Free Republic

December 9, 1965, marked a quiet revolution in American holiday television — the day A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on CBS. Based on the beloved Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, the half-hour animated special introduced to millions a different kind of Christmas story: small in scale, emotionally honest, tender, and subversively thoughtful. At the time, few expected much. The special was produced on a modest budget, completed in just six months, and featured child actors rather than seasoned voice talents — a bold choice for 1965 television. Executives worried: no laugh track, understated pacing, a jazz soundtrack by Vince...

Ford CEO Jim Farley has proven himself to be a passionate car guy, but every now and again he pops up to remind everyone he’s running a multi-billion dollar company with one of the most recognisable brand names in the world. Earlier this week, Farley stood with US President Donald Trump as fuel economy targets were slashed, effectively allowing Ford – and other brands – to battle less red tape and sell vehicles for greater profits, while at the same time providing better up-front affordability for buyers. Now, Farley has turned his attention to Europe, amid reports that the continent’s...

[Catholic Caucus] Whither the Mass of Vatican II?Sixty years ago today Pope Paul VI offered Mass in St Peter’s Square before presiding over the ceremonies formally closing the Second Vatican Council. “The Mass was not the kind of solemn pre-conciliar ceremony once sung by the Pope and the Julian choir,” one observer remarked, “but a simple sung Mass to which the entire assembly responded.” “It was a reminder of another fruit of the Council, its Constitution on the liturgical renewal” (Council Daybook, III, p. 284).For December 1965, such an assertion seems quite reasonable. The verbal participation in the Gregorian chant...

An appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of President Donald Trump’s ban on “transgenders” serving in the U.S. military. The Trump administration just scored a legal victory against woke insanity and for military reform. In the case of Nicolas Talbott, et al. v. United States, D.C. Circuit Court Judges Katsas and Rao ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s transgender ban.

Mark Zuckerberg has found himself at the center of an embarrassing climate change flip-flop, thanks to his $300 million mega yacht. The 41-year-old Meta boss, worth roughly $230 billion, has reportedly been burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel since launching his personal, 387-foot vessel last year. The yacht, dubbed Launchpad, runs on four diesel engines that use about 291 gallons of fuel every hour, which allegedly emits 40 tons of CO₂ over that same period of time. Zuckerberg, an outspoken advocate for climate change policies such as the Paris Agreement and scaling carbon dioxide removal technologies to...

Ukraine and its European partners will soon be ready to present the U.S. with "refined documents" on a peace plan to end the war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday, following days of high-stakes shuttle diplomacy. Kyiv is under pressure from the White House to secure a quick peace but is pushing back on a U.S.-backed plan proposed last month that is widely seen as favorable to Moscow. Ukrainian officials are also seeking strong security guarantees from partners... In a statement, Zelenskyy said new components of the deal hashed out with the British, French, and German leaders in...

Erika Kirk is part Lebanese which must explain her strong faith. She was brought up Catholic and her mother who was half Lebanese must have had a strong influence on her!

Dear friends, on the 45th anniversary of John Lennon’s murder, I was thinking about John Lennon’s legacy and identity. Dear friends, I grew up in the world for 24 years before I came to Christ, so I know its thinking and ways because I once was saturated in it, lived it, and walked its course (Eph. 2:1-14). As I was at work today, people were remembering John Lennon and praising him in many ways, and as the Christmas music was playing; they were playing many of this world's Christmas carols which have a secular and demonic mood to it of...

Well, who could have seen this coming! That national "grooming gangs" inquiry Sir Keir Starmer got bounced into agreeing to? It's gonna have to wait until all the records of any such "grooming" have been wiped:S A M M Y Woodhouse@officialsammyuk·FollowThe last 13 years of my police files have disappeared. It’s also worth noting that investigations into Rotherham are still ongoing and they recently visited me for more information....Retention of records is the first and most basic step in any genuine adjudication of a matter. When Cockwombling Cary Katz and CRTV sued me, for example, the first thing I got...

Chilling cockpit audio and dashcam footage sheds new light on the moments former Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson attempted to bring down a commercial flight with 84 people on board by shutting down its engines in October, 2023. “I’m not ok,” a distressed-sounding Emerson says in the audio obtained by KGW Portland. “What’s wrong? You want to be home?” a confused member of the plane’s flight crew asks. Emerson then unleashes a string of expletives, and a struggle can be heard erupting in the cockpit of the San Francisco-bound jet. “Horizon, we need to make an emergency landing. We got...

