Free Republic

A battle over her support for transgender rights is not, by Nicola Sturgeon’s account, the reason she is quitting as Scotland’s first minister. But the issue has dogged her in recent weeks, precipitating a clash with the British government and ensnaring her in a messy episode involving a convicted rapist who was held in a women’s prison. Ms. Sturgeon’s problems began in December when the Scottish Parliament passed legislation that would allow transgender people to have the gender with which they identify legally recognized and to get a new birth certificate without a medical diagnosis. Britain’s government swiftly rejected the...

DISTURBING VIDEO AT LINK................ An armed gunman was caught on security film walking up to a New York City deli worker and firing a handgun at point blank range on Wednesday afternoon. Footage shows an employee at Rockaway Express Deli in South Ozone Park, Queens, treating a customer from behind the counter before the gunman walks up to him and shoots him in the face without hesitation, the New York Post reported. The gunman was dressed in all black and used a mask to cover his face. He was later identified as Donnie Hudson, a 35-year-old living in an apartment...

Limiting how much coal countries can burn is considered an urgent priority for restraining global heating. After all, coal is the most carbon-rich of all fossil fuels and its combustion has contributed the most to planetary warming. For the first time in international talks, negotiators agreed to "phase down" coal use to prevent global temperature rise exceeding 1.5°C in the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact. Coal's primacy in climate negotiations is partly because of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has devised pathways to halting warming at 1.5°C. These scientific assessments prioritize the rapid phasing out of coal burning...

Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that she believes it is “wrongheaded” for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to “censor” what is taught in Florida schools. Mitchell asked, “Let me ask you, what does Governor Ron DeSantis not know about black history and the black experience when he says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren?” Harris said, “I don’t know what he knows and what he doesn’t know, but I know this, any push to censor America’s teachers and tell them what they should be teaching in the...

The U.S. Navy will no longer consider the COVID-19 vaccination status of sailors when making decisions about their deployment, according to newly updated Navy guidance published this week. The updated guidance comes shortly after Congress removed the military’s vaccine requirement as part of the $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023. Biden signed the (NDAA) into law in December and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin officially rescinded the vaccination mandate in January. “Commanders should seek advice from medical providers regarding medical readiness of personnel to inform deployment and other operational mission decisions,” the Navy’s new guidance...

CULVER CITY, Calif.—A group of parents stepped to the lectern Tuesday night at a school board meeting in this middle-class, Los Angeles-area city to push back against a racial-equity initiative. The high school, they argued, should reinstate honors English classes that were eliminated because they didn’t enroll enough Black and Latino students. The district earlier this school year replaced the honors classes at Culver City High School with uniform courses that officials say will ensure students of all races receive an equal, rigorous education. These parents disagreed. “We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not...

An outbreak of dog flu has struck some of America's best friends this winter. Veterinarians across America, including Philadelphia, North Texas, California and Florida are warning of a brutal canine influenza season. The dog flu can be severe in some cases, causing pneumonia and even death in pets. Around one-in-ten cases result in death. It spreads from animal to animal by barking, sneezing, and coughing through droplets in the air. Some kennels and doggy daycares have shut down temporarily or significantly ramped up cleaning protocols in response, and vets advise pet owners to get the canine flu vaccine. Humans are...

Despite the convictions of Democrats and Trump haters, evidence that the 2020 election was rigged seems to have met the “beyond a reasonable doubt” burden. Beyond Molly Ball’s Time Magazine bragging confession, there are the ballot box-stuffing mules, and the accounts of numerous cyber experts that demonstrated how some voting machines could be (and seemingly were) programmed to cheat. Biden was not legitimately elected, he was fraudulently installed. So terrified of Donald Trump are the denizens of the swamp that they were willing to sell out the country, the Constitution, and the American people, and put into the oval office...

THE biggest threat facing America today isn’t China or Russia. It’s not radical sexual or racial ideologies, nor globalism and widening economic disparities. No, all of these threats, however real and legitimate, all dim in comparison to a much graver menace to our shared future: the dramatic decline in citizens’ religious affiliation and belief. A recent anti-religious op-ed by the Washington Post’s Kate Cohen hints at what awaits an America untethered from Christianity. “In America, you have to opt out of religion in public life. That’s backward,” reads Cohen’s provocative title. Citing a number of examples, from court-mandated addiction recovery...

