Free Republic

The European Union just passed a directive requiring ESG mandates for European businesses. ESG, of course, stands for environmental, social and governance standards. Or in the fine print — definite corporate action concerning climate change; social justice; and diversity, equity and inclusion. Basically, it’s applied Marxism without all the goofy theories — tyranny with nuance, we could call it. The EU Council approved what it called the “corporate sustainability due diligence directive” on Friday. Under the new rules, companies “will have to take measures to prevent, identify and mitigate any adverse impact on human rights or the environment,” the council...

A Massachusetts man has been accused of tricking his ex-girlfriend into taking abortion pills before she suffered a miscarriage. Robert Kawada, 43, allegedly pressured the unnamed woman into taking the abortion pills over several weeks, telling her they contained iron and other vitamins. Watertown Police said the former couple met on a dating app in January and dated until Kawada ended the relationship in early March, as reported by NBC Boston. The alleged victim learned she was pregnant after the two broke up, according to court documents, and that's when Kawada obtained the abortion pills, including misoprostol, a prescription drug...

A University of Florida research employee and students have been implicated in an illegal, multi-million dollar scheme that saw samples of dangerous drugs and toxins illicitly shipped to China over a period of seven years. The scheme, investigated by the Justice Department, saw thousands of biochemical samples bought illegally which were then delivered to a campus laboratory before being shipped overseas, according to federal court records. Among the students tied to the scheme was the president of UF's Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Nongnong 'Leticia' Zheng. The group openly protested a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron De Santis last...

California Democrats are racing to reverse a new $25-an-hour healthcare worker minimum wage law going into effect at the end of the week after the governor’s office estimates it would cost the state $4 billion annually. The news of the costs isn’t new. In fact, it was projected by legislative analysis and ignored by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who signed the law in October. Now, as it gets ready to go into effect, lawmakers are looking for ways to delay it. California’s budget deficit has grown in years and now stands at a hefty $45 billion. Newsom’s office projects the...

[Catholic Caucus] Father James Martin says he knows ‘hundreds’ of homosexual priests: ‘They’ve been my mentors’James Martin wrote that in his ’25 years as a priest and almost 40 as a Jesuit,’ he has ‘known hundreds’ of homosexual priests, including some of his ‘superiors,’ ‘mentors’ and ‘spiritual directors.’The prolific pro-LGBT Jesuit Father James Martin has attested he has known “hundreds” of homosexual priests, as the fallout continues from Pope Francis’ reported statement that is there being too much “f–ggotry” in seminaries.The heterodox Jesuit wrote that in his “25 years as a priest and almost 40 as a Jesuit,” he has...

Weissmann: "With respect to Judge Merchan, I have like a man crush on him. He is such a great judge. If you looked in a dictionary for judicial temperament, that's what you would get."

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Martin Gruenberg announced last week that he will resign his post following revelations that the agency was awash in sexual harassment under his leadership. The news came as a blow to some of the same congressional Democrats who championed the #MeToo movement, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) pushing Gruenberg to stay in his post and deny Republicans "a veto over bank policy." In 2017, Warren called for the immediate resignation of her former colleague, Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.), after a photo surfaced of him groping a female radio host. The year after, Warren...

As thousands fled Kyiv in the first days of Russia’s 2022 invasion, one 57-year-old grandmother hurried in the opposite direction. Liudmyla Menyuk was going to sign up for the army to avenge her son who’d been killed fighting the Russians almost a decade before. Many Ukrainians of Menyuk’s age have volunteered, sometimes motivated — like she was — by the explicit wish to stand in for a youth who might otherwise die in their place. “I performed my duties well,” she told Bloomberg in an interview, “so I could save the life of a young Ukrainian.” But the enthusiasm of...

Judge Juan Merchan is keeping former President Donald Trump off the campaign trail by forcing him to wait at the courthouse while the jury deliberates, Trump lawyer Jesse Binnall said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily. “Why are they keeping him in the courtroom?” host Mike Slater asked Binnall during the Wednesday appearance. “I think we all know that the entire reason that Judge Merchan had scheduled this case for when he scheduled it for and why he has been very, very deliberate in keeping Donald Trump in the courtroom and now making so he can’t even, you know,...

United States District Judge Aileen Cannon recently rejected special counsel Jack Smith's request to place a gag order against former President Donald Trump. On Friday, Smith's team asked Cannon to modify Trump's conditions of release to prohibit him from making "statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of" the classified documents case against Trump. Smith's team claimed the gag order was "necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned and executed...

