Free Republic

A plus-size influencer says that she can only fly via private jets after commercial airlines were unable to fit her 55-inch backside. Gracie Bon, from Panama, has racked up over nine million followers thanks to her gravity-defying curves and bombshell good looks. After claiming that some airlines 'banned' her from flying due to her size, Gracie has now taken to flying private. 'Every time I used to travel, I used to buy two or three seats,' she explained in a video. 'So I started a campaign requesting bigger seats and they didn't like it. Now, flying private is my only...

Retailers are facing a tough equation as they head into the all-important holiday shopping season — this time over DEI initiatives. Companies are bracing for blowback related to policies around diversity, equity and inclusion and are hoping to avoid alienating customers who may deem the brands too woke – or not woke enough. Some are tapping outside advisors for advice on how to avoid criticism, while others are opting out of public events on the topic as backlash against equity and inclusion programs grows in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. CNBC spoke with a number of retail industry...

A FEMA whistleblower revealed the agency, which is supposed to focus on recovery efforts and assisting when disaster strikes for all Americans, is instead focusing on “DEI initiatives” over disaster response. In an interview with James O’Keefe, Kelsey Goodman, a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Emergency Manager for REGION 4 said, “there are higher priorities given to different racial groups.” “The number one goal of FEMA is to instill equity in emergency management. It’s not to save lives. It’s not to create stronger communities that will weather future disasters,” revealed Kelsey Goodman, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Emergency Manager...

New Yorkers can now cross the street outside the crosswalk or against the traffic light without being ticketed by police.​ Jaywalking is now legal in New York City after a bill passed by the City Council last month officially became law. New Yorkers can now cross the street outside the crosswalk or against the traffic light without being ticketed by police. The city council moved to decriminalize the act after city data showed that Black and Latino pedestrians were disproportionately targeted by police. More than 90 percent of the jaywalking tickets issued last year went to Black and Latino people,...

Kamala Harris worked to inject the themes of “equity” into every aspect of her work as vice president — from COVID-19 to hurricane relief, a new report says. And she started with intelligence briefings, according to the New York Times. Soon after taking office, Harris reportedly had a problem with how two female world leaders were allegedly being described in intelligence reports, which she groused “used adjectives … rarely used to describe male leaders.” The newly sworn-in veep sprang into action, ordering officials to scour years of intelligence agencies’ briefing reports for evidence of bias. They turned up nothing besides...

A recent string of lawsuits by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against police and fire departments could serve as a blueprint for erasing physical and mental standards in the name of equity. The DOJ settled two lawsuits and filed a third against local departments in October accusing them of discrimination after black applicants disproportionately failed to pass cognitive written tests and female applicants struggled to pass physical tests. The DOJ deemed the tests discriminatory due to the results, despite applicants of all races and both genders being subject to the same standards. The three lawsuits, all filed within weeks of...

As vice president, Kamala Harris often tried to use government to target racism and sexism.Paging through intelligence reports just weeks after she was sworn in as vice president, Kamala Harris was struck by the way two female foreign leaders were described. The reports used adjectives that, in her view, were rarely used to describe male leaders. Ms. Harris, the first woman to hold her office, ordered up a review that scrutinized multiple years of briefing reports from various intelligence agencies, looking for possible gender bias. The study found some questionable word choices but no widespread pattern, according to a senior...

Watch Crew-8 return to Earth, concluding their mission to the International Space Station. Their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is scheduled for splashdown off the coast of Florida on Friday, Oct. 25 at approximately 3:29 a.m. EDT (0729 UTC).NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin are coming home after seven months aboard the orbiting lab, conducting scientific experiments and technology demonstrations.Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched to the station aboard NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) this summer, will return to Earth with the two members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission in the...

Unconventional college funds LGBTQ and DEI programs amid budget cuts, layoffs A private Massachusetts liberal arts college which openly touts its embrace of progressive concepts continues to grapple with big budget deficits. The budget woes have not stopped campus leaders from funding programs advancing LGBTQ and DEI concepts amid laying off employees and slashing departments. Hampshire College, which made headlines years ago when it took down the U.S. flag to promote multiculturalism and more recently offered Florida students wanting to flee from Gov. Ron DeSantis streamlined enrollment, is currently laying off 9 percent of its staff to close a budget...

Vice President Kamala Harris was admitted to law school through University of California-San Francisco’s Legal Education Opportunity Program for students with “educational disadvantage, economic hardship, or disability,” according to the law school’s magazine. Democratic nominee Harris is a 1989 graduate of the program, according to a 2018 article in UC Law SF Magazine. “LEOP offers admission to approximately 50 high-achieving students each year—up to 20 percent of the class—who have experienced major life hurdles, such as educational disadvantage, economic hardship, or disability,” the article says. “The majority are students of color.” “Besides traditional admissions criteria, such as grades and LSAT...

