Free Republic

It’s poised to be a long two years for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fresh off a nearly 20-point re-election win, and not yet having even announced his intention to run for president in 2024, DeSantis has become media enemy No. 1. Take the case of Rebekah Jones, a pretend whistleblower who alleged with zero evidence that Florida was hiding its true COVID death rate. This week, in a deal with prosecutors, she admitted illegally accessing a state computer. She’d been a media darling because of her attacks on DeSantis. On her website, Jones helpfully compiled a list of credulous media...

The survey found Trump leading in terms of favorability in the poll’s list of politicians, which includes President Joe Biden, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Hillary Clinton, and more. Overall, 44 percent view Trump favorably, compared to 49 percent who view him unfavorably. While that gives him a net negative favorably gap of -5, he still tops the list in terms of favorability percentage. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Biden tied for second place, as each garnered 43 percent approval. Notably, however, Biden’s favorability deficit is greater than Trump’s, as 50 percent view Biden unfavorably, giving him a net negative gap...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)“John was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s.” John 5:35–36It’s true that when we have something good, something we enjoy, something we are grateful for, we easily rejoice in that good thing. But when the good thing we have is replaced by something even better, we move on from the old and cling to the new. On a supernatural level, this is what happened as people moved from being followers of Saint John the Baptist to followers of...

@JackPosobiec BREAKING: @ElonMusk just hopped on Spaces with a group of journalists and informed them the same doxxing rules apply to them and they aren’t special Audio... [1 min]

NATIONAL CHOCOLATE-COVERED ANYTHING DAY Chocolate lovers rejoice on National Chocolate Covered Anything Day! December 16th offers the chocolate day you’ve been waiting for. On this day, dip and drizzle your favorite foods in every kind of chocolate imaginable. #ChocolateCoveredAnythingDay If you could cover anything in chocolate, what would it be? So many foods improve when we dip them in chocolate. Many businesses build their foundation on the practice of dipping food into chocolate. Whether you pick up a chocolate fountain or order a bouquet of a beautiful arrangement of chocolate-dipped fruit, celebrate! But fruit isn’t the only food meant for...

Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A British Columbia animal shelter announced an unusual "new guest" at its facility -- an albino porcupine. The Northern Lights Animal Sanctuary said in a social media post that the porcupine, dubbed Coconut, was found chewing through hydraulic hoses and electric cables on a Smithers resident's property. The sanctuary said the porcupine is an albino, meaning its body and eyes are completely devoid of pigment. They said the condition is very rare in porcupines. The post said the "new guest" will receive "room service" at the sanctuary for a few months. Sanctuary officials said Coconut will...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Trump's cards sold out in 12 hours 45,000 at $99 each = $4,500,000

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Belarus on Monday for talks with his counterpart and ally Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus leader’s office said. The Belarus presidency said Friday the pair will hold discussions at the Independence Palace, Lukashenko’s office, in Minsk during Putin’s “working visit”. -snip- Minsk said the pair will hold one-on-one talks as well as wider negotiations with their ministers on “Belarusian-Russian integration”.

A 10-year-old boy accused of shooting his mom dead because she refused to buy him a $500 VR headset has asked for his bond to be lowered from $50,000 to $100. Prosecutors said Quiana Mann, 44, was shot in the face by her son, who went on to use her credit card to purchase an Oculus VR headset before telling his grandma he was 'sorry' for killing his mother and asking where his package was. The boy's attorney, Angela Cunningham, argued in court on Wednesday that his bail should be lowered to only $100, the amount he has in his...

A pilot ejected from a Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II fighter jet Thursday morning at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, during a botched landing. “We are aware of the F-35B crash on the shared runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth,” a Lockheed spokesman said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Safety is our priority, and we will follow appropriate investigation protocol.” VIDEO AT LINK............... The video of the incident shows the F-35B hovering, then touching down, then elevating again, and tipping forward. Its wheels seem to collapse underneath the...

