Free Republic

World-leading indie travel news source Travel Off Path has listed Vietnam as the safest country to visit in Asia for 2024. According to Travel Off Path, one of North America's largest travel news websites, safety is a primary concern for Americans traveling abroad, especially amid the current climate where conflicts are breaking out internationally and security is decreasing across a number of destinations. Over the last few years, Asia has been no exception, but Vietnam has proven to be remarkably stable and safe for tourists, said the website. It cited the latest Global Law and Order Index indicating Vietnam is...

The Fish Market, a popular chain of seafood restaurants in California, has announced the closing of its final two locations in the Bay Area — Palo Alto and San Mateo — by September 2023, marking the end of a near-50-year era in the region via the Mercury News. Having successfully navigated through the rough waters of changing market conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic, the closures have come as a blow to seafood lovers who now mourn the end of an iconic dining institution.

Republican senators are growing concerned by colleague Mitt Romney’s refusal to help fellow Utah Republican Mike Lee decisively win his re-election campaign — a posture that could potentially keep their party from gaining a majority in the November elections. Unlike every other Republican senator, the 2012 failed Republican presidential candidate is declining to express a preference in Republican Lee’s re-election effort against Democrat-endorsed Evan McMullin. “I respect [Romney], and I understand that each state has its own dynamics, but I do not understand why he is remaining neutral,” said one Republican senator who asked not to be identified. “Whatever our...

Economist Webinar Earlier today, the Economist had one of their bi-weekly webinars on Ukraine. Here is some of what was covered: ·Taking Kramatorsk & Sloviansk will be problematic for Russia – After taking Lysychansk, the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut are next on Russia’s “list.” Over the past 8 years, Ukraine has built up substantial defense lines in front of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. The Economist’s military expert doesn’t think Russia has sufficient strength to capture any of the 3. It is important to remember that Ukraine has built up similar defense lines around the portions of Luhansk and Donetsk...

Mike Pence says he is open to running against President Trump in 2024. The NY TImes reported: After four years of service bordering on subservience, the increasingly emboldened Mr. Pence is seeking to reintroduce himself to Republican voters ahead of a potential presidential bid by setting himself apart from what many in the G.O.P. see as the worst impulses of Mr. Trump. He’s among a small group in his party considering a run in 2024 no matter what Mr. Trump decides. Mr. Pence first used high-profile speeches to criticize the former president’s push to overturn the 2020 election results, stating...

The head of the NHS, Amanda Pritchard says the NHS ‘is running hot,’ and urged people to book their COVID booster jabs. However, in her attempt to try and convince the public to dose up, she has been accused of “misusing” statistics after she said that there are 14 times as many people in hospital with COVID than this time last year. Her remark resulted in another blanket of MSM misinformation.The latest data from the Government’s dashboard shows there were 800 admissions on November 3, compared to almost 1,300 at the same point last year and there were 7,000 inpatients...

NEW YORK (WABC) -- NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa put his campaign on hold Friday to check himself into a hospital after being hit by a cab... ...Sliwa got up and did his radio show. Afterwards he went to Lenox Hill Hospital to be checked out. It turns out he suffered a fractured right arm but is expected to be released from the hospital later in the evening. The taxi did not stop but Sliwa didn't consider the incident a hit and run....

This week, San Francisco is expected to once again ease certain indoor mask mandates for portions of the adult population. Mayor London Breed has celebrated this news “because it will allow offices to have more normal routines and interactions.” Noticeably lacking in the new guidance is any update for school and child care mask mandates or even any acknowledgement that kids might also need more normal routines and interactions. Considering they are in peak development years, children need these things even more than adults. It’s not as if mask relief for kids couldn’t safely become a reality. In fact, Mayor...

Effective at ranges out to 2,000 meters, the SIG Sauer MG 338 machine gun has a greater range than the M240 platoon-level machine gun. It has a rate of fire of 600 pounds and is chambered in the hard-hitting .338 Norma Magnum (8.6x63mm) round, and yet it weighs in at just around 21 pounds. It is easy to see why a year ago the U.S. Special Operation Command (UUSOCOM) selected the MG 338 for evaluation to bridge the gap between the M240, chambered in 7.62×51 NATO, and the Browning M2 heavy .50 caliber machine gun. The MG 338 could help...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Friday stated that Democrats cannot “indefinitely” reach out to Republicans, mere days after Democrats took control of the White House and Senate. “We cannot reach out to Republicans indefinitely. If they choose not to come on board to help the American people now, we have the majority. We should use that majority,” Sanders said alongside a clip of his recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, in which the Vermont senator reiterated the same sentiment. “Look I think we should do our best to reach out to Republicans, who represent communities that were suffering...

