Free Republic

The Rise and Fall of the Surveillance State Americans will demand accountability for the Censorship Industrial Complex Doug Ross Dec 04, 2024 In a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Mike Benz, a former U.S. Department of State official and current Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, delved into what he terms the "Censorship Industrial Complex." This complex, according to Benz, involves a network of government agencies, NGOs, universities, and tech companies working together to control and censor information, particularly online. His allegations include a wide variety of First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment crimes committed against...

Pete Hegseth is being Kavanaughed. And the only people dumb enough to fall for it are Republican senators. I was willing to hear arguments that Hegseth wasn’t the best choice for Secretary of Defense. In his 40s, he’s on his third marriage, and while the rape allegation from his visit to a conservative conference in Monterey is clearly false, I was wide open to the argument that his actions demonstrated poor judgment. I was prepared to hear an argument. Like many combat veterans, Hegseth had some post-war chaos in his life. Discussion was merited. But the more these arguments have...

Sources within the police community told the New York Post that the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killer traveled to NYC on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta last month. The bus on which the killer is believed to have traveled originated in Atlanta, however, authorities are not certain as whether the killer boarded the bus there or climbed aboard at a stop along the way. Breitbart News reported 50-year-old Thompson was shot and killed outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan just after 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday. A manhunt for the killer was immediately launched and today marks the third day of the...

A study team led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) says that a 7,000-year-old weapon kit consisting of two bowstrings believed to be the oldest ever found in Europe and a set of three wood arrows discovered in the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, Granada, reveals an “unprecedented degree of precision and technical mastery” in their construction. When describing the complexity of the bowstrings, which were woven together from the tendons of three different animal species, Raquel Piqué, a researcher in the Department of Prehistory of the UAB and coordinator of the study, said that “this...

My ears always perk up when I hear that a lifelong Democrat has thrown his or her support behind President-elect Donald Trump. One of the biggest surprises of the 2024 election cycle was the sheer number of people who did just that. Two key factors drove this shift. First, many working-class voters finally grasped that the Democratic Party, which they had blindly supported for decades, had abandoned them. The second factor concerned Democrats at the opposite end of the economic spectrum — a group that included tech billionaires, hedge fund managers, and the ultrawealthy, many with direct access to the...

We really are living in the end times, and the coming year is going to be filled with crisis after crisis. All of human history has been building up to this last chapter and it’s time to ask if you are ready for what is to come? According to the Institute for Economics & Peace, the number of military conflicts that are currently active is the highest that we have seen since World War II… Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia… and so on. There are up to 56 active conflicts in the world,...

Move over cocaine sharks, here come the fentanyl dolphins … An alarming number of bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico were found to have traces of fentanyl in their system, shocking scientists with a horrifying twist to the drug epidemic. Traces of the powerful synthetic opioid was first found inside a dead dolphin that was floating in the gulf water when it was then examined by researchers from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in Sept. 2020. What was supposed to be a routine analysis of blubber turned into years-long research — with more than a third of the dolphins tested also...

The Department of Justice was obliged to open an internal investigation into Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office in June of 2023 because of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, but the investigation went nowhere, and now the House Judiciary Committee is demanding answers. Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday sent a letter to Jeffrey Ragsdale, Counsel for the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility expressing concern about OPR’s “refusal to take prompt investigative steps,” and urging him to preserve all records related to its highly suspect “investigation.” After stonewalling the committee for months, OPR officials finally briefed the committee on the investigation...

An international research team led by Umeå University discovered that activating, rather than blocking, the protein GP130 and its signaling pathway can slow prostate tumor growth and stimulate the immune system to combat cancer. The study, which challenges prior assumptions, suggests a potential new treatment approach for aggressive prostate cancer. Activating the GP130 protein slows prostate cancer growth and enhances immune response, offering a potential treatment for aggressive cases. An international research team, led by Umeå University in Sweden, has demonstrated that a special protein could be pivotal in combating certain types of prostate cancer. Traditionally, treatments have focused on...

We’ve been giving Democrats way too much leeway when it comes to what we call them. The last four years have seen the progressive movement culminate in full blown totalitarian Marxism. - The rigging of elections and election systems. - The weaponization of “justice.” - Censorship. - Abuse by the bureaucratic state. - The bastardization of science, designed to serve political ends. - Racism cloaked as anti-racism. - Attack on faith, families, and children. - The promotion of sexual and gender confusion. - Party propaganda advanced as news. - Border invasion. - War for profit. To quote Steve Bannon’s opening...

