Free Republic

A man who died last month at the West Hollywood home of prominent Democratic Party fundraiser Ed Buck warned his friends to steer clear of the well-connected donor and referred to him as a "f---ing devil" and "a horrible, horrible man," according to a report Monday night. Timothy Dean, 55, was found dead in Buck's apartment early on Jan. 7, 17 months after 26-year-old male escort Gemmel Moore was found dead of a methamphetamine overdose. The Daily Beast reported that Dean and Buck had a relationship years before Moore's death, but Dean's friends claimed the relationship turned into a one-sided...

“At that time, [marching] from Tirtza, Menachem subdued Tiphsah and all who were in it, and its territory; and because it did not surrender, he massacred [its people] and ripped open all its pregnant women.” II Kings 15:16 President Trump held a conference call with 4,500 participants on Thursday in which he reportedly referred to late-term abortions as “execution.” During the invitation-only conference call, the president discussed recent attempts by Democratic lawmakers to advance a pro-abortion agenda. In particular, the president discussed a bill recently signed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo which allows abortions after 24 weeks if the...

Across Europe, conspiracy theories that mix old antisemitic tropes with new ones that demonise migrants and Muslims have gained huge traction since the refugee crisis in 2015. A recent study showed that a stunning 60% of Brits believe in at least one conspiracy theory. The ideas that a cabal of global elites run the world, that there is a plot to replace white English natives with Muslim migrants and that the authorities are covering up immigration numbers are among the most commonly held. In QAnon forums, it is hard to overlook the holy mess of logical fallacies and contradictions. Its...

Report from Young America’s Foundation, The leading conservative youth organization, looked at some 50 top colleges and found 250 examples of courses that question conservatism and Trump. Beyond the inane, identity- and intersectionality-obsessed topics, these classes advance a liberal agenda, malign conservatives and their values, and shut out ideological diversity,” said YAF spokesman Spencer Brown, author of the 25th annual Comedy and Tragedy Report. The reports on the courses, he said in a release, “peel back the shiny veneer colleges and universities place on themselves in the name of ‘higher’ education to reveal a stark reality: campuses devoid of intellectual...

Francis’ synod on sex abuse: “Will not be talking about anything except minors.” A friend is listening to the opening press conference right now and his helpfully sending me some little paraphrases, like kitty treats, to get us all interested.At least they’re being up front about the intention to avoid actually addressing anything. ~ For those with the stomach for it, here’s the whole thing.Ed Pentin (at 1:12:18):“It was often said during the Synod on youth that abuse of seminarians vulnerable adults as it was put, would be addressed at this meeting. partly because of the McCarrick scandal. When this...

In committing national economic suicide and sending living standards back to 19th century Twenty-nine-year-old ex-bartender and freshman U.S. Representative (D-NY) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received thunderous environmentalist and media acclaim when she introduced her Green New Deal resolution in the House and Ed Markey (D-MA) submitted it in the Senate. It was quickly endorsed or cosponsored by scores of House and Senate Dems, including many who want to run against President Trump in 2020. But within days the GND was subjected to rigorous analysis (and ridicule) by energy experts, President Trump, Republicans, conservative pundits and even some Democrats. Their disdain is well-founded.

A federal judge ordered the Department of Defense to halt the pending discharge proceedings against two HIV-positive members of the U.S. Air Force, LGBTQ legal group Lambda Legal said Friday. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema approved a preliminary injunction because "the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in preventing their discharge through the lawsuit," according to a statement from Lambda Legal. Brinkema rejected the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss, allowing the airmen to continue serving until their case goes to trial. “This is a major victory in our fight to ensure everyone living with HIV can serve their country without discrimination,”...

McCarrick Laicization a Political Bone Throw? Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United states, has publicly expressed his misgivings about the upcoming Vatican summit on clerical sexual-abuse this February 21-25. In a brief essay issued in response to an invitation to participate in a National Catholic Register symposium on the upcoming summit, he says, “I am praying intensely for the success of the February summit” but laments that there is “no sign of a genuine willingness to attend to the real causes of the present situation.” Viganò presents three critical questions, wherein he manifests his doubt...

Pope picks liberal cardinals Cupich, Marx, Tagle for featured talks at Vatican Abuse Summit ROME, February 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany, and Cardinal Antonio Tagle of the Philippines will be featured speakers at the Vatican’s upcoming summit on clerical sex abuse titled, “The Protection of Minors in the Church” beginning later this week. Cardinal Cupich, one of the main organizers of the summit and lead prelate of the delegation from the United States, emerged as an immediate proponent of the Vatican summit when at the last minute, the Holy See blocked...

