Free Republic

Four to six months ahead of possible testing times, the test's commissioner pre-emptively canceled this only way to measure the effect of varying school shutdown regulations across state lines.A federal agency is canceling congressionally mandated nationwide tests scheduled for 2021, ending the only way to reliably measure the effect of different school shutdowns across state lines until approximately 2023, the agency’s commissioner announced the day before Thanksgiving.“The change in operations and lack of access to students to be assessed means that NAEP will not be able to produce estimates of what students know and can do that would be comparable...

Good Morning/Afternoon,MEGAABlessedAdventMerryChristmasHappyHannukahHappyNewYear2021!

in a rollover ira, i purchase some spy in june 2020 and occasionally a bit more, a bit later. i have had rollover ira for a long time, not done anything with it other than watch it gradually grow over time, until now. i am retirement age (over 60yo). it used to be the fidelity version of spy for many years. i want to sell $210k of spy now (dec 2020). spy went up 17.67% in about 5 months. i have a long term cg rate of 15%, short term cg rate of 37%. will i only get zinged at...

The consolation prize for President Trump in the Golden State was that he won 5.5 million votes in 2020, a million plus more than four years ago. But did Joe Biden really top 11 million ballots as officially reported? One experienced programmer and information security expert thinks the answer is likely not. In fact, the Democratic candidate may not have even topped 10 million. Doing a deep dive analysis of the election live-feed used by the New York Times, the researcher, with two decades of experience looking for data anomalies, estimated that at least 1.7 million votes for Joe Biden...

Venezuela’s congressional election on Sunday will almost certainly give President Nicolás Maduro control over the country’s last major independent institution, but will do little to improve his image at home and abroad. Maduro, who already has the loyalty of the courts, the military, prosecutors and other institutions, seeks to load the National Assembly with members of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Critics say he’s guaranteed that by rigging the system to smother the last remnants of democracy in Venezuela. An opposition coalition led by U.S.-backed politician Juan Guaidó is boycotting the vote. The European Union, the U.S. and several...

Monday, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci voiced his concern about the upcoming Christmas holiday as the United States continues to battle the coronavirus. Fauci told CNN “New Day” host John Berman that his concerns are similar to the ones he had heading into Thanksgiving. He noted that Christmas lasts longer than Thanksgiving, which he said makes the upcoming holiday “more compounded” and “more of a challenge.”

LOS ANGELES – A North Carolina man who engaged in a series of cyber and swatting attacks, including sending bogus threats of shootings and bombings to schools in the United States and United Kingdom, was sentenced today to 95 months in federal prison. Timothy Dalton Vaughn, 22, whose online aliases included “WantedbyFeds” and “Hacker_R_US,” of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was sentenced by United States District Judge Otis D. Wright II. Vaughn pleaded guilty in November 2019 to one count of conspiracy to convey threats to injure, convey false information concerning use of explosive device, and intentionally damage a computer; one...

Of the two communities that confronted each other 400 years ago in New England, it may now be the Indians who most resemble today's Americans.The following essay is part of The Federalist’s 1620 Project, a symposium exploring the connections and contributions of the early Pilgrim and Puritan settlers in New England to the uniquely American synthesis of faith, family, freedom, and self-government.Possibly someone will surprise us at the last minute. Possibly the coronavirus is to blame. But with 2020 nearly over, it looks like the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’s arrival at Plymouth, Massachusetts, is going to pass uncommemorated.There have...

423 miles completed, 228 miles under construction, 87 miles under pre-construction (738 Total).

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) on Friday described the Chinese coronavirus as the “greatest threat to life in Los Angeles that we have ever faced” — a description that follows his urge for residents to “cancel everything.” “So often in this crisis, it can be so confusing. Orders come down from the state, from our county. We’re not sure what they mean when they come into effect,” Garcetti said as he attempted to clarify the layers of restrictions.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer says that those who refuse to take the COVID vaccine won’t have “freedom to move around” and will have to continue to wear masks. Dr. David Williams was asked if he “would make some sort of mandatory vaccination recommendation.” Williams acknowledged that “we can’t force someone to take a vaccine,” but when on to explain how people who didn’t take it would have their freedom of mobility severely restricted. “What we can do is to say sometimes for access or ease of getting into certain settings, if you don’t have vaccination then you’re not allowed into...

