Free Republic

(The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.)My colleague Bonchie wrote Thursday evening about the suspension of journalist Aaron Rupar’s Twitter account, and already more suspensions have been handed down as the night progresses. Locked out of their accounts: bombastic critic-of-everything Keith Olbermann, New York Times technology reporter Ryan Mac, CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan, and Mashable writer Matt Binder. Independent journalist Tony Webster’s account was also suspended as of Thursday evening, as was Intercept reporter Micah Lee’s.Keith Rn 🤣 pic.twitter.com/fmx0MUGUWF— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) December 16, 2022Olbermann’s toxic personality cost him his gig...

A Swedish zoo said Thursday it had to shoot dead three chimpanzees after they escaped from their enclosure, with the situation still not under control. A fourth primate was injured by gunshot, according to the company that runs the Furuvik Zoo around 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Stockholm. "A chimpanzee is considered a high-risk animal. If this kind of animal gets out into the zoo, it can pose a threat to people's lives", Annika Troselius, a spokeswoman for Parks and Resorts, told AFP. Five of the zoo's seven chimps managed to escape from their enclosure on Wednesday shortly after...

"Today I'm announcing my plan to shatter the left-wing censorship regime and to reclaim the right to free speech for all Americans" President Donald Trump Speaking Today 12/15/2022 President Trump proposing actions to preserve free speech in the US and go after collusion between the federal government and tech companies to censor speech online. In the short-term Trump asking Republicans in the US House to get involved parties to preserve their records that might show such collusion. Trump said that: "a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, Left-Wing activists and Depraved Corporate news media have been conspiring...

@elonmusk Replying to @micsolana Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else @elonmusk They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service

The recently revealed censorship that has plagued Twitter in recent years is “criminal,” according to former White House COVID adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, as it allowed “lies to be imposed on the public” during a pandemic that wrought untold damage worldwide. “When correct science policy is blocked, people die, and people died from the censorship,” Atlas, a special coronavirus adviser during the Trump administration and contributor to The Epoch Times, said in an interview. Atlas was speaking days after Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, released troves of internal files showing how the previous Twitter team built a blacklist...

Twitter appeared to suspend the accounts of at least half a dozen journalists late Thursday — including some who had been critical of Elon Musk and his $44 billion dollar takeover of the social media platform. A number of accounts suspended belonged to journalists who had recently covered the dispute between Musk, 51, and a Twitter account operated by a Florida college freshman that monitors the tech mogul’s private jet flights. It wasn’t immediately clear why the accounts were taken down. Twitter didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. New York Times reporter Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia will try to take Kyiv Again in February 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or3GqlYn-Z8&list=RDCMUCpr-NNORb2UQYDD3k-w-OFg&start_radio=1 Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ SUMMARY & MAPS Military Maps & Comment here: Invasion Day 294 – Summary December 14, 2022 [8 Fronts] The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 14th December 2022 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). Briefly: Situation remains difficult in the area of Bakhmut as Russian troops managed to enter first buildings on the eastern outskirts. Ukrainian forces, despite the recent reinforcements, are unable to stop the endless waves of...

[Redacted for Free Republic] Unbelievable.8:07 PM · Nov 22, 2022The article is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9629406/

An array of Jewish groups, including the activist arm of the Reform movement, has attacked the likely incoming Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, for pledging to remove Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee over past comments he has called antisemitic. The tone of the statement released Monday was unusually combative for Jewish nonprofits, insinuating that McCarthy came closer to expressing antisemitism than Omar did. . . . “As Jewish American organizations, we oppose House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge to strip Representative Ilhan Omar of her House Foreign Affairs Committee seat based on false accusations that...

...recent headlines that have warned about “Holiday heart syndrome” and twisting such headlines to serve their anti-vaccination agendas. Some social media accounts have claimed that this long-established medical condition is instead actually a cover for Covid-19 vaccine-related deaths. For example, an Instagram post from an account named @iheartmindy asserted that “Now they’re blaming people dropping dead on the happy holidays because of course.” Umm, of course? Of course, what? The post went on to say, “They’re totally not just making [expletive] up to cover up for the fact they just tricked people into taking an experimental clot shot that weakened...

