Free Republic

Colorado mom Lydia Lerma feels punched when she hears the trendy new term “minor-attracted person.” Just thinking of the damage a pedophile inflicted upon her son, who was six at the time, causes pain.An edited version of one of Balenciaga's controversial adverts featuring teddy bears and children. The face of the child model has been blurred for this report. (Jam Press/Balenciaga)Creating a polite-sounding term for someone sexually attracted to children enrages her.Any push to normalize pedophilia or designate it as another sexual orientation to be tolerated is “unconscionable,” Lerma told The Epoch Times.“That’s a bunch of [expletive]!” she said of...

Just hours after we find out that the Hunter Biden laptop not only wasn't "Russian disinformation", but rather was being actively covered up by social media, another "conspiracy theory" that wound up costing tons of honest truth seekers their social media accounts (including Zero Hedge, who was first to talk about the lab leak all the way back in February 2020), is inching closer toward being validated as reality.That's because a scientist who formerly worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has now gone on record and has said that COVID was "man-made" and leaked from the lab.The claims are...

Of the various hospitals around the country that have been facing public outcries over their decisions to conduct genital mutilation surgeries on children along with other “gender-affirming care,” Boston Children’s Hospital is among the largest and the most well-known. They have since pulled all of their promotional material off of their website after it attracted media attention, but the “services” are still continuing. In addition to peaceful, lawful protests, the hospital has also been hit with a series of bomb threats and other threats of violence. This week, the Associated Press published a glowing review of the hospital’s transgender programs,...

A good idea. A long overdue good idea, at that. But even then, Apple apparently can’t entirely quit China as a supplier — or more accurately, a supply management resource.But at least it’s a start … perhaps:In recent weeks, Apple Inc. has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the supply chain that built the world’s most valuable company, say people involved in the discussions. It is telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on...

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn was first published on December 10 1884 in Canada And The UK. Now in a deeply repressed and unjust Australia, I look to American inspiration and brotherhood in exploring the theme of freedom and relatively untrammeled humanity in initiating a Huck Finn Week. I write of two different iconic journeys and of how journeying is ingrained in Australia. And I post 2 images of beautiful Australian women, who each in their own way are committed to living with freedom and care for others, as were Twain's creations, Huck and Jim. Our heritage is not the...

There are wind farms being put up all over the place these days, including in many rural areas of the United States. But the offshore wind farms that have been constructed in the North Sea by various European power companies have created a forest of towers rising up over the waves. But that’s not a problem, right? After all, this is the “clean energy” we were all promised and we’re saving the planet so everyone can feel better about themselves. The Biden administration recently announced plans to accelerate offshore wind farm construction in the name of “environmental justice, biodiversity, and...

Moore County, in the Sandhills region of central North Carolina, is mainly known for its golf courses, especially Pinehurst No. 2. The county is also home to thousands of active-duty soldiers (many of whom are Special Forces) stationed nearby at Fort Bragg, the home of the US Army Special Operations Command and the 82nd Airborne, making the rural county’s infrastructure an attractive target.Saturday night that infrastructure was attacked when numerous power substations throughout the county were targets of what the Moore County Sheriff labeled “intentional vandalism,” leaving more than 40,000 people without power.Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields reported on Facebook...

Answer: Government-imposed CAFE standards, the standards which ostensibly mandate higher fuel economy.

There’s a lot going on out there in the news, and to some extent, that’s put the FTX scandal on the back burner. We shouldn’t let that happen. The FTX scandal is one of the most important stories of the year, exposing everything from the scam that is ESG to the deep-seated incestuous relationship between the corporate world and the Democratic Party.And to be sure, that relationship is as grotesque as it appears. Offering proof of that, Maxine Waters chose to play patty-cake with Sam Bankman-Fried on Friday, the founder of FTX who allegedly stole billions of dollars from his...

In the wake of releasing the explosive “Twitter Files,” which laid bare the extent to which the platform colluded with Democrats to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, Elon Musk has revealed that the risk of him being assassinated by his foes is now “quite significant.” Musk held a two-hour Q&A session on Twitter Spaces on Saturday and told participants he “definitely” would not “be doing any open-air car parades, let me put it that way.”He elaborated:“Frankly the risk of something bad happening to me, or even literally being shot, is quite significant,” he said.“It’s not that hard...

