Free Republic

This week is the Ukraine war’s first anniversary, but it feels like 10 years, not one. Ukraine “fatigue” is understandable. But let’s try to put the sensation of war fatigue in context. Vietnam came to be known in the 1960s as the television war, shown on the TV news every night. News programs then lasted a half-hour, with Vietnam usually just a segment. Still, the unsettling daily footage eroded public support for the war. Today, with all media on all the time, we are saturated with Ukraine’s war, as we are with mass murders, weather disasters or a train derailment....

Mark Middleton, who served as a special adviser to Bill Clinton and reportedly let notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein into the Clinton White House at least seven times, was found dead last year. Middleton was found tied to a tree with an extension cord around his neck and a gunshot wound to his chest. After nearly a year, his death has curiously been ruled a suicide — even though the weapon that killed him was nowhere to be found. “The grisly scene where a top Bill Clinton adviser was found hanged from a tree with a gunshot wound to his chest...

Patients with Parkinson's disease achieved a significant improvement in their tremors, mobility, and other physical symptoms after having a minimally invasive procedure involving focused ultrasound, according to a new study today published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The clinical trial was led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and involved 94 Parkinson's disease patients who were randomly assigned to undergo focused ultrasound to ablate a targeted region on one side of the brain or to have a sham procedure. Nearly 70 percent of patients in the treatment group were considered successful responders to...

Alternating hemiplegia of childhood is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder associated with a mutation in the ATP1A3 gene. It begins in infancy, causing symptoms that significantly impair quality of life. Young patients are affected by episodes of paralysis which can last from a few minutes to several days and involve one or alternating sides of the body. They also experience repetitive muscle contractions called dystonia, which sometimes last for hours and are often painful. "We don't know how to help these patients. Therefore, we remain particularly attentive to the sometimes-unexpected factors that could relieve them," explains Emmanuel Flamand-Roze. "Recently, a 25-year-old...

Angela Davis was shocked to learn that her ancestors came to America on the Mayflower, making her descendants of people who helped found the country. The civil rights activist learned about this news during the Feb. 21 episode of PBS’s Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Gates shows her a manifest of names, eventually revealing that the document had the names of the Mayflower passengers. The post Angela Davis Learns She Had Ancestors On The Mayflower In Recent ‘Finding Your Roots’ Episode appeared first on Blavity. “No, I can’t believe this,” she said, laughing through her surprise. “My...

Timeline of Russia's all-out war in Ukraine: month by month [Photos at LINK] Ukraine has come a long way since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. From the Russian occupation of nearly 30% of Ukraine’s territory in February to Russia’s humiliating defeats in the north and the south, from the West’s hesitation about providing weapons to Kyiv to pledging hundreds of modern tanks, from the entire world’s doubts about Ukraine’s very chances to survive to the global admiration of the Ukrainian people’s courage — this year has forever changed Ukraine and the world. No matter how...

As cocaine use continues to climb, scientists have struggled to develop an effective pharmacological approach to treat the devastating disorder. But by seamlessly combining artificial intelligence (AI), human intelligence, clinical testing and computer analysis, researchers have unearthed an existing option that appears to hold promise. "Ketamine, a small synthetic organic molecule used clinically as an anesthetic and a depression treatment, was found to be associated with significant improvement in remission among people with cocaine-use disorders," said Rong Xu. "This study is a great example of addressing an intractable problem by the creative use of AI using different sources of data,"...

Russian extras were recruited on social media platforms and offered money and free merchandise to pack out a patriotic stadium rally helmed by President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Wednesday, according to reports. Putin, 70, praised troops who he said were defending the fatherland during the celebration at the Luzhniki Stadium, which was festooned with oversized Russian flags. Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the defiant leader’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which he has continued to call a “special military operation” and repeatedly tried to blame the West for. The festivities were attended by a crowd estimated to be around 200,000...

Nearly three in four U.S. adults agree that “It’s okay to be white,” results of a new Rasmussen survey reveal. […] … 58% said they “strongly agree” that it’s OK to be white and another 14% said they at least “somewhat agree.” By race, 81% of Whites, 53% of Blacks and 58% of other races at least somewhat agreed it’s alright to be white. …

Should electronic cigarettes, or vapes, be accepted more widely as an effective and respected tool for treating adult smokers' nicotine addiction? Kenneth Warner says there is enough evidence to support e-cigarettes' use as a first-line aid for smoking cessation in adults. "Far too many adults who want to quit smoking are unable to do so," Warner said. "E-cigarettes constitute the first new tool to help them in decades. Yet relatively few smokers and indeed health care professionals appreciate their potential value." In a study, Warner and colleagues took a global view of vaping, examining countries that promote vaping as a...