Joe Scarborough went off on another of his patented rants on today's Morning Joe. The object of his ire was Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. We counted 17 times during the tirade that Scarborough accused Paul of being a "liar," or of "lying." Poor Joe had been triggered by Paul's comments at a Senate hearing yesterday on election integrity. He said “fraud happened" and "The election in many ways was stolen, and the only way it'll be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws." Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The Washington Post’s global opinions editor Karen Attiah deleted tweets Sunday saying that “white women are lucky” black people are “not calling for revenge” after listing various things she claimed white women are responsible for in the past. Attiah tweeted a list of incidents she claimed came about due to “the lies & tears of white women.” Included in this list are “The 1921 Tulsa Massacre” and “53% of white women voting for [President Donald] Trump.”

During a hearing in the Ohio statehouse on Tuesday, Republican state Senator Steve Huffman asked if "the colored population" is hit harder by the coronavirus because "they do not wash their hands as well as other groups." Huffman, who is a physician, raised the question during a health committee hearing on whether to declare racism a public health crisis. "My point is, I understand African Americans have a higher incidence of chronic conditions and it makes them more susceptible to death from COVID," Huffman said. "But why it doesn't make them more susceptible to just get COVID? Could it just...

President Donald Trump retweeted a post from Fox News’ Brit Hume, Wednesday, which predicted the president will unify Democrats against him. In response to a Washington Examiner article titled, “Calls for unity cannot hide stark cultural differences inside the Democratic Party,” Hume commented, “Good insight here. But there is one unifying factor that will be there in the fall: Donald J. Trump.”

US military opens investigation after West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen appeared to flash white power hand signs during the live broadcast of the Army-Navy game

SAN DIEGO – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials temporarily suspended all northbound and southbound crossings for both pedestrians and vehicles at the San Ysidro port of entry at about 11:30 a.m. Sunday morning.  As of 2 p.m., operations have not resumed. In preparation for multiple planned demonstrations on both sides of the border, CBP had deployed additional personnel to the San Ysidro port of entry on Sunday.  As the demonstrations on the Mexican side reached the border area, some members of the demonstration split off to head towards multiple locations along the border.  Some attempted to enter the U.S....

Headline: The search for D.B. Cooper: Investigators say they've confirmed skyjacker's identity by decoding long-lost 'confession' <>A team of cold-case investigators claim they’ve decoded a 1972 message by D.B. Cooper — and that it contains a confession from Vietnam veteran Robert Rackstraw, long suspected of being the infamous skyjacker. The letter was addressed to “The Portland Oregonian Newspaper.” Months earlier, a man identified as the fictitious Cooper had hijacked a Seattle-bound flight and later parachuted out of a plane with $200,000, never to be heard from again. “This letter is too (sic) let you know I am not dead but...

In a series of startlingly candid conversations, President Donald Trump told former FBI Director James Comey that he had serious concerns about the judgment of a top adviser, asked about the possibility of jailing journalists and described a boast from Vladimir Putin about Russian prostitutes, according to Comey’s notes of the talks obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday night. The 15 pages of documents contain new details about a series of interactions with Trump that Comey found so unnerving that he chose to document them in writing. Those seven encounters in the weeks and months before Comey’s May 2017...

DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients were arrested in two separate incidents of human smuggling operations in California over the course of two days last week. The first, a 22-year-old Mexican DACA recipient of Riverside County, was questioned on January 25 after the arrest of two illegal aliens. The man allegedly admitted to border patrol agents that he was on scouting duty as part of a human smuggling crew. The DACA beneficiary allegedly had been monitoring border patrol activities and relaying them to other members of the crew to facilitate their human smuggling activities. This was not, apparently, the...

Former first lady Michelle Obama got the VIP treatment at a Bruno Mars concert Friday. Obama was spotted attending Mars’ concert at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. Friday night, according to posts on Mars’ Instagram. Obama posed with the singer in two posts on his Instagram. In one she also held up a piece of personalized merchandise from Mars’ 24k tour, with her last name emblazoned on the back of the jersey. "Last Night in D.C. Mrs. Obama came to the concert and blessed us with her presence," Mars captioned one of the posts.