Where exactly would the world be without Christianity, capitalism and free markets, and the idea of natural rights? Without...America? Would assembly lines and mass production have ever been thought of? Efficiencies of scale? Abundant and affordable goods of all kinds? What could have brought billions out of poverty in the past several decades? Would someone have eventually discovered electricity? Who would have invented dental floss, hearing aids, cardiac defibrillators, radiocarbon dating, traffic lights, crash test dummies, lasers, LEDs, chemotherapy, microwave ovens, video games, mobile phones, fiber optic cables, email, personal computers, skyscrapers, suspension bridges, airplanes, the phonograph, the light bulb,...

A patchwork easing of the world's toughest COVID-19 curbs sowed confusion across China on Monday (Dec 5), spurring hopes for more clarity as officials shift the tone on the dangers posed by COVID-19 in the wake of last month's unprecedented protests. Three years into the pandemic, China's zero-tolerance measures, from shutting its borders to stifling lockdowns, provide a stark contrast with the rest of the world, which has largely opened up in its efforts to live with the virus. The strict approach has battered the world's second-largest economy, put a mental strain on hundreds of millions and last month prompted...

The football player, Cristiano Ronaldo, has agreed to join a top Saudi team in a contract worth over $200 million per year, according to a media report. Following Portugal's match against Ghana last week during the ongoing World Cup games, in which Ronaldo made history by becoming the first player to score in five World Cups, CBS Sports reported that Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr Club was ready to present the famed player with a three-year deal. No confirmation was publicly made at the time. The 37-year-old Portugal captain and former Manchester United player has now reportedly agreed to a $207...

London CNN — England and Wales are no longer majority Christian, and are slightly less White than a decade ago, newly released 2021 census data show. The two British nations have fallen from 59% self-described Christian in 2011 to 46% in 2021, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced Tuesday. The number of respondents saying they had no religion was the biggest gainer, rising from 25% a decade ago to 37% now. There was also a rise in the number of Muslims, from 5% in 2011 to 6.5% in 2021. The percentage of respondents saying they were Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish,...

Sacha Baron Cohen slammed Donald Trump and rapper Kayne West during his performance at the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night - the same evening Paul Pelosi made his dramatic first public appearance since he was brutually attacked. Cohen, in his Borat persona, mocked Trump for having orange skin and a fat belly. He also criticized West's anti-semitic remarks during his tribute to the Irish rock band U2. The audience roared with laughter in response to the actor's wisecracks. 'I am told the president of yours today is here. Where are you, Mr. Trump?,' Borat said. As the cameras panned...

OPEC+ agreed to stick to its oil output targets at a meeting on Sunday as the oil markets struggle to assess the impact of a slowing Chinese economy on demand and a G7 price cap on Russian oil on supply. The decision comes two days after the Group of Seven (G7) nations agreed a price cap on Russian oil. OPEC+, which comprises the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, angered the United States and other Western nations in October when it agreed to cut output by 2 million barrels per day (bpd), about 2% of...

The Borno State Government, yesterday, said 90 per cent of die-hard Boko Haram insurgents were dead just as it attributed the mass surrender of members of the sect to the death of their leader, Ibrahim Shakau, as well as the operations of the military. This is as the military authorities, yesterday, also said some 1,952 terror suspects were undergoing investigation in the North-east, while some 900 suspects were to go on trial next January. It further clarified that, contrary to insinuations of abortion of pregnancies of female terror suspects impregnated by insurgents, the military was not aware of such development,...

General George Washington embraced each of his military officers before stepping down from his commission Angelica George Washington gave a final goodbye to his soldiers at the close of the Revolutionary War on this day in history, Dec. 4, 1783. Washington, then-commanding general of the Continental Army, rallied his military officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, according to History.com. He then informed his troops that he would be stepping down from his commission to return to civilian life. The future first president of the United States led his army through six years of warfare against the British ahead...

At a campaign rally in Iowa, President Donald Trump cited an unsubstantiated news report to revive a widely debunked false narrative about Joe Biden’s work in Ukraine on behalf of the Obama administration. As we have reported more than once last year, Biden traveled to Kyiv as vice president and warned Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees until Ukraine removed its prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, who was widely viewed as corrupt. At the time, the international community and anti-corruption advocates in Ukraine were also calling for Shokin to be removed from office...

Says other nations were in 'marvel' at U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan Joe Biden departs the Oval Office to board Marine One on the South Lawn, Thursday, April 21, 2022, en route to Joint Base Andrews for his trip to Portland and Seattle. (Official White House photo by Cameron Smith) Joe Biden’s administration routinely rewrites science. For example, under his ideology men can become women by saying so.