Free Republic

The Fourteenth Amendment protects the rights of “any person” to due process when a state deprives him or her of life, liberty, or property, and to the “equal protection of the laws.” By overruling Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court eliminated Roe’s deeply flawed holding that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.” Since a sound case can be made that interpreting “person” to include all human beings is consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s original public meaning, Congress should do so for purposes of its power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. KEY TAKEAWAYS...

Prince Harry could be barred from the US and has put visa 'at risk' after admitting about his illicit drug usage, immigration experts have warned. The Duke of Sussex, 38, confessed to doing cocaine, smoking cannabis and taking hallucinogenic mushrooms in his upcoming memoir. Typical applicants would be denied a visa over their history with illegal substances, but US authorities note entry into the country is granted on a 'case-by-case' basis. It is unclear if Harry, who moved to California with his wife Meghan Markle in 2020, detailed his drug use on his visa application. Immigration experts warn that if...

The operator is going off the hook for millions of customers. Starting in January, AT&T customers with digital landlines won’t be able to dial 411 or 0 to reach an operator or get directory assistance. AT&T in 2021 ended operator services for wireless callers, although customers with home phone landlines can still access operators and directory help. Verizon, T-Mobile and other major carriers still offer these services for a fee While operator services may be nearly obsolete, it’s important to consider emergency circumstances where a caller may need to reach an operator and the customers who still rely on these...

The new slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives lacks something besides its slim majority and the battle over leadership positions. It lacks intellectual depth. The Reagan administration may have been the last one to challenge Americans to think for themselves, and for that matter, just to think. Perhaps this lack of thinking and intellectual depth in our politics is caused by instruments and websites that do the thinking for us. We now tune in to whatever newspaper, cable network or website reinforces our beliefs and care little about how ideas were developed, whether they work and who benefits...

s right-wing protestors descend upon Drag Story Hour events across New York, they have frequently been met by a loosely connected movement of counter protestors that includes many progressive Jewish groups. Since September, right-wing activists have routinely protested Drag Story Hour events, where a person dressed in drag reads to children. The aim of these story times, according to the founder of the Drag Story Hour New York chapter, is to promote literacy while giving children positive queer role models. At the Queens Public Library in Jackson Heights on Dec. 29, at least five members of the Proud Boys, a...

The facts about the Second Amendment in a short video.

DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan attorney general said Friday there’s “clear evidence” to pursue charges against pro-Donald Trump Republicans who claimed they were the state’s presidential electors in 2020, despite Democrat Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory. Dana Nessel referred the matter to federal prosecutors last year, but no public action has been taken. A year later, she said it’s time for state authorities to step in. “Let’s be fair about what this was: It was an effort to overturn a lawful election,” Nessel, a Democrat, said. “That type of activity can’t go without any consequences. ... There are laws that specifically...

If Ronald Pestritto is right, then Barack Obama was wrong. Recall candidate Obama’s now famous (or should that be infamous?) pronouncement on the eve of his 2008 electoral triumph: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” More than that, if the Pestritto argument prevails, the Barack Obamas of our day may yet turn out to be the end of something rather than the beginning of something. According to Pestritto, the real transformers of America were the original progressives of better than a century ago and not their twenty-first century ideological descendants. The transformation that...

Video at https://twitter.com/Joshuajered/status/1611864541436203013Houston, Texas – An armed robber was shot to death by a patron at a taqueria on S. Gessner just before midnight on Thursday night. Surveillance video shows a male in a black ski mask walking around the taqueria and robbing customers at gunpoint. A bald man seated near the robber jumped into action and shot the suspect dead. According to Houston Police, the Good Samaritan then collected the money from the suspect and gave it back to the robbery victims. Houston Police want to speak to the man who shot the suspect, but he has not been...

On Wednesday, Salt Lake City public lands officials hiked for hours up a snowy trail to remove a mysterious device – one that’s popping up all over the foothills. It consists of a locked battery box, a solar panel, and an antenna, according to Tyler Fonarow, the city’s recreational trails manager. “These towers have been bolted into different peaks and summits and ridges around the foothills,” Fonarow explained, “and it started with one or two, and now it might be as much as a dozen.” The first ones appeared about a year ago, but Fonarow said many more were found...

Iszac Henig, a transgender male, joined Yale’s men’s swimming team after finishing last year as an All-American female swimmer. Henig has taken hormones for eight months amid his transition, but the senior’s times are “about the same as they were at the end of last season,” he wrote in an op-ed piece for the New York Times on Thursday. Henig wrote that during a meet in November among 83 swimmers, he finished in 79th place. “I wasn’t the slowest guy in any of my events, but I’m not as successful in the sport as I was on the women’s team,”...

