Free Republic

Former President Trump is pushing back on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) remarks calling on the GOP to reject a “culture of losing” to win in 2024, saying “Ron is not a winner.” In an interview with The Messenger – a news outlet that launched Monday – Trump rejected the notion that DeSantis is trying to portray Trump as “too caught up in the past” as the governor mulls a potential bid for the White House. “First of all, I’m not at all caught up in the past. And second of all, I’m doing much better against [President] Biden than...

After becoming a member of the Carolina Panthers TopCats cheerleaders in March, Justine Lindsay had heard that there was nothing like the team's first home game of the season. That sentiment proved true. "It was the best moment I could imagine," she recalled in an interview earlier this week of the Panthers' season opener on Sept. 11. "It felt like it was about 115 degrees and there were so many people in the stands. It was a beautiful Sunday." Lindsay, 30, is the first openly transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Her arrival on the NFL was first announced in a...

* The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America installed the Rev. Megan Rohrer to lead one of the church's 65 synods Saturday* Rohrer will oversee nearly 200 congregations in Northern California and southern Nevada * Evangelical Lutherans are one of the largest Christian denominations in the US, with 3.3million members* Rohrer was one of seven LGBTQ pastors accepted by the church in 2010 when it allowed ordination of pastors in same-sex relationships * Rohrer was elected to serve a six-year term in the role of bishop The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America installed its first openly transgender bishop in a service...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that Congress is "looking into" media literacy initiatives to help "rein in" the press to combat misinformation in the wake of last week’s deadly breach of the U.S. Capitol. During a lengthy live stream on Instagram on Tuesday night, the leader of the so-called "Squad" discussed the aftermath of the Capitol riot, how she feared for her life during the chaos and what needs to be done going forward. At one point, Ocasio-Cortez read a question from a viewer who asked if there is discussion in Congress on "truth and reconciliation or media literacy initiatives" to...

Democrat vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) called the Senate’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court on Monday “illegitimate” and vowed that the Americans “will not forget” the Republicans’ constitutional responsibility to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Harris tweeted after a 52 to 48 Senate vote along party lines to put Barrett on the High Court: Today Republicans denied the will of the American people by confirming a Supreme Court justice through an illegitimate process—all in their effort to gut the Affordable Care Act and strip health care from...

Amid James Comey’s damning testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, calls for President Donald Trump to face impeachment proceedings are surging. In the past 48 hours, two of the leading Trump resistance groups have called for the first time for the impeachment process to start against Trump on charges of obstruction of Justice.

The pint-sized stars of Fox’s MasterChef Junior showed off another set of precocious skills with a kitchen-themed cover of Annie‘s “It’s a Hard Knock Life” in an adorable ad set to air during the Super Bowl... The ad also previews a slew of special guest stars that will appear on the upcoming fifth season, including Martha Stewart and Michelle Obama.

When they decided to print special collectors’ covers for the magazine’s September issue, all about “icons of change”, the publishers of Elle knew immediately who the stars should be: the actors Kristen Stewart and Amandla Stenberg, both of whom have made headlines for their refusal to conform to traditional notions of sexuality; the singer Zayn Malik, who walked away from One Direction, the biggest pop band in the world, at the height of its fame; and the transgender model Hari Nef. Nef’s cover is arguably the most radical of the four. It marks the first time a transgender woman has...

....The newest ad for Barbie’s Moschino doll line features a new figure for the first time ever — a boy. “Moschino Barbie is so fierce!” the boy yells before placing a designer purse on the doll’s arm. The ad features him and two girls touting Mattel’s already popular line that includes clothes and accessories from the fashion designer Moschino. The ad, released earlier this month, is the latest in a series of steps to remove gender from toy shopping.

The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen. Southside With You, a drama in the vein of Before Sunrise, chronicles the summer 1989 afternoon when the future President of the United States of America wooed his future First Lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side. Get On Up’s Tika Sumpter will play Michelle Obama (née Robinson), while the search is on to cast the young Barack. As Presidential lore has it, the date took some convincing. Obama, then an idealistic first-year Harvard Law student, took a summer job as...

According to a recent study out of Virginia Tech, a team of scientists have found that the way a person responds to disgusting images can reveal their political leanings. Maggots, rotting carcasses, gross gunk in the kitchen sink – all these were used in the research, and the results were pretty astonishing. “Disgusting images generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even when those neural responses don’t correspond with an individual’s conscious reaction to the images,” said Read Montague, a Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute professor who led the study. “Remarkably, we found that the brain’s response...

