Free Republic

In a Senate floor speech this week, Sen. Rand Paul opposed the confirmation of Antony Blinken: “I will vote against Mr. Blinken because I’m against war.” Floor Speech [12:49] ...

Feb. 1—Today is the deadline Gov. Gavin Newsom set for California school districts to apply for a portion of the $2 billion in grants he wants the state to set aside to help them safely return to in-person instruction. But despite growing frustration with distance learning, districts and labor groups have said the plan falls short of what's needed to safely reopen, and even if they do apply, it's unlikely to result in many California students back in classrooms soon. Also, in order to reopen under guidelines Newsom recommends, county transmission rates need to be below 25 cases per 100,000...

Weeks after the Capitol riot, the National Guard still hasn’t left their post in Washington DC. Nearly 25 000 National Guard members were called upon following the unrest on January 6th. The place looks like a war zone. Around the Capitol, you can see officers and guardsmen standing outside of a fence with shields and tactical gear. There are military vehicles blocking entrances to certain streets on Capitol Hill. Let’s not forget that members of the National Guard were made to vacate the U.S. Capitol and sent to rest in a nearby parking garage, while providing security around U.S. President...

President Joe Biden’s pick to lead his administration’s response to the economic damage caused by government shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic previously lost $600 million of Washington state’s aid dollars to foreign fraudsters in a hasty unemployment program rollout. Earlier this week, reports indicated that former head of the Washington state Employment Security Department (ESD) Suzi LeVine would begin an interim leadership position in the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration program on Monday, overseeing the implementation of the federal unemployment benefits included in Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal. While some have said that new leadership could help remove...

Effective at ranges out to 2,000 meters, the SIG Sauer MG 338 machine gun has a greater range than the M240 platoon-level machine gun. It has a rate of fire of 600 pounds and is chambered in the hard-hitting .338 Norma Magnum (8.6x63mm) round, and yet it weighs in at just around 21 pounds. It is easy to see why a year ago the U.S. Special Operation Command (UUSOCOM) selected the MG 338 for evaluation to bridge the gap between the M240, chambered in 7.62×51 NATO, and the Browning M2 heavy .50 caliber machine gun. The MG 338 could help...

Establishment Republicans are urging Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to quietly greenlight President Donald Trump’s conviction in the Senate. Reports are emerging that McConnell, is being privately urged to support a conviction vote in the Senate’s Republican caucus by prominent Republicans and former White House officials. In talking to reporters off the record, one Republican member of Congress made clear that the goal to forbid former President Donald Trump from ever holding elected office again is a commonly held goal not among Democrats and Progressives. “Mitch said to me he wants Trump gone,” one Republican member of Congress told reporters in...

ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel speculated Reddit investors are “Russian disruptors” Friday night during his opening monologue on his show “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Kimmel said, “GameStop, if you don’t know, is a video game store, and like a lot of businesses, they’ve been struggling because of COVID but also because most people buy games online now.”

Law enforcement officials are investigating escalating threats of death and violence against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his family and the wineries, shops and other businesses he’s founded. A voicemail and emails provided to the Sacramento Bee contained graphic, abusive language about Newsom, violent sexual threats against his wife and a reference to his children. The newspaper said one communication included a threat to burn down one of the wineries owned by PlumpJack Group, the hospitality company Newsom founded in 1992, with patrons inside. “We can confirm that we are aware of these threats,” Ferguson wrote in a statement. “Any threats...

Project Veritas reveals in a recent report that the group has obtained hours of insider footage from Facebook meetings featuring top company executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In one meeting discussing the Capitol Protests, Zuckerberg implied that those that took part were treated better than Black Lives Matter protesters: “I know this is just a very difficult moment for a lot of us here, and especially our black colleagues. It was troubling to see how people in this [Capitol] mob were treated compared to the stark contrast we saw during protests earlier this [past] year. ”Zuckerberg further discussed how President...

The Stock Market rebellion has been a recent dynamic that has gone after hedge fund managers who use a technique called the “short-sell.” The short-sell strategy makes money by reducing the price of stocks that they never actually owned. They “borrow” stocks from other people, sell them at a relatively higher price, then buy them back after they’ve tanked, give the stock back to the original owner with a fee, and keep the rest of the profit. They’re basically hyenas. Ben Shapiro made a great video explaining what is happening. You expect the hedge fund managers who are losing money...

The regime fears the people. More bus loads of National Guard arrived in DC Monday morning. Bus loads of National Guard still arriving in DC. Why? pic.twitter.com/cK1YzwdIJ4 — HARLAN Z. HILL 🇺🇸 (@Harlan) February 1, 2021

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has affirmed the third-degree murder conviction of former Minneapolis Police officer Mohamed Noor. Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond in 2017 while responding to Damond's 911 call about a possible sexual assault behind her south Minneapolis home. His attorneys argued that there was insufficient evidence to convict Noor of third-degree murder and the court wrongly allowed prosecutors to present two expert witnesses who provided similar testimony. The three-judge panel looked at five points in considering his appeal: Whether the evidence at the trial was...

An Estonian MEP has nominated former US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Jaak Madison, a member of the right-wing populist EKRE party, said on Facebook that Trump had contributed to ensuring stability in the Middle East. In 2020, Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed to a historic deal normalising of relations. "Donald Trump is the first president of the United States in the last thirty years, whose office the country has not started any war," the MEP stated on Facebook, citing his nomination application. "In addition, several peace agreements have been made under his leadership in...

Is GAB.COM up completely? I can't log on and it gets hung in a loop when I try to reset password. Says it will send instructions but never does and go back to log in?

John Sullivan, leader of the far-left group “Insurgence USA,” is now facing accusations of not complying with his terms