Free Republic

Alternate day fasting (ADF) has gained growing attention due to its dramatic effects on improving disordered metabolic parameters. However, the effects of ADF on atherosclerotic plaque formation remain inconsistent and controversial in atherosclerotic animal models. Using atherogenic mice, scientists have worked jointly and reported that ADF aggravated Western diet (WD)–induced atherosclerotic lesion formation, and they also validated that such effects were mediated by inhibiting the expression of hepatic activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3) under ADF intervention. The findings suggest the potentially harmful effects when ADF intervention is applied to the population at high risk of atherosclerosis. In this study, 11-week-old...

A US non-profit that aired two ads during yesterday's Super Bowl attempting to rebrand Jesus for Gen Z is also the main funder of a designated hate group opposing abortion and LGBTIQ rights, openDemocracy can reveal. The Servant Foundation has plunged millions of dollars into its ‘He Gets Us’ ads, which paint Jesus as an “influencer” who was “cancelled” for standing up for his beliefs. The controversial adverts were shown at the Super Bowl for the second year running and have been plastered across billboards in the United States over the last year.

Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.A journalist asked the police a few questions and was arrested by that same agency for publishing the answers. That this happened not in China or Russia but in the U.S. may raise some eyebrows. Yet that's the conduct a federal court greenlit last week when it ruled that law enforcement in Laredo, Texas, did not obviously violate the Constitution when officers allegedly misled a magistrate judge and arrested Priscilla Villarreal for doing basic reporting, adding another twist to a case that...

A group of 3,000 doctors and medical professionals is suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over a mandate that broadens the term "sex" in federal civil rights statutes to include "gender identity" and "sexual orientation." The group argues that the rule, among other things, forces physicians who see Medicaid patients or receive federal funding to provide "gender-affirming" care to children who want to transition to the opposite sex. This includes prescribing hormone treatments and puberty blockers and performing surgery such as removing girls' breasts. The doctors challenging the rule say it will force them to provide...

Name-calling on the internet is nothing new. Enduring attacks based on biased or discredited sources is so common online it’s practically the price of admission for anyone seeking to contribute to the free market of ideas. So trolls and hecklers are hard to avoid. But when reputable sources and institutions mimic their tactics, we have a problem. That’s why, when a senior official in the Justice Department tosses about a smearing “hate group” label, all Americans should take notice—no matter their political leanings. A Florida health official, Jason Weida, posted to LinkedIn: “Honored to speak with Matt Sharp at Alliance...

A federal judge ruled yesterday that the city of Louisville, Kentucky, cannot ban a Christian photographer from limiting her wedding photography business to opposite-sex couples. In the lawsuit which Petapixel has previously reported on, photographer Chelsey Nelson challenged a Louisville law that required her to take photographs and blog online for same-sex weddings.Louisville’s 20-year-old “Fairness Ordinance” prevents discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, the lawsuit, filed on behalf of wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson by the conservative advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, alleges that the city’s law infringes on Nelson’s freedom of religion and speech. Beaton ruled that the...

More than 400 Yale Law School students — over 60 percent of the school’s student body — signed an open letter against free speech and a police presence on campus after hysterical woke students shouted down a bipartisan panel about civil liberties featuring the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Last month, nearly 120 woke Yale Law School students disrupted a bipartisan panel by trying to shout down and intimidate the speakers, who later had to be escorted out of the building by police. One of America’s best and brightest future Ivy League graduates screeched at the ADF representative: “I will literally...

Americans celebrating our 245th birthday this weekend largely fall into two groups. Those in the first will simply take it for granted that freedom rings—assume that the liberties we’ve traditionally enjoyed are liberties we will always enjoy—turn on the ball game, hit the pool, and look for the fireworks. That’s a choice most Americans will happily make.Those in the second group will do something many of us do when we hit one of our own personal milestone birthdays—30, 40, 50, etc. We can pause, if only for a moment or two, to assess where we are, and where we’re going.Things...

Colorado baker Jack Phillips is a perpetual offender. He simply will not do. His offense? Unswervingly honoring his deeply held, and constitutionally protected, religious beliefs. We've all heard of Phillips and his travails. Leftist bullies have been tormenting him for years, beginning in 2012, when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission targeted him for refusing to make a custom-designed cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. After several setbacks in various tribunals, Phillips was finally vindicated in a 7-to-2 U.S. Supreme Court ruling holding that the state of Colorado had shown "clear and impermissible hostility" toward Phillips' religious convictions in violation of...

Their harangue against the girl athlete's op-ed about her losses from competing against a pretend (transgender) girl. They list their complaints, but never mention that boys are physically stronger and faster than girls. They list a "transphobe playlist," i.e. the "lies transphobes tell."