The “terrifyingly ordinary” nature of football’s violence disproportionately affects Black men Millions of people watched as Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old player in the National Football League (NFL), executed a seemingly routine tackle during a highly anticipated Monday Night Football game. Immediately after, Hamlin rose to his feet and then collapsed. Players from his team, the Buffalo Bills, and the opposing team, the Cincinnati Bengals, created a tight huddle around him on the field as medical personnel tried to revive him. We learned the next day that Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest; his heart had suddenly stopped working. This scene was...

A man is facing terror-related charges after police said he rammed his car through a gate at a solar plant outside Las Vegas and set his car on fire, disabling the huge facility, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. Around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Las Vegas Metro police responded to the solar plant on U.S. 93 north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, sources told the 8 News Now Investigators. Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit. The Mega Solar Array facility provides energy to MGM properties but is run by a company...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin to attend the overnight Orthodox Christmas service there. Last year, Putin delivered his Orthodox Christmas greetings from the Saint Nicholas Church on Lipno Island, near the western Russian city of Veliky Novgorod. In the two years before that, the Russian president attended Christmas mass at the Cathedral of the Lord’s Transfiguration of all the Guards in St. Petersburg. In his turn, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill delivering a Christmas address, has called on Orthodox Christians to be compassionate and...

A bomb cyclone hit California this week, knocking out power, downing trees, and dumping massive amounts of water. Some California residents are watching this precious H20 wash away and wondering, why can't we save the water for times when we desperately need it? The state grapples with drought, but it's not as simple as putting out a big bucket, says hydrogeologist and professor at UC Santa Cruz, Andrew Fisher. Professor Fisher spoke with NPR about the challenges facing the state, but also the opportunities that are already being worked on. This interview has been lighted edited for length and clarity....

A French “anti-hate” website claiming to catalogue far-right symbols has listed several mainstream Roman Catholic symbols, including crosses and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, alongside well-known Nazi devices. The French “anti-hate” website Indextreme claims that it is looking to “observe, catalogue and publicize the graphic symbols used by the far right in France,” and places various mainstream Roman Catholic symbols alongside those of Nazism and other far-right ideologies. The project, which was created by graphic designer Geoffrey Dorne and photojournalist Ricardo Parreira and has been promoted by the leftist French website StreetPress, lists many symbols broken up into various categories...

The warning Southern California Gas Co. issued to its customers was unusually blunt: “There’s no easy way to put this,” the company said. “January bills are likely to be shockingly high.” Anyone who heats their home with natural gas is likely to see a January bill that is more than double what they paid a year earlier, SoCalGas said. A typical peak monthly bill of $65 from last winter will probably come in close to $160, SoCalGas said, a 146% increase. A $130 bill will be more like $315, up 142%. The increases result from the soaring wholesale price of...

‘Just desperate.’ Judge orders man accused in Pierce substation attacks held without bail BY JARED BROWN Police in Washington arrested two men in connection to a series of Christmas Day attacks on power stations in the Tacoma area. A U.S. District Court judge in Tacoma ordered one of the defendants charged with attacking four Pierce County substations on Christmas Day to be held in federal custody pending a grand jury indictment, despite a public defender’s insistence that the man facing a terrorism charge was motivated by poverty and should be in drug treatment. Federal pretrial services officials also recommended that...

Subiaco Abbey, in Subiaco, Arkansas, had its altar smashed with a hammer, and relics inside the altar stolen on Jan. 5, 2023. A suspect has been arrested and is set to be charged in connection with the attack. | Subiaco AbbeyBoston, Mass., Jan 6, 2023 / 13:51 pm The altar of an Arkansas Benedictine monastery was destroyed Thursday, and several relics of ancient saints were stolen. Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas, said in a press release that on Jan. 5, a man using “a regular hammer and sledgehammer/ax” began destroying the abbey’s marble altar by smashing it in different places....

Hero Down: Alaska State Troopers Court Services Officer Curtis Worland Gored By Muskox Holly Matkin January 6, 2023 Nome, AK – Alaska State Troopers (AST) Court Services Officer Curtis Worland died in the line of duty on Dec. 13, 2022, after being gored by a muskox while trying to protect his dog mushing team. The deadly attack occurred near Officer Worland’s home on the Teller Highway at approximately 12:30 p.m., KTUU reported. The 36-year-old officer was on a paid work break when he spotted a herd of muskoxen near his dog mushing team, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page....