Free Republic

Tennessee and Kentucky can continue to ban gender-affirming care for young transgender people while legal challenges against those state laws proceed, federal appeals judges ruled. In a 2-1 decision by a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel late Thursday, the majority wrote that elected lawmakers made “precise cost-benefit decisions” in instituting the bans and “did not trigger any reason for judges to second-guess them.” The laws were passed by Republican majorities in both states. “Prohibiting citizens and legislatures from offering their perspectives on high-stakes medical policies, in which compassion for the child points in both directions, is not something...

A troubling trend observed in America over the past decade grew significantly worse in 2023. The CDC just announced that the birth rate in America fell to just 1.62 births per woman. That's the lowest reproduction rate recorded in the United States since the government began tracking this data early in the 20th century. It also represents a two percent decline from the already-low rate recorded in 2022, meaning the rate fell by more than half in a single year. In other words, even if every single woman in the country were in a potentially reproductive relationship with a man,...

A pretty dramatic story out of Baltimore today which reveals what may be the first hate hoax perpetrated with the help of artificial intelligence. The principal of Pikesville High School, Eric Eiswert, was accused in January of making blatantly racist comments behind closed doors after an inflammatory audio file was posted on a popular Instagram account.In the recording, the person speaking refers to “ungrateful Black kids who can’t test their way out of a paper bag.”The speaker goes on to question how hard it is to get those students to meet grade-level expectations. He uses names of people who appear...

The Missouri legislature today approved a bill that would defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business and other companies in the state that kill babies in abortions. Although Missouri is one of the pro-life states where babies are protected, state tax dollars still go to the abortion giant. And that’s a problem given a recent expose’ showing Planned Parenthood is trafficking teen girls across state lines for secret abortions without their parents even knowing. Susan Klein, Executive Director of Missouri Right to Life, told LifeNews.com she is elated by the news. Today, May 25, 2024, the Missouri General Assembly truly agreed...

Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook toured Southeast Asia last week, visiting Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore, as part of a multiday trip geared toward reducing Apple’s reliance on China as its central manufacturing hub. And while Apple isn’t looking to abandon China — Cook spent a number of days in the country just last month — the company is hedging against the potential for future manufacturing roadblocks in the region. At the same time, the company is slowly setting its sights on India as its next major growth opportunity now that China has become a more mature smartphone market. “Apple is...

Up to 300 UConn students launched a Gaza Solidarity Encampment Thursday evening to protest UConn’s “complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and its shameful contributions to militarism around the world,” according to a release from the UConn Divest coalition. The students are also advocating for a liberated Palestine. The UConn Divest coalition launched the encampment, bringing together student organizations and individuals who are committed to fighting for a free Palestine and to ending the university’s support for occupation and genocide, the coalition said. ... These include disclosure and divestment from occupation and genocide. The students want the university...

The National Republican Congressional Committee is selling a “F*** Hamas” T-shirt, starting Wednesday.“We got tired of saying it, so we slapped it on a T-shirt,” NRCC national press secretary Will Reinert said to the Washington Examiner. The limited-quantity shirt is raising money for the NRCC, a political committee that works to raise funds and help elect Republicans to the House. This year is a key election year for Congress and the White House.

Like empires before us, we have lost our cultural confidence and moorings, increasing the risk of being overrun by newcomers.No subject is as central to America’s future and no subject gets to the heart of the failure of our current regime more than immigration policy. As a result, few subjects are as riddled with taboos in their public discussion. What will happen when the ethnic composition of large parts of America is transformed in ways America’s European founders never could have foreseen? And in the interim, what will happen to whites as they continue to lose political power amid their...

The University of Southern California will be canceling their main commencement ceremony amid pro-Hamas shenanigans by leftist students that’s turned many a campus across America into riot zones. Students are protesting the war in Gaza, though many times it’s devolved into calls for murdering Jewish people and the destruction of Israel. At Yale, one Jewish student was stabbed in the eye. USC’s administration apparently found that this year’s ceremony, which typically attracts tens of thousands, was just too big a risk with the mayhem on campus. They also tried to placate both sides, which failed miserably (via LA Times): 🚨#BREAKING:...

