Free Republic

It was worse than we thought. It turns out that Hunter Biden’s drug enslavement, sex addiction, and penchant for Russkie hookers didn’t stop there. It was probably worse than his hinky “big guy” business deals, diamond “gifts,” and unearned Ukrainian paydays. There was a Chinese spy involved. Just like Democrat Eric Swalwell’s Fang Fang. Hold on, I’ve got to catch my breath. Be honest: You thought it would be that Putin inserted, so to speak, hookers who would double back and sting the first son. But those chickens haven’t come home to roost — at least as far as we...

New York is poised to strengthen its oversight of private and religious schools following years of complaints that thousands of children are graduating from ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools lacking basic academic skills, including the ability to read English. A Board of Regents committee unanimously approved guidelines Monday to make sure instruction at the state’s private and religious schools is equivalent to that of its public schools. The rules would apply to all of New York’s 1,800 nonpublic schools but would have the greatest impact on the ultra-Orthodox schools, called yeshivas, some of which provide rigorous religious instruction but little or no...

The AG of North Dakota has taken action with a inquiry after billionaire Bill Gates’ latest farmland purchase. Bill Gates acquired six parcels of land in Pembina County. Tuesday, the office of the Attorney General sent out a letter asking the Red River Trust to confirm how the company plans to use the land and if it meets any of the exceptions to the North Dakota Corporate Farming Laws. "Bill Gates acquired six parcels of land in Pembina County. Tuesday, the office of the Attorney General sent out a letter asking the Red River Trust to confirm how the company...

Meta suggests it may have to shut down Facebook and Instagram in the European Union (EU) if it’s no longer able to transfer data across the Atlantic between Europe and the US. While the suggestion appears to just be posturing, some top politicians in Europe seem almost hilariously unphased by the proposition. Meta’s suggestion was quietly mentioned in the company’s annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week. The remarks regard new EU legalization currently being drawn up that would require data processing service providers to set up safeguards against illegal data transfers to non-EU governments. “If...

Facebook's user numbers declined for the first time in its history last quarter.Facebook's parent company Meta reported daily active user numbers of 1.929 billion over the last three months of 2021. In Q3 of 2021, it reported an average of 1.93 billion active users. This means it lost roughly 1 million users over that period.Facebook stock plunged 22% in premarket trading following its Q4 earnings.CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the company's earnings call that the company's social-media business is facing stiff competition.

The BBC and wokeness killed the much-loved sci-fi TV series. The writer who last revived ‘Doctor Who’ is likely the only one who can save it now. “Doctor Who” is dead. Ratings haven’t been this low since the moribund 1980s. Fan interest is zilch, with little engagement on social media. The show just finished its 13th series, and the few who watched could only yawn. The doctor is on life support thanks to the BBC’s incessant diversity mandates, executive producer Chris Chibnall retcons, and the lazy pomposity of the first female doctor, Jodie Whittaker. But there is hope. A familiar...

Things are going horribly for Democrats. A legislative seat held for decades by Democrats in Iowa is no longer blue. Republicans flipped in red. In the “Trump-hostile” state of Connecticut, Republicans won back a state senate seat. This occurred in an affluent suburban where folks have been anti-Trump. Here’s a quick review of the history of this Iowa seat: “This district went (62/38) blue in 2012,” Townhall reports. “Then (51/38) in 2016.” “It shifted back to deeper blue territory in the Democratic wave year of 2018, only to become a three-point squeaker in 2020,” the report added. In yesterday’s special,...

"Short version: Private enforcement of vaccination is being done through Texas HHS's ImmTrac2 vaccine database and the CDC's IZ Gateway. Sever this connection. Long Version Texas HHS tracks instate vaccinations for children at schools. When COVID broke out, the CDC established data connections with each state to track vaccinations. This is done by an electronic file feed between our database and the CDC. That electronic file feed is called the CDC IZ Gateway. Once the CDC has this data, they send it out to third parties, such as contractor ID.ME, and it is used for vaccine enforcement with private firms....

Rep. Adam Schiff recalls Robert Mueller’s testimony during the Russian “collusion” inquiry as being “painful” in a new interview — dodging on whether cognitive decline should have disqualified the former FBI director from leading the investigation. In his new book and an interview this week, Schiff (D-Calif.) revealed he would not have wanted Mueller to testify if he knew how “painful” it was going to be, saying Congress had to stick to shorter questions for the beleaguered special counsel. “I did understand immediately why his staff had been so protective and why they were so reluctant to have him testify,”...

