Free Republic

The White House on Thursday hit back at Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) after the senator insisted he was not aware of any Republican in Congress who has tried to tie Social Security reforms to raising the debt ceiling, the latest swipe the administration has taken at the GOP on the issue. “By protesting too much, Congressional Republicans keep proving the President’s point about their long history of threatening Medicare and Social Security,” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to The Hill. “Half of Sen. Lee’s statement is an admission that he did indeed call for...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) foreign affairs bureau on Thursday welcomed the decision of the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, to suspend all institutional relations with Israel, including the cancellation of the twinning agreement with the city of Tel Aviv. In a statement quoted by the PA’s WAFA news agency, the bureau called on other cities to take similar steps, “given that this step puts pressure on the occupation government to stop all its violations and crimes against the Palestinian people, their land, sanctities, and rights, and to stop all its illegal unilateral measures that undermine peace opportunities.” Colau on Wednesday...

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials said they require coordinates provided or confirmed by the United States and its allies for the vast majority of strikes using its advanced U.S.-provided rocket systems, a previously undisclosed practice that reveals a deeper and more operationally active role for the Pentagon in the war. The disclosure, confirmed by three senior Ukrainian officials and a senior U.S. official, comes after months of Kyiv’s forces pounding Russian targets — including headquarters, ammunition depots and barracks — on Ukrainian soil with the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, and other similar precision-guided weapons such as...

Molnupiravir, the oral pill for COVID-19, may actually be driving the emergence of new, potentially harmful, variants of the virus, according to a Wellcome Trust-funded study at the pre-print stage. The news may come as a blow for Merck, the drug’s manufacturer, which reported massive revenues over the last year, and for the US government, which heavily subsidised the drug’s production and distribution. It will be vindication – albeit unwanted – for those who warned the drug was dangerous and should not be given emergency-use authorization by the FDA. Merck’s antiviral drug works by causing specific kinds of mutation in...

When Super Bowl LVII arrives on Sunday, Fox is prepared to broadcast hours and hours of the event, with all of the usual trappings — except, perhaps, one. With just three days to go before the Kansas City Chiefs square off against the Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the White House has yet to commit to the traditional interview between the President of the United States and the news division of the media company broadcasting the gridiron classic, potentially shunning a conversation that would be seen by one of TV’s biggest audiences. Fox News attached no...

The U.S. Department of Transportation said on Thursday it is investigating Elon Musk's brain-implant company Neuralink over the potentially illegal movement of hazardous pathogens. A Department of Transportation spokesperson told Reuters about the probe after the Physicians Committee of Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an animal-welfare advocacy group, wrote to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg earlier on Thursday to alert it of records it obtained on the matter. PCRM said it obtained emails and other documents that suggest unsafe packaging and movement of implants removed from the brains of monkeys. These implants may have carried infectious diseases in violation of federal law,...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — During a tense Congressional Hearing, deductive polymath Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put a widespread conspiracy theory to rest when she vocally insisted that there were no hysterectomies being performed on minors because most of them are too busy working in the mines anyway. The truth-filled gavel drop utterly destroyed the claim by conservatives that the Boston Children's Hospital was performing the irreparable surgeries on minors. "How can minors find the time to travel via minecart to far-away Boston when they're busy mining for coal, iron, and lapis lazuli," explained Ocasio-Cortez to an awestruck chamber. "And it's not just...

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has laid a fundraising infrastructure that helped him rake in nearly $6 million in the last two years, according to a person familiar with his fundraising operation, as the moderate Republican toys with a White House bid in 2024. [cut] he has compiled an initial war chest of around $6 million, raising money as he left office in Maryland after two terms as a Republican governor in a blue state. Hogan has long been a foil of former President Trump and is one of a number of moderate Republicans who could look to oppose the...

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office said the Black Lives Matter at School toolkit released by a Virginia teachers union “will not be tolerated.” The Virginia Education Association’s Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action toolkit champions BLM’s 13 principles in the classroom. It uses kindergarten through 12th grade lesson plans made by the education branch of the Southern Poverty Law Center to teach students principles including “transgender affirming,” “queer affirming,” “restorative justice,” and “globalism.” The principles promote critical race theory, a racial lens that teaches students to deconstruct American society on the premise that its institutions are “systemically...

