Free Republic

They’re stealing another election right under our noses! The Maricopa County, Arizona Board of Supervisors has certified the governor’s election in favor of incumbent Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs over Republican MAGA candidate Kari Lake, despite the fact that the county ran an election filled with printer breakdowns, questionable security, extremely long waits to vote, and at least five major conflicts of interest. I want you to see what these conflicts of interest were, and how OBVIOUS they were!… Conflict #1: Katie Hobbs to recuse herself from election oversight as Secretary of State in her own election for Governor. Conflict #2:...

The White House announced Tuesday it will host a second summit on democracy next year, following up on efforts to push back on authoritarianism and present a united front among democratic nations. “As President Biden has said, we know democracy remains the best tool humankind has to unleash our collective potential and deliver our security and prosperity for all,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One. “That’s why he’s made strengthening democracy a cornerstone of both his domestic and international agenda.” The second democracy summit will take place March 29 and 30. Costa Rica, the...

He was perhaps too buzzed on Thanksgiving. A Florida business owner has been busted after his girlfriend accused him of drunkenly battering her with her sex toy. Christopher Pacitto, the 45-year-old CEO and owner of Velocity Engineering Services, was arrested after a 4:30 a.m. bust-up with his girlfriend at a St. Petersburg motel on Thanksgiving Day, an arrest affidavit shows. During an argument, the 6-foot-2, 300-pound business owner started packing his bags — then throwing all of his girlfriend’s items out onto the floor, the complaint says. “During that process” he “hit her with a sex toy on her torso,...

For the first time since 1801, when the United Kingdom took its first census, less than half of the population identify as “Christian,” while the share of individuals who say they have no religion has swelled by millions, the latest data from their census show.The data published Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics show that only 46.2% or 27.5 million of the country’s more than 67 million people say they are Christian. In 2011, when the last census was done, 59.3% of the population or 33.3 million, people described themselves as Christian.For individuals in the U.K. who are...

In a sadistic and disorienting rhetorical flourish, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, COVID Warlord Fauci’s diverse protégé, declared that the best way to “move on” from COVID-19 is actually to submit to an endless booster campaign for eternity. “Despite aggressive messaging, U.S. vaccination rates remain low,” reads the ABC News chyron. “People aren’t listening. What do you do?” asks the near-hysterical news actor, her voice inflecting upwards at the end of the question to indicate frustration. “It’s been obviously a long two and a half years,” Dr. Jha begins. “We understand that people want to move on....

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev warned on Tuesday that NATO states could become a "legitimate target" in case they supply Ukraine with Patriot anti-air missile systems and send NATO personnel to the country."If, as Stoltenberg’s hinted, NATO supplies the Kiev fanatics with Patriot defense systems – as well as the alliance’s personnel – they will immediately turn into legitimate targets for our armed forces," Medvedev threatened in a tweet. The Russian official accused the alliance of violating other countries' sovereignty by starting coups around the world and murdering "tens of thousands of civilians."Earlier, NATO Secretary General...

Seventy-one percent of the earth’s atmosphere is made up of nitrogen, but we’re told that too much of it can be very, very bad. So the Nitrogen Minister of the Netherlands (yes, that’s a real job), Christianne van der Wal, is spearheading a government effort to drastically reduce nitrogen emitted by too much greenery — especially on very productive farms — and especially close to “environmentally sensitive” areas. Farmers in the Netherlands have been at war with the government over nitrogen emissions ever since the government announced that there would be a 50% reduction in nitrogen emissions by 2050. Dairy...

The Chinese Communist Party, through its state propaganda outlets, insisted that it would not relent on its brutal lockdown and quarantine policies known as “zero Covid” on Monday, apparently responding to, but not acknowledging, protests in major cities nationwide over the weekend. Beijing has insisted on “zero Covid” for nearly three years, abruptly trapping people in their homes and often leaving them without food or basic medicine. The Chinese government announced its first deaths attributed to a Chinese coronavirus infection in six months last week – three people over the age of 87 – meaning that, by the regime’s own...

Members of a Baltimore church are giving thanks this week that their longtime pastor wasn’t seriously injured during a mid-service assault on November 20. According to news reports, a 55-year-old man allegedly attacked Bishop Jerome Stokes with a hammer during Sunday worship at The Church of the Redeemed of the Lord (CRL). Stokes, 78, received only a minor laceration on one ear. The alleged attacker, whom police say may have been having a mental health crisis, was evaluated at a local hospital. Baltimore Church: ‘We Thank God That Dr. Stokes Is Okay’ In a statement posted to its Facebook page,...

A Qatari official involved in the organisation of the country's World Cup has put the number of worker deaths related to the tournament "between 400 and 500" for the first time, a number drastically higher than any other previously offered by Doha. The comment by Hassan Al-Thawadi, the secretary general of Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, appeared to be an off-the-cuff remark during an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan. The comment threatened to renew criticism by human rights groups over the toll of hosting the Middle East's first World Cup given the migrant workers who built more...