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have announced the Rolling Stones will stop performing hit song Brown Sugar, amid discomfort about the 50-year-old classic's references to slavery. The band, currently on the road for a 13-date U.S. tour, have not played Brown Sugar - one of their most recognizable songs - since kicking off in St Louis on September 26. The 1969 song has been a staple of their live show since it came out 50 years ago, and is the second most played song in their catalog after Jumpin' Jack Flash, with 1,136 known performances, according to Rolling Stone magazine....

The Black national anthem was played ahead of the NFL’s first game of the season between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night. The NBC broadcast played a video of Alicia Keys singing "Lift Every Voice and Sing" while the Florida A&M University Concert Choir joined in from Raymond James Stadium. Players from both teams stood in their respective end zones and locked arms to show unity ahead of the game. Lift Every Voice and Sing" was played before the start of Week 1 games during the 2020 NFL season, and Front Office Sports reported in...

It's a running joke that McDonald's soft serve machines are always broken — but now this issue is, apparently, being taken seriously By now, most people have become accustomed to the fact that the McFlurry machines at McDonald's are frequently out of order. There's even a "McBroken" map that can tell you whether your local McDonald's ice cream machine is working. But some McDonald's franchisees are tired of being the subject of social media roasts and they've taken the McFlurry problem into their own hands. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday, the United States Federal...

...Trump is running a shadow government, effectively directing the new GOP...

One of America’s most influential pastors is facing a crisis. No, it’s not the crisis of personal scandal. It’s the crisis of church division—over race, ideology, and minutiae of church procedure. Putting aside the procedural arguments, that division is a microcosm of the racial conflicts that are dividing the larger American church and the nation itself. David Platt is a bestselling author, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, and the pastor of McLean Bible Church (MBC), a huge and influential church located outside Washington, D.C. Platt is facing a revolt from self-described “conservative” congregants, a...

Adam Mendelsohn, a close adviser to Lakers star LeBron James, has released a follow-up statement after saying he was “exhausted” by the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. Over the July 4th weekend, the New York Times released a juicy inside ESPN story revealing that many of the network’s minority employees are unhappy with comments made by white commentator Rachel Nichols who is heard bashing the network’s efforts to impose more diversity on its on-air staff. In a telephone recording accidentally uploaded to ESPN’s computer system, Nichols revealed her displeasure that black reporter Maria Taylor got a plum T.V....

This weekend, the Tolkien Society is hosting a virtual Summer Seminar, a short academic conference on a theme pertaining to scholarship about J.R.R. Tolkien, the British scholar and author of The Lord of the Rings. This year, most of the seminar has taken a clear turn for the “woke” — complete with multiple papers on LGBT themes and “anti-racism,” a movement inspired by Marxist critical race theory. The Tolkien Society invited academics and others to submit papers to present at the seminar, specifically encouraging the “theme of diversity” and representation. “While interest in the topic of diversity has steadily grown...

Who, exactly, was Paul Ryan trying to appeal to when he recently went to the Reagan Library and tried to explain why we should return to the kind of managed decline and failure theater that his rejection marked the end of as a viable Republican leadership strategy? Okay, the Beltway Cowgirl would dig his hep jive, and her soon-to-be-gerrymandered-by-the-Dems stooge Adam Kinzinger too, and the erotically dysfunctional geebos at The Bulwark are all in, but who else? Cue the tumbleweeds.The GOP managed to display some stones for once – no thanks to the aforementioned squish squad – by rejecting the...

some Congress members get their way, the Federal Reserve may soon be able to track many of your purchases in real time and share that information with government agencies. This is just one of the problems with the proposed “digital dollar” or “fedcoin.” Fedcoin was initially included in the first coronavirus spending bill. While the proposal was dropped from the final version of the bill, there is still great interest in fedcoin on Capitol Hill. Some progressives have embraced fedcoin as a way to provide Americans with a “universal basic income.” Both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial...

[They’ve emphasized the sensitivity of their reports so I’ve redacted this pretty significantly. But I think it’s important for people to understand what is going on. I’m getting a steady flow of reports like these from different locations describing relief work among defecting police/soldiers/government officials, refugees on the run, fighting in many areas, torture and human rights abuses by the military junta, involvement by the Chinese government and so on. Note the testimony below describing Chinese/military exploitation of tribal areas. This is done without concern or recompense to the local people, who are often enslaved or have their homes destroyed...

I loved the Rush Limbaugh show. I have been listening to it for years and have always been comforted by his ever-increasing audience. It showed that conservative ideas work. The show serves a purpose — a purpose that we need fulfilled more now than ever. Unfortunately, it is not serving that purpose fully now. Rather than building on his legacy, we are wallowing in the sadness of his loss.