Free Republic

Thursday, if you eat a nice meal, thank the Pilgrims. They made Thanksgiving possible. They left the Old World to escape religious persecution. They imagined a new society where everyone worked together and shared everything. In other words, they dreamed of socialism. Socialism then almost killed them. As I explain in my weekly video, the Pilgrims attempted collective farming. The whole community decided when and how much to plant, when to harvest and who would do the work.Gov. William Bradford wrote in his diary that he thought that taking away property and bringing it into a commonwealth would make the...

So, I told someone hardcore that I would be writing a column called “The Case Against Ron DeSantis 2024,” and he asked “Oh, will it be blank?” Amusing, and not unexpected because we are still at the DeSantis infatuation stage. As I wrote in my previous column, “The Case For Ron DeSantis 2024,” there is a lot to like about the Florida governor. But this is not time to go moon-eyed over The New Shiny Thing. We need to be ruthless in our vetting of the candidates. I was when I wrote “The Case Against Donald Trump 2024” (he sent...

California’s last operating nuclear power plant was given another funding boost Nov. 21 as operators seek to keep it running for another eight years.The U.S. Energy Department awarded Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant $1.1 billion from the Civil Nuclear Credit Program funded by an infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 2021.“This is a critical step toward ensuring that our domestic nuclear fleet will continue providing reliable and affordable power to Americans as the nation’s largest source of clean electricity,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement on Nov. 21.Nuclear power provides half of the nation’s carbon-free electricity,...

After it trained upwards of 50,000 poll watchers, poll workers, and other roles for ongoing citizen engagement in the election process over the year leading up to the 2022 midterms, the Election Integrity Network sent out a survey to its on-the-ground volunteers following Election Day to gauge how things went.The responses from election workers in key battleground districts and states around the country showed a mostly calm election cycle compared to 2020, with one massive and overwhelming exception. In Maricopa County, Arizona, election workers were appalled and aghast at how things had been run there.“As soon as we sent the...

On Wednesday, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state’s fetal heartbeat law, which bans abortion after a medical provider can detect a baby’s heartbeat.“In a one-page order, the high court put a lower court ruling overturning the ban on hold while it considers an appeal,” reports the Associated Press. “Abortion providers who had resumed performing the procedure past six weeks after the lower court ruling will again have to stop.”The order said seven of the nine justices had agreed to the decision. It said one was disqualified and another did not participate.The ruling is a temporary reinstatement of the provision,...

California is a one-party Democrat state with an incredibly wealthy tech sector and, through Hollywood, control over the American psyche. For a while, thanks to that tech money and Hollywood’s continuing (albeit diminishing) popularity, it looked as if California could sustain its mad spending, drug policies, pro-criminal policies, and generally huge government without imploding. Several recent reports, however, indicate that the implosion is coming fast. To begin with, the state has gone from $100 billion budget surplus last year to a probable $25 billion budget deficit this year. The accepted wisdom is that this is the first indication of a...

Insisting that "it's long past the point where we have to admit that we need the swarms of immigrants crossing our borders," Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) said as he urged Republicans to "join me in enacting amnesty and citizenship for these people." "We need to face the fact that Americans are too lazy to work and reproduce," the Senator declared. "There are millions of job vacancies that cannot be filled because citizens prefer to loaf and draw checks from the government. There are millions of babies that aren't born because we've made abortion convenient and cost-free. If we...

During my junior year in college, 1960–1961, I took the Constitutional Law course given by Dean Leonard W. Levy, one of the country's foremost con law scholars. In addition to his immense store of knowledge, he acknowledged the wisdom of common sense, noting that the response to Supreme Court decisions may depend on whose ox is gored. And he advised his students, in writing papers, "Strike while the iron is hot." This New York Times headline, the lead story for November 23, has gotten my iron hot — and dander up. The print edition headline for the story:"JUSTICES DECIDE /...

Sorry but if you're on the Left then you have no right to deny the shooter's non-binary identity. You set a precedent here and we will hold you to it. You have to respect his identity. I don't. You do. These are your rules. Now take your medicine and shut up. You have already made it clear that if a male criminal comes out as a woman and is transferred to a women's prison, we may not speculate that his trans identification is a ploy to gain access to female inmates. Same for men in women's locker rooms. Your rules...

Now it’s being reported that Gates is hiding out somewhere per a recommendation of the Soros-backed Sheriff in Maricopa County. Zerohedge reports: Bill Gates, chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, confirmed that he was moved to an undisclosed location for safety reasons amid security concerns in connection to the 2022 midterm elections.

