Free Republic

Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is endangering national security by “using language that is coming out of the Kremlin.” Previewing her interview that will air in full Sunday, host Jen Psaki said, “I asked her, you know Ron DeSantis made several comments that over the course, well actually in a questionnaire to Tucker Carlson, he made these comments where he called it a territorial dispute, which by the way is what Putin calls it. Governor Whitmer said that’s echoing Kremlin talking points.”

[Catholic Caucus] A Heartrending Trad NovelThis is an excellent book. It was so successful at portraying its heartrending themes that it made me feel physically sick. That makes it one of two novels to ever have affected me that way (the other was Rumer Godden’s In this house of Brede). Judith’s Marriage deserves a high ranking among novels dealing with the theology of marriage and family, while as a work of fiction treating explicitly traditionalist themes, it is almost unique in modern Catholic literature. An Englishman and convert to Catholicism, Bryan Houghton was ordained a priest in 1940. In 1969...

Three years after the coronavirus pandemic began and authoritarianism strengthened around the world, nearly half of U.S. adults (47 percent) say they do not expect their lives to “return to pre-pandemic normalcy,” a Gallup News poll found. That percentage was the same in October 2022 and is slightly down from July and August 2022 when 53 percent of U.S. adults said they do not expect their lives to return to the way they were before the pandemic. Results of the poll are based on self-administered web surveys conducted February 21-28 with 5,167 adults. The margin of error is ±2 percentage...

Think tank time folks... It's coming, there is no stopping it. Now is the time to address it and prepare for it. All ideas welcome and I have few of my own. Starting with and including secret organizations and local black market "exchange" banks backed by hard assets such as equity, title loans, and local credit organizations. Local exchanges with their own local physical currency. Let's take it out of their hands and keep it in local hands just like the Mafia does. And anyone who breaks their oath of loyalty and silence gets Indian justice. They get burned at...

One California congressman wants to make the four-day workweek a federal law. Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat representing California’s 39th congressional district, which includes Riverside County, reintroduced the 32-Hour Workweek Act. This bill would reduce the standard 40-hour workweek to 32 hours by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act. The bill would also mandate overtime pay for any work done after 32 hours and applies to non-exempt employees who typically work hourly jobs in various sectors, including transportation, wholesale and retail. California lawmaker proposes bill to limit the risk of homelessness for state renters The legislation was initially introduced by...

There was a time when cleanliness was viewed as “next to godliness.” That clearly has changed. It is now apparently next to white supremacy. While it would be impossible to discuss all of the wacky scholarship being published today, Loyola (Chicago) Professor Jenna Drenten is a standout with a new theory that “cleanliness” is a “cultural gatekeeping mechanism” with “racist,” “sexist” and “classist” roots. It turns out that the sweet spice rack that your kid brought back from shop is actually a stratified, structural vehicle for white supremacy and male dominance . . . unless you keep it messy. Otherwise,...

Newly released data shows soil in the Ohio town of East Palestine – scene of a recent catastrophic train crash and chemical spill – contains dioxin levels hundreds of times greater than the exposure threshold above which Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists in 2010 found poses cancer risks. The EPA at the time proposed lowering the cleanup threshold to reflect the science around the highly toxic chemical, but the Obama administration killed the rules, and the higher federal action threshold remains in place. Though the dioxin levels in East Palestine are below the federal action threshold and an EPA administrator...

The No. 2 Senate Republican has kept in touch (only) by text with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell since a recent fall and concussion but has not yet talked directly to the Kentucky legislator, he told reporters Wednesday. “I have not spoken with him,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the GOP whip said. “I have communicated with him, but I look forward to making that happen.”

House Republicans are calling on Biden administration's national security officials to "utilize the full application of sanctions, export controls, and diplomacy" to block a Russian state-owned energy company from helping China to expand its nuclear weapons program and warn this relationship is a "direct threat" to U.S. national security. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul are demanding that the Biden administration acknowledge that Russia and China are "working in tandem against the United States." "Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, is helping the People’s Republic...

EXCLUSIVE — The U.S. government conditioned a plea agreement with a defendant stipulating they sign a secret form, which was not authorized through Congress and has been slammed as "unconstitutional" by Republican lawmakers, that stripped their rights to buy, own, or use firearms, documents show. Between 2011 and 2019, the FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement coordinated to obtain signatures on an internal form from at least 60 U.S. citizens that stripped their gun rights, according to newly obtained records and multiple Washington Examiner reports. In at least one instance, the bureau and Secret Service worked behind...