Many of us like to blame God for our difficulties. The reason is that it absolves us of responsibility for our bad choices. It also ensures we won’t recover. Nations are groups of individuals clumped together, primarily by geography. In a democratic nation, if a majority of the voting population chooses wisely, the entire nation will benefit from those choices (even those who oppose the choices). In a democratic republic, such as the United States, we are one step removed from our responsibility. We don’t choose the policy directly; we choose the people who in turn choose the policies and...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deleted her original tweet sympathetic for “Empire” actor and singer Jussie Smollett amid reports that Smollett may have staged the alleged January 29 attack against himself. Smollett, who is gay and black, told police his attackers yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him as well as told him, “This is MAGA country.” Politicians and celebrities alike rallied around Smollett, including Pelosi According to ABC News, two Nigerian brothers, initially arrested by Chicago Police in connection to the assault against Smollett were later released after telling law enforcement that Smollett paid them to stage the attack. One...

[snip] I wanted to believe Smollett. I really did. I know that there is a deep, dark racist history in Chicago and, if proved true, this would be just one more point on the list. I wanted to believe him with every fiber of my being, most of all because the consequences if he were lying were almost too awful to contemplate. And yet I struggled with Smollett’s story. I tried telling myself that it is possible that two assailants were walking around downtown Chicago at 2 a.m. in January in 10-degree weather, waiting for a black victim. In addition...

Tennis star Martina Navratilova has claimed transgender women in sport are 'cheating' unless they have irreversible surgery to change their anatomy. The nine-times Wimbledon champion, 62, says she is happy to address transgender athletes by whichever pronoun they desire, but would not be happy to compete against them unless they have fully transitioned. This is the second time Navratilova has spoken out on the subject, following a furious Twitter row with transgender female cycling champion Rachel McKinnon at the end of last year. Writing in the Sunday Times today, she said: 'To put my argument at its most basic: a...

Back in the day, my native New York State feasted on the iconic I♡NY ad campaign, enticing Americans to drop in and spend their dollars in the Big Apple. But now, we’re being treated to the spectacle of the state’s governor selling… not New York, but Florida! In a recent press conference, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo blamed a $2.3 billion budget deficit in New York on the compounding effect of federal tax reform on the state’s sky-high taxes. And according to the Wall Street Journal, “(Cuomo) specifically mentioned Florida as an attractive option for New Yorkers who are unhappy...

For years, Mayor John Duran has been a public avatar for West Hollywood’s cheekily sexual culture. From the City Council dais, he joked about wearing gold lamé underwear and announced a public forum on anal cancer named Booty Call to Action. But he was also accused by another councilman of looking for sex on the dating app Grindr during public meetings. Even after the city paid $500,000 in 2016 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Duran’s former council deputy—whom Duran hired after meeting on Grindr and having sex with him—Duran was reelected. For many, it seemed West Hollywood...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday he will seek to ban conversion therapies that claim to change sexual orientation. “Homosexuality is not an illness, which is why it does not need to be treated,” Spahn, who is gay himself, told the Berlin daily left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung. He hoped that a German law banning such therapies could be adopted by the middle of the year. […] “I do not believe in these therapies, mainly owing to my own homosexuality,” said Spahn, who represents the right wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party. …

The so-called Green New Deal that was recently posted as a congressional Resolution and endorsed by many high-profile Democrats is essentially a twenty-first century version of the 1888 utopian novel, Looking Backward, by the Marxist-inspired writer Edward Bellamy. The main character of the novel, one Julian West, falls asleep for 113 years and awakes in the year 2000 delighting in the fact that America had been turned into a socialist utopia. A major theme of the novel is that all the evils of society can be eradicated by more-or-less totalitarian government controls, mandates, and regulations. That is also the theme...

The Democrats swept to power in Congress by campaigning in a way that has been successful for Democrats for generations. “Republicans will take away your health care,” they said, after having focus-grouped it. Now we are preparing for a 2020 campaign in which Donald Trump and Republicans can as easily advertise to the public: “Democrats will take away cows, and your car.” What happened to Democrats? Back in November, it looked like Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic House caucus had found the perfect plan for their party in the era of Trump: Avoid talking about impeachment and stick to simple...

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is going to great lengths to establish her far-left bona fides heading into the Democrat’s POTUS primary. This weekend she upped the ante even further by jumping onto the transgender rights bandwagon. When asked by a reporter, Gillibrand indicated that she would certainly be in favor of recognizing a third gender (defined as “X” or none of the above) at the federal level. (The Hill) Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) reportedly said she would support for federal recognition of a third gender Friday at a campaign event in New Hampshire.The senator, who is running for...

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) reportedly said she would support for federal recognition of a third gender Friday at a campaign event in New Hampshire. The senator, who is running for president in 2020, told a room of LGBTQ activists that she would support a third designation of "X" at the federal level for those not identifying as a man or woman, according to CBS News. "Yes," Gillibrand said when asked if she would support such a designation at the federal level, according to CBS, which noted that she received applause from activists for her quick answer. Gillibrand also invited a...