Free Republic

In a CNN appearance this week, Rep Adam Schiff (D-Calif) contended that "hate speech is soaring since Musk took control of Twitter. Slurs against black people have tripled. Slurs against women are up 33%. Slurs against Jews are up 61%. Slurs against gay men are up 58%. These numbers are abysmal – and unacceptable." Musk countered, asserting that "hate speech posts are actually down by 1/3 for Twitter now compared to what they were prior to my acquisition of the company." Schiff scoffed at Musk's assertion. "My sources tell me that some of the former Twitter employees fired by Musk...

Meluhha: the Indus Civilization and Its Contacts with MesopotamiaMark Kenoyer, University of Wisconsin, MadisonThe Oriental Institute | 211,313 views | October 7, 2010

Giffords adviser Ryan Busse claims the Supreme Court of the United State’s Bruen (2022) decision is making it “much easier” for “a trouble 18-year-old to become a deadly mass shooter.” The Bruen decision was handed down June 23, 2022, and Breitbart News reported it struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry permit issuance. Busse’s column, published in The Atlantic December 14, 2022, summarized a portion of Justice Clarence Thomas’s Bruen opinion: Thomas made clear that, henceforth, the Court’s conservative majority would judge all firearms regulations by a new originalist standard: If there is no historical proof of...

Paglia used charity funds to renovate apartment Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia diverted hundreds of thousands of euros allocated to support missionary and charitable works while he served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Paglia used much of the money to finance building projects in Rome, including the renovation of his personal apartment, The Pillar has learned.According to multiple independent sources with knowledge of the events, Archbishop Paglia confirmed in a 2015 memo to Holy See financial officials that hundreds of thousands of euros had been paid to an Italian construction contractor instead of going to missionary and charitable...

Thirty-six-year-old Brandon Turner was shot and killed Sunday about 8:30 p.m. in Port John, Florida, after he allegedly attacked an armed driver in a McDonald’s parking lot. Turner allegedly walked up the driver, as he sat in his car eating, and began attacking him, FOX News reported. The driver managed to grab a gun he kept inside the vehicle and fire one round, striking Turner. Turner was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead. WESH2 noted the conversation on police radio as law enforcement described the incident: “We got a caller on the line. Advises that they had shot...

The spectre of future energy blackouts is once again looming in Germany, with the country’s plan to cut consumption falling significantly short amid cold winter weather. A cold snap that has hit the north of Europe is now seriously threatening Germany’s energy security, with the country now reportedly falling far short of hitting gas savings targets of 20 per cent needed to avoid rolling blackouts. While many officials across the country had warned that there is a very real threat that Germany could be facing serious energy shortages over the next few months, bigwigs close to the government have repeatedly...

Flight cabin disruptions over masks .. are much less likely now. With a Biden administration mandate overturned, incidents are down 74%. ... The friendly skies too often resembled “season’s beatings” shopping brawls during the pandemic, as the number of arguments and even fistfights surged on-board. Viral videos of the flight-and-fight mayhem frequently had a common denominator – the federal government’s mask requirement. So it may come as little surprise that disruptions on commercial domestic flights have plummeted by 74% since the Biden administration’s mask mandate was overturned by a federal judge in April. The current rate is 1.7 unruly passengers...

After initial skepticism, first lady Jill Biden is “all in” on her husband seeking another four-year term of office, according to a new report Thursday. As recently as early fall, Jill Biden, 71, was described as “not a proponent” of 80-year-old President Biden running again, but shifted her outlook after last month’s midterm elections, when Democrats kept control of the Senate and only narrowly lost their majority in the House, CNN reported, citing seven people familiar with the first lady’s thinking. Jill Biden is now fully on board with a possible 2024 campaign, despite one source describing her as “exhausted”...

Reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who last month were sentenced to prison for fraud and tax crimes, will be heading to Florida to serve their time, according to documents from the US Marshals Service that were recently filed with the court. The couple have been ordered to report to two different federal prisons on January 17, according to the documents. Todd and Julie Chrisley, best known for their reality series “Chrisley Knows Best,” were found guilty in June of conspiracy to defraud banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans. In addition, they were found guilty...

Sam Bankman-Fried appeared Tuesday at a hearing in the Bahamas with his parents in attendance, according to multiple reports, including from The New York Times and the cryptocurrency site CoinDesk. At the hearing, which largely focused on whether Bankman-Fried would be released on bail, the former FTX CEO indicated that he was not waiving his right to challenge his extradition to the US, the CoinDesk report said. The site, which was reporting live from Nassau in the Bahamas, broke the news in November of the financial links between FTX and Bankman-Fried's trading firm, Alameda Research. During the proceedings, Bankman-Fried's mother,...

