Free Republic

(Last Updated On: February 13, 2023) NATIONAL ALMOND DAY On February 16th each year, National Almond Day recognizes the versatile and healthful almond. This delicious nut is native to the Middle East and thrives in warm, dry climates with mild winters. The day celebrates the benefits and uses of almonds. #NationalAlmondDay Whether you are eating them by themselves, using almond milk, pasta, flour, butter, oil, or meal, almonds offer a delicious flavor along with many health benefits. Almonds are one of the most heart-healthy foods on the market, packed with vitamin E, magnesium, and fiber. According to a survey of...

I feel like I am in the film “Final Destination” but I can’t get off the aircraft. First, US housing starts are now down -21.4% year-over-year (YoY) and down -4.5% month-over-month (MoM) in January 2023 as The Fed removes its massive monetary stimulus. PPI Final Demand PRICES are still elevated at 6% YoY, so expect more Fed tightening. Today’s data dump. On a final note, I am appalled at the Biden Administration’s “response” to the East Palestine Ohio derailment. Where is Mayor Pete??

Doctors and Nurses Are Not RacistsDoctors and nurses are not racists. They're everyday heroes. But left-wing activists and their media allies, including The New York Times, blame health care workers for the poorer health outcomes of Black patients. That's a cheap shot and a lie.On Sunday, the Times published a front-page story based on an analysis of U.S. census data showing that Black women die during childbirth or lose their newborns more often than white women. Even affluent Black women and their babies die at higher rates. Money doesn't insulate them from worse health outcomes.The actual analysis didn't blame racism...

After serving nearly three decades of a life sentence, Lamar Johnson officially walks free for a crime he has always insisted he did not commit. “This is unbelievable,” he told reporters in the courthouse lobby after the conviction was overturned. On Tuesday, Missouri Circuit Judge David Mason vacated Johnson’s sentence, stating that there was convincing and reliable evidence of “actual innocence” to overturn the conviction. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, working in conjunction with the Innocence Project, filed a motion seeking Johnson’s release in August. In 1994, Johnson was convicted of murder for the killing of Marcus Boyd, who...

The University of Central Florida has adopted radical Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming that segregates students by race, condemns the United States as “white-supremacist culture,” and encourages active discrimination against the “oppressor” class, characterized as “male, White, heterosexual, able-bodied, and Christian.” Officially, UCF reports that it has 14 separate DEI programs, costing in the aggregate more than $4 million per year. But this dramatically understates the reality, which is that the ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has been entrenched everywhere. The university’s administration and academic departments have created a blizzard of programs, classes, trainings, reports, committees, certifications, events,...

Drew Angerer/Getty Images CNN — Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows has been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating the former president and his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Special counsel Jack Smith’s office is seeking documents and testimony related to January 6, and Meadows received the subpoena sometime in January, the source said. An attorney for Meadows declined to comment. The Justice Department did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the subpoena. The move to subpoena one of Trump’s most senior aides – in addition...

It’s pathetic how Russians are always viewed as victims, considering that those that did the shooting survived (and had children), and those who were shot did not. Seventy years of mass murder dramatically changed the makeup of Russia. But that doesn’t stop armchair Russian experts from using the distant history of Russia, 300 years ago, to explain why the poor little Russians of today are so afraid of the big bad (Western) world out there (where Russian elites store all their wealth). That somehow they have to invade and kill others to protect themselves. In the 90s my Russian friends...

Prayers up. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties -- not even the IRS -- trying to control what we do or say. We are self-funded, fiercely independent and enjoy our freedom to speak plainly in the support of God,...

The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service is offering “ecogrief” training to employees who are struggling with a sense of trauma or loss as they witness a changing environment. The class will give staffers a chance to define what they mean by ecological grief, space to examine their emotional reactions and tools to grapple with those feelings, the agency said in a note to employees in the Southwest region, where the training is offered. Those who sign up will be led to “find ways to act while caring for themselves.” “This 4-hour workshop seeks to normalize the wide range of...

The team has recently published two papers...that studied supermassive black holes at the hearts of ancient and dormant galaxies..."We're really saying two things at once: that there's evidence the typical black hole solutions don't work for you on a long, long timescale, and we have the first proposed astrophysical source for dark energy," said Astrophysicist Duncan Farrah, lead author of both papers.