Is it that hard to deliver small trailers for survivors of a monstrous hurricane? Well, to FEMA, Joe Biden's emergency management agency it is. Here are the sorry leavings: Matt Van Swol @matt_vanswol 🚨#BREAKING: FEMA was caught on tape saying that the reason they have only delivered 27 trailers to a county in #WNC is because: "There are a lot of mountains..." WHAT?! Matt Van Swol @matt_vanswol 🚨#BREAKING: FEMA is now publicly apologizing for LYING to survivors waiting for temporary homes in #WNC. According to @WBTV_News , FEMA promised it would deliver, " at least 103 temporary homes by Thanksgiving..."...

Today has been a good day for the incipient unraveling of a couple of major categories of the fake “consensus” orthodox science that have plagued us for the past few years. One such category is transgenderism, where activists seek the provision of “gender affirming care” to any young person claiming to suffer from “gender dysphoria.” This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case called United States v. Skrmetti, where the Court is asked to rule that Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for teens claiming to be “transgender” violates their constitutional rights. A second such...

The time has come for the new Trump team to think about big ideas for a brighter future for mankind. It’s always been a perennial lie of the political left to falsely claim they’re all about fresh ideas, bringing in “new” winds of change, and that communism has never really been tried before. Anyone with a passing familiarity with history knows that’s a colossal pile of B.S., but if they can bluff their way along, they can hawk their societal slavery once again. The strains of collectivist control of the economy were in the cards in the last election, and...

Karen Calls Cops On Man For Wearing MAGA Hat, Only To Discover He’s Most Influential Person In State ------------------------------------ All stories on this channel are entirely fictional, crafted by professional screenwriters. The plots, characters, and events are imaginative creations and do not reflect real-life individuals or occurrences.

If a country’s average doctor visits are high, it could be easy to assume the population isn’t healthy. At the same time not going enough may seem like there’s an accessibility issue.As with most sociological data, the devil is in the details. And differences in payment systems, insurance plans, and how healthcare is delivered all play a part into why going to the doctor is more common or not.This chart, via Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao, tracks the number of in-person doctor visits per year by country. Data is sourced from the OECD, as of 2021, or the latest year available....

Pokes fun at political correctness, wokeness, covid, the vax, London, live on July 4 2023. Transcript linked below video.

In 2023, the federal government spent $658 billion on net interest costs on the national debt. That total, which grew by 38 percent from $476 billion in 2022, was the largest amount ever spent on interest in the budget and totaled 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Interest costs are on track to become the largest category of spending in the federal budget... In the late 1970s, the increasing national debt and higher interest rates led to a boost in interest costs, which reached a historic high of 3.2 percent of GDP in 1991 (looking at interest costs as...

Kelly Powers, a commentator on Fox News, died this week from brain cancer. Powers was 45 years old. An obituary posted online for Powers called her “a brave and beautiful soul who could make friends anywhere she went.” The former surgeon and medical expert was a regular commentator on the network and a guest on programs like “Red Eye” and “Fox and Friends.” In 2020, she was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a severe form of brain cancer, according to a GoFundMe page set up for her family. After three brain surgeries, multiple rounds of radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, her cancer returned...

Between its barbecue, country music, national parks, and distilleries, Tennessee has some of the most defining traditions and characteristics in the country. While Nashville and Memphis are great places to experience Tennessee’s distinctiveness, some of the most intriguing traditions are found well outside city limits. Looking to discover a side of Tennessee like never before? These seven towns will definitely surprise you!

Could DNA findings answer long-held questions regarding a possible link between ancient Egyptians and the Emerald Isle? Legends, myths, and intriguing archaeological finds suggest ancient Egyptians once visited Ireland. Could DNA findings answer long-held questions regarding a possible link between ancient Egyptians and the Emerald Isle? To begin with, there is the legend of Scota, an Egyptian princess who fled from Egypt with a large group of followers, arriving in Ireland in 1700 BC. It is believed Scota, whose descendants are said to have become high kings of Ireland, was killed in battle by the Tuatha De Danann (the tribe...