The White House explained why it turned down Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's request for disaster relief this week in the aftermath of a derailment of a train hauling toxic chemicals. A Biden administration official told Fox News Digital that it has provided extensive assistance to surrounding communities following the chemical release earlier this month in eastern Ohio. However, the official said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the agency that usually provides relief to communities hit by hurricanes and other natural disasters, isn't best equipped to support the state's current needs.

...Nancy had a camera crew at the US Capitol as if she knew it was going to be a historic day. It was quite the coincidence. As it turned out, January 6 was a historic day. It was also well-planned and staged. Now there is never before released video of Nancy Pelosi’s daughter admitting to a January 6 defendant that the insurrection narrative was nonsense and that Washington DC is too biased to hold fair trials for Trump supporters. ...

Exposure to acetaminophen in the womb may increase a child’s risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder, suggests a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. The study was conducted by Xiaobing Wang, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and colleagues. It appears in JAMA Psychiatry. Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is marked by a pattern of hyperactivity and impulsive behavior. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disorder that affects how a person behaves, interacts with others and learns.Researchers analyzed data...

A calm assessment of the covid pandemic reveals that the "cures" offered were worse than the disease. From an economic perspective, one of the worst "cures" was the decision to shutdown much of the economy. Small businesses were decimated and millions of jobs exterminated. A "cure" for this previous "cure" was massive government spending to provide some compensation to those hurt by the shutdown. It now appears that $191 billion (about 20%) of this compensation was stolen. Labor Department Inspector General Larry Turner said "one example of where the money went where it shouldn't have was to prison inmates. In...

California’s fiscal wildfire is here. The flames are licking the highest levels of the state capitol in Sacramento. The flames surround the Democrat super majority-run legislature. Democrats’ profligate spending, greed, and lack of imagination on how to run America’s most populous state have been disastrous. An investment research group says California’s “tax policy is killing the Golden Goose in the Golden State.” And that’s not the only problem. Governor Gavin Newsom sent billions of Joe Biden’s specially printed, inflation-causing Covid money to voters for “inflation relief” before his latest election. He teed up “free” kindergarten for four-year-olds, and gave out...

Florida Governor DeSantis just received the kiss of death. George Soros has endorsed DeSantis for 2024. This could not be worse for DeSantis. ..... Snip..... "My hope for 2024… Trump and Governor DeSantis of Florida will slug it out for the Republican nomination. Trump has turned into a pitiful figure, continually mourning his loss in 2020. Big Republican donors are abandoning him in droves. DeSantis is shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious. He is likely to be a Republican candidate,” Soros said. Watch the video:

Kang and Kodos on The Simpsons say, “Foolish Earthlings.” Lefties say foolish right-wingers. CNN reported, “A federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves, a source of indoor pollution linked to childhood asthma. “Richard Trumka Jr., a U.S. Consumer Product Safety commissioner, set off a firestorm this week by saying in an interview with Bloomberg that gas stoves posed a ‘hidden hazard’ and suggested the agency could ban them.” Sounds goofy, but the story said later, “A December 2022 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that indoor gas stove usage is associated with...

President Joe Biden appears to have run out of time to pass a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Not only has he lost control of Congress, where he had focused his legislative efforts to stop the sales of modern sporting rifles, but he is losing the support of the public in his bid to take away the most popular firearm ever. In the latest Quinnipiac University poll, 48% oppose Biden’s ban, 47% support it. While obviously the nation is split, the numbers do not show the overwhelming support that the president and liberal democrats have been banking on. Quinnipiac’s findings...

A member of Biden’s own administration called U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s claims about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — in which he blamed former President Donald Trump — “misinformation.” On Tuesday, while addressing the rail disaster, Buttigieg falsely claimed he is “constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation” and cited a “braking rule” that was withdrawn in 2018, under the Trump administration. Buttigieg was referring to the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrawing a proposed rule requiring trains carrying certain dangerous chemicals to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. After that, social media users circulated...

A court filing made public this week reveals that Fox News hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham were privately critical of Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen, with Carlson going so far as to call the former president "demonic." -snip- Carlson called Trump "a demonic force" and worried the president would "destroy" Fox News Carlson, in other conversations in the wake of the election, privately took aim at Trump himself, calling the then-president "the undisputed world champion" of "destroying things," and worrying that he would "destroy us if we play it wrong." By Jan....

CNN — Tiger Woods handed Justin Thomas a tampon after outdriving his playing partner in an apparent prank that some on social media are saying has sexist overtones. Thomas immediately discarded the tampon before the two men laughed and hugged as they walked off the tee on the ninth hole at the Genesis International on Thursday. Woods’ reasons for handing Thomas a tampon are currently unclear.