Free Republic

Angela Merkel said in her last New Year's address to the nation as German chancellor that 2020 was by far the most difficult of her 15-year leadership, yet the start of vaccinations against COVID-19 made 2021 a year of hope. In a rare show of emotion, Merkel, who steered Germany and the European Union through the 2008 financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis a year later and the migrant crisis five years ago, condemned a protest movement opposed to lockdowns and said she would get vaccinated when the shot is widely available. "Let me tell you something personal in conclusion:...

Up to half of health care workers in some parts of California are refusing to take the coronavirus vaccine, despite scientific evidence that it is safe, leading to a potential surplus of doses and renewed questions about the system for allocating them.

Retired Army Colonel and Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano wrote the Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue on Monday on the general election voter irregularities and fraud in the 2020 presidential election.The most damning evidence against Democrat fraud in the state is the fact that 205,122 more votes were counted in the state than the number of people who voted!Pennsylvania Reported 200,000 More Ballots Cast than People Who Voted – Will The State Now Legitimately Go to the Trump Column?On Thursday Senator Mastriano and several members of the Pennsylvania House and Senate wrote a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell...

Yes, Virginia, Portland is continuing to slide further and further into 3rd world status. If you can believe it, the situation is actually getting worse, as we bring you the latest in Portland s***hole news.

Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Staff members at the National Library of Australia said they were stunned when they found a 120-year-old box of chocolate hidden in papers of the late poet and journalist A.B. "Banjo" Paterson. They were was going through the recently acquired papers of the Australian poet when they stumbled on the souvenir tin filled with chocolate. The chocolate still was in its straw packaging and silver foil wrapping. Staffers were unpacking the contents of a box with Paterson's papers so they could be digitized. The tins were commissioned by Britain's Queen Victoria and sent to soldiers in...

In a country with a free press, you would know: 1. The Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee issued a report demonstrating the vote was stolen from @realDonaldTrump . 2. The vote was unanimous and BIPARTISAN to audit Fulton County’s Absentee ballots. 3. And to de-certify Biden.

The murder rate was extremely high in Philadelphia in 2020. The number of homicides is on track to break a grim record by New Year’s Eve. There’s been a 40% increase in homicides from last year alone, and now the city is close to officially breaking the record of 500 homicides set back in 1990. Illegal guns continue to wreak havoc on the streets of Philadelphia. “It’s never right to bury your children but this is the reality for too many families,” said Michelle Kerr Spry with Mothers in Charge. More than 2,000 people were shot in the city this...

Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) said Thursday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that his colleague Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is attaching his name to “one of the biggest lies in American history” by objecting to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college win in the Senate on January 6. Anchor Jim Sciutto said, “Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, I just wonder what your reaction is because he specifically cited, Pennsylvania, your state not following election laws thereby contradicting not only you but your Republican colleague, Pat Toomey and by the way the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. How do you respond to a Missouri senator...

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been together for 37 years -- and the Hollywood couple have zero plans to tie the knot. The duo first began dating while filming 1984’s “Swing Shift” and have since built a life together without the need to get married. “You’ve just got to want to be together,” the actress told People magazine in this week’s cover story. “I don’t think there’s any other way to do it,” added the 75-year-old. Despite their union, the pair have been selective when it comes to working together, the outlet shared. They appeared together in 1987’s “Overboard”...

Strong performances and character development balance out the soapy sex and romance nicely, creating a thoroughly bingeable and enjoyable series.Prepare to swoon over Netflix’s new Regency romance, filled to the brim with dashing rogues, charming innocents, gorgeous costumes, and scandals galore. “Bridgerton” follows a well-tread story, where the naive virgin and the brooding bad boy pretend to be in love in order to achieve their individual goals, only for genuine interest and affection to grow from the ruse. However, with likable characters, gorgeous production design, and a mysterious writer documenting the characters’ every move in deliciously scandalous fashion, the clichéd...

