Free Republic

Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams celebrated news Friday a “record 7.7 million Georgians” are registered to vote ahead of the highly contentious Georgia Senate runoff elections. “A record 7.7 million Georgians are registered to vote ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election,” Abrmas wrote in a tweet to her 1.6 million followers. Abrams also highlighted certain people and organizations in her tweet she believes “deserve credit for expanding” Georgia’s electorate, including the New Georgia Project and its CEO Nse Ufot, Black Voters Matter, Helen Butler, and the Georgia NAACP. Late last month, after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s...

During this objectively tough year, it’s perhaps no surprise we’ve been turning to soup—one of the most universally comforting dishes there is. As Virginia Woolf once said, “Soup is cuisine’s kindest course.” Beyond their ability to fortify the spirits, each one of these recipes is damn delicious too. We’re talking about a Taiwanese-style beef noodle soup laced with an entire Dutch oven’s worth of caramelized onions. A vegan(!) take on cream of mushroom so creamy, earthy, and silky you’ll wonder why the OG ever included dairy in the first place. And a brothy fish number bursting with jammy tomatoes and...

US Senator Cory Booker (D, Thrace) has introduced a bill to “solve” the problem of college athletics, in much the same way that a healthy dose of arsenic might be proposed to solve a stomach ache. We have over 5000 colleges and universities in the United States. Every college, public and private, has a somewhat different approach to finance, with varying balances between tuition and endowments, scholarships, government grants and all kinds of partnerships. The colleges that offer competitive sports teams include the costs (coaching staffs, facilities, travel, player scholarships) and the profits (ticket sales, advertising and broadcast rights) of...

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

MAJOR EXPOSÉ: Rooms broken into, dossiers stolen, death threats, armed guards, assassinations... Fr. Charles Murr on Vatican intrigues surrounding Cardinals Baggio, Benelli, Villot, and Gagnon Rorate readers will be aware of the groundbreaking interview Kevin J. Symonds conducted with Fr. Murr for the October 2020 issue of Inside the Vatican, which was also published at Rorate on October 10. Interested readers may want to read that interview first in order to gain more understanding of context for the present one, again for Inside the Vatican. In the previous interview, Fr. Murr told us about his friendship with Mother Pascalina...

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said Thursday on MSNBC that President Donald Trump should be investigated and prosecuted for his “dangerous criminal neglect” in the coronavirus pandemic. Anchor Yasmin Vossoughian said, “Sticking with all that has happened over the last ten months or so especially beginning with what we learned from the president and how he essentially said that COVID was essentially like the flu and it wasn’t going to kill people the way it has, now 300,000 plus people are dead throughout this country in the last ten months, the holidays approaching, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers won’t be sitting at...

Distance learning in Los Angeles schools is definitely working better than it did last spring, but that’s hardly a ringing endorsement. Generally speaking, remote classes are still an abysmal operation in which most students lose out, and the ones with the greatest need lose most.That assessment comes not from school administrators or researchers but from the best source of all: L.A. teachers themselves, the people who are trying to transmit skills and knowledge while giving students some sense of normality in a world gone haywire. Their sentiments are especially noteworthy considering that their labor union, United Teachers Los Angeles, has...

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.) on Friday blocked an effort to pass a second round of stimulus checks, arguing coronavirus relief needs to be targeted and raising concerns about the country's debt. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tried to get consent, which requires the cooperation of every senator, to pass his bill that would provide $1,200 for individuals who make up to $75,000 — the exact same language that Congress passed as part of the CARES Act in March. "What I'm proposing is what every senator has supported already, this year. ... What I'm proposing will give working folks in my...

Sen. Lindsey Graham has said the Judiciary Committee won’t send any more of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees to the Senate floor before the 116th Congress ends, likely on Jan. 3. Still, he held a hearing Wednesday on one more, in a bid to tee him up for the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. The panel heard testimony from Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach, who is nominated to be judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit. He was confirmed, 95-3, in May 2019 to be U.S. district judge for the District of Puerto Rico and was tapped to take...

[Sent to all of our Elected Representatives] There is day after day of the government agencies and the news media pushing vaccines for Covid-19. But not one mention in media or by government health agencies of anyone developing and marketing therapeutics for those already sick. This itself is one very big reason we are suspicious of vaccines. This morning, December 18, 2020, we listened to FIRST LIGHT RADIO, a nationwide syndicated morning news program. Thirty full minutes on the Covid pandemic. We learned that hospitals in southern California were now down to zero percent capacity due to Covid. But no...

