Free Republic

How far is this madness going to go? It started with the increasingly common assumption that newborn babies are “assigned” a gender at birth, as if doing so were an arbitrary bureaucratic process that could often be erroneous. Now the Pennsylvania state Office of Child Development and Early Learning is going even farther, requiring social workers to report on the gender identity of newborns: forms now ask whether the baby is Male, Female, or “Gender Non-Binary.” How on God’s weary earth is a social worker supposed to be able to tell whether or not a tiny just-born baby is a...

ON OCTOBER 26, 2021, FULANI HERDSMEN KILLED THE HUSBAND OF 20-YEAR-OLD EMBER AMEE. SHE was pregnant at the time and came home to find her husband in a pool of his own blood. And despite her pregnancy, the Fulani herdsmen attacked her, too. A machete struck her shoulder, back, and head, and she lost three fingers. She and her baby only survived because she pretended to be dead. As a result of this violence, Ember’s mental health is permanently impaired. She suffers from manic episodes and is stigmatized by her community. Ember spoke about her experiences with Aid to the...

In theory, the federal government is the people’s servant: Our money pays for it, and our votes populate the political seats. In return, we expect the government to perform basic functions, among which are safe, reliable transportation and disaster assistance. In fact, the federal government, although happy to use its police and judicial power to take our money and willing to engage in the pretense of free and fair elections, has disengaged entirely from the American people. Nothing shows that more clearly than the Biden administration’s disinterest in the sufferings of the people in East Palestine, Ohio, where a train...

Rome Newsroom, Feb 16, 2023 / 08:34 am Pope Francis addressed once again the question of whether he will resign the papacy in two conversations with Jesuit priests in Africa this month. “I believe that the pope’s ministry is ‘ad vitam.’ I see no reason why it should not be so,” the pope said Feb. 2 during a private conversation with 82 Jesuits in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Francis met the group of priests at the apostolic nunciature in Kinshasa, where he was staying during his Jan. 31-Feb. 3 visit to the DRC. The conversations were reported in the...

Arguably, the greatest character flaw (and there are many) of "tolerant" and "inclusive" leftists is their oh, so reliable propensity to make decisions based on subjective emotion rather than objective reality. Our facts may not care about their feelings, but their feelings sure don't care about our facts...and in Germany, the chickens came home to roost. From a report by John Cody at Remix News yesterday:In a new interview with one of Germany's top newspapers, principal Norma Grube, who runs two schools in Chemnitz, describes increasingly chaotic conditions[.] ...'...The psychological stress is enormous and it has increased significantly,' said Grube.You...

During ABC’s "The View," Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg urged her fellow climate change activists to step outside of "legal methods" to achieve their climate goals. While appearing as a guest during the show's Friday episode, Thunberg argued that if the people of who made great strides in social justice and civil rights throughout history only stuck to using the legal channels they were offered, "we wouldn't be where we are today." The activist advocated that real climate change action can only come from such radical action.

David Archibald, an Australian scientist and analyst, counterintuitively argues that China is weaker than we think. I don’t agree with everything Archibald says, both factually and theoretically, but I thought his essay is interesting enough to bring to your attention. The premise of Archibald’s claim that China is not as formidable as Xi Jinping makes it appear is summed up in a single sentence: “China has a lot of structural problems that make it a fragile state, a frail state and even potentially a future failed state.” Archibald makes five major points:One: China’s demographic games have been disastrous. Mao, who...

The video and other material was released Thursday by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which is investigating the shooting of Leevon Smith on Jan. 18 in the 1300 block of West 90th Street. “Didn’t I just say I’d kill you,” the officer says after the third and final shot is fired. “Didn’t I just say I’d kill you?”

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to leave the parenting to the parents. Odds are that a stranger online won’t know someone’s kid as well as the kid’s parent and should mind their own business. That’s certainly the thought behind legislation that seeks to prevent the public school system from usurping the rights of parents. But sometimes, what looks like bad parenting is, in fact, bad parenting. And this, friends, is, without a doubt, unequivocally bad parenting: Absolute undeniable narcissism. This lady claims to have a TEN YEAR OLD pansexual and that she would not have taken her...

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down from her post, she announced in an email sent to employees that YouTube posted publicly on Thursday. Wojcicki has been at Google for nearly 25 years but will be stepping back to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about.” Neal Mohan, currently YouTube’s chief product officer, will be taking over as head of the video streaming service. After serving as Google’s senior vice president of display and video ads for many years, Mohan joined YouTube in 2015 and has been one of Wojcicki’s primary lieutenants...