Just recently, the Episcopal Church—a totally apostate harlot that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Bride of Christ—unveiled a new logo. This new “Pride shield” shamelessly merges the historic Episcopal shield with the garish colors of the LGBTQABCDEFG+++ Pride flags. The arrogance of such a move is astounding. One must marvel at the sheer irony of a so-called “church,” one that claims to represent Christ, celebrating what the Bible explicitly condemns. In Romans 1, we see a clear depiction of God’s wrath against humanity’s unrighteousness and sexual immorality. It states unequivocally that those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness are...

PHILADELPHIA — President Biden lashed out Wednesday at a reporter who asked if he planned to complete a full second term or hand over power to Vice President Kamala Harris sometime before January 2029 — before speaking to a rally at a half-full school gym. “Are you OK?” the 81-year-old president shouted in response across the tarmac at Philadelphia International Airport, pointing his finger at his head. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you?” Biden added, addressing the pool reporter who asked the question. The reporter then asked if the president could “approach,” due to the difficulty in...

Conservative radio host and litigator Mark Levin said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump should immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if convicted by a Manhattan jury, due to serious constitutional issues. MY LEGAL ADVICE TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ATTORNEYS: NEXT STEP U.S. SUPREME COURT In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court interceded in the Florida Supreme Court’s deliberations because that Court was changing the Florida voting system on the fly, thereby violating the EQUAL… — Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) May 29, 2024 The jury began its deliberations Wednesday after Judge Juan Merchan issued his instructions — and,...

On this date in 1879, Sacramento County public administrator Troy Dye was hanged for murder, along with the Swedish goon whom he’d hired to do the dirty work. A 36-year-old father of three, Dye was a prosperous tavern owner in the California capital who volunteered at the Sunday school. In 1877, voters entrusted him with the necessary public office of managing intestate estates. In retrospect one can safely say that Dye was not cut out for the public trust. The position entailed a percentage claim on the estate so handled, which meant in practice that it was a thankless burden...

1:33 CNN poll analyst Harry Enten said Wednesday on “News Central” that polling shows most voters don’t care about the New York business records case against former President Donald Trump. Enten said, “It feels like only yesterday to me, John, that it began, but apparently, it is 44 days. You crack the numbers, you’ve run the numbers. All right, let’s take a look here. Think Trump did something illegal in the New York hush money case. I’ve been interested in whether or not these numbers will change at all during the course of this trial?” He added, “Simply put, they...

Many have seen their hours reduced—or have lost their jobs entirely.California now leads the nation in imposing dumb wage laws. The state just raised the hourly minimum wage for fast food workers to $20. Gov. Gavin Newsom said, "We saw the inequities….We had a responsibility to do more." Unions pushed for the higher minimum, and in Democrat-run states, unions usually get what they want. CNN announced, "Half a million California fast food workers will now earn $20 per hour." Gullible leftists at the Center for American Progress claim, "A higher minimum wage would boost millions of families out of poverty...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren condemned Israel for killing Palestinian civilians with bombs that she had voted to send Israel.Bombs kill people. When someone provides bombs to a government at war, those weapons will be used to kill people. It's a simple fact but one that seems to have eluded Democrats. After voting to send bombs to the Israeli military, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) condemned the Israeli military for killing Palestinian civilians with an American-made bomb. And after urging the Israeli military to use smaller munitions, the Biden administration found itself scrambling to deal with a mass civilian casualty event caused by...

At WWDC, Apple will unveil its AI strategy as part of iOS 18 and its other operating system announcements. As previously reported by Bloomberg and others, the company plans to exploit a combination of on-device and server processing. However, processing of user data on Apple’s server infrastructures raises privacy concerns, especially when Apple has been touting on-device approach for so many years. Today, The Information explains Apple has what it thinks is a solution to provide rich AI processing abilities in its cloud while maintaining strict privacy standards. The Information report describes that Apple intends to employ confidential computing techniques,...

Nikki Haley, a former GOP presidential candidate and United Nations ambassador, wrote “Finish them” on an artillery shell while on a trip to Israel this week. Haley was photographed signing the shell Tuesday in a social media post by Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the Israeli Parliament. The message on the shell read, “Finish them! America [heart] Israel always, Nikki Haley.” “This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote in a post...

...As a young man, I was struck by how masterfully Buckley built an entire movement and kept it going by force of personality. Even then, however, I was increasingly turned off by Buckley’s crusading anti-Communism—and that was long before he wandered off in a neoconservative direction. I also became concerned with how Buckley lavished favors on his buddies on the left and the manner in which he inserted them into National Review, and then on his TV interview program, Firing Line. By the 1990s, Buckley made only feeble attempts to defend longtime friends and loyal employees who came under assault...