In its heyday, Vineyard Anaheim served as the flagship of a worldwide, charismatic movement. Now, the church has left the Vineyard, taking with it $62 million in assets. And according to a lawsuit filed this month by former church members, the exodus was part of a premediated plan by current church leaders to deceive and defraud. In the suit, the widow of Vineyard founder John Wimber and eight other former members of Vineyard Anaheim—now the Dwelling Place—accuse current church pastors and board members of fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of fiduciary duty. Named as defendants are Dwelling Place Lead Pastors Alan...

WHEN you think of camels, you think of hot and dry deserts, with no water in sight. But is it true that camels store water in their humps? Verdict: FALSE Contrary to what cartoons have been showing us about camels, they do not store water in their humps. Instead, these ships of the desert have fatty tissue stored in their humps, which becomes their source of nourishment in case there is a shortage of food. When the camel is unable to access food for a long period of time, its body is able to metabolise the fat in the humps...

BEIJING — This week, dozens of Chinese citizens died after the Chinese Communist Party welded their apartment doors shut and a fire broke out in the building, sparking protests. China has doubled down on its "Zero COVID" policy, however, and has tapped Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to lead its COVID lockdown enforcement measures."Michigan's lockdowns were wonderfully effective in slowing the spread of COVID as well as freedom," said a Chinese Communist Party spokesman in a statement. "Our shared values with Whitmer, who we have affectionately dubbed the 'Ice Queen', make her the ideal candidate to lockdown our citizens under brutal...

In the 2012 Presidential Election, Democrat Barack Obama decisively defeated Republican Mitt Romney. Obama won 332 electoral votes and the national Presidential popular vote by nearly 4%. Despite this crushing victory, Obama headed into his second term in office without a majority in the US House. House Republicans lost the popular vote by 1% but still won a 234-201 majority in the chamber. This outcome did not surprise shrewd political observers—Republicans held a considerable structural advantage in the US House throughout the 2010s. In fact, according to FairVote, Republicans would expect to win a 241-194 majority in a tied national...

I don’t trust the results of the midterms. I suspect I will not be confident in election outcomes until verified citizens must sign-up during a short registration period immediately before elections and the voting only takes place at the polls on Election Day. It could be a long wait. The reports and common-sense indications of fraud are everywhere. Mail-in ballots are, once again, the primary suspect but voting machines and corrupt officials seem to be implicated as well. Anecdotally, Kari Lake was up by 10 points in the run-up to the Arizona Governor’s race. She ended up losing by a...

Football fever has taken over the world, thanks to the 2022 FIFA World Cup that’s currently being held in Qatar. Despite being organised under the shadow of two public health emergencies — the COVID-19 pandemic and the monkeypox disease (recently renamed as ‘Mpox’) — millions of fans from around the world are expected to throng this global footballing event. Amid all this frenzy, the possibility of a deadlier viral outbreak at the FIFA World Cup has been flagged by WHO-backed health experts! The findings of a study, published in the journal New Microbes and New Infections, have warned that about...

With China's communist oligarchs tightening their grip on power as anti-COVID lockdown protests erupt across that country, who should step in to help the detested regime but wokester Apple, one of the most virtue-signally of all companies in the Silicon Valley. According to a report in Quartz, via Yahoo! Finance:Anti-government protests flared in several Chinese cities and on college campuses over the weekend. But the country’s most widespread show of public dissent in decades will have to manage without a crucial communication tool, because Apple restricted its use in China earlier this month.AirDrop, the file-sharing feature on iPhones and other...

Typically, in American schools, bullying is like the dark cousin to prom, student elections, or football practice: Maybe you weren’t involved, but you knew that someone, somewhere was. In 2011, President Obama spoke against this inevitability at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. “With big ears and the name that I have, I wasn’t immune. I didn’t emerge unscathed,” he said. “But because it’s something that happens a lot, and it’s something that’s always been around, sometimes we’ve turned a blind eye to the problem.” We know that we shouldn’t turn a blind eye: Research shows that bullying is...

Beto O'Rourke returned a $1 million donation from controversial cryptocurrency magnate Sam Bankman-Fried less than a week before Election Day, the Texas Tribune's James Barragán reported Tuesday. FTX, Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency exchange, was valued at $32 billion before its abrupt collapse earlier this month sparked widespread panic amongst crypto investors and industry leaders. FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried stepped down as its top executive on Nov. 11, just three days after Election Day. Chris Evans, an O'Rourke campaign spokesperson, told Barragán that the decision to return Bankman-Fried's donation was not connected to the controversy now swirling around Bankman-Fried and FTX....

Shaheen stretched out on the sand and closed his eyes, but there was little time to rest for the camel. World Cup fans coming in droves to the desert outside Doha were ready for their perfect Instagram moment: riding a camel on the rolling dunes. As Qatar welcomes more than a million fans for the monthlong World Cup, even its camels are working overtime. Visitors in numbers the tiny emirate has never before seen are rushing to finish a bucket list of Gulf tourist experiences between games: ride on a camel’s back, take pictures with falcons and wander through the...