At least one person has died and more than 200 others have been hospitalized due to a mystery illness in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, according to reports. The unidentified illness was detected late Saturday in Eluru, an ancient city famous for its hand-woven products, where patients have experienced symptoms ranging from nausea and anxiety to loss of consciousness, according to doctors. A 45-year-old man hospitalized with symptoms similar to epilepsy who also suffered from nausea died Sunday evening, the Press Trust of India news agency reported

LOS ANGELES – Three members of a Gardena street gang that operates in several states under the control of the Mexican Mafia, have been charged in federal court with violent crime in aid of racketeering for allegedly participating in a shooting that resulted in the death of a 29-year-old man who was gunned down in front of his home. One of the defendants, Jesus Francisco Hernandez, was taken into custody this morning by special agents with Homeland Security Investigations. Hernandez is scheduled to make his initial appearance this afternoon in United States District Court in Los Angeles. The three...

Thanks to a court order by a judge in Michigan’s 13th circuit, Dominion election equipment software and hardware in tiny (population: 23,000) Antrim County, Michigan is being examined by a team of experts brought in by the Trump lawyers. Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times reports:President Donald Trump’s legal team began a forensic analysis of Dominion voting machines in Michigan after a judge on Dec. 4 permitted examination.“Our team is going to be able to go in this morning at about 8:30 [a.m.] and will be there for about eight hours to conduct that forensic examination and we’ll have the...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an appeal from parents in Oregon who want to prevent transgender students from using locker rooms and bathrooms of the gender with which they identify, rather than their sex assigned at birth. The case came from a school district near Salem, Oregon’s capital city. The federal appeals court in San Francisco had upheld a Dallas, Oregon, school district policy that allows transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. Parents sued over the policy in 2017, saying it caused embarrassment and stress. A lower...

Representatives Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jody Hice (R-GA), and members of the House Freedom Caucus are calling on Attorney General William Barr to conduct a forensic audit of the 2020 election. Biggs accused Barr of being “missing in action” after suggesting a request had been made a month ago that he conduct an investigation into allegations of voter fraud. “I feel that [Barr] is missing in action,” accused Biggs. “The reality is that he is capable, he’s qualified and he’s got a department of capable, qualified individuals. We need them in action from about a month ago. We are running out...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan makes the case for his version of the future of the national Republican Party in a video being released Monday by his national advocacy organization, An America United, as speculation continues to swirl about whether he will run for president in 2024. The video, first obtained by Fox News, is adapted from a speech Hogan gave on Nov. 16 at the Reagan Foundation. It comes at a time when, with President Trump having lost the presidential election but denying the results and saying that he might run again in 2024, the Republican Party is forced to...

Attorney General William Barr is weighing an early resignation, sources told The New York Times.The news comes after a week where Barr had denied there was evidence of widespread voter fraud to overturn the election and multiple incidents of President Donald Trump declining to issue a public support of confidence in his one-time lockstep head of the Justice Department.Three sources told the Times Barr might resign before the end of the year, but he is at least preparing to leave the DOJ by inauguration day, according to the report.

Patrick Basham, the founding director of the Democracy Institute, while on the Mark Levin show, gave a remarkably lucid explanation for the peculiarities surrounding the election. He did not focus specifically on the allegations of election fraud. Instead, he explained that traditional markers associated with an incumbent’s almost inevitable victory were all lined up to result in an overwhelming Trump win. That Trump did not, in fact, win simply makes no sense.Basham first set out his arguments in a November 27 essay at The Spectator, entitled “Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling: If only cranks find the...

An apparent car crash in Georgia – kills Harrison Deal. He was a staffer for Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler. Harrison Deal was also dating Gov Kemp’s daughter. #HarrisonDeal car exploded (witnesses heard the explosion over a mile away). Vehicle left as molten metal, engine block ejected 50-60 yards away. That’s not an accident. That’s a car bomb disguised as an accident.