Washington D.C., Mar 8, 2021 / 05:00 pm MT (CNA).- The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a former college student to pursue a remedy against school officials who restricted when and where he could evangelize on campus. In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, the court ruled 8-1 that Chike Uzuegbunam, who was restricted from evangelizing on a public college campus, could sue school officials for nominal damages due to an alleged violation of his free speech. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the majority opinion, while Chief Justice John Roberts was the lone dissenter. “To demonstrate standing, the plaintiff must not only establish an...

That gasp heard after this ruling dropped comes from every college and university with a “free speech zone” and policies that impose heckler’s vetoes. Plaintiffs suing over restrictions on speech and religious expression on campus only need to establish “nominal damages” to gain standing, the Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision, not necessarily actual damages. That opens up a vast new field of litigation that attorneys all across the country will rush to meet. The 8-1 ruling in Uzuegbunam v Preczewski from Justice Clarence Thomas does not actually settle the case in favor of the students, but the writing...

Amy Coney Barrett’s former classmates and even sorority sisters signed a letter to the president of her alma mater, Rhodes College, resorting to some far-left smear tactics to oppose President Donald Trump’s nomination of Barrett to the Supreme Court. Among other things, the alumni’s letter savages ACB for speaking at an event sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), citing the far-left scandal-plagued smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) accusation that ADF is a “hate group” worthy of inclusion on a list with the Ku Klux Klan. The letter’s signatories say many of them were “contemporaries of, friends of,...

Under the NCAA’s current rules, I’m concerned that we will soon effectively have men’s sports and co-ed sports — without any dedicated category for females,' said Madison Kenyon, a college athlete who's lost to transgender athletes. More than 300 high-profile female athletes signed a letter released Wednesday asking the National College Athletic Association Board of Governors to preserve a “fair and level playing field” for women’s sports.“True athletic parity for women demands that women’s sports be protected for biological females,” the letter said. “Protecting the integrity of women’s sports has, for decades, played an integral role in remedying past discrimination...

CALW, Germany — As Germany emerged from its coronavirus lockdown in May, police commandos pulled up outside a rural property owned by a sergeant major in the special forces, the country’s most highly trained and secretive military unit. They brought a digger. The sergeant major’s nickname was Little Sheep. He was suspected of being a neo-Nazi. Buried in the garden, the police found two kilograms of PETN plastic explosives, a detonator, a fuse, an AK-47, a silencer, two knives, a crossbow and thousands of rounds of ammunition, much of it believed to have been stolen from the German military. They...

Judge Chatigny has a track record of favoring sexual predators over women and children. Now this same judge is prejudicing the case against female athletes by imposing a speech code on their counsel. The year was 2010. President Barack Obama was in office, and Democrats controlled the Senate. Obama could practically get any judge he wanted, but he could not get his nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, Robert Chatigny, confirmed based on ChatignyÂ’s track record of favoring sexual predators over women and children. Now this same judge is prejudicing the case against female athletes...

Montclair State University officials violated the freedom of speech of a group of its students by shutting down a peaceful gun rights demonstration on campus last year, a lawsuit filed Wednesday claimed.MSU sophomore Mena Botros, president of Young Americans for Liberty, and two fellow students on Sept. 10, 2019 donned orange jumpsuits and posed as criminals while holding signs mockingly supporting “gun-free zones," according to the lawsuit.Some of the signs stated "every civilian gun is a threat” and “criminals for gun free zones.”Though the students were “peacefully expressing their ideas in a common outdoor area of campus,” a university police...

University of Florida’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter settled in court earlier this week, after suing their university for speech censorship and funding bias. The student group alleges the university imposed criteria that disproportionately impacted those looking to bring conservative speakers to campus.The crux of the suit revolved around money collected from mandatory student fees, which are dispersed to student groups via the student government. In its 45-page legal complaint, YAF said the student government failed to distribute funds to student organizations in a fair, viewpoint-neutral manner. Now with the suit settled, UF will change its policy in addition to paying $66,000 in...

The LGBT agenda is like a hydra; a multi-headed monster that attacks society on several different fronts. At first, the movement gained acceptance through positive portrayals in the entertainment arts. Later on, the LGBT mafia began infiltrating the education system, imposing its rather totalitarian brand of “inclusion” on children and families. Lastly, they are ratcheting up their efforts to reshape society through state and federal legislation. Saints, we can turn off the TV or boycott certain shows, we can pull our children from schools that shove sexual perversion down their throats, but what recourse will we have if these people...

Don’t say America wasn’t warned. During the oral arguments for same-sex marriage in 2015, a question came up about the fallout for Christian education. Asked if religious schools could be punished for holding a natural view of marriage, U.S. Solicitor Donald Verrilli was surprisingly honest. ” … [I]t’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is going to be an issue.” Four years later, that prophecy is coming to pass. Out in Maryland, a Christian charter school was told by state officials that it can’t participate in the voucher program anymore because of its...