Joe Biden made a big deal about inflation falling this week, to 7.1%, down from a 9.1% high last June, and lower than last month's 7.7%.That was the slowest pace in nearly a year and better than analysts expected....wrote the BBC, echoing much of what's been parlayed in the press.Biden found that something to crow about, according to the New York Post:“In a world where inflation is rising at double digits in many major economies around the world, inflation is coming down in America,” Biden said at the White House, referring primarily to European inflation, which slightly outpaces US rates...

BERLIN (AP) — Coal use across the world is set to reach a new record this year amid persistently high demand for the heavily polluting fossil fuel, the International Energy Agency said Friday. The Paris-based agency said in a new report that while coal use grew by only 1.2% in 2022, the increase pushed it to all all-time high of more than 8 billion metric tons, beating the previous record set in 2013. “The world’s coal consumption will remain at similar levels in the following years in the absence of stronger efforts to accelerate the transition to clean energy,” the...

Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor at the center of several sexual abuse allegations in a conservative Anglican denomination, was found guilty of five counts of felony child sexual abuse and assault on Thursday morning. Judge John Barsanti of Illinois’ 16th Judicial Circuit Court in Kane County found Rivera guilty of two counts of predatory sexual assault of a victim under 13 years old (a Class X felony) and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 (a Class 2 felony). The defense has 30 days to file a motion to request a new trial, and...

The Biden administration faces a difficult decision early next year — whether to block the National Archives from releasing hundreds of Obama-era documents related to first son Hunter Biden and his relationship with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while Joe Biden was vice president. The White House has been mum about whether it will invoke executive privilege to stop papers from becoming public Feb. 28, 2023, Insider reports. The records include 69 images and 260 email messages that mention Burisma and date back to 2014, when Hunter, now 52, had a lucrative seat on the company’s board — a shady...

Last week, Congress passed the "Respect for Marriage" Act. As usual, the name the proponents (or, sometimes, opponents) invent for the bill does not accurately represent its purpose. You may remember that the "For the People" Act was a lot less useful to the people than it was to the Democrat party. The "Inflation Reduction Act" did nothing to reduce inflation. And the "Don't Say Gay" bill did not ban the word "gay.""Respect for Marriage" Act purportedly "legalizes" same-sex "marriage." Because the Supreme Court already ruled on this matter, the law does not expand legal protection for same-sex couples in...

Musk vs. FauciWell, maybe you had the seeming transhumanist Big Tech Czar going after Emperor Fauci on your 2022 bingo card, but I sure didn’t. Yet, as Pope Francis loves to say, we do have a “God of surprises,” and I think Elon Musk looking like a veritable white knight against one of the greatest criminals in American history is a surprise, to say the least. If you weren’t aware, Musk went after Fauci—and gender pronouns, I might add—with a tweet from a few days back, stating: “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” Now, if there is ever a Twitter Hall of...

European natural gas inventories fell by -163 BCF over past week. EU nat gas storage 86% full. Current inventories at 3304 BCF.

Harsh words were exchanged in the German parliament amid calls from various leftist politicians to ban the country’s most successful populist party. Leftists in Germany are now openly calling for the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party to be outright banned over alleged links to the so-called “Reichsbürger” movement in the country which questions the legitimacy of the current German state. Many legacy politicians and activists have been especially keen to link those in the party to the movement amid claims that the country’s police recently unearthed an attempt by a number of Reichsbürger adherents to violently overthrow the country’s...

Four Republican senators joined Democrats in shooting down an amendment to a massive defense authorization package that would have reinstated troops discharged for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed the Senate 83-11 Thursday night, and along with it a provision overturning the Biden administration’s service-wide vaccine requirement. Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mike Rounds of South Dakota voted no on a last-minute amendment to the bill re-enlisting thousands of troops separated for refusing the vaccine mandate, collapsing the proposal 54 to 40....