Jason D. Meister, an Advisory Board Member for President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, published a series of tweets quoting an Epoch Times article about Vice President Mike Pence’s ability to toss the Electoral Votes from contested states with credible accusations of widespread voter fraud. This move would likely lead to a contingent election, which President Trump would handily win. As National File has previously reported, Pence will soon face a rare Constitutional event as competing slates of electors are provided on January 6. Meister notes that “Pence will be faced with dueling electors for the six disputed swing states, a...

Several maps showing car convoys forming across the U.S., heading to D.C. for the 1/6 Protest!

..... For pro-life Americans, however, there remains the serious ethical concern over the use of cells harvested from aborted fetuses in testing and developing the various coronavirus vaccines. How is one to make a moral judgment in weighing the cost of taking one of these two vaccines against the cost of waiting for the release of others in which fetal cell lines played no role at all? Neither of the two pro-life advocates I spoke with on the topic — Dr. Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, or Dr. Tara Sander Lee, a senior fellow at the...

A deposition by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Sy Hersh has been released in which he confirms the FBI had information former DNC staffer Seth Rich was communicating with Wikileaks and requesting payment. Meanwhile, I’ve been authorized to release the transcript of a July 15, 2020 deposition of Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Sy Hersh, wherein Mr. Hersh is forced to admit that he did speak with a senior intelligence official about an FBI report about Mr. Rich and Wikileaks. That contradicts much of what Mr. Hersh has said publicly since early 2017 (more on that below), writes Ty Clevenger on Lawflog.com. As my regular readers...

This month, tens of thousands of grieving families of victims of the 1988 massacre in Iran received a major boost for their calls for justice. Half a dozen UN experts made public a report that describes the massacre as a “crime against humanity” and deserving of an international investigation. This is a major blow to the Iranian regime and heralds a new era that would see an end to the climate of impunity for the regime’s murderers. After launching a reign of terror and violence against dissent during the 1980s in Iran, in 1988 the ruling mullahs rounded up thousands...

The blast seriously damaged a key AT&T network facility, an important hub that provides local wireless, internet and video service and connects to regional networks. Backup generators went down, which took service out hours after the blast. A fire broke out and forced an evacuation. The building flooded, with more than three feet of water later pumped out of the basement; AT&T said there was still water on the second floor as of Monday. The immediate repercussions were surprisingly widespread. AT&T customers lost service — phones, internet or video — across large parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. There were...

Bitcoin ended 2019 at 7,500 For most of 2020 Bitcoin prices wandered upwards until it took off during the week of September 28th when it was 10,500. As we close out 2020 Bitcoin is 29,000. While it will not close above 30,000 in 2020, it is quite impressive to see Bitcoin almost triple in price during the last quarter of 2020.

I'm looking for a thread about a UK "man on the street" view of the Presidential election. I forgot to bookmark it.The post linked to the site, where the author linked to the acutal post on a UK man on the street view. The writer in eloquent British style (He's British, of course he's a wordsmith) made several points about how the U.S. and rest of the world view each other that are not brought up in the American news media. It pointed out how insulated Americans are from the rest of the world, how much of the world is...

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress are pushing President Trump to grant clemency to whistleblower Edward Snowden amid a blitz of pardons during his final weeks in the White House, according to a new report. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), as well as recently pardoned Trump associate Roger Stone, have all asked the president in recent days to drop the criminal charges against the former National Security Agency contractor, Politico reported Thursday. The president’s allies reportedly see Trump as increasingly amenable to the controversial idea and have pitched Snowden as someone who was unfairly persecuted after exposing...

For fighting COVID-19, one size does not fit all, and we must recognize that our state leaders face very different situations.The coronavirus epidemic is surging and taking with it the economy, our ability to gather with friends and family, and our hopes for the future. We need to get it over with. But in the midst of the explosion in new cases, some states are experiencing declines in the number of new cases while other states are witnessing increases. Changes in the rate of infections have been attributed to political affiliation, defiant lifestyles, and irresponsible leadership. But there may be...