Free Republic

In one of the worst wrongful birth lawsuits in history, the parents of a daughter with cystic fibrosis have won $2 million in a lawsuit against their OBGYN, claiming their daughter’s disability prevents them from enjoying their lives. A Connecticut couple won a $2 million settlement in the lawsuit, a case that pro-life advocates say devalues the inherent worth of every human being. Elizabeth and Eric Trotter filed the suit in 2020, alleging that medical negligence prevented them from making an informed decision about their daughter Madelyn’s conception or birth. Madelyn, now 6, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis shortly after...

Abbott’s statement: “(It is) a significant achievement (by Anthony Albanese) to be the first Prime Minister since John Howard and the first Labor Prime minister since Bob Hawke to be returned to government ……… What I really do want to say though is to reassure people who voted Liberal (in Australia that means conservative because the biggest conservative party is called the Liberal Party) today and people who normally vote for the coalition not to lose heart. At our best we are the freedom party. We are the tradition party. We are the patriot party and at our best I...

For most of Western history, art was used as a way for patrons to showcase achievements, propagandize citizens, or lionize individuals. Maybe the single greatest artist in human history, Michelangelo, created his greatest works for patrons of various sorts. He created David for the Florentine Guild of Wool, the Pieta for the French ambassador to the Holy See, and the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica for popes. Art was, in one way or another, an homage to something greater than its creator.Fast-forward about three centuries, and the art world begun to change. The idea of art as an indulgence...

A bite-sized chunk of my big-picture piece from Quadrant has now been excerpted in Australia's national newspaper, The Australian: The biggest story of our time is that the entirety of the western world is sliding off the cliff – and most citizens of the west are not even aware of it, and have no desire to be made aware of it. In that respect, I envy them. It is comforting to paddle one's canoe and insist that the ever louder roaring sound from up ahead is the crowd at a Taylor Swift gig and not Niagara Falls. To be sure,...

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) held a gripping press conference on Friday, releasing shocking new details from the investigation into this week’s explosion at Trump Hotel Las Vegas. Authorities unveiled excerpts from texts and notes discovered on the devices of suspect Matthew Livelsberger. Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren took the podium, detailing a chilling manifesto that Livelsberger left behind. The notes, laden with political grievances and existential despair, suggest a man deeply embittered by what he saw as America’s “terminal illness” under “weak and feckless leadership.” In one excerpt from the note application on Livelsberger’s device, he writes: “Fellow...

SALCAJA, Guatemala -- Working and going to school have become optional in this highland Guatemalan town, thanks to a flood of U.S. dollars sent home by migrants living in the United States. The family-run mills that produce brightly colored, hand-woven traditional fabrics have fallen quiet as their potential work force -- mostly young men -- hang out at the town's pool halls or video game salons, living off remittances and waiting to make their own journeys north. "Kids have easy money, and the only thing they know how to do is spend it on video games," complained Salcaja Mayor Miguel...

Trump and his cabinet nominess will move the country from an administrative state to the sort of republic the Founders envisioned. There have been thousands of words written about the 2024 presidential election, but I think Jeffrey Tucker’s article at Brownstone best summarized the sea change in votes cast , and Victor Davis Hanson best describes the cabinet nominees so far of greatest significance, people selected in part to avenge their treatment by the prior lawless administration. Tucker argues that what we are seeing is an actual, not purported, transfer of power. A transfer from a permanent government to a...

Everyone has a moment when they first realized that Donald Trump might well return, and here is mine. It was back in March, during a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, when I happened to read the explanatory text beside an old painting. This note described the westward advance of the United States in the 19th century as “settler colonialism.” I read it and I knew instantly where this nation was going. My problem with this bit of academic jargon was not that it was wrong, per se, or that President Biden was somehow responsible for putting it there,...

FIRST ON FOX – A recent hire at the nuclear security wing of the Department of Energy has previously called for disarmament policies – which reduce or eliminate nuclear weapons – arguing that advancing "queer theory" was essential to that agenda as well as important to America's national security. The Biden-Harris administration announced Sneha Nair had been appointed as special assistant at the National Nuclear Security Administration in February 2024. Nair believes in eradicating purported "White supremacy" in the nuclear field as well as "queering nuclear weapons" as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion push she believes is essential...

