Free Republic

The removal of the navigation buoys is part of a 'broader pattern of provocative behaviour' by the Kremlin, the EU's chief diplomat says. The EU's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has asked Moscow for an "explanation" after buoys on the Narva River demarcating Estonia's border with Russia were removed in the early hours of Thursday. According to Estonian border guards, their Russian counterparts confiscated 24 of 50 buoys intended to mark sailing routes on the border waterway, an act which Borrell described as "unacceptable." "This border incident is part of a broader pattern of provocative behaviour and hybrid actions by...

Almost one in four adults are being prescribed antidepressants, but this proliferation of pills is not only a waste of money but also prevents patients finding and addressing the real cause of their depression, writes Lucy Kenningham I was 20 the first time I was prescribed antidepressants. I had gone to the doctors during January in rainy, miserable Manchester complaining of flu. Somehow, I came out of the appointment having been diagnosed with depression and prescribed a course of SSRIs. But in fact I didn’t have a mood disorder, and I didn’t need to go on medication.

Trump Rallying, Despite Legal Hell, Shows That He Is the Leader America NeedsThe happy, positive warrior attitude is what MAGA needs in a leader.For the last month or so, aside from the regular Democrat lawfare over the last decade, President Trump has been put through a sham “trial” that could only make the Soviet Politburo blush. Trump has been ordered by the Democrat judge to be in attendance virtually every day, with the idea clearly being to keep him off the campaign trail and to help Joe Biden steal the election.However, that has not stopped Trump from being the warrior...

A U.S. Army Colonel reportedly shot and killed an alleged Chechen intruder outside the Colonel’s residence just north of Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. The incident occurred May 3, 2024, but the details of the shooting were reported May 22 and 23, 2024. “Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the [Colonel’s] home” and one of them, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev, was allegedly taking photos of the Colonel’s children, according to FOX News,

Rapper Sean Kingston was arrested during his concert on a US army base in California on Thursday while SWAT raided his Florida mansion taking his mother into custody earlier in the day.

Fairfax County, VA – After over a decade on the run, a 2013 sexual assault suspect was arrested in El Salvador and extradited back to Fairfax County to face justice. On October 21, 2013, officers responded to the 7200 block of Commerce Street in Springfield for a sexual assault report. The victim was sexually assaulted by an unknown male while inside a residence. Officers and detectives collected evidence from the scene. With the help of a DNA profile established from collected evidence in 2014, detectives arrested David Ernesto Cuevas Maldonado, 27, of Springfield and charged him with Sexual Assault. Maldonado...

As the House voted Thursday to bar foreign nationals from voting in local Washington, D.C. elections, Democrats and their public-relations team in the corporate media have rolled out the big guns in attacking such election integrity efforts. They’re painting the legislation that ensures noncitizens cannot vote in elections as the next so-called “Big Lie,” sticking to their well-worn narrative that noncitizens already are prohibited from voting in U.S. elections and that such violations “don’t exist.” But one of the fiercest opponents of the election integrity legislation has said the quiet part out loud, as Democrats are wont to do. ‘Alien...

Three Catholic bishops and a nun walk into the White House. Here’s why it’s no joke. (RNS) — Three Catholic bishops and a nun walked into a climate policy meeting at the White House. This isn’t the beginning of a joke. Bishop Edward Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona, Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima, Washington, and St. Joseph Sister Carol Zinn, executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and I really did go to the White House on Nov. 17, with support from communications specialist Lonnie Ellis. We went to discuss Pope Francis’ latest apostolic exhortation on climate, “Laudate Deum.”...

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[Catholic Caucus] Three Broken Canons in the New CodeJust as in the days of Christ, it was the scribes and Pharisees (obsessed with the law instead of the Gospel) who crucified Christ. So also today, canon lawyers now crucify the Catholic Church by legalism. It’s not that Canon Law is the problem. Canon Law was originally set up to be at the service of the Gospel, not a replacement of it. But it is being manipulated by corrupt bishops to promote an anti-Gospel in many American dioceses. We will look at three of the worst abuses of the new Code...

Democrats and Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee sparred over food aid on Thursday at the markup of the chamber’s version of the $1.5 trillion omnibus farm bill. The issue set off partisan fireworks at the contentious session, during which representatives from both sides of the aisle took to the dais to extol the virtues of bipartisanship while accusing their opposite numbers of throwing those values in the trash. “I served for 26 years in the United States military, oftentimes below the poverty level and using these programs,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said. “So I will not be lectured...

“Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do. ” — “Joe Biden” on “X”. There comes a time when the rigors and exertions of being insane just aren’t worth it anymore. You end up in a deadly Pareto distribution in which 80 percent of your energy gets wasted on hallucinating and the rest is barely enough to get yourself dressed, comb your purple hair, and choke down a granola bar. Verging on a long, hot summer, the party behind “Joe Biden” looks like a 1950s horror movie, complete with lurching ghouls, evil scientists in white lab coats, and the sore beset...

Missouri state Rep. Ben Baker said Friday that his “heart is broken in a thousand pieces” after his daughter and son-in-law were taken hostage then later killed by a gang in Haiti. Natalie and Davy Lloyd were among a group of missionaries who were ambushed as they left a church on Thursday, the nonprofit Missions in Haiti Inc. wrote on Facebook. A gang of “3 trucks full of guys” whisked the group away, the nonprofit, which is run by Davy’s parents, David and Alicia Lloyd, wrote in a frantic Facebook post calling for “urgent prayers.” “Davy was taken to the...

[Catholic Caucus] Why doesn’t Pope Francis Celebrate Mass? Part IIForgive me for returning to a question that I have asked once before—and only a few weeks ago, at that. But frankly I am dumbfounded, and wonder why the same question is not on the lips of all believing Catholics.Why has Pope Francis not celebrated Mass in public for well over a year? He will frequently “preside” at a Mass—which means he sits enthroned at the side of the altar in liturgical vestments, often delivering the homily—but he has not been the principal celebrant since sometime in mid-2022.When I asked this...

A clinical trial has found that intravenous acetaminophen reduced sepsis patients' risk of having organ injury or developing acute respiratory distress syndrome. Sepsis is the body's uncontrolled and extreme response to an infection. The researchers found that acetaminophen gave the greatest benefit to the patients most at risk for organ damage. With the therapy, those patients needed less assisted ventilation. Limited research has suggested that acetaminophen might work better for patients with the most severe sepsis—those with higher levels of cell-free hemoglobin. To test the therapeutic potential of acetaminophen more fully in a mid-stage clinical trial, researchers enrolled 447 adults...

Biden’s handlers thought it was a sly Machiavellian move to coordinate local, state, and federal prosecutors to wear down Trump, bankrupt him, destroy him mentally and physically, and brand him as a criminal felon—through a long winter, spring, summer, and fall of lawfare of the sort never witnessed in America before.But the latest Michael Cohen iteration—Liar, Crook, Spy, Grifter, and now Thief—along with Judge Merchan’s one-sided, adolescent pouts, have blown up Alvin Bragg’s circus—even if the biased judge warps the proceedings and a slanted jury were to nullify the evidence and convict Trump. (snip) The prosecutors, the judges—and the White...

Long gone are the days when Ukraine was at least winning the war on the western news sites’ headlines.Now, slowly but surely, the MSM has had to face the fact that the outmanned, outgunned and outmaneuvered Ukrainian forces will not win this war on the battlefield, will not get back to pre-war borders, much less reincorporate the Crimean peninsula.And up until a minute ago, to state the obvious fact that Ukraine will have to cede territory during peace negotiations with Russia got you branded as a ‘Kremlin stooge’ or worse, and only the most courageous politicians, such as Hungarian Viktor...

It has long been known that a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, and most other neurodegenerative diseases, is the clumping together of insoluble protein aggregates in the brain. During normal disease-free aging, there is also an accumulation of insoluble proteins. Researchers have recently completed a systematic study in worms that paints an intricate picture of the connections between insoluble proteins in neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Furthermore, the work demonstrated an intervention that could reverse the toxic effects of the aggregates by boosting mitochondrial health. "Our study shows how maintaining healthy mitochondria can combat protein clumping linked to both aging and Alzheimer's,"...

The Victim Hierarchy by Matt Walsh

Congressional Democrats on Thursday accused oil companies of inflating the cost of gasoline and vowed to investigate them, pushing back on who's to blame for rising prices hurting President Joe Biden's reelection chances. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats were flanked by supporters in matching blue shirts holding signs that read, "Stop gouging us at the pump." Schumer criticized recent billion-dollar oil company mergers, such as one between ExxonMobil and Pioneer Natural Resources, as potentially "disastrous for consumers." He said previous mergers in the industry decreased competition and led to higher prices. Schumer said he had already...