Free Republic

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday evening that he had turned down an offer to join President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet, despite speculation that he would be rewarded for his early endorsement of the former vice president with a post. “Joe Biden has told me for the last two years that he was very interested in me coming to Washington, D.C., and there were things on the table for me,” Garcetti said.

The NYPD’s tactics during the George Floyd protests earlier this year “heightened tensions” between cops and protesters — and “inconsistent” enforcement of the curfew by cops led to unnecessary use of force, a new report says. “NYPD use of force and crowd control tactics often failed to discriminate between lawful, peaceful protesters and unlawful actors, and contributed to the perception that officers were exercising force in some cases beyond what was necessary under the circumstances,” the city’s Department of Investigation found. The long-awaited 100-page report, which was released Friday morning, doesn’t address individual officer allegations but the systemic issues in...

WASHINGTON - President-elect Joe Biden brings more Capitol Hill experience than any president in decades, but his transition has stumbled in ways large and small, exposing the challenges of navigating a Congress that is a different place than when he last served in 2009. He rolled out an almost all-white national security team when allies were expecting diversity. He filled top posts with familiar Washington hands rather than fresh newcomers. His team clumsily floated some names and retracted others for the Cabinet. None of the setbacks has been politically devastating. But taken together, the slights and slip-ups of Biden’s interactions...

@ggreenwald In 2018, when @AOC was running against Joe Crowley, I interviewed her and asked whether she thought Nancy Pelosi (and Steny Hoyer) should continue in their leadership roles or be replaced, and whether she'd agitate for replacements. Here's what she said: Watch...

RAINSVILLE, Ala. - Sheriff’s officials say they’ve busted an illegal winery that was operating at a municipal sewage plant in a small north Alabama town. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement it received an anonymous tip about an alcohol operation at a municipal building in the town of Rainsville on Thursday. Investigators then uncovered what’s described as a large illegal winery inside the Rainsville Waste Water Treatment Plant. Photos released by investigators show glass containers, buckets, a fermenting rack and other equipment often used by people who make wine at home. The agency says officers seized a...

You don’t have to cancel Christmas this year — just keep gatherings small, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday. The country’s top infectious disease specialist responded to critics who slammed him for being Grinch-like about scrapping the holiday completely — saying he never recommended such extreme measures, according to FOX News.

The press scoffed at Trump's vaccine timeline. They said it would take a 'miracle.' The miracle came, and the press just shrugged.The Food and Drug Administration approved a COVID-19 vaccine this week from Moderna, the second one to be approved after a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech SE was authorized last week. This past Monday, the first COVID vaccination took place in Queens, New York. As of this writing, the Pfizer vaccine is being administered to health-care workers all over the country. The Moderna vaccine, which in addition to protecting individuals from infection might help curb transmission of the virus,...

The current situation over the Presidential Election of 2020 is the greatest test of our American system, which, if it doesn’t pass this test, our system of the Rule of Law, Checks and Balances, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy will be over. As the book, THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JAMES MADISON shows, our Founding was premised on the Christian appreciation of human weakness and sin, lust for power, corruption, and evil. Madison’s whole argument for Separation of Power and Pluralism in Federalist Paper #10 was that Freedom with Law and Justice could only be maintained if our Constitutional system checked...

(J. Hermans, Curtis's Bot. Mag., 2020) ================================================================ Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but a newly discovered orchid isn't likely to be the top choice for many as a corsage centrepiece. Gastrodia agnicellus, from the forests of Madagascar, has been given the label of the world's ugliest orchid by botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the UK. And yet the plant is a fascinating one, unusual among orchids, and indicative of just how much we may miss of what's hiding in the forest undergrowth. In turn, this highlights how important it is to protect...

Beijing (AFP) - A citizen journalist detained in China after reporting from the Covid-19 ground zero of Wuhan will face trial later this month, her lawyer said Friday, as fears grow for her health. Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February and livestreamed her experiences on social media. She also wrote essays critical of the government's response -- including the strict lockdown of millions of people. Zhang was detained in May and is accused of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble", according to a court notice seen by AFP -- a charge routinely used to suppress dissidents, with...

The only recoil-cancelling pistol made, this first successful British automatic may be largely forgotten today given the rise of the M1911, but it sported notable features for its time. Recoil and muzzle bounce are a fact of life for pistol shooters firing powerful calibers. The time taken to recover from that muzzle bounce is the biggest limiting factor on accurate rapidfire. Only one pistol has successfully engaged this problem and eliminated it: the Webley & Scott .455 automatic pistol. It accomplishes this miracle with its unique locking system. More on that later, but rapidfire is furthered by perhaps the best...

The War Is Not Over. And Never Will Be Until Only Legal Votes Are Counted.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris posted a video on Twitter Tuesday thanking her supporters and promising that she and President-elect Joe Biden would confront the “four existential threats” facing the nation — coronavirus, the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, racial injustice and climate change.

A D.C. Council member’s car was stolen after she left it running while making a stop at a bakery in Northwest Thursday. News4’s Jackie Bensen reports. (Video at site)

The painter Hunter Biden, whose oeuvre I’m sure you’re familiar with, is reportedly getting ready to debut his artworks to the world. According to Page Six, Biden may soon be represented by the Georges Bergès Gallery in New York City, with a solo show planned for sometime next year.Oh, sorry, did you not know Hunter Biden does paintings? According to the New York Times, which profiled him earlier this year, his ink-blowing practice “is literally keeping [him] sane” these days. President-elect Joe Biden’s youngest son has a tumultuous history: His business dealings, particularly in China and Ukraine, have attracted scrutiny....

PHILADELPHIA -- Slice pizza shop in Philadelphia is putting a spin on the traditional 7 Fishes feast. And they are turning it into their latest pizza creation. South Philly welcomes Curiosity Doughnut popup The pizza has tuna, crab meat, anchovies, sardines, clams, shrimp, and mussels. While the 7 Fishes tradition takes place on Christmas Eve, the shop is offering this unique pizza all through December.

New text messages released Thursday show FBI officials spied on a Fox News executive over the course of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that targeted President Donald Trump as a secret Russian agent who illegally stole the election from Hillary Clinton in 2016. The FBI surveilled and recorded a phone call between former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and an unnamed vice president at Fox News, according to a text message sent to fired former FBI official Peter Strzok just weeks before Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017.Agents were targeting former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos,...

On Tuesday, the state government of Mecklenburg Pomerania passed the stricter Corona ordinance. From today, stricter rules will apply. Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) said on Tuesday evening that there would be no New Year's Eve parties. Fireworks should not be lit in public spaces. The only exception is so-called children's fireworks.

Any retrospective analysis of lockdown policies—the effectiveness which is seriously disputed—must be weighed against the loss of life and human suffering they caused. In California and other parts of the country, Americans are headed back to lockdown or otherwise facing renewed restrictions on their day-to-day lives amid another spike of COVID-19. Yet a new Gallup poll shows these lockdowns come as people are already struggling with their mental health. “Americans' latest assessment of their mental health is worse than it has been at any point in the last two decades,” Gallup reports. The new polling found that 34 percent of...

Paris, the City of Lights, is apparently too woke for its own good. The city has been fined 90,000 euros because they over-diversified. The mayor, Anne Hidalgo, went a little overboard in this gender equality thing and hired a staff composed of 69 percent women. Unfortunately for her, there’s a law that says she can only have 60 percent of one gender in management positions. By “gender” we assume it still means either a man or a woman, so with fewer men serving in her office than required by law, she got slapped with a fine. A 2012 national decree...