Free Republic

Conservatives on the Supreme Court appeared ready Monday to side with a website designer who refuses to build sites for same-sex weddings because of her religious beliefs, in a case that could broaden free speech exemptions to anti-discrimination laws nationwide. Lorie Smith has asked the court to overturn lower-court decisions that found a Colorado anti-discrimination law would require her company, 303 Creative, to offer websites for same-sex weddings if she offered websites for weddings between a man and a woman. During oral arguments Monday, conservatives on the court appeared sympathetic to Smith’s arguments, in the latest of several cases about...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At Gov. Gavin Newsom’s prompting, California lawmakers kicked off a special legislative session on Monday to consider punishing big oil companies for their supersized profits during a time of record-high gas prices — the start of a likely lengthy process that will test the liberal Legislature’s resolve in the face of fierce industry opposition. California lawmakers briefly returned to the state Capitol on Monday to swear in new members and elect leaders for the 2023 legislative session. But this year, Newsom also has called lawmakers into a special session for the purpose of approving a penalty...

After years of development, prototyping and test flights, the Army today announced that Bell Textron’s Valor tiltrotor has won its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition to be the successor to the aging UH-60 Black Hawk and a key component of the Army’s future force. The announcement gives Bell a massive victory not just in America but with the global community of 28 Black Hawk operators, many of whom are likely to follow the US Army’s lead when looking for a replacement in the future. The exact requirements the service laid out for the aircraft remain closely held, but allowed...

Proposal by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Thom Tillis seeks rare bipartisan agreement on immigration legislationRoughly 2 million "Dreamers" would get a path to citizenship in exchange for stronger border security measures under a loose blueprint for an immigration deal circulating among Senate offices. The proposal by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is still very much in flux, according to a Senate aide and immigrant advocates familiar with the talks. But it reflects movement toward agreement on a topic where bipartisan consensus is rare at best. And it comes during the lame-duck session that advocates and lawmakers say...

SNIP Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin got into a massive spat Monday over the topic after Whoopi Goldberg introduced the topic of “toxic femininity.” “We’ve come a long way in critiquing some of the male practices that are not helpful and need to be called out. Women have made a ton of progress, but we can also be each other’s worst enemies,” said Griffin, who was once an associate of former president Trump. “It’s still the case, and I have to say, some of the worst bosses I’ve had have been women and sometimes colleagues in the workplace who...

The motive was the value of the French bulldogs, a breed that can run into the thousands of dollars, and detectives do not believe the thieves knew the dogs belonged to the musician. Jackson and others drove around Hollywood, the city of West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley on Feb. 24, 2021 “looking for French bulldogs,” prosecutors said previously. They found Lady Gaga’s dog walker, Ryan Fischer, with the pop star’s three pets. Jackson also admitted the allegation of inflicting great bodily injury and to a prior strike, the DA’s office said Monday. He was sentenced to 21 years...

Long-delayed plans to fix maintenance platforms and put up stainless steel mesh nets on both sides of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge are still far from completion, at a skyrocketing cost of nearly $400 million, according to recent court filings. In 2018, contractors Shimmick Construction Company and Danny’s Construction Company, referred to as SDJV in court filings, were supposed to begin work updating decades-old maintenance and inspection platforms, replacing handrails and adding wind fairing as well as suicide deterrence nets to the bridge. But they say the project as it was originally drawn up by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway...

Everyone knows that Hunter Biden left his infamous laptop at a computer repair shop in Delaware. The store owner even contacted Hunter to get him to pick it up, but he never returned for it, effectively forfeiting the device per the store’s policy — which Hunter Biden agreed to. But on Sunday, the New York Times bizarrely claimed the laptop had been “stolen” in a report about the release of the “Twitter files” by Elon Musk. “Mr. Musk and Mr. Taibbi framed the exchanges as evidence of rank censorship and pernicious influence by liberals,” Michael M. Grynbaum, a media correspondent...

Eight in ten employees at the CDC are working from home, per a FOIA request Experts fear this will leave the organization unable to learn from mistakes It comes after agency revealed it would sack 3,000 people hired to fight Covid Most employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are still working from home. The federal health agency, responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request said 80 percent of staff were still partially or fully working from home. Dr Stephen Cochi, who worked at the CDC for four decades before retiring this year, warned remote...

