Free Republic

My parents were both physicists, specializing in astronomy. My mother went to MIT and Harvard, my father Harvard.Neither came from a privileged background. My mother (RIP) grew up the child of a single mother and had a deadbeat dad whom I never met. She hailed from Henryetta, OK, a town that even then was dying.My father came from a lower-middle class family. He is ethnically Jewish, and was enrolled at Harvard despite quotas that at the time limited the number of Jews who could be admitted (the same is done to Asians today).They retired as privileged, well-regarded scientists, financially secure....

Eleven months after a catastrophic collapse into a Frick Park ravine, a new Fern Hollow Bridge was celebrated Wednesday as a model of unprecedented intergovernmental cooperation and an engineering marvel, completed in the fraction of the time needed for similar projects. Final railing installation work continued as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and other elected officials gathered in the cold sunshine for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at the four-lane Forbes Avenue span, which links Regent Square and surrounding neighborhoods to Squirrel Hill. The bridge could be open for traffic as early as Thursday, but the completion date PennDOT...

Chinese chemical companies are playing a major role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis as the main producers of ingredients needed to make the drug.Strained relations between Beijing and Washington are undermining efforts to stop the flow of those chemical building blocks, and thus impeding the struggle against illicit fentanyl. …A few years ago, a joint effort to limit the flow of illicit fentanyl was a successful point of collaboration in a tense U.S.-China relationship. In 2018, China restricted the production and sale of two of the most common ingredients for the drug, a move that won it praise from the...

In the vicious circle that discussing “trans” anything has become, the one group that faces the vilest and most hateful attacks are the people who have actually transitioned and spoken publicly about reversing that decision. Tweet Oli London @OliLondonTV Trans Community always preaches about how Visibility and Acceptance Saves Lives. Ok, so how come they deny the existence and visibility of DETRANSITIONERS? So many are driven to the edge because their existence is denied and they lack any support. #Hypocrites As soon as a detransitioner “comes out” in public, whether to highlight their own story or in opposition to proposed...

A large contingent of Republican senators completed their betrayal of Republicans and of the American people on Thursday afternoon, voting to pass a massive $1.7 trillion omnibus package.The bill had been widely maligned, partially because it contained nothing to help secure the US border while providing another $45 billion in aid to Ukraine. It also included provisions funding LGBT “pride centers” and numerous other boondoggles the government has no business being involved in.Despite the outcry, though, Republicans in the US Senate soldiered forward to stab their voters in the back, and now, we have their names.BREAKING: Here are the 18...

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Governor Ron DeSantis can impanel a grand jury to investigate COVID vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna for potential misconduct. At issue: do the mRNA jabs cause heart issues and were the manufacturers aware of the problem?The court wrote:A statewide grand jury shall be promptly impaneled for a term of twelve calendar months, to run from the date of impanelment, with jurisdiction throughout the State of Florida, to investigate crime, return indictments, make presentments, and otherwise perform all functions of a grand jury with regard to the offenses stated herein.As we reported, DeSantis...

During day 2 of the Kari Lake election trial in Phoenix, Arizona, Maricopa County attorney Tom Liddy argued that it was “political malpractice” for a campaign to tell voters to vote in person on election day instead of voting early, and that “you reap what you sow,” meaning that Lake’s campaign lost because of strategy, not because of a printer malfunction error that rendered the ballots incapable of being machine read, long lines that led to voters being unable to vote, or other malignantly incompetent actions on behalf of Maricopa County officials.Now, playing devil’s advocate, it may well be that...

In Arizona the two-day trial in Republican Kari Lake's challenge to the 2020 Election has ended... Tomorrow Republican candidate for Attorney General Abe Hamadeh gets a one-day trial in Mohave County, Arizona over the extremely close election result that favored Democrat Kris Mayes by 511 votes... In the Netherlands a proposed law will give its Supreme Court authority to ban a political party if... Sam Bankman-Fried released on 250 million dollars bail... An official with Germany's foreign intelligence agency arrested. He is suspected of treason for passing secret information to Russia... In the UK a strike by staff of the...

Attorney Thomas Liddy gave the closing remarks for the county today after two days of evidence provided by Kari Lake’s team that showed that the 2022 Election in Maricopa County was as messed up as 2020 Presidential election there. Liddy is the son of G. Gordon Liddy, one of the main characters in Watergate. Liddy’s remarks were something other than poetic. They made as much sense as their arguments against the evidence from Lake’s legal team that showed the election in Maricopa County never should have been certified with hundreds of thousands of ballots with no chain of custody records...

It turns out Meta isn’t the only one cancelling datacenters this month. Google has reportedly walked away from a $600 million bitbarn project under development in Becker, Minnesota. "We are proud to be part of the Minnesota community and remain committed to growing the industry and jobs in the state," a Google spokesperson told The Register. "While this project isn't progressing right now, that doesn't rule out engagement on projects in the future." The facility, first announced in 2019, was effectively ended after Google partner Honeycrisp Power failed to file the necessary paperwork for Xcel Energy to provide the power...

Ukrainian President Zelensky's speech to the U.S. shows us exactly how much propaganda is needed to drag this war out. When he said that the war would continue until the bitter end, he received a standing ovation. This means that his people will continue to die. They were applauding death. The mainstream media thinks that this was a speech to show the kids. Was it? You decide. TranscriptClayton Morris on the Biden regime, EU and NATO propaganda about the war in Ukraine:"We are watching the greatest example of propaganda in world history. I'm a student of history and going back...

Thom Bell, the Jamaican-born producer, arranger, songwriter, and pillar of ’70s Philadelphia soul, has died. The news was confirmed by Philadelphia radio station WDAS-FM. Bell was best known for his work in the “Mighty Three” with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff; together, the trio created what became known as the “Sound Of Philadelphia.” He was 79. Born in Jamaica in 1941, Bell moved to Philadelphia as a child. He studied classical music, and as a teen sang with Gamble, Huff, and Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates. His first major break in soul music was with Cameo Records, where he...

HALLS, Tenn. (WVLT/Gray News) - Tennessee authorities say a store employee has died in a robbery Thursday morning. According to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a Rural King retail store regarding a shooting at about 10:30 a.m. Authorities said the shooting occurred after a man was attempting to take ammunition and other items from the store when an employee intervened. WVLT reports the alleged shoplifter and employee got into a struggle with the suspect shooting and killing the worker. Authorities said the suspected shooter took off from the scene after the shooting. The sheriff’s office did not...

Conservatives and free speech activists on Twitter railed against a recent video depicting police interrogating and ultimately arresting a pro-life woman who was silently praying outside a U.K. abortion clinic.Those who watched the woman's arrest after admitting she was "praying in my head" were appalled. Some claimed this was proof that Great Britain had become a dystopia.The woman who was arrested, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, is the director of the U.K. March for Life.According to Alliance Defending Freedom UK (ADF UK), Vaughan-Spruce "was standing near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham in an area ADF UK called a 'censorship zone,'...

We can quibble over the word “banned”: the Los Angeles Times even says that the controversy over “Gender Queer” has increased the size of the author’s royalty checks, so for a banned book, it’s selling really well. Then again, there are those who call it a “ban” when a school removes it from the middle school library for not being age-appropriate. Teachers are still going to put it on their summer reading lists, though. So how did Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel become America’s most banned book? It’s not too difficult to figure out — it includes graphic illustrations of oral...

Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahar: The “Army of Jerusalem” Will Not Liberate Palestinian Land Only; the 512 Million Square Kilometers of Planet Earth Will Come Under a System with No Zionism, No Treacherous Christianity #Hamas #Palestinians.

Only a few weeks ago COVID-19 positive Chinese teacher Yang Zengdong and her husband would probably have ended up in a makeshift quarantine centre with patchy heating, sparse bedding and overwhelmed toilets, but today they are isolating at home. Living in a post "zero-COVID" China, despite the anxiety about being infected and rapidly rising cases, hasn't been too bad, says Yang. "I wasn't too worried (when we tested positive), I was quite well prepared with food and medicine," she said.

The deal follows years of protests, lawsuits and a celebrity-fueled boycott. Employees had alleged systemic discrimination, misconduct and neglect. Now hotelier André Balazs has signed off on a pact that the union says "sets a new standard for boutique hotels."It’s over. Four months after unionizing — and three years since a nascent organizing drive quietly began before the pandemic hit — workers at the Chateau Marmont have ratified their first contract following negotiations with owner André Balazs. UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents more than 32,000 hospitality employees, now including those at the legendary Sunset Strip lodging, said the agreement...

FRANKFORT — For weeks, Aaron Fossnock had been texting with Julie, a 15-year-old girl he met on a dating app. Fossnock sent graphic photos of himself and asked for some in return, but Julie never obliged. Now, the two had plans to meet in the movie section at the Frankfort Walmart. The 35-year-old texted her shortly before and asked Julie to dress a little older for the occasion. When the time arrived, Fossnock was there as promised, his 10-month-old twins tucked inside baby seats sitting in his shopping cart. But Julie never showed up. Christopher Abercrombie did. Armed with his...

Very interesting one hour in depth discussion for those with good critical thinking skills.