Free Republic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At Gov. Gavin Newsom’s prompting, California lawmakers kicked off a special legislative session on Monday to consider punishing big oil companies for their supersized profits during a time of record-high gas prices — the start of a likely lengthy process that will test the liberal Legislature’s resolve in the face of fierce industry opposition. California lawmakers briefly returned to the state Capitol on Monday to swear in new members and elect leaders for the 2023 legislative session. But this year, Newsom also has called lawmakers into a special session for the purpose of approving a penalty...

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the government will draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia, saying the move is necessary to prevent Moscow being able to "weaken Ukraine from within." The National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, which groups top security, military and political figures, told the government to draft the law following a series of raids on parishes that Kyiv says could be taking orders from Moscow. ...

With the 8th day of action to combat hate postings, the German police will again take joint action on 30.11.2022 against the authors of criminal posts on the Internet in a nationwide action. Because incitements to crimes, threats, coercion or incitement to hatred on the Internet are crimes that can be punished with up to five years in prison. As of this morning, police authorities in 14 federal states have carried out a total of 91 police measures, including home searches and interrogations. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) as the central office of the German police coordinates these measures....

Google provided the FBI with the locations of 5,723 cellphones near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, court records show.

Kroger has agreed to pay $180,000 to settle a lawsuit that involved two employees who say they were fired for refusing to wear LGBT-themed aprons due to their religious beliefs. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the women by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the final months of the Trump administration. The EEOC is a bipartisan commission that includes appointees of both President Biden and former President Donald Trump. According to the suit, a Conway, Ark., grocery store “engaged in religious discrimination when it disciplined and ultimately fired the employees for refusing to wear an apron...

WASHINGTON—Attorney General Merrick Garland will appoint a special counsel to determine whether former President Donald Trump should face charges stemming from Justice Department probes, according to a person familiar with the matter. A formal announcement, which is expected by Friday afternoon, would come three days after Mr. Trump announced another bid for the presidency and would mark the naming of the third independent prosecutor in five years to examine issues involving Mr. Trump. The exact scope of the special counsel’s remit and who it would be couldn’t be determined. The move reflects the sensitivity of Mr. Garland overseeing any investigation...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Monday on CNN’s “This Morning” that he was meeting with Senat Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the wake of midterm election results to convince Republican senators to ditch so-called “MAGA Republicans.” Co-host Kaitlan Collins said, “Are you going to talk to Mitch McConnell? What does that look like?” Schumer said, “I’m going to say to the Republicans in the Senate who are not the MAGA Republicans, stop letting them lead your party. Work with us to get things done. I intend to sit down with Mitch McConnell and express that.”

Today, we discuss updates from across the war zone; analyse the latest diplomatic news from the U.S. and Europe; and we speak about the rise and development of Russian fascism with historian Dr Ian Garner.

Imagine you just filled up at the petrol station and you get a message on your phone saying: “Did you know this purchase is equivalent to over 200 kg of carbon? If you used public transport more, you’d save over half.” This is a service that Cogo, a carbon impact platform is providing for mobile banking apps, such as NatWest with the aim to inform and change behaviours. And they are working in partnership with notorious communist Professor Susan Michie’s Behavioural Insight Team, which was responsible for the propaganda and lies published and spouted on a daily basis during the...

Social finance or impact investing reduces human beings to the status of potential investments, sources of profit for wealthy ruling vampires, Winter Oak surmised. It is a digital slave trade. It wants to own and control us – our bodies and every moment of our lives – and it wants to own and control every square inch of our world. Impact investing is a sinister industry which, over the last few years of research, we have found lurking under every dubious stone we have turned, wrote Winter Oak. Extinction Rebellion, Ronald Cohen, intersectionality, the WEF Global Shapers, Guerrilla Foundation and...

The Department of Homeland Security launched a failed operation that ensnared hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. protesters in what new documents show was as a sweeping, power-hungry effort before the 2020 election to bolster President Donald Trump’s spurious claims about a “terrorist organization” he accused his Democratic rivals of supporting.

Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty, we need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID. Oh, really? As time goes on, today is Day 962 of 15 Days To Flatten The Curve, it is coming to light that we as a global people were lied to, deceived, tricked and fooled to such a degree as to beggar imagination. Masks did nothing to slow the spread of the virus, social distancing did nothing to slow the spread of the virus, and lockdowns did nothing but increase mental illness, create poverty, stupefy...

Turkey is planning on launching a central bank digital currency (“CBDC”) next year and it will be integrated with Turkey’s digital ID system. This integration is part of the next phase of their digital Turkish Lira research project. As Libre Solutions Network explained, digital currency is what makes online commerce work so well. The trouble is that as the internet has invaded more and more into our lives it has given the digital financial complex more and more power. This is the foundation of a “social credit system” that aims to control every aspect of your life. Having the “right”...

The Trudeau Bill C-11 is an authoritarian law that will tell Canadians what they can watch on the Internet. It regulates user content and hides content it doesn’t like on YouTube, Rumble, and other platforms. It forces streaming services to serve up content the government likes and shadow-ban services it doesn’t like. Every service becomes the CBC. These rules will be applied to Facebook too. The unelectable and unaccountable would have unprecedented power. It’s the last chance to stop it, and continue free speech on the Internet. If Canada loses free speech, it will embolden the Left currently trampling over...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi announced Friday that it has designated a federal attorney to focus on environmental justice and public health. U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner said that Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Coleman will serve as the office’s environmental justice coordinator. Joyner said the move is part of a “new initiative to address environmental justice and public health concerns in the Northern District of Mississippi.” “Strong and fair enforcement of environmental and public health laws protects our precious natural resources and ensures a healthy environment for everyone to live, learn, play,...

Lucky us: Another hectoring from the dotard-in-chief on the "threat to democracy" of the dreaded MAGA supporters. For Joe Biden, it looks like one disgusting speech deserves another. Biden is expected to address the "ongoing threats to democracy" in a primetime speech with the Capitol as a backdrop. According to NPR: Days ahead of midterm elections, President Biden is giving his closing argument on the state of U.S. democracy with the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol, where the Jan. 6 attack took place.It follows with some radio reports that are doozies of pious flapdoodle on the state of U.S. democracy...

From a climate change campaigner to presenting a new far-Left political agenda against “racist” capitalism - meet the new Greta Thunberg. The 19-year-old Swedish activist has announced that as well as tackling her usual area of climate action and awareness-spreading, she has now thrown her weight behind defeating the West’s “oppressive” capitalist system. Calling for a “system-wide transformation” at her book launch in London, she claimed that the world’s current “normal” - dictated by the people in power - has caused the climate breakdown. She said: “We are never going back to normal again because ‘normal’ was already a crisis....

Joe Scarborough told his co-hosts Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the “sickness” in the so-called extreme MAGA base was a version of fascism. Scarborough blamed former President Donald Trump for this rise of “fascism” by “praising violence.” Scarborough said, “It’s only gotten worse for these Republicans that, again, can’t just come out and say this is really bad. We have a problem with violence, fascism, growing sort of fascism on our side that started with Donald Trump. They can’t just say that. Instead, saying, don’t say the word fascism. Don’t say that word. Talk about something else. What would...

Scott Davison is a grassroots candidate for school board in Carlsbad, California. Like many other Republican candidates, Davison has been complaining of his opponents and/or their supporters stealing yard signs. It’s not an uncommon practice for Democrats. Stealing yard signs is just one more form of censorship, albeit a low-level one.(snip) Davison says sign stealing in his school board race has become particularly egregious lately. Unsurprising given the election hole Democrats seem to have dug for themselves over the last two years. Enter one brave, social justice warrior, who took it upon herself to save America by stealing the...

Calls for Biden to socialize industry have moved quickly from fringe to mainstream...The energy crisis is worsening. The U.S. has fewer than 30 days of diesel and other distillate fuels, the lowest level since 1945. Supplies are so low that there will be shortages and price spikes within six months unless the U.S. enters recession, experts warn. In response, the Biden administration is releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But the reserves are of crude oil, not refined oil products such as diesel. And the releases are stifling investment in future oil production. “People are depleting their emergency...