Explosive volcanic eruptions might be attention grabbing, but a new review of research finds that their environmental impact pales in comparison to human activities. According to the research, humans put out the same amount of carbon dioxide in three to five days that all of the volcanoes on Earth put out in one year. "Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions dwarf global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions," study researcher Terrance Gerlach, of the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a statement. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Gerlach crunched the carbon dioxide numbers from earlier studies of...

After decades of debate, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Tuesday struck down a barrier to ordaining gays, ratifying a proposal that removes the celibacy requirement for unmarried clergy, in the latest mainline Protestant move toward accepting gay relationships... Differences over the Bible and homosexuality have split Protestant groups nationally and worldwide for years. Within the Presbyterian Church, about 100 of the 11,000 congregations had already broken away ahead of the vote, but a group of large theologically conservative congregations, which calls itself Fellowship, has decided to remain in the denomination for now. Top Presbyterian executives issued a statement to the...

The 2009 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly made grievous decisions that will not help the denomination in the years ahead. Those decisions were the adoption of a social statement on sexuality and four resolutions that approve of sexual relationships outside of marriage and direct a change in the ELCA’s ministry standards to allow for practicing homosexuals to serve as ordained pastors and lay ministers. One biblical phrase kept coming to mind in the weeks leading up to the ELCA churchwide assembly and very often during the August assembly—“ears to hear.” The phrase occurs repeatedly in the Old and...

CANTERBURY, UK, July 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Suggesting a "two-track" model for the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said in a statement released Monday that the crisis over the acceptance of homosexuality in the Global Communion could be resolved by acknowledging "two styles of being Anglican." Williams was responding to the decision earlier this month by the US Episcopal Church to continue to ordain active homosexual clergy and bishops and "bless" same-sex partnerings. In one "track," said the archbishop, the mainstream of Anglicanism would continue to hold to Christian beliefs of sex and marriage, and the...

SALT LAKE CITY — Gay rights activists are organizing a nationwide string of kissing demonstrations in response to the treatment of gay couples in Utah and Texas who tangled with security guards or police after kissing in public. The Great Nationwide Kiss-In is scheduled for Aug. 15. Events are planned for at least seven cities, including Boston, New York, Houston, Portland, Ore., and three California cities — Irvine, San Diego and San Francisco. A Web page and Facebook page promoting the demonstrations says more events are in the works. A pair of bloggers, David Badash, of New York, and David...

Episcopalians overwhelmingly favor tossing a previously approved resolution that bans ordaining openly gay bishops. In discussions that began Thursday afternoon and continued Friday morning during The Episcopal Church's triennial General Convention, Episcopalians spoke frankly, testifying passionately either for throwing out the ban or against rescinding it. "Gays and lesbians are asked to make sacrifices the rest of us are not asked to make," said the Rev. J. Frederick Barber of Fort Worth, according to the Episcopal News Service. Debate centered on resolution B033, which was approved by the General Convention in 2006. It calls for restraint in ordaining bishops "whose...

21-Year-Old Evan Rachel Wood Busted Making Out With Movie Dad | Brad Pitt’s Beer Confiscated, Holmes Hangs With The Smokers | Brenda Song Set To Score Big Bucks For Unauthorized Escort Agency Advertisement | Hollywood Publicist Explains Tells All 21-Year-Old Evan Rachel Wood Busted Making Out With Movie Dad Stranger things have happened - after all, this is Hollywood. Evan Rachel Wood, 21, hit headlines last year after she started dating Marilyn Manson (19 years her senior) but since their split in December has she now moved on to 56-year-old veteran actor Mickey Rourke?

The most powerful woman in the world. So Hillary Clinton will become with the dawn of a new White House. Madam Secretary of State. A strong hand in a velvet glove, extended to the globe on behalf of the most anticipated presidency in generations. Short of Barack Obama, no American today­ has a greater opportunity to shape international history than does New York’s departing ­junior U.S. senator. And, short of Barack Obama, no American played a greater role last year in influencing the choice of the 44th President of the United States. Clinton galvanized 18 million voters and made her...

IKEA’s Polish Catalogue Introduces “Ian and Steve” as a Model of the New Family By Hilary White December 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An ad campaign in the latest catalogue by the Swedish furniture giant, IKEA, purporting to depict “modern” life, includes twelve portraits of “families” that promote a “new model of living together.” Among these is the domestic arrangement of “Ian” and “Steve,” under the slogan, “the family is ... two sister souls.” “Ian and Steve,” the ad says, have no intention of having children, but enjoy their “command centre” IKEA kitchen and herb garden. The catalogue, says a pro-family...