IN BRIEF A US intelligence boss has asked Congress to reauthorize a controversial set of powers that give snoops warrantless authorization to surveil electronic communications in the name of fighting terrorism and so forth. NSA director General Paul Nakasone told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board yesterday that the loss of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would mean American spies would "lose critical insights into the most significant threats to our nation" if allowed to lapse on December 31. In his speech, Nakasone said Section 702 is "irreplaceable," and he provided several stories of the...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. The Great Awakening This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14...

Students at Morgan State University returned from their holiday break to find new metal detectors at the dorms they had to pass through to enter. The metal detectors have been placed in all on-campus dorms at Morgan. Students said they are torn on the topic. ... The school has seen shootings both around and on campus, including an on-campus shooting during homecoming weekend in October 2021, an off-campus shooting at the Marble Hall Gardens housing complex in September 2022, and a third shooting off-campus at a gas station in Northwood Commons in December 2022. ... In a statement, Morgan officials...

With the number of fires caused by lithium batteries soaring across the U.S., firefighters and other experts say the training needed to fight them effectively is lagging in many places. Firefighters and city officials are also imploring the manufacturers to redesign the batteries so that, when they fail, the resulting fires can be put down more easily. Kerber said his team has run tests on lithium-ion batteries in which it took only 15 seconds from the first sign of smoke to the windows being blown out in a house. In a traditional fire, it typically takes about three minutes for...

BAKHMUT, Ukraine — Surrounded on three sides, this eastern Ukrainian city has held out for months in bloody defiance against invading forces, Russian shells pounding day and night against streets coated with snow and rubble. But, as the Kremlin’s troops advance here and threaten a major offensive across the war’s front lines, gunfire could be heard on a recent visit while the few thousand remaining locals sheltered in basements, stubbornly refusing to leave what remains of their homes. "Bakhmut holds" is a patriotic battle-cry heard across the country, cementing the city as a symbol of national resistance. And it still...

A St. Louis transgender treatment clinic is under investigation for allegedly harming up to 600 children, after a whistleblower said doctors bullied parents into giving their kids irreversible hormone drugs, and even performed gender-transitioning surgeries on them. Jamie Reed, a former employee at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital, alleged the hospital administered a litany of irreparable treatments to minors, often times without parental consent. Speaking about her claims Thursday night, Reed said doctors would use questions like 'Do you want a dead daughter or an alive son?' to suggest to parents of children seeking sex-transitions...

I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor. For almost four years, I worked at The Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases with teens and young adults who were HIV positive. Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning myself. I’m now married to a...

Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan is the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii. He’s in the Philippines this week, meeting with some of his Asian counterparts and preparing for several weeks of scheduled military exercises with our allies in the region. He gave an interview to the Associated Press yesterday and seemed to fire a verbal broadside at China, declaring that America is “battle ready” and our allies will stand united if forced to do so by countries that have “decided they want to change the world order” in the western Pacific. This is the...

Mike Pence is headed to Iowa the same day rival Nikki Haley is announcing her presidential bid. The former vice president will headline a grassroots rally and launch a statewide advertising campaign as part of a fresh foray into the key 2024 battleground. Pence will begin next Wednesday in St. Paul, Minnesota, delivering a speech supporting Iowa parents suing a Linn County school district in federal court over its student gender-transition policies. Pence then will travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to powwow with voters at a Pizza Ranch restaurant, a stop popular among Republican presidential contenders. He will use the...

BOISE, Idaho — The House Judiciary and Rules Committee pushed a bill forward on Tuesday to ban most gender-affirming care for minors after two hours of intense testimony. H71, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, and Sen. Lori Denhartog, R-Meridian, amends Idaho code regarding genital mutilation of a child to bar those who provide some forms of gender-affirming care to those under age 18. It would make providing the care for a minor a felony, the bill says.

What if I told you that Anthony Fauci knew all along that the COVID vaccine could not possibly prevent either infection with or transmission of COVID?Not surprised? Neither am I.Now, what if I told you he just published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal admitting that fact, and calling for new types of vaccines to deal with the problem?Now that is a bit of a surprise and exactly the opposite of what he told everybody during the push to get everybody vaccinated.Fauci lied, and now he is admitting it. In writing. In a peer-reviewed journal.To be clear, Fauci is not...