Today telling the truth has largely disappeared from public discourse. Let’s use basic history as an example. Learning history in school was the norm during the period 1952-1969, the formative years up through my graduation from college. I received a detailed education in public schools of our founding and principles, American history, and world history dating back to antiquity. As part of a Navy family, I went to school all over the country: Virginia, Maryland twice, California, Illinois, and Nebraska. History teaching was consistent everywhere, including hard truths about slavery here and around the world. SNIP It is true that...

A few dozen pro-Ukrainian demonstrators gathered Wednesday night outside the Civic Opera House to denounce the Joffrey Ballet’s staging of a ballet based on a Russian novel amid Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine. “I’m from Ukraine; I’m offended by the lack of sensitivity,” said Lise Korneichuk, 26, a student at the School of the Art Institute. “The theater should show solidarity instead of promoting Russian culture.” ...

INTERLACHEN, Fla. — Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said a 67-year-old woman shot and killed a man they said forced his way into her home with a gun. The man was identified as 64-year-old Reginald Best. According to the police report, the 67-year-old said she heard the door handle shaking around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and grabbed a gun to see what was going on. She told deputies she thought it could have been her husband because he works late, odd hours.

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemMark 4The Parable of the Growing Seed26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”_______________________________________________________New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®...

When educators deceive parents to achieve their goals, many choose to exit the system and reject its ideals so entirely that they become the funhouse mirror version of them. Across the United States, students, parents, teachers, and administrators are battling over which curricula will be taught in K-12 schools, especially when it comes to race and gender. Initiatives like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), critical race theory, and social-emotional learning (SEL) have become common sources of aggravation as they have been sprinkled throughout various subjects in public and private schools. Many conservative and religious parents have canvassed school board meetings...

OUR SPECIAL WASHINGTON DISPATCHES. WASHINGTON, Sunday, Feb. 15. Lieut.-Col. DOOR, of Gen. FOSTER's Staff, arrived here to-day, direct from Port Royal, with dispatches for the Government. He utterly denies the recent sensation reports in regard to a quarrel between Gens. HUNTER and FOSTER. The same denial is made by the President, and no reason exists to believe that anything has occurred likely to impair the efficiency of our army in the Department of the South. Two refugees, who arrived here to-day from Richmond, which place they left on Wednesday last, state that five brigades of troops from the Confederate army...

No signs of India’s once-in-a-decade census, due in 2021 and delayed due to the pandemic, beginning soon. In two months, India is projected to become the world’s most populous country with more than 1.4 billion people. But for at least a year, and possibly longer, the country will not know how many people it has because it has not been able to count them. India’s once-in-a-decade census, due in 2021 and delayed due to the pandemic, has now got bogged down by technical and logistical hurdles, and there are no signs the mammoth exercise is likely to begin soon. Experts...

The National Instant background Check System (NICS) gun sales and background checks are slightly higher for January of 2023 than they were for January of 2022. Gun sales are six percent higher, and background checks are three percent higher than in January of 2022. Background checks continue to outnumber gun sales by over 2-1, as many background checks are done for purposes other than a gun sale.With about 1.22 million guns sold in the NICS system in January, the United States is on track to equal the number of guns sold in 2022, about 17 million. If the trend continues,...

Our government is playing with our lives as it prefers diversity, equity, and inclusion over ensuring the best qualified employees are hired. A recent epidemic of airline near misses deserves both attention and reflection. In mid-December, a San Francisco-bound United Airlines Boeing 777-200 airliner, just a little over a minute after taking off from Maui, Hawaii, suddenly dived. It lost more than half its altitude and came within 800 feet of crashing into the Pacific Ocean before pulling up. About a month later, an American Airlines jet crossed the runway at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport just...

Chicago Dad Placed on Watchlist After Opposing Pornography in Schools A Chicago father has learned that he has been placed on a flight watchlist after opposing pornographic materials in his kids’ schools. Over the summer of 2021, Terry Newsome—who described himself in comments to the Epoch Times as a “lifelong Democrat” until recently—was one of several parents in the 99th school district of Downer’s Grove, Chicago, who expressed opposition to books in his children’s library that had sexually explicit and pornographic content. In December, Newsome discovered he had been placed on a watchlist. On Dec. 16, 2022, he and his...