This will be the same fate of any Investigation of the Biden family corruption, once he occupies the White House. Editorial | Sudden death for Madigan probe The Editorial Board 12/18/2020 The curtain has come down on an ill-fated special investigating committee in the Illinois House. Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan needs all the good publicity — in this case, that’s defined as the absence of bad publicity — he can get. So it was good news for him when Democrats on the special House committee created to investigate allegedly unethical behavior by Madigan this week pulled the plug...

Democrats are trying to tuck a waiver allowing retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to serve as President-elect Joe Biden's defense secretary into a year-end government funding bill that must pass by tonight to avoid a shutdown, three sources familiar with the push tell Axios. Why it matters: Attaching the waiver to the omnibus would give political cover to some Democrats, including at least four on the Senate Armed Services Committee who have already gone on record opposing it...

Target vaccines to the most vulnerable, and don’t give them to people who have already been infected. The approval of several Covid-19 vaccines is an impressive technological development that should rapidly end the lockdowns and allow normal life to resume. But authorities like Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates argue that lockdown restrictions may have to continue through the fall and even into 2022, notwithstanding the catastrophic harms the lockdowns have caused, especially to young people, the poor and the working classes. There is a sharp age gradient in the survival rate after infection. At least 99.95% of people under 70...

Just a thought for this Christmas season. One of the greatest myths in all of Christendom is that Mary (Miriam) - the young Jewish girl of king David's line - who gave birth to the Savior of the world was sinless. I myself was taught this as a boy in the church I attended and it wasn't till I was born again and started reading the Holy Scriptures for myself that I saw the true folly of such a myth. My dear friends, no greater lie could ever be told or fantasy ever believed! When this lie is embraced it...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City officials announced a series of admissions changes for hundreds of middle and high schools Friday in one of the most significant steps the nation’s largest school system has taken in years to address racial segregation. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is suspending merit-based screening systems for its selective middle schools for at least a year. That means that academic records, auditions and other assessments will no longer be used by schools to skim off the top-performing elementary school kids and segregate them from other children. A lottery would be used when...

Right now Trump is sitting on a stack of Trump cards or maybe Uno Wild Draw 4 (more years) that he just waiting to lay down like a fricking royal flush. He has court cases still pending that will go to the Supreme Court & thanks to TX case he now know how to file it under article 3 not 2 that will force them to hear it. He has the DNI report on Friday. Barr steps down 23rd (can now be a witness—he did his job). Durham is a special counsel (can prosecute in any state). He’s letting civil,...

Slams U.S. reliance on China as an attack on America’s Christian foundation.. A top ranking Catholic Cardinal has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is being exploited by proponents of “The Great Reset” to “advance their evil agenda.” Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the most powerful Catholics in the United States, gave a homily in which he savaged “secular forces” who want to “make us slaves to their godless and murderous agenda.” “Then there is the mysterious Wuhan virus about whose nature and prevention the mass media daily give us conflicting information,” said Burke. “What is clear, however, is that it...

Donald Trump is putting pressure on Republican senator Rand Paul to join a few House Republicans in challenging electors' votes when Congress moves to certify the election for Joe Biden next month. On Thursday morning, Trump reposted a tweet saying: 'Rand Paul states over TWO DOZEN states changed their elections laws without going through the legislatures.' He also retweeted a sentiment from conservative radio personality and Fox News host Mark Levin claiming, 'Rand Paul is right on', along with an article from the Washington Examiner detailing the senator's comments during the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday. Paul is one...

Blinken has been acting as Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement that Joe Biden established in 2018 at the University of Pennsylvania. If you understand Biden’s announcement to mean that it will be Blinken’s job to function as America’s top diplomat and represent our interests to the world, however, you completely misunderstand the situation. As Director of the Penn Biden Center, Blinken did not preside over some institute charged with educating Americans and helping them understand the world around us. He presided over an entity that was funded in large measure by the Chinese...

The Supreme Court on Friday threw out a challenge to President Trump’s bid to exclude illegal aliens from being counted in determining congressional seats. The case was led by a coalition of leftist states like New York and California who believe illegals should be given the rights of US citizens. These states also believe the rest of America should pay for their crackpot policies. ..... Snip..... CNN reported: The Supreme Court on Friday threw out a challenge to President Donald Trump’s bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted when seats in Congress are divvied up between the states next...