Free Republic

Pair has lost five races in the past three cycles combined Two failed Democratic political candidates will bring their experience to the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics as fellows for winter-spring seminars. Robert O’Rourke, also known as “Beto,” recently completed a trifecta of losses — in 2018, he lost in a Texas U.S. Senate bid against Ted Cruz, in 2020 he lost in the Democratic primaries for president, and in 2022 he lost in a gubernatorial bid against Republican Greg Abbott. Fellow Democrat Tim Ryan knows something about losing as well — he lost to political outsider J.D. Vance...

The Biden administration's efforts to turn up the regulatory heat on gas stoves are drawing bipartisan opposition from a pair of senators who have introduced a bill to block a ban on gas stoves. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., introduced the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act last week amid the Biden administration's discussions of proposed restrictions on gas stoves. Their bill would prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from advancing regulations on existing or new gas stoves that would ban their use or "would otherwise substantially increase the...

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Tampa, Florida's ban against talk therapy for minors seeking freedom from unwanted same-sex attraction. The city had tried to block licensed therapists from providing voluntary counseling to those minors. The federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that the ban is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.... The latest ruling is based on Liberty Counsel's previous victory in Otto v. City of Boca Raton in which the Eleventh Circuit had ruled that similar attempts to muzzle counselors from helping their clients in Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton were unconstitutional...

Bennett speaks out. Former Israeli PM talks about Zelensky the coward.

"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? "And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matthew, Chapter 5 1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven....

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has been a hotly debated topic over the last few years. The seemingly unquestioned march towards corporate utopia has met with resistance among those who oppose the idea that government oligarchs should dictate the affairs of private business firms. The long-term effects of the ESG movement are largely ignored by the mainstream. ESG is largely justified on the basis that corporations and financial institutions should be socially responsible. They should work obsessively to address the perceived menaces of climate change, racism, sexism, and a host of subjects. Our benevolent political and economic elite define what...

Is ‘Davos’ done? Don’t worry, this is not a political rave: it’s a look at the astro-logistics of Davos the town, the World Economic Forum and it’s founder Klaus Schwab. Davos, as you probably know, is a town in the Swiss Alps that plays host to an annual meeting of the economic elite. It’s always been controversial but lately even some of it’s most fervent fans are jaded. This year the first images streamed out of Davos were of the protest signs hanging outside some of the residents homes and if you believe the tabloids, visiting sex workers outnumbered the...

Vice Chair of FL GOP Christian Ziegler: Only 17,000 of the Net 1 Million Moving to the State Registered DemocratBreitbartHannah Bleau2/3/2023Christian Ziegler, the vice chair of the Republican Party of Florida, who is running for the chairmanship, told Breitbart News Saturday about the successes the Sunshine State has seen over the past four years, noting that Republicans are in a strong position politically, particularly in terms of voter registration in Florida.Florida will be electing its state chairman in a matter of weeks, Ziegler said, noting that his challenger is the chairman and lobbyist in Leon County. Ziegler also highlighted how...

Explanation: This moon is shining by the light of its planet. Specifically, a large portion of Enceladus pictured here is illuminated primarily by sunlight first reflected from the planet Saturn. The result is that the normally snow-white moon appears in the gold color of Saturn's cloud tops. As most of the illumination comes from the image left, a labyrinth of ridges throws notable shadows just to the right of the image center, while the kilometer-deep canyon Labtayt Sulci is visible just below. The bright thin crescent on the far right is the only part of Enceladus directly lit by the...

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe refuted accounts from Pentagon officials that Chinese balloons entered U.S. airspace on at least three occasions under the Trump administration. Ratcliffe, who served as former President Donald Trump's spy chief from 2020 to 2021, joined a few other former Trump administration officials claiming to have no awareness of such an incursion and described the recent balloon incident as "unprecedented." "I can refute it. It didn't happen," Ratcliffe said... Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper both denied knowing about a similar instance of a Chinese balloon hovering through...