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Boeing reported a loss of more than $6 billion in the third quarter and immediately turned its attention to union workers who will vote Wednesday whether to accept a company contract offer or continue their crippling strike, which has dragged on for nearly six weeks. New CEO Kelly Ortberg laid out his plan to turn Boeing around after years of heavy losses and damage to its reputation. In remarks he planned to deliver later Wednesday to investors, Ortberg said Boeing needs “a fundamental culture change in the company.” To accomplish that, he said, company leaders need...

The University of Michigan has spent a quarter of a billion dollars on the promotion of DEI over the past decade, building the largest DEI bureaucracy at any school in the country. So what has it gotten for all of that investment? Not much according to a lengthy report by Nicholas Confessore. What it has produced is a campus overrun with DEI language.Leaders of the University of Michigan, one of America’s most prestigious public universities, like to say that their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is inseparable from the pursuit of academic excellence. Most students must take at least...

(WASHINGTON) -- The Navy identified on Monday two "trailblazing" women aviators who were killed when their jet crashed in northeast Washington during an Oct. 15 training mission. A day after Navy officials declared them dead, they were identified as Lt. Cmdr. Lyndsay P. "Miley" Evans, a Naval flight officer, and Lt. Serena N. "Dug" Wileman, a Naval aviator. Both women were 31 years old and from California, according to the Navy. Evans and Wileman were described by Navy officials as "two highly skilled, combat decorated aviators." "More than just names and ranks, they were role models, trailblazers, and women whose...

Barack Obama on Thursday was campaigning for Democrats at an event in Tucson, Arizona, where his event organizers misspelled the city’s name on official rally materials and captioned the event as a rally in Pennsylvania. As Kamala tails President Trump in the polls in Arizona, the Democrats called in the big guns, sending Barack Hussein back to the desert. On stage, Obama was introduced by Arizona Democratic Senate Nominee Ruben Gallego. Gallego is allegedly winning in the polls, according to the far-left fake news media. However, as The Gateway Pundit exclusively reported, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll did not even mention...

Illegal aliens now have an on-ramp to Medicaid – as many as 22 million of them. This budding crisis is a major danger to our health care system and American taxpayers...The Biden-Harris White House is shattering a system that was already cracking... When people apply, states typically check their citizenship status with the federal sources, but if the data doesn’t match, states give applicants a 90-day grace window, known as a "reasonable opportunity period" to collect documentation. .. Once the 90 days end, the state is no longer empowered to stop them from getting another grace period. In other words,...

(The Center Square) — New York City’s costly emergency shelter system is beset by nepotism, a lack of competitive bidding, and excessive salaries, which are driving up costs for the city’s taxpayers, according to a scathing new report. The report by the city’s Department of Investigation said a probe of the shelter system dating back to 2021 uncovered instances of nepotism in city contracts for shelters, a failure to follow competitive bidding rules when procuring goods and services with public money and poor controls over the use of taxpayer dollars for executive compensation, among other problems. ... Investigators found that...

Video at link.

A terrified organ donor came back to life, thrashing and crying on the operating room table, as surgeons prepared to harvest his body parts, according to witnesses - with one described as 'everybody's worst nightmare.' Thomas 'TJ' Hoover II, 36, had been declared brain dead when surgeons went to remove his organs at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital in Kentucky in October 2021, his sister and former Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates employees told NPR. But as doctors went to test his heart health for transplantation, Hoover reportedly became reanimated. 'He was thrashing around on the table,' Nyckoletta Martin recounted, claiming the...

Time and time and time again, “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” and other similar words are being used as excuses to dumb down educational standards.Here are 24 examples:1) The New York Times wrote, “The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.”Original: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/nyregion/ny-regents-teacher-exams-alst.html?_r=0Archive: https://archive.ph/GzyQM2) The New York Times wrote, “A 2009 Princeton study showed Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites, 270 points higher...

HOUSTON, TX — As the world still celebrated the astonishing accomplishment of SpaceX catching its returning Starship, NASA officials were baffled at how Elon Musk managed to succeed without as many gay non-binary Muslim dwarfs of color as they have. SpaceX's historic achievement occurred despite not making diversity and inclusion its top priority, leaving NASA in awe that such a feat could be pulled off without the mandated involvement of underrepresented people groups. "Not a single transgender dwarf of color on the team! How does this guy do it?" one high-ranking NASA official marveled. "We devote all of our time...