A reader who calls himself BillyBob left a comment after my recent op-ed in The American Spectator on the Never Trumpers’ attack on the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia, Herschel Walker.Here is what BillyBob wrote:Liz [Cheney] is actually a true conservative. Trump has no value structure or political spine- all he cares about is “what more can I get for me”. Anyone who believes Trump is conservative is just daft. Kinda’ like Trump.What utter nonsense! Whatever one thinks about President Donald J. Trump’s one-of-a-kind personality, his policies were the most conservative reforms that America has seen since President Ronald...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) declared that Republicans have “emasculated” themselves by agreeing to a major spending deal and complained Republicans aren’t fiscally conservative. On Tuesday night, leading congressional Democrats and Republicans agreed on a framework to fund the government through most of 2023. The House is expected to vote on the measure Wednesday night. Meanwhile, the Senate could take up the measure as early as Thursday. Some Republicans have called on their leadership to wait until the next Congress convenes, when the GOP will control the House. Paul stated he is staunchly opposed to whatever deal emerges. Instead of one...

In Rivera v. Diocese of Venice in Florida, Inc., (SD FL., Dec. 12, 2022), a Florida federal district court dismissed under the ministerial exception doctrine a suit by the former principal of a Catholic elementary/ middle school who alleged that a racially motivated hostile work environment led him to resign his position. Plaintiff, who is black, was repeatedly the subject of racial harassment by the priest of the school's parish. The court said in part: The principal question presented is whether the ministerial exception categorically bars hostile work environment claims under Title VII and FCRA. As further explored below, this...

In the next few months, the Church of England's long-running debate on marriage for same-sex couples may come to a head.LONDON (RNS) — It’s a headline that could have run at any time in the past three decades: The Archbishop of Canterbury, the primate of the Church of England and the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, attempts to balance conservative and progressive views on LGBTQ affirmation in the name of church unity. For years, archbishops have sublimated their own views, knowing that challenging traditional teaching would threaten the church’s and the Communion’s existence. Not challenging it, however, has...

If you think that the way the world is today, is the way it's going to be five, ten, or fifteen years into the future, you have another thing coming. For the skeptics out there who might think this is nothing by hyperbole, ask yourself this one question: does the government have more or less control over your lives than it did five, ten, or fifteen years ago? It doesn't take a bible prophecy expert to notice that the world, at least since these three key dates (Sep. 11, 2001-Patriot Act, Oct. 3, 2008 [Emergency Economic Stabilization Act [EESA]...i.e., TARP...

Moscow, December 15, Interfax - As United States President Joe Biden has signed legislation legalizing same-sex marriages at the federal level, this would make lives of "conventional families" harder and would lead to the nation's degeneration, Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said. "The way chosen by Washington will definitely cause great problems in American society and lead to the nation's degeneration," Volodin wrote on Telegram on Thursday. The legislation signed by Biden does away with the definition of a marriage as a union between a man and a woman in the U.S., he said. "Conventional families would have hard...

There are a few pop stars whose work I can’t help liking in spite of myself – their song-writing, that is. I’d be happy never to see the faces or hear the voices of Mick Hucknall or Chris Martin again, but the moment ‘Stars’ or ‘Trouble’ starts, I’m mesmerised – only to wonder crossly the minute the song ends: ‘Why couldn’t they have given it to someone with a decent voice?’ Think about it: dancers have choreographers and actors have scriptwriters, so why should we assume songwriters can sing? Bono’s another. I love some of his songs (‘One’, as performed...

Lawsuits, criminal investigations, new scandals: what is going on with Libero Milone and the Vatican?The Holy See’s former auditors remain locked in legal disputes with Vatican court officials in their attempt to bring a lawsuit against the Secretariat of State for wrongful dismissal. The lawsuit, and linked criminal investigation into the former auditors, has the potential to develop into a full-blown parallel legal process alongside the ongoing financial crimes trial in Vatican City — and could potentially bring dramatic new allegations of corruption to light, or derail the so-called “trial of the century” entirely. So as the end of the...

The Senate on Thursday passed the annual defense authorization bill, sending the $858 billion measure to President Biden’s desk for signature just before the year-end deadline. The measure, formally known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, 83-11. It provides $45 billion more for defense than called for in Biden’s budget, including allocating $817 billion to the Department of Defense and $30 billion to the Department of Energy. Thursday’s vote caps weeks of wrangling over floor timing and controversial policy changes, such as language demanded by conservative Republicans to end the military’s COVID-19 vaccine...

A new unclassified report (pdf) released by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee alleges that COVID-19 “may have been tied” to China’s biological weapons research program. Released on Dec. 14 by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and other Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the minority report states that “there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China’s biological weapons research program and spilled over to the human population during a lab-related incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).” “The Committee has not seen any indications that the Chinese military intentionally released SARS-CoV-2,”...