A gun battle broke out in the Palestinian Authority-administered city of Shechem (Nablus) in Samaria Wednesday morning, after Israeli forces surrounded a building where a wanted terrorist was hiding. IDF soldiers, Border Police officers, and members of the elite Yamam special forces unit took part in the operation in the Kasbah of Shechem. Terrorists opened fire on the Israeli forces, who responded in kind. Nine terrorists were killed in the gun battle, including two who were involved in the murder of Staff Sergeant Ido Baruch. The 21-year-old soldier was shot and killed by terrorists last year near the town of...

There’s a lot to celebrate in Christian worship services. Singing hymns, prayers, and the learning of God’s Word are all part of corporate worship, and I happily participate in that. I also participate in confession. The Protestant tradition involves both a public and silent confession of sins. It’s an acknowledgement that we are sinful by nature, and have sinned by thought, word and deed. Through this confession and our earnest repentance, we seek and receive forgiveness through God’s grace. I sin every single day. I don’t like that I sin but as a member of the human race, it is...

An email obtained by The Post Millennial shows that Project Veritas has reached out to donors to ask them to stay with the company despite founder and CEO James O'Keefe having been pushed out by the board of directors. Project Veritas is a not-for-profit operating entirely on the generosity of donors. "We hope that you might continue to give us a chance," the email says, pleading with donors. "We can't stress how separate the board's role is from daily operations here at PV. We are still grinding and pursuing stories of great public importance." The email, sent by Bethany Rolando,...

There’s no doubt that Joe Biden has overseen a record-setting presidency in multiple areas, but they aren’t the records that the talking heads at MSNBC and CNN like to mention. All of the records for illegal immigration have been shattered to pieces and, while it’s harder to measure, the “most transparent administration ever” could readily be said to have set new records in secrecy. But now yet another record has fallen after standing for a decade and a half. American household debt has reached a level not seen since the beginning of the arrival of the Obama administration in 2008....

In last June’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In response, pro-choice activists and lawmakers, aided and abetted by their media allies, began a campaign of misinformation.Americans are now hearing that without access to abortion, women are at risk of injury or death due to pregnancy complications that have nothing to do with abortion. For instance, women are led to believe that they could be denied care for an ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, or pregnancy beset by a life-threatening infection. But that has never been true, and never will be. At the same...

The Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania has released a statement focused on the oceans, which speaks of the need for “deeper ecological conversion” and to embrace “the challenge of integral ecology”. Titled “The oceans of the world are interwoven with the future hopes of all peoples”, the statement was prepared during the FCBCO’s assembly in Fiji last week. In the statement, the bishops said: “The nations and peoples of the Oceania region are facing some of the world’s greatest uncertainties with growing anxiety, but with faith, hope and resilience. “Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, human and economic...

Big Labor and its acolytes have been trumpeting a recent Gallup poll suggesting widespread public support for organized labor.According to the survey, about 71 percent of Americans expressed a favorable opinion of unions, up from 64 percent pre-pandemic and a low of 48 percent in 2009.Even more revealing, they say, are figures from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) showing the overall number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions increased by 273,000 — 1.9 percent — to 14.3 million during 2022 over the previous year.If true, it would be the best showing for unions since the 1960s.Both notions...

A former Texas youth pastor who was found guilty of producing child pornography in July 2022, was sentenced by a U.S. District Judge on Wednesday to 60 years in prison. On July 22, 2022, a jury found Chad Michael Rider, 49, of Anna, Texas guilty of three counts of sexually exploiting children. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Texas said in a press release that in August 2022, investigators with Homeland Security were investigating David Pettigrew of Denison, Texas for child pornography. During the investigation, agents searched Pettigrew’s office at the Denison Church of Nazarene and seized...

The Archdiocese of New York announced on Wednesday that 12 schools will not reopen at the end of the academic year. Officials say that after conducting studies, they determined five Catholic schools in Manhattan, six in the Bronx and one on Staten Island will be shut down. Four others in the Bronx will be merged into two schools. There was a shift in demographics and lower enrollment at the schools that are closing, according to officials. This was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Archdiocese reported spending between $500 million and $700 million to support the schools closing, which...

Cardinal Willem Eijk is committed to eliminating Sunday Word and Communion services in the absence of a priest over the next five years.A Dutch cardinal has said that he is pressing ahead with a plan to phase out Sunday Word and Communion services in the absence of a priest within his territory. Cardinal Willem Eijk, the Archbishop of Utrecht, said in a Feb. 14 letter that he was committed to eliminating the priestless Sunday celebrations over the next five years, so that the Mass can “occupy its rightful central place” among local Catholics, despite protests from some members of the...