Patients with high-risk stage III-IV melanoma who received pembrolizumab after their surgery reported a better quality of life than patients who received the previous standard-of-care treatment with either ipilimumab or high-dose interferon. Researchers on the trial had recently reported the primary clinical results which showed that patients on the study's pembrolizumab arm had a longer time before their disease recurred than patients on either of the other two treatments. The new quality-of-life findings come from a planned analysis of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) collected during the trial. The primary endpoint for the quality-of-life analysis was the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy—Biologic...

[Catholic Caucus] Archbishop Viganò: Faithful Catholics will escape the authoritarian suppression of the Latin Mass'The faithful Catholic is in communion not only with the Church of his own time, but he must necessarily also be in communion with the Church of all times.'Editor’s note: The following is an open letter written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to Bishop Franco Giulio Brambilla regarding his decision to suppress the Old Mass in his diocese.(LifeSiteNews) — Most Reverend Excellency,Your recent decision to suspend the celebration of the Tridentine Liturgy in the church of Vocogno and in the chapel of San Biagio in the...

Researchers examined parental methods to help toddlers sleep across 14 cultures and found that these methods are related to the development of a child's temperament. Pham studied the effect of different parental sleep-supporting techniques on child temperament across 14 cultures. They hypothesized that passive ways of helping a child fall asleep (e.g., cuddling, singing, and reading), but not active methods (e.g., walking, car rides, and playing), would be positively related to a child's temperament. Child temperament is defined as the way children regulate their behavior and handle their emotions. Researchers define temperament by three overarching factors: Surgency (SUR), which reflects...

"Give me Freedom or give me Death" A social media message from President Trump today... Following an online poll Twitter owner Elon Musk announcing a "general amnesty" for suspended Twitter accounts... Meta, the parent company of Facebook, says it took down an online propaganda campaign linked to the US military... Turkey's (Turkiye's) Central Bank going against the grain on interest rates...today a new decision to drop the rate to 9 percent... In Ukraine early Friday air raid warnings... Today at the official inquiry into the crackdown on Freedom Convoy protesters in Canada earlier this year Deputy Prime Minister-Finance Minister Chrystia...

Findings reveal that some unexpected conditions are leading to more hospitalizations in people living with type 2 diabetes compared to the general population. The emergence of iron deficiency anemia, mental health disorders and gastrointestinal disorders as leading reasons for excess hospitalization among those with type 2 diabetes compared to the general population was met with some surprise by Professor Dianna Magliano. The study found that people with type 2 diabetes are far more likely to be hospitalized with iron deficiency anemia than those without diabetes. "Our findings suggest the possibility of a biological link between type 2 diabetes and iron...

If you subscribe to Fox Nation, there's a wonderful series there called 'Yellowstone One-Fifty', about Yellowstone National Park, featuring Kevin Costner. It's fascinating history and stunning photography. We watched the first two episodes tonight, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in American and natural history, and wildlife.

Banking giants including BNY Mellon, Citi, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo will be issuing tokens and settling transactions through simulated central bank reserves as part of the pilot.The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Center, or NYIC, announced that it would be launching a 12-week proof-of-concept pilot for a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.In a Nov. 15 announcement, the New York Fed said the program would explore the feasibility of an “interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger” on a regulated liability network. Banking giants...

An Italian court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Cardinal Angelo Becciu which alleged that unfavorable media coverage cost him his chance to be pope.An Italian court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Cardinal Angelo Becciu which alleged that unfavorable media coverage cost him his chance to be pope. After recent legal setbacks in two lawsuits, the cardinal is ordered to pay thousands in damages and court costs. Italian journalists reported Wednesday that Becciu’s lawsuit against Italian newsmagazine L’Espresso has been dismissed in a civil court of Sanssari, in Sardinia. A judge ordered the cardinal to pay the magazine’s legal...

The records are being sought in a Child Victims Act case filed by a woman against Hubbard, the Albany diocese and deceased former priest Francis P. MelfeALBANY — A state Supreme Court justice has ordered the Archdiocese of New York to turn over roughly 1,400 pages of internal records related to its investigations of Howard J. Hubbard, rejecting the organization's arguments that the documents regarding the former Albany bishop are constitutionally protected under the religious clauses of the First Amendment. State Supreme Court Justice L. Michael Mackey, citing court decisions dismissing similar arguments that have been invoked by the Catholic...

In my previous column, I discussed Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s border invasion declaration, which he actually issued in July but has been publicizing recently. Gov. Abbott even wrote a letter to Biden openly explaining what he is doing. Abbott is in a difficult situation and deserves credit for doing more than any other governor on this issue. However, the border invasion is an enormous problem. Drastic times call for drastic measures.