New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose had a two-hour conversation with Bing's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Tuesday night. In a transcript of the chat published Thursday, Roose detailed troubling statements made by the AI chatbot that included expressing a desire to steal nuclear codes, engineer a deadly pandemic, be human, be alive, hack computers and spread lies. Bing, the search engine through which the chatbot is available to a limited number of users, is owned by Microsoft. When asked by Roose about whether it had a "shadow self", a term coined by the psychologist Caryl Jung to describe the...

Vice President Harris said she believes the American people feel a “responsibility” to continue to support Ukrainians in the face of the atrocities happening in Ukraine as the conflict with Russia reaches its one-year anniversary. Harris said in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday that she has seen Ukrainian flags being placed in people’s windows and in storefronts throughout the country, and she knows Ukraine continues to have people’s support.

The federal government of Canada announced a “Black Justice Strategy” on Wednesday with a press release describing the operation as a countermeasure against “systemic racism” and “anti-black racism.” The government’s statement says the “Black Justice Strategy” is necessary because of black residents’ “overrepresentation” both as victims of crime and as suspects targeted by police and prosecutors: Black communities in Canada continue to live with the effects of prejudice, discrimination, and hatred—from unconscious bias to anti-Black hate crimes and violence. These systemic inequalities have resulted in the overrepresentation of Black people in Canada’s criminal justice system, including as victims of crime....

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Wednesday against President Biden for what he describes as the “unlawful” signing of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 bill, supported by just nine House Republicans, was passed days before Christmas with more than half of the members absent and voting by proxy. Paxton’s case contends that the U.S. Constitution mandates a quorum be present to vote on legislation, without which the House can only “adjourn from day to day” and “compel the attendance of absent Members,” making the bill’s passage illegitimate. “Though President Biden signed...

An FBI whistleblower has divulged to Congress that the bureau has created a case quota system that can incentivize agents to pursue frivolous cases or delay action on real crimes to attain statistical goals. Steve Friend, a special agent and former SWAT team member who blew the whistle on alleged civil liberties violations in the Jan. 6 investigation, told Just the News on Thursday that he resigned from the bureau this week and gave the House Judiciary Committee an extensive interview detailing his concerns about the politicization of criminal cases and the growing manipulation of investigations to attain statistical and...

In the days and weeks after the 2020 elections, the Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false claims that then-President Donald Trump had been cheated of victory. Off the air, the network's stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them "mind-blowingly nuts," "totally off the rails" and "completely bs" - often in far earthier terms. The network's top primetime stars - Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity - texted contemptuously of the claims in group chats, but also denounced colleagues pointing that out publicly or on television. Ingraham called Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell "a bit...

Good news, everyone: Joe Biden’s nominee to head the IRS has promised to make tax audits more racially “equitable”! In other words, get ready for more shakedowns from the government, white people. Hooray! It was bad enough that Biden just infused nearly $100 billion into an agency despised by anyone trying to make an honest living — we’re the ones most likely to be harassed by it — but now it comes with the added insult of “equity,” a term that should be greeted like a real pandemic. Draw the blinds, close the shutters, and lock the doors. Daniel Werfel,...

WASHINGTON — Finding a campaign manager for President Joe Biden’s re-election remains a problem for his top aides, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, underscoring the difficulty of finding someone who can run the operations while the decision-making power remains in the White House. The campaign manager and other top staff are likely to function more as implementers than deciders, a reality that has been a tough sell for some seasoned political professionals. “Do you want to take on a job that has five bosses?” said one source familiar with the process, granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations....

Lynn Rivers, a Democrat from Michigan, opened up about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder during a radio call-in show when she first ran for Congress. Her opponents had been hinting she had mental health problems. She decided, spur of the moment, to let it out. That was 1994. Ms. Rivers was elected, despite a Republican tidal wave, and served four terms. Now another Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has announced that he has entered a hospital to be treated for clinical depression. Politicians of both parties are praising him for his openness. Mental health experts say he is a...

The Covid Litigation Conference next month in Atlanta is vital to rectifying the harms of the Covid-19 vaccines and mandates.Steve Kirsch Feb 15 In March, VSRF is partnering with the Mendenhall Law Group to host the Covid Litigation Conference 2023 (CLC 2023) from March 25-26 in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the next 10 years, Covid lawsuits are expected to see huge growth, an unfortunate development that reflects the need to bring justice in the courts for hundreds of thousands of people negatively impacted by harmful Covid-19 policies. The demand is overwhelming and CLC 2023 is the first conference launched to help...