Merrick Garland recently warned the nation’s courts that they would be sending “thousands” of additional cases involving people who were allegedly part of the January 6 riot at the Capitol building. The DoJ didn’t waste any time making good on that promise, bringing charges yesterday against Elliot Resnick in New York City. But Resnick’s case comes with a twist. He doesn’t deny that he was in the Capitol Building that day, but he was the editor of The Jewish Press, an Orthodox Jewish newspaper in the Big Apple. He was covering the rally and the subsequent incursion of the building....

A trio of federal appellate judges upheld a prior legal ruling on Thursday that bars the state of Florida from enforcing the ‘Stop WOKE Act’ while it faces ongoing legal battles related to its constitutionality. The measure, supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis, imposes restrictions on the instruction of race-related concepts in Florida’s public universities. The decision affirmed a ruling ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last year, where he granted a preliminary injunction against the legislation, finding that it violated First Amendment rights. “Neither the state of Florida’s authority to regulate public school curriculum nor its interest in...

American intelligence officials warned last month that the Chinese Communist Party is directing its influence operations at "more pliable" local officials. That could explain why the head of Beijing’s top influence outfit just met with the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass. Lin Songtian, the president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, met with Bass, California treasurer Fiona Ma, and several pro-China think tanks during a 10-day stateside tour last month, according to Chinese state media. Lin said he had "extensive, candid, and friendly exchanges" about the "stabilization and improvement of Sino-U.S. relations."

"Alright, I'm not sure where this pic comes from, but it has taken the internet by storm the last 24 hours and we all know Joe's archnemesis is stairs."

Democrats have a more favorable view of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) than Republicans do, a Rasmussen Reports survey released Thursday found. The survey examined the likability of three Republican leaders: Former President Donald Trump, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and McConnell. The survey showed 52 percent of likely voters with a favorable view of both Trump and McCarthy. Of those, 31 percent view Trump “very” favorably, while 22 percent view McCarthy “very” favorably. However, McConnell struggles to see a positive favorable rating across the board, as 60 percent hold an unfavorable view, while 31 percent have unfavorable view....

CAMERA’s exposé, which can be read here in full, demonstrates that the four journalists failed to live up to France 24’s charter of ethics. In numerous social media posts, the journalists can be seen praising Hitler, minimizing the Holocaust, and glorifying Hamas-affiliated terrorists who murdered and maimed scores of Jewish civilians. “Professional journalists are expected to hold up basic standards of objectivity, which obviously includes not cheerleading for Hitler and Hamas-inspired terrorism,” said Andrea Levin, CAMERA executive director. “We commend France 24 for promptly investigating this serious situation, and we hope that the news outlet cuts ties with these apologists...

Built by the University of Chicago in 1897 in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, Yerkes Observatory is home to the world’s largest refracting telescope and famous astronomers like George Ellery Hale, Edwin Hubble and Carl Sagan worked and studied there. ...as newer technology emerged the Great Refractor became less relevant, and the university closed the observatory in 2018. A non-profit formed by residents in the nearby Lake Geneva area took control, and in 2020 that group, Yerkes Future Foundation, embarked on a $20 million renovation effort.... Weighing about 82 tons, the Great Refractor is the world’s largest refracting telescope. The University of...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova on Friday. Both face accusations of committing war crimes associated with the Russia-Ukraine war. The ICC alleges that Lvova-Belova and Putin were conducting unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation. -snip- "When we brought them to the territory of the Moscow region so that they could recover a little, the story began that they spoke negatively about [Putin], said all sorts of nasty things, sang the anthem of Ukraine, 'Glory to Ukraine' and all that," Lvova-Belova said, according to a...

Newly released data shows soil in the Ohio town of East Palestine – scene of a recent catastrophic train crash and chemical spill – contains dioxin levels hundreds of times greater than the exposure threshold above which Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists in 2010 found poses cancer risks.

Americans can’t afford food, but leftist and Chinese companies get bailed out. Silicon Valley Bank spent billions on green energy, millions on Black Lives Matter and other leftist causes, until it finally ran out of ‘other people’s money’. That’s when the Biden administration decided to bail out its depositors. At a dinner hosted by Peter Orszag, Obama’s former budget director, Wally Adeyemo, Obama’s Nigerian assistant treasury secretary and Biden’s deputy treasury secretary, chatted with Blair Effron, an influential Biden donor, serving on Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board, who had been hired as an advisor by SVB to deal with its financial...