Results from 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver’s autopsy may take weeks. But online anti-vaccine activists needed only hours after her funeral this week to baselessly blame the COVID-19 vaccine. A prolific Twitter account posted Anastasia’s name and smiling dance portrait in a tweet with a syringe emoji. A Facebook user messaged her mother, Jessica Day-Weaver, to call her a “murderer” for having her child vaccinated. In reality, the Ohio kindergartner had experienced lifelong health problems since her premature birth, including epilepsy, asthma and frequent hospitalizations with respiratory viruses. “The doctors haven’t given us any information other than it was due to all...

[Catholic Caucus] Hard Fist: Francis Dissolves Convent, Nuns on the StreetThe Vatican shows a “hard fist” to two nuns of Santa Chiara in Ravello, Italy, reports Leggo.it (February 4).The nuns have been trying to save their community for two years. There were three of them, Sisters Massimiliana Panza, Angela Maria Punnacka and Cristina Fiore, 97, who is in need of care. The order of Poor Clares wanted the monastery sold, but the three nuns donated it to the Holy See. Then, the order expelled the nuns.The value of the monastery is €50-60M. Francis accepted the "donation" and signed the order...

Americans are taking a been-there, done-that approach to the 2024 presidential election. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 58% of voters prefer somebody other than President Biden as their standard-bearer in two years, and 49% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the same about former President Donald Trump, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday. While 44% of Republicans support Trump being their nominee, only 31% of Democrats back a Biden run for re-election.

A former Arizona state trooper will spend five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to multiple sex-related charges stemming from his actions during traffic stops, according to Fox 10 Phoenix. Tremaine Jackson, who was a 13-year veteran of the Arizona Department of Public Safety at the time of his arrest in 2019, was initially charged with 61 counts of sex-related, kidnapping and fraud charges, according to the AZDPS website. Agreeing to a plea deal, Jackson pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment with sexual intent, bribery with sexual intent, attempted kidnapping with sexual intent, fraud with sexual intent and unlawful sexual...

Senators on Feb. 15 will receive a classified briefing on the Chinese balloon that was shot down by the U.S. military, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), which will also include information on how the U.S. stacks up against China militarily. The briefing for all 50 senators comes after some lawmakers in recent days called on the Biden administration for more details on the matter. Republicans spent the week criticizing Biden for not taking the balloon down sooner, allowing it to fly over much of the United States before it was shot down over South Carolina. But Schumer...

The resolution is called “Recognizing Israel as America’s Legitimate and Democratic Ally and Condemning Antisemitism,” and its cosponsors are a who’s-who of the pro-Israel Democrats, including leading Jewish lawmakers. Also on the sponsor list: Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been one of Israel’s harshest critics in Congress and who Republicans on Thursday kicked off the Foreign Affairs Committee over her history of anti-Israel and antisemitic comments. In a press release sent out just an hour ahead of a successful party-line vote to remove Omar from the committee, Omar’s name is sandwiched between the names of Reps. Brad Schneider and Josh...

Since Grover Cleveland was president, no one has accused the average politician of being principled or even consistent. Year after year, Republicans claim to care about fiscal prudence but, when in power, spend like Democrats. In their turn, Democrats insist that they want to engineer a transition to a green energy economy, but their actions contradict this goal. Of course, you would miss these contradictions if you looked only at the effort Democrats pour into distributing green energy subsidies. The infrastructure bill of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act adopted last year included enormous subsidies for green energy. Then Congress...

The Biden Border Rush continues, with hordes of illegal aliens being welcomed into the country. Where does it all end? We might consider looking at the sending nations for answers. If the Border Rush continues, how many people will decide to come to the U.S.A.? Nobody knows for sure, but a major international poll gives us a clue that it could be a lot of people.

The Milley boys at the Pentagon have come up with a new public relations "save" for Joe Biden and his pathetic indecisiveness about a China spy balloon brazenly traversing the continental United States until it was shot down over the Atlantic yesterday. According to the Pentagon's website, defense.gov: [cut] You know the press is going to be dining out on this for the next ten news cycles. There's just one problem, though -- the claim that Trump saw three Chinese balloons traverse through the U.S. on his watch and did nothing is ... deflating fast. First, we have an explicit...