[Catholic Caucus] New Orleans Catholics afraid during immigration sweeps can miss MassThe Archdiocese of New Orleans has said that Catholics who are fearful for leaving their homes can miss Mass amid immigration raids while U.S. Border Patrol agents fan out across the city in the second week of an immigration enforcement operation.Archbishop Gregory Aymond granted the dispensation for Catholics who are "rightfully afraid to participate in Mass.”The dispensation will be valid "until the individual Catholic determines it is safe to attend Mass again or this dispensation is revoked or amended," Aymond said in a letter Monday to New Orleans' Catholic...

Former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris boasted that she’s a “historic figure” who will have “a marble bust” of herself sitting in the Capitol during an interview for a not-entirely-flattering New York Times profile. According to Shane Goldmacher, “Ms. Harris is busy selling books — a lot of them. She is not yet selling herself. Old advisers, both allied and estranged, have squinted from afar at her book tour, wondering what exactly her strategy is, or if there is any at all.” “She has done little to distance herself from former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. besides...

A decade of Somali migration to the United States was plagued with mass fraud, the federal government and a retired Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official previously revealed. The P-3 refugee pipeline, created by the Refugee Act of 1980, allows refugees to apply for their spouses, unmarried children, and parents to also receive refugee status in the U.S. From 2003 through 2008, Africans, including Somalis, represented more than 95 percent of the refugees who arrived in the U.S. through the P-3 program. In March 2008, after some 36,000 mostly Africans had entered the U.S. as P-3 refugees — the majority...

Explanation: This cosmic close-up looks deep inside the Soul Nebula. The dark and brooding dust clouds outlined by bright ridges of glowing gas are cataloged as IC 1871. About 25 light-years across, the telescopic field of view spans only a small part of the much larger Heart and Soul nebulae. At an estimated distance of 6,500 light-years, the star-forming complex lies within the Perseus spiral arm of the Milky Way, seen in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation of the Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia). An example of triggered star formation, the dense star-forming clouds of IC 1871 are themselves sculpted...

President Donald Trump's envoys have given Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy only days to respond to a proposed peace deal that would require Ukraine to accept territorial losses in exchange for unspecified U.S. security guarantees, with one person familiar with the timeline saying Trump wants an agreement "by Christmas." Zelenskyy told European leaders that he was pushed during a two-hour phone call with Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, to make a quick decision, reports the Financial Times on Tuesday. Officials familiar with the talks said that the Ukrainian leader told Witkoff and Kushner that he...

Hundreds of Porsches in Russia were rendered immobile last week, raising speculation of a hack, but the German carmaker tells The Register that its vehicles are secure. According to reports, local dealership chain Rolf traced the problem to a loss of satellite connectivity to their Vehicle Tracking Systems (VTS). This meant the systems thought a theft attempt was in progress, triggering the vehicle's engine immobilizer. Porsche HQ was unable to help or diagnose the nature of the problem. It's understood that systems like VTS are operated by local Porsche subsidiaries or dealer networks. But following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and...

Justice Department lawyers said Tuesday that a recent ruling barring their access to key evidence has effectively crippled their efforts to reindict former FBI director James B. Comey, two weeks after their original case against him was dismissed. The concession came in a court filing urging a federal judge in Washington to lift a temporary order she imposed Saturday restricting the government’s ability to review or use emails and other electronic communications seized as part of an investigation more than five years ago involving Comey confidante Daniel Richman. Richman’s records had played a central role in the Justice Department’s effort...

In a CNN This Morning segment today on the trend of northern students choosing Southern colleges, Boston Globe reporter Beth Teitell was reluctant to admit that one reason they do so is to escape the leftist politics of Northern schools. To her credit, host Audie Cornish did raise the issue. On her first try, Audie asked: "Can I talk about the liberal arts part of it? Because I understand politics is coming into play. What are these students saying about why they're making this decision?" Teitell ducked it, claiming that students chose the South because during COVID, students there were...

In a brazen push to normalise the unthinkable, radical abortion activists are now targeting America’s youngest minds with a colorful children’s book that glorifies killing the unborn as some kind of heroic “superpower.” The extreme left are coming for the kids, framing abortion as destiny-shaping magic in a bid to “rewrite cultural scripts” and stomp out any resistance to their anti-life ideology. The book, titled Abortion Is Everything, is being peddled by the pro-abortion group Shout Your Abortion (SYA), set to ship in January 2026. Aimed squarely at children aged five to eight, it uses vibrant, water-color style illustrations to...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court should consider a basic constitutional reality: county officials from Boulder, Colorado, cannot force their preferred climate policies on the rest of the nation. Obvious as it seems, that is what’s at stake in Suncor Energy Inc. v. Boulder County, a climate change case the court will weigh for review on Dec. 12. Like the other thirty-odd copycat climate lawsuits filed by states and localities from Honolulu to my hometown of Charleston, Boulder’s suit weaponizes tort law to try to transform state courts into vehicles for deploying sweeping climate mandates. If Boulder gets its way,...