Free Republic

The blockbuster film Jaws has been a perennial favorite here on Martha’s Vineyard since its release 45 years ago. The epic 1975 feature film, shot on the Vineyard in iconic places like the picturesque fishing village of Menemsha, pits a fictional seaside tourist town called Amity against a villainous great white shark whose fearsome triangular teeth—300 of them—bite and kill unsuspecting townspeople and summer visitors enjoying the local Atlantic Ocean waters. Jaws played recently at a COVID-safe drive-in theater here, allowing viewers to scream in the privacy of their own cars. The movie took a deep dive into the psyche...

A former White House coronavirus official praised the “unwavering” work of the president's COVID-19 task force in her departure letter, before accusing President Trump of having a “flat out disregard for human life” and saying the "ongoing response" was "a failure." In an interview with the Washington Post published on Thursday, Olivia Troye became the first official who worked extensively on the pandemic response to speak out against Trump, saying that his actions cost lives. “The president’s rhetoric and his own attacks against people in his administration trying to do the work, as well as the promulgation of false narratives...

An Air Force veteran died on board a GRTC bus in Richmond, VA on Thursday, September 10, after suffering a heart attack. The man, 66-year-old Raymond Bass, was on his way to a doctor's appointment at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center. The aftermath of his collapse was captured on camera, as was the actions of a young man who sitting in front of him. As Bass is seen lying on the ground unconscious, at first sight it appears as though the young man is helping the veteran. But reality painted a much darker picture. 8News learned that the...

For a final assignment to cap a five-year posting to China, I never would have chosen this. But deep inside a cavernous setup of tight corridors and shelves, I'm standing in the dark, sweating profusely as the rain-like sound of millions of cockroaches eating fills the silence. It's a peaceful ambience that would go well on one of those calming sleep apps. Everything else about the situation would probably keep people awake. Around me on walls, the ceiling and floors, cockroaches large and small scurry about, scattering whenever my cameraman Steve Wang points his camera light at them. This is...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back Friday against the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco's criticism of COVID-related restrictions, saying he should “follow science” rather than advocate for fuller in-person gatherings for Mass and worship. Asked about Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone's recent op-ed protesting limits on larger public gatherings, Pelosi, a practicing Catholic, said he should not be putting people's lives at risk. “With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this,” Pelosi said. The right to worship has become a fierce touchstone in the debate over state and local rules to stem...

Count Vlad is doing David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes." The Count's mom is also present. It's parody, it's campy, it's a fun fest for the eyes, ears and the golden years... 1950s sci-fi alert. If you like the music please subscribe to the channel.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris joined the nine other Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in calling upon Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate U.S. Attorney John Durham’s inquiry into the Russia investigation. “We write to request that you investigate whether U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation complies with Department of Justice policies, including policies that protect criminal investigations from political influence,” Harris and her Senate colleagues wrote to Horowitz in a (two-page letter) on Thursday. “The Department’s mission ‘to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans’ requires that its prosecutorial decisions be insulated...

During an interview with the BBC this week, Epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta reminded the audience that Wuhan Coronavirus is not a deadly disease for large swaths of the population and recommended allowing most people to get back to their lives. Further, she recommended mass testing be stopped and focused instead on vulnerable populations -- specifically on individuals who regularly interact with people who are high risk.  "It’s not deadly in a very large section of the population, so that presents us with this workable solution where by we can stop testing them, let them get on with their lives, let them...

Soybean prices have surged to their highest levels in more than two years, driven by heavy buying from Chinese importers. Most-active soybean futures trading on the Chicago Board of Trade closed Friday at over $10.43 per bushel, their highest level since May 2018. Soybean prices have risen more than 16% since the start of August.

Nuclear expert James Acton believes that we are entering into an era of what he calls “nuclear entanglement,” one that promises to be different from anything we’ve seen before. Its main characteristic: an increasingly blurry line between nuclear and conventional weapons. “During the Cold War, the nuclear and non-nuclear domains were largely distinct,” said Acton in an interview for the podcast, Press The Button. “Most delivery systems were nuclear or they were conventional, but they couldn’t accommodate both types of weapons.” The same goes for the threats facing nuclear weapons themselves. The majority of these, he explained, “came from other...