The White House on Monday dismissed a release of Twitter emails showing internal discussions around suppressing stories about Hunter Biden's laptop as 'old news' and a distraction from the real issue of why the platform was not doing more to tackle hate speech. Conservatives have seized on the release, dubbed the 'Twitter files', as evidence that Democrats are in league with tech giants as they suppress unflattering stories. But Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre played down the impact of Elon Musk's decision to release the information. 'We see this as an interesting ... or a coincidence, if I may, that he...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel unveiled a monument in a north Moscow square on Tuesday to Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, pledging to deepen their friendship in the face of U.S. sanctions against both countries. SNIP But Putin evoked his memory as he told Diaz-Canel the two countries needed to build on the "solid foundation of friendship" established between Castro and Soviet leaders. "It's a real work of art - dynamic, in motion, moving forward. It creates the image of a fighter," Putin said of the statue, which portrays Castro gazing into the distance with...

A 14-year-old girl has died and another, aged 13, has been seriously injured after they were attacked by a man with a knife while walking to school in southern Germany. Police say the suspect came out of a refugee shelter in the village of Illerkirchberg on Monday morning and attacked the pupils. The older girl later died in hospital. German police have arrested a 27-year-old man, who they say is an asylum seeker from Eritrea. Officers searched a nearby building and found him with a knife they suspect was used in the attack. Two other men were also detained. The...

Arabs who define themselves as Palestinians ask, "Where did the name Palestine come from? What does the name mean? Dec 4, 2022 Arabs who define themselves as Palestinians ask, "Where did the name Palestine come from? What does the name mean? No one knows. One came up with a new theory that it is a combination of "fales" = penny and "tin" = muddy soil... LOL. clip

Is it just me or does the country seem more divided not less? Both sides, right and left, appear to be taking a position, digging in their heels, accusation and finger pointing at an all time high. How long can this go on? How does it end?

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up a case brought against Dominion Voting Systems and Facebook after the 2020 election by a group of voters who claimed the companies illegally “influenced or interfered with” the contest. Lower courts had previously rejected the case, ruling that the eight voters lacked the procedural threshold – known as standing – needed to bring the suit against parties including the Center for Tech and Civic Life, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. “The court’s refusal to take up this case is no surprise; the lower courts threw it out...

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has caved to outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and will allow the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include the highly controversial media cartel bill the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News.Over objections from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker of the House come January 3 of next year, other congressional leaders acquiesced to lobbyist pressure and agreed to include the JCPA in the base text of the NDAA. McCarthy was the only member of congressional leadership to...

A new book written by a scientist who worked in Wuhan just came out: "In what appears to be an astonishing revelation, a US-based scientist, who worked at a controversial research lab in China's Wuhan, has said that COVID-19 was a "man-made virus" that leaked from the facility."

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday unanimously approved a ban on oil and gas drilling within the city limits, finalizing steps toward a ban that were first made at the beginning of the year. Council members approved 12-0 a resolution enacting an immediate ban on all new oil and drilling. The city will also decommission existing oil wells and operations within 20 years, according to a fact sheet. Before the vote, City Council President Paul Krekorian called the city’s forthcoming ban a “watershed moment” for climate action. “Part of [the city’s] economic growth was because of the oil and...

I made an order with GE August 5. Paid for a combo microwave/oven. Mine is 12 years old and the microwave stopped working. I had the tech out and he told me he can repair it but when the stove goes they do not make parts for it anymore. Suggested I might just get a new one. My kitchen has it such that my old combo microwave/oven is set in a cabinet that has no room for expansion on either side. Hence I am forced to buy the only combo microwave/oven that fits, and that is GE's product. So I...

Psychologist Maria-Christina Nimmerfroh was doing her best to deliver an online lecture to business executives last month, but every few minutes an energy-saver switch in her empty classroom killed the lights. Finally, she got tired of standing up to trigger the motion-detecting switch and lighted her face with her cellphone flashlight. Russia stopped piping natural gas to much of Europe this fall, hoping to show Europeans that supporting Ukraine in the war might become too uncomfortable to bear. It didn’t count on Germans’ love of thrift. Many Germans see frugality as part of their national identify, and bargain-hunting as a...