Afshin Esmaeil Ghaderzadeh was named the shortest man living by Guinness World Records. Photo courtesy of Guinness World Records Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A 20-year-old Iranian man has been dubbed the shortest man living by Guinness World Records after his height was confirmed as 2 feet and 1.6 inches. Afshin Esmaeil Ghaderzadeh, from a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, was found to be 2.7 inches shorter than the previous shortest man living, 36-year-old Colombia man Edward "Niño" Hernandez. Ghaderzadeh's parents said he was born at a weight of 1.5 pounds, and he now weighs in at 14.3 pounds....

Members of Oregon’s LGBTQ community are worried they may not be able to acquire guns, and will therefore be vulnerable, if the gun controls in Ballot Measure 114 (BM 114) are allowed to take effect. The controls in BM 114 are currently on hold via a temporary restraining order, but further hearings on the specific distinct controls in the measure could result in a partial or complete enactment. NPR reports that “some of Oregon’s trans and queer gun supporters are worried that a new state law will prevent them from buying firearms.”

I'll be in Memphis soon and I was looking forward to getting some of the OTC Ivermectin that is supposedly available to all persons without prescription. Well, guess what! I just got off the phone with Lucy at the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy and she was ZERO help. Said that the new "law" does not require them to assist in providing any information whatsoever about what pharmacies have Ivermectin. I also called a CVS and...you guessed it...the pharmacist there might just as well have told me to go pound sand. Is there anyone here that's had any success at all...

Russia was "ill prepared" for the economic response to the invasion. Western countries have slapped crippling economic sanctions on Russia, and in November, Russia's economy entered a recession. Putin planned for a quick war, but "Russian guns have now been firing for almost 300 days" and "the cupboard is bare," Radakin went on to say, echoing US officials who have pointed out that Russia is running through its munitions faster than it can replenish them. Russia has lost much of the territory it managed to occupy in the early days of the invasion. A Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in recent...

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Wednesday on FNC’s “Hannity,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) commented on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) visit to the southern border, which he said was a sign Newsom was considering a 2024 presidential run. Graham noted Newsom’s remarks, which he said showed a “pivot” from the Democratic Party’s position on border security. “Newsom going to the border tells me he’s serious about running,” Graham said. “He’s doing the one thing a Democrat has to do if they want to be viable in 2024. Admit the obvious. The border is broken. I understand it’s broken, and I intend to fix it.

Samuel Johnson’s “Dictionary of the English Language,” first published in 1755, defines the word “woman” as, “The female of the human race.” And until October of 2022, the word “woman” was still defined as, “An adult female human being” in the Cambridge Dictionary. What transpired on the topic during the intervening 267 years? Not much. Science confirmed what men and women have known since Adam and Eve began talking past each other — not only do the sexes have immutable physiological differences, down to their genetic matter, but they observe, act, and think differently as well. Yet Cambridge now says...

Musk said he is taking legal action against the man who ran an account tracking his flights. Twitter CEO Elon Musk changed the social media platform's rules on live location tracking after what he described as a "crazy stalker" followed a car carrying his child and "climbed" onto the vehicle. In making the change, Musk also said Wednesday that "legal action is being taken" against Jack Sweeney, the man behind the account using publicly available data to track the location of the Tesla CEO's private jet, following the attack on his 2-year-old child, X Æ A-Xii Musk. As Twitter's new...

Somehow we got to the point where we're expected to just nod politely when freaks, strangeos, and perverts turn up in positions of great responsibility. Well, that needs to change. Whether it's some "non-binary" bondage mutant who oversees America's nuclear waste betwixt bouts of luggage larceny or an Army colonel who – and yeah, this happened – masks up as a leather sex puppy in uniform on social media and who, along with junior officers, also dressed as carnal canines, forms what I guess would be an erotic litter. And then there's the everyday parade of creepy groomer oddities teaching...

Illegal immigrants who have been processed and released by Border Patrol onto the streets of one of the United States' largest border towns say they believe the southern border is open, contrary to what Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has insisted when pressed about the crisis. "For us Nicaraguans in the United States, thankfully it is open," Alexandra Malencotold Townhall. "It is open. It is an opportunity for many migrants and people. We want a better quality of life." "It was open when I crossed on Sunday. I don't know if it is right now, but they were receiving migrants...