Chicago Police officers have waited more than three years for a new contract and the retroactive pay raise that comes with it. The first substantive offer they got from Mayor Lori Lightfoot was hardly worth the wait, according to their fiery union president. Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara said he stormed away from Tuesday’s long-awaited negotiating session after the mayor’s team offered his members the same 10% pay raise over four years already awarded to Chicago firefighters in exchange for higher health care contributions — but tacked on 17 pages, including 40 disciplinary reforms. Catanzara was so insulted...

Is It Time To Decolonize Your Lawn? How is this real? Well we must get straight past that question because this is Not the Bee, where the seemingly unreal becomes very real every day. Now come with me on an adventure as we dive into this surreal gem of an article from the Globe and Mail to find out why, indeed, our lawns are racist and we are terrible scumbag colonizers for maintaining them.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that “five or six” more countries are close to following the UAE and Bahrain in signing peace deals with Israel. And although he wouldn’t reveal the identity of these countries, an official in the Palestinian Authority may have. According to Israel’s state run Kann News, Israel is in normalization talks with Oman, Sudan, Comoro Islands, Djibouti and Mauritania. All of those countries are Muslim and with the exception of Oman, all are African. Mauritania, a member of the Arab League, may not come as a surprise as Nouakchott said it trusts the “wisdom...

With the pandemic devastating state tax revenues, Gov. Andrew Cuomo quite rightly had his Division of the Budget hold back $4 billion in funds for local governments, nonprofits and school districts. But he’s declined to stint on the pork. As the Empire Center reports, that same Division of the Budget has ordered the Dormitory Authority (which, despite the name, dumps cash on all manner of projects) to release grants totaling a whopping $46 million from April through July. The 226 grants are funding by bonds issued without voter approval. Most of them were authorized via the State and Municipal Facilities Program, a $2...

The president of the American Psychological Association (APA), which represents psychologists in the United States, accused the United States of harboring a “racism pandemic,” and the president of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) stated, “Every institution in America is born from the blood of white supremacist ideology and capitalism—and that’s the disease,” according to the APA. Those statements were made by APA President Sandra Shullman and ABPsi President Theopia Jackson. Shulman stated: We are living in a racism pandemic, which is taking a heavy psychological toll on our African American citizens. The health consequences are dire. Racism is associated...

Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin pledged on CNN Thursday not to go home to her district in Michigan without a deal in Congress to pass another round of coronavirus stimulus. Less than an hour later, Stolkin was spotted at Reagan National Airport and refused to answer questions.“I was not going to go back to my district and walk around and go to the grocery store and have people ask me again about the state of the latest COVID emergency bill and tell them because of politics we couldn’t get in a room together,” Slotkin said on air.Forty minutes later however, Slotkin...

Marshall University professor Jennifer Mosher was placed on leave this week after she was recorded saying that she hopes that Trump supporters die before the election of coronavirus. The university placed Mosher, a biology professor, on leave shortly after a clip of her comments circulated online. According to a report by Campus Reform, Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, has placed biology professor Jennifer Mosher on leave over disparaging comments she made about Trump supporters during a recent class session that was recorded by students. Speaking about a Trump rally, Mosher says in the clip: “Yesterday he held one inside....

Let’s squarely face an ugly possibility: President Trump could get elected a second time without winning the popular vote. Indeed, according to most experts, that’s the only way he could be re-elected. This would surely prompt another chorus of calls to scrap the Electoral College. I think that would be a mistake. I say that even as I acknowledge that Trump has undermined the Electoral College’s legitimacy—not because he owes his election to it, but because of how he has behaved since taking office. One of the Electoral College’s purposes is to broaden the president’s mandate and agenda by forcing...

There's been a lot of discussion around whether or not Catholics can support the Democratic Party. I laid out an introduction here and here as a background for examining their platform regarding those things a Catholic can never support: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and homosexual marriage. Below, are the major party platforms and policy initiatives on these issues of life. Abortion"The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and...

Joe Biden is a straw man, a lightweight, a puppet, a clown. He belongs on a rocking chair in an old folks' home with an knitted afghan over his knees. The real enemy to our country is the cabal that is propping him up. It's time we set our sights on the ventriloquist, not the dummy. First, we need to expose the men behind the curtain, the people pulling the strings, the power behind the clone. Then, we need to destroy them with the most powerful weapon in our arsenal: truth. But that's not enough. And this is the hard...