Girl is upset because her boss won’t accommodate her “time blindness”

War on a Thousand FrontsWe are a nation divided over a hundred issues, bristling over a thousand fronts, erupting on countless great and small battlefields among us, as we are becoming a nation of diametric opposites.Early in his political career, Abraham Lincoln made a very observant comment on America’s unique geo-political circumstances in the world when he noted: “All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. … If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be...

WOODSTOCK, Va. — A Virginia school board voted Friday to restore the names of Confederate military leaders to a high school and an elementary school, four years after the names had been removed. Shenandoah County’s school board voted 5-1 to rename Mountain View High School as Stonewall Jackson High School, and Honey Run Elementary as Ashby Lee Elementary. Friday’s vote reverses a decision by the school board in 2020, a time when school systems across the South were removing Confederate names from schools in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening held a press conference, discussing the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on South Africa's lawsuit against Israel. "'Our decisive victory is what is most important. Continue with all your strength, so that our victory will be as decisive as possible,'" Netanyahu began, quoting fallen IDF soldier Master sergeant (res.) Elkana Vizel. Vizel, a father of four and a reservist, fell in Gaza this week while defending his country. "During this difficult week, we lost heroic soldiers," Netanyahu continued. "I reiterate to you, citizens of Israel, our obligation to fulfill their...

When I was looking desperately for a number of years two decades ago for voices that intelligently and courageously spoke up against the militarist excesses of Bush 2, I was astonished and delighted by what I found on The American Right - Congressman Ron Paul and Patrick Joseph Buchanan. IMHO there is nothing short on film from Buchannan to match the magnificence and power of Paul's "what if" speech. But the longer culture wars speech on youtube is for me an almost sacred text which I watch once or twice a year to restore my faith in truth. My own...

Disney amended its federal lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to focus solely on its First Amendment claim that the governor politically retaliated against the company. Disney last week had asked to drop its other claims in the case because they are being actively pursued in a separate state-level lawsuit in Florida. It’s the latest wrinkle stemming from Disney’s battle with DeSantis that began when the company publicly denounced the controversial classroom bill dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics. ... The revision, which nixes four claims Disney had previously presented in the case, shrinks the company’s federal civil complaint to...

There is a reason why you know who Randi Weingarten, the leader of the second-largest teachers union in the country, is. She’s the one who threatened to strike if schools did not close in 2020. She is the one who said that school closures were not that big of a deal because “kids are resilient." She is the one who influenced the CDC to change its COVID-19 guidelines using almost her exact language. She is the one who introduced a campaign to bring Ibram X. Kendi’s simplistic ideas on race into “every classroom.” In other words, you know who Randi...

The fight to keep women’s sports exclusively for biological women is just beginning and will be a long one. Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines brought the fight front and center when she was forced to compete with transgender athlete Lia Thomas. Now, Gaines has upped the ante in the fight to protect women’s and girls’ sports. She recently filed a $2 million lawsuit against Thomas, who was born William Thomas, citing cheating in order to win the national women’s swimming title, and exposing himself in a female locker room. When Lia Thomas began life, and eventually her swimming...

A local governing board appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday passed a resolution to void an agreement that allowed Walt Disney World to maintain control over much of its business operations amid an ongoing power struggle with the governor. “Disney was openly and legally granted a unique and special privilege, that privilege of running its own local government,” Alan Lawson, a former Florida Supreme Court justice whose firm was hired by the DeSantis-appointed board, said during the board meeting. “That era is ending.” The unanimous vote of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District is the latest step in a...

The first round of the “Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis v. The Walt Disney Company” fight, held last spring, ended in a clear DeSantis victory and Disney defeat. Following Disney’s vocal opposition to Florida’s commonsense Parental Rights in Education Act, misleadingly dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Florida passed a law to abolish the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which in 1967 incentivized Disney’s initial planting of a flag in Central Florida by giving the corporation unparalleled government-like powers over basic municipal services such as zoning, building codes, and waste treatment. Disney thus paid the price for coming out in favor...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to model what it looks like for a conservative politician to push back against the cultural revolution.Last year, DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill, which bans schools from teaching children in kindergarten through third grade about gender ideology as well as other explicit sexuality-related subjects, limiting sex education overall to “age appropriate” content and mandating parental involvement. The Parental Rights in Education bill also ensured that parents be informed of anything that could impact the physical, emotional, or mental well-being of their child.