Oh no! All the losers with the lesbian theater degrees can’t find jobs since they settled on an “education” that had no applicability in the real world! And, what’s worse is that they’re “artists,” so they can’t be expected to work a 9–5, or stifle their creativity with a boring conventional job, even though that’s where the money is. Fear not though, because here comes Congress to the rescue, with details from an NBC News report today:Democrats fret it could be curtains for local theaters without federal fundsFour years after it began, Covid-19 is in the rearview mirror for millions...

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper reacted to 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump comparing the situation on college campuses to Charlottesville by stating that “There has been some anti-Israel sentiment and there has been some antisemitic sentiment,” but “most of them” were “peaceful, most of them in support of Palestinian rights” and “that’s not what the neo-Nazis in the Unite the Right rally were doing. That was not a peaceful march that turned into something ugly. It was ugly from the word go.”

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Gather around the Canteen cooler and strike up a conversation. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a chair, put your feet up, grab a drink,...

A Secret Service officer assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris who got into a brawl with her colleagues earlier this week previously filed a $1 million gender discrimination lawsuit against the city of Dallas while working as a police officer.Michelle Herczeg was removed from her duties on Wednesday after displaying erratic behavior and assaulting a superior officer while awaiting Harris’ departure from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Monday.In December 2016, Herczeg — then a senior corporal with the Dallas Police Department — filed her claim against the city, alleging that she “was targeted for being a female officer...

The White House punted on Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) demand for President Biden to call in the National Guard to college campuses amid mass protests over the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday. Johnson visited Columbia University on Wednesday, the first of major pro-Palestine protests that have spread to dozens of college campuses around the country, and said that Biden should call in the National Guard to quell the peaceful demonstrations.

The University of Southern California (USC) has canceled its main graduation ceremony due to apparent security concerns after anti-Israel protesters tried to encamp and were removed by Los Angeles Police Department this week. As Breitbart News reported, anti-Israel protesters had tried to occupy the campus, as demonstrators have done at other universities in an apparently well-coordinated and well-funded campaign. In addition, USC canceled the speech of its valedictorian after she was found to have supported the annihilation of the State of Israel in online posts.

When I enrolled in Columbia, it was on a full academic scholarship. It helped make me who I am today — it allowed me to grow, learn and be successful as I set out into the world. SNIP Signs at Columbia University read “Go Back to Poland,” calling for the Jewish community to return to the horrific death camps of the Holocaust. They chant “Kill all the Jews” and “October 7th 10,000 more times.” This hateful rhetoric calling for the death and destruction of an entire population has no place at Columbia and no place anywhere.

The state has confirmed an additional case of pertussis — or whooping cough — on Hawaii Island amid an outbreak that has so far sickened 11 since March. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The state has confirmed an additional case of pertussis — or whooping cough — on Hawaii Island amid an outbreak that has so far sickened 11 since March. Several of the recent cases have been in infants too young to be fully vaccinated. Officials said the cases indicate “community spread” of pertussis on Hawaii Island. Because of that, the state Health Department is strongly recommending that parents stay up...

A Maryland high school teacher was arrested after he allegedly used artificial intelligence to create phony audio, planting racist and antisemitic words into the voice of his boss, officials said Thursday. Dazhon Darien, a physical education teacher and athletic director at Pikesville High School, was accused of falsifying the voice of principal Eric Eiswert in January, authorities said. "We now have conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic," Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough told reporters in Towson. "It’s been determined the recording was generated through the use of artificial intelligence technology." Darien was charged with disrupting school activities...

Ilhan Omar’s daughter returned to campus — under the protection of her US Congresswoman mother — to cheer on her fellow anti-Israel protesters on Thursday — as the university’s deadline to clear out the tent camp ticked down. The far-left “Squad” member (D-MN) and Isra Hirsi, 21, posed for photos and cheered on the protesters who had put up dozens of tents near the center of the Morningside Heights campus. The high-profile visit came as the demonstrators were just hours from a deadline early Friday morning to vacant the lawn – which was extended from an original midnight Wednesday morning...

For centuries, Somali pastoralists have relied on camels for sustenance, transport and social status. In recent decades, camel husbandry has evolved into a very profitable business, transforming the lives of many Somalis. However, the mainstream media, using images of dry lands, would have us believe that this flourishing enterprise is threatened by man-made climate change. Camel Husbandry in the Horn of Africa and Media Fearmongering Camels, also known as “ships of the desert,” truly stand out as remarkable creatures perfectly tailored to thrive in the parched, windswept landscapes of arid and semi-arid regions across the globe. In the dry lowlands...