Free Republic

An activist and political candidate warned a California state committee on reparations for slavery this week that there will be a “serious backlash” unless the state agrees to pay $800,000 to every eligible recipient. Deon D. Jenkins, a self-described “grassroots hip hop organizer for reparations,” testified at a hearing in Oakland (via the UK Daily Mail) that $800,000 was the appropriate amount, given the average home price in the state. He then warned that unless the panel complied with his recommendations, there would be repercussions. Brother deon moving the needle @DeonDJenkins #reparationsnow #Reparations #california #PBS pic.twitter.com/h6XbLwkf9U — POOKIE (@CousinPookieFBP) December...

The orders were simple: Run out onto the road, glue yourself to the tarmac and stop drivers from getting through. But for two climate activists in Germany, that plan didn't work out quite as they'd hoped because sub-zero temperatures stopped the glue from working properly in an embarrassing lack of foresight. The 'Last Generation' activists, who were protesting against global warming, desperately poured a bucket of glue over each other before sitting stone-faced in the middle of the road in Munich this morning. But the freezing temperature scuppered their plans and instead of being stuck to the road, the pair...

THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT John 5:33-36 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says that his Father’s works testify to his identity. Jesus’ words are the Father’s words, and his deeds are the Father’s deeds. His story is the Father’s story.Nature speaks of God, the philosophers say true things about God, the arts can reflect him, the lives of the saints can indicate him—but Jesus is the Icon.We sense in this passage, if I can put it this way, the humility of the Logos. Neither the words nor the deeds of Jesus are “his own.” They are received from the Father. The...

Siouxsie Sioux, formerly the frontwoman of Siouxsie and the Banshees, has today been announced as a headliner for Latitude festival, putting a welcomed end to her ten-year hiatus. Latitude festival, scheduled to take place on the grounds of Henham Park, Suffolk, on July 20th-23rd, 2023, welcomes the goddess of British punk to the bill to join fellow headline acts Pulp, Paolo Nutini and George Ezra. Siouxsie will headline the BBC Sounds Stage on Sunday night to close out the weekend. Latitude Festival Director Melvin Benn commented: “What a privilege it is to welcome the iconic Siouxsie to the Latitude Festival....

President Biden claimed Friday that his uncle Frank Biden won the Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II — but there’s no evidence of the award and key details of the story are chronologically impossible. The 80-year-old commander-in-chief has a habit of sharing false or embellished personal anecdotes to build a connection with his audiences and told his latest apparent tall tale during largely unscripted remarks to veterans in Delaware. “My dad, when I got elected vice president [in 2008], he said, ‘Joey, Uncle Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge.’...

The Oregonian Editorial Board gave a big update to their Clean Slate program this month. Some of their goals are to (1) cease posting most criminal mug shots (2) stop reporting on minor crimes and (3) removing old crime stories as a way to help criminals restart their lives. On stopping reporting on current minor crime stories, The Oregonian said… “…we decided that the lasting effect of publicity for relatively minor scrapes with the law can create an unfair and outsized burden on someone trying to find a job or apartment. Our decision was guided by several factors: Unlike in...

Scientists’ Novel Method Targeting Bloodstream Counteracted Fentanyl and MethamphetamineIn an effort to identify a universal treatment for drug overdose, a team of University of Maryland scientists has created a new chemical compound that could be a promising antidote for methamphetamine and fentanyl. While opioids like fentanyl have a reversal agent in naloxone, marketed as the nasal spray Narcan, its effectiveness is limited and it is not an antidote for nonopioid drugs of abuse—like methamphetamine, PCP, mephedrone, ecstasy (MDMA) and cocaine, said Lyle Isaacs, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UMD, lead author of the study published...

I don’t ever want to hear another politician offer “thoughts and prayers” after a mass shooting. I don’t ever again want to look into the eyes of parents of dead first- and second graders, as I did in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. I don’t ever want to attend another funeral for a slain student, which I did all too frequently as CEO of CPS. Illinois has a chance to join seven other states and Washington, D.C., in banning military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that are the weapon of choice for mass shooters like the one who killed seven people...

VIDEOThe former Chief Minister of Australia's Northern Territory, Michael Gunner, has resigned from government forever. No wonder. He was best known to the world when he made a laughingstock of himself when he went Full Mental Jacket over enforcing authoritarian vaccine mandates.Good riddance, Gunner! Your mental meltdowns will live on for all eternity on the Web as your final legacy.

Brandon Wheeler has grown pot professionally for 20 years. His parents grew pot before him, and so did his grandparents. Despite these deep roots in the industry, he still felt a weight lift when he pulled his last pot plants out of the ground this July and shut down his legal weed farm in Mendocino County. He was happy to be leaving the family business. “It was sad and depressing, but it was also a relief because [running a pot farm] just had taken a serious toll on my mental and physical health, and the same with my family,” Wheeler...

Mary’s relationship with Joseph was briefly complicated by her blessing. May I not abandon my blessings due to worldly considerations. When we think of the Holy Family, we think of the perfect family. We see God Himself in the form of a child. We see the mother of Jesus who accepted her role in perfect faithfulness to God at the word of the angel. We see Joseph who stepped up to be their protector and provider. We pray our families can be as perfect and holy as this one. It’s easy to forget that the situation wasn’t without controversy.When his...

Gloria Estefan is opening up about why she didn't want her daughter, Emily Estefan, 27, to come out as a lesbian to her mom, Emily’s grandmother Gloria Fajardo, before Fajardo's death in 2017. "In the Latin community, a lot of these subjects aren't touched, they're taboo," Estefan, 65, said in a sit-down interview with CNN's Chris Wallace. "People see, but they don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to see it." "I have all these people that have loved me through the years and supported, and I want them to realize that we’re all just families trying to...

At dinner time on December 2 , I received a text from Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, founder of SpaceX, founder of the Boring Company, founder of Neuralink, on most days the richest man in the world (possibly history), and, as of October, the owner of Twitter. Was I interested in looking at Twitter’s archives, he asked. And how soon could I get to Twitter HQ? snip In the days that followed, we—the journalist Matt Taibbi; investigative reporters connected to The Free Press, including Abigail Shrier, Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse; plus Free Press reporters Suzy Weiss, Peter Savodnik, Olivia...

Illinois’ five statewide pensions system saw their debt increase by nearly $10 billion to a grand total of $140 billion in fiscal year 2022. Pensions will cost the state nearly $11 billion next year, but that’s still $4.4 billion too little. Illinois’ state pension debt now stands at $139.7 billion, according to a new report from the Illinois General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. That is up $9.8 billion from 2021, when state pensions were benefitting from healthy investment returns. After markets cooled substantially, state pension debt in the fiscal year that ended July 1 continued to grow,...

More than 100 firefighters were called to the scene at the Radisson Blu complex in the German capital's Mitte district. The 16-meter aquarium houses 1,500 tropical fish. Two people have so far been reported injured.At around 5:45 a.m. local time (0445 GMT) there was a very loud noise and parts of the facade of the hotel where the aquarium was located flew onto the street, a police spokesman was reported as saying in local media outlet RBB. Berlin's traffic agency VIZ said an extremely large volume of water had spilled over onto the street outside while Berlin police said "massive...

The lobbying campaign spanned months and culminated with a private meeting between CDC officials and three advocates last summer, a collection of emails obtained by The Reload show. Introductions from the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s (D., Ill.) office helped the advocates reach top officials at the agency after their initial attempt to reach out went unanswered. The advocates focused their complaints on the CDC’s description of its review of studies that estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States–attacking criminologist Gary Kleck’s work establishing the top end of...

A gang of armed robbers descended upon a gold shop in the northern Thai province of Tak, only to realise that they'd messed with the wrong target. The incident happened at about 12.55pm last Thursday (Dec 8), reported local media. CCTV footage from within the shop showed the four men arriving on motorbikes and proceeding to shoot at the shop's glass doors. After getting in, one of them began cutting through the steel bars to get to the jewellery. That was when shop owner Phisit Raphitphan took action. The 41-year-old owner of the gold shop was heard firing a gunshot...

A video of a rat dragging a slice of pizza down a flight of subway stairs nearly broke the internet when Matt Little posted the 14-second clip to YouTube in 2015. Seven years later and the viral video has more than 12 million views and still resonates for some who see it as a metaphor for gritty New Yorkers. Little, 41, shared how the rodent became a viral celebrity — and a moneymaker — in an interview with Insider. It all started around 1 a.m. when Little told the outlet he was walking to catch a Brooklyn-bound L train after...

Young people are discovering that “digital footprints” are real — and a real problem for our most-online generation. A TikTok user has gone viral after sharing their social media nightmare, claiming they missed out on a job because of something their potential colleagues had seen them post online. “Me realizing the digital footprint is real because when called for a job interview they loved me but when they did a background check they said they didn’t want to hire me anymore,” the TikTok user, @shoomew, wrote in text over a recent video — with more than 4.1 million views since...

There can be only one reason to promote or retweet real-time location information about a person or their family: You hope something bad happens to them. You hope someone acts on it. In this case, these reporters were amplifying a Twitter account that was posting location data about Musk’s private jet, and doing so on the heels of a disturbing incident in Los Angeles involving a stalker targeting a car that was carrying Musk’s toddler son. In other words, the media elite who for years absurdly claimed that “speech is violence” actually engaged in the promotion of violence and got...