challenging in how we implement it....

The National Association of Realtors compared the issuance of housing permits with the number of jobs created in 174 different metro areas. It found that only 38 metro regions are permitting enough new homes to keep up with job growth; in more than a dozen areas, including New York, the Bay Area, Boston, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Miami, and Chicago, just one new home is getting built for every 20-plus jobs created. The NAR estimates an “underbuilding gap” of as many as 7 million units. Enrico Moretti of UC Berkeley and Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago wanted to know...

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) colluded with Google to auto-install contact-tracing spyware on the smartphones of over a million Massachusetts residents. Though this collusion is not authorized by any statutory law, Margret Cooke, Acting Commissioner/General Counsel for DPH asserted a public benefit justification. "The purpose of the spyware was to distinguish between citizens who were obeying our pandemic lockdown orders and those who were flouting them," Cooke said. "Since few owners of smart phones were voluntarily downloading the app that would allow us to track their movements we reached an agreement with Google to surreptitiously install the app...

Some of Taylor Swift’s fans want you to know three things: They’re not still 16, they have careers and resources and, right now, they’re angry. That’s a powerful political motivator, researchers say. Look what Ticketmaster made them do. It started Nov. 15, when millions crowded a presale for Swift’s long-awaited Eras Tour, resulting in crashes, prolonged waits and frantic purchases. By Thursday, Ticketmaster had canceled the general sale, citing insufficient remaining tickets and inciting a firestorm of outrage from fans. Swift herself said the ordeal “really pisses me off.” Ticketmaster apologized but the bad blood had already been sowed. And...

Cuba said that it will receive deportation flights from the U.S. that had been stalled in the pandemic — and that it was open to continuing dialogue with Washington. The agreement comes amid one of the largest migrations from Cuba to the U.S. in decades.

According to documents obtained by the Army Times and Texas Tribune, the M113 armored personnel carrier vehicles will be deployed at 10 positions along the border. Additionally, the Texas National Guard will also increase “aircraft flights and security efforts.” “These actions are part of a larger strategy to use every available tool to fight back against the record-breaking level of illegal immigration,” the Military Department said in a statement. “The Texas National Guard is taking unprecedented measures to safeguard our border and to repel and turn-back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally.”

The incredible story of how Eddie Rickenbacker and six other airmen lost at sea for three weeks were saved, beginning on today’s front page… On page two we see that the Marine Corps Commandant Lt. Gen. Thomas Holcomb has landed on Guadalcanal and is inspecting progress. Holcomb was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1900 and in 1911 he was on the first Marine Corps Rifle Team to win the National Match. During the World War I he earned the Navy Cross, four Silver Stars, and the Purple Heart while commanding 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines. He is the first-ever lieutenant general...

Remarkable accuracy – a sepsis diagnosis tool combines genetic sequencing with analysis of patients' immune responses...The new technology correctly identified 99% of confirmed bacterial sepsis cases, 92% of confirmed viral sepsis cases, and predicted sepsis in 74% of clinically suspected but undiagnosed cases.

"Sometimes, people are interested in social justice to cover up the want of individual justice." ~Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen I found this quote, or rather heard it, in one of Sheen's talks entitled: Identity Crisis, originally broadcast in 1966. The full talk may be seen here: The Identity CrisisSheen used this potent line in other contexts as well. A particularly scalding example may be found in a conference he gave for priests of the Diocese of Washington, DC in 1974, where he offers an explanation for why priests fall away from the Faith via the actions of Judas Iscariot....

I believe this is from the Dan Smoot Report from the 1960s: VIDEO AT LINK........... “The ideal of a constitutional republic is individual liberty. In this century, great strides have been made toward the goal of subverting our republic, and transforming it into a democracy. The foremost tactic of the subverters is subversion of “language” — by calling America a democracy, until people thoughtlessly accept the term, and use the term. Totalitarians have obscured the real meanings and principles of American government.” ~ Dan Smoot Notice that Benjamin Franklin did NOT say “a democracy if you can keep it”. He...

The United Nations COP27 climate plan calls on nations to spend eight to ten trillion dollars annually to invest in green energy and rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Governments, central banks, commercial banks and investors will have to spend $4 to $6 trillion annually to create a global “low-carbon economy,” according to the COP27 Implementation Plan. Furthermore, the document claims $4 trillion per year needs to be invested in renewable energy by 2030 in order to reach “net zero emissions” by 2050. “Of course, all these numbers are just pulled out of thin air,” Energy and Environmental Legal Institute senior...

At the peak of his power, Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he could use his energy weapon to impose his will across Europe. Now Moldova — with a population of only 2.5 million — is emerging as the last truly vulnerable energy target in his flailing campaign to destabilize governments in the neighborhood taking a pro-EU trajectory. But no matter how hard Putin tries to turn the energy screws to topple the administration, Moldova’s government is doggedly resisting. Only last week Russian missile strikes triggered blackouts in half the country and last month Gazprom slashed gas supplies by a third,...

If Disney wants to reverse its decline into a child-grooming, genocide-tolerating propaganda machine, it needs to ditch more than Bob Chapek.After actively antagonizing parents and conservatives, Disney is scrambling to recover the public’s goodwill by canning CEO Bob Chapek and welcoming back former CEO Bob Iger. The surprise move to reinstate 71-year-old Iger after two years of Chapek’s reign follows a flailing quarterly earnings report. But Disney will have to chuck more than its chief executive into the reject pile to regain the trust of parents put off by the company’s targeting of children with its sexual agenda.Earlier this month,...