Free Republic

A soldier with broken time as a result of his love of bourbon whiskey could soon become the third man to hold the rank of General of the Armies. The proposed fiscal 2023 James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act would let President Joe Biden posthumously promote Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who retired with the rank of General of the Army, to General of the Armies -- a rank only held by Gen. George Washington, posthumously, and Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing of World War I fame. Grant became the country's first four-star general in 1866. For the past year,...

Today's Christmas Sermon - God became a Baby for Us... 12 min. YouTube Video Link below:GOD BECAME A BABYCHRISTMAS DAY MASS GOSPELJohn 1:1-18 Friends, our Gospel for Christmas day is the Prologue to the Gospel of John. In many ways, it is the entire Gospel, indeed the entire Bible, in miniature.Let’s turn to the central passage: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The word used in Greek here for “dwell” is Eskenosen, which means literally, “pitched his tent among us.” Don’t read that in a folksy way. It is meant to call to mind the...

This is all part of the left’s deliberate effort to downgrade beauty and hope in the world. Thanks to Libs of Tik Tok, we can all get glimpses of what passes for entertainment in the world of drag queens: strutting, writhing, and coyly obscene chit-chat as they crudely mock actual women. None of the performers whom Libs of TikTok highlights as they make exhibitionistic displays at schools, libraries, or “family friendly” events has any discernable talent—and that’s actually important. A significant part of leftism is to destroy aspirational beauty and is about getting us used to the brutalist ugliness of...

The FBI appears to be signaling via its trusted telegrapher The Washington Post that it is blaming others for its unprecedented raid on Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in August. It sure sounds like damage control by the FBI especially since its image has sunk to a new low in the wake of its attempt to control the news to protect the Biden campaign, as revealed in the Twitter Files. The six-byline article on Wednesday -- by Devlin Barrett, Jacqueline Alemany, Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, Anne E. Marimow, and Carol D. Leonnig -- suggests gee, the FBI was really reluctant...

Thomas Lifson and other observers have noticed the strange kid-glove treatment that accused crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried has been getting since his arrest in the Bahamas after reportedly misappropriating and losing billions in customer funds. It was natural to note the huge campaign funding Bankman-Fried delivered, particularly to Democrats, at least $40 million, making him their second-largest donor.But now another shoe seems to be dropping, based on this report from Bonchie at Red State here:Sam Bankman-Fried, the man at the center of the FTX scandal, is back on US soil after having been extradited from the Bahamas to face federal charges....

video at link. Packers-Dolphins game

The best thing we can say about 2022 is: It could have been worse. For example, we could have had nuclear Armageddon. This briefly appeared to be a possibility, at least according to the president, who broke the news in October at (Why not?) a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of a wealthy donor in New York City. That must have been an exciting event! One moment everybody’s standing around chewing hors d’ oeuvres, and the next moment WHOA WHAT DID HE JUST SAY? The next day, after the news media ran a bunch of scary headlines, the White...

For Hollywood, 2022 was truly an annus horribilis.Major studios, streamers, cable providers, and other media giants lost a combined $542 billion in market value in 2022, with left-wing studios the Walt Disney Co., Netflix, and Comcast accounting for the bulk of the bloodshed.The Dow Jones Media Titans index, which tracks the performance of 30 of the world’s biggest media companies, shed 40 percent this year, with its total market value declining from $1.35 trillion to $808 billion, according to a Financial Times report.The losses outpaced indices for other sectors, including banking, which saw a 14.5 percent drop for the year,...

The $1.7 trillion omnibus bill has passed congress, and it’s such a dumpster fire that it wasn’t even technically ready for the president’s signature. No, I’m not kidding. Congress apparently passed a bill that wasn’t prepared to be signed. They then had to pass another continuing resolution to keep the government running in the meantime. If that’s not the perfect metaphor for how awful our federal government is, then one doesn’t exist.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are still seething over the Senate passing last week's $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, and apparently not waiting until 2023 to negotiate terms for such a massive spending initiative. And from the two senators' perspective, the brunt of blame lies squarely on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "The arrogance of our [Senate GOP] leadership who said, 'We know better than House members. We're going to pass this. We'll get religion next year when it comes to fiscal sanity,'" Johnson told John Catsimatidis in a Sunday interview that aired on national radio....

Eerie footage out of Washington, D.C. foreshadows what is soon coming to all of America: a social credit system that will require shoppers to scan their QR code to shop for goods.A concerned shopper showed an array of QR code scanners lining the entrance of the Whole Foods in D.C., lamenting that she doesn’t want a QR code to shop for necessities.“So, basically you cannot go into the Whole Foods Market in Washington, D.C. unless you scan your own QR code, and they track everything you’re doing. This is the future of all grocery stores,” she said, adding “I’m going...

A startup claims it has launched weather balloons that may have released reflective sulfur particles in the stratosphere, potentially crossing a controversial barrier in the field of solar geoengineering. Geoengineering refers to deliberate efforts to manipulate the climate by reflecting more sunlight back into space, mimicking a natural process that occurs in the aftermath of large volcanic eruptions. In theory, spraying sulfur and similar particles in sufficient quantities could potentially ease global warming. It’s not technically difficult to release such compounds into the stratosphere. But scientists have mostly (though not entirely) refrained from carrying out even small-scale outdoor experiments. And...

Conservatives on Twitter hammered NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss for a "Soviet"-sounding tweet demanding to know who exactly did not clap for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his address to Congress on Wednesday. Zelenskyy traveled to the U.S. on Wednesday, his first trip outside of Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in early 2022. During his trip abroad, Zelensky met with President Joe Biden and addressed a joint session of Congress, seeking continued support U.S. and funding of the war with Russia. Most members of Congress supported Zelenskyy’s message as he was given a standing ovation for his speech....

A Virginia radio personality said he had to cancel Christmas plans because his Tesla S electric car would not charge during the ongoing freezing weather that has afflicted much of the United States. Domenick Nati told Insider that he plugged his electric car into a supercharger on Friday when it was 19 degrees outside. The car's battery level was at 40% at the time. "Two hours went by and not much changed," Nati told the outlet. "It was very slow and the numbers got lower as the temperature dropped. Eventually, it stopped charging altogether." Nati said he tried charging the...

Has anyone else had issues with Cox Webmail? I get this Error Message, "There was an unexpected internal error. Please try again.".

On Dec. 9, 1965, a young boy threw up his hands in despair and shouted, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”“Sure, Charlie Brown,” the boy’s friend, Linus, answered. “I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”Dragging his trademark security blanket, Linus walked to the center of the school auditorium stage, where friends were rehearsing a Christmas play.“Lights, please,” Linus said.A spotlight clicked on. Then Linus delivered one of the most memorable monologues in television history: an account of Christ’s birth, recited word for word from the Gospel of Luke. It lasted a solid minute.CBS beamed...

MOSCOW — Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired Sunday. Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. There is, thus far, little end in sight to the war. The Kremlin says it will fight until all its aims are achieved while Kyiv says it will not rest until...

Conservative GOP senators blasted Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday for joining with Democrats to shepherd a $1.7 trillion year-end spending bill into law over the objections of House Republicans, saying it was an act of "arrogance" that betrayed promises to voters. "Our party leadership turned on Republican voters, turned on the Republican base, turned on most Republican senators," Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told "The Cats Roundtable" and host John Catsimitidas on WABC radio in New York. "It has happened before, but this is one too many times. For me, this is the final straw." Lee called the omnibus spending...

The clandestine campaign is behind many unexplained explosions and fires that have hit strategic or prominent facilities in recent months, says US expert Jack Murphy, an eight-year Army Special Operations veteran. Separately other European intelligence services have allegedly been 'running operatives into Russia to create chaos without CIA help', as has Ukraine. His claims follow as a new fire struck a shopping mall in Krasnodar region, in southern Russia, the latest in dozens of such incidents. It comes as Putin issued another chilling warning to the West on Christmas day. In Ukraine today, air raid sirens have been going off...

Elon Musk became the most influential CEO in the world this year. Some people will even go so far as to say that he is the most powerful boss in the world. He is involved in companies that are at the heart of technological innovations such as Tesla (TSLA) - Get Free Report and SpaceX. And He is the owner of Twitter (TWTR) - Get Free Report, considered the town square of our time. Musk is simply the star of CEOs. He is one of the few bosses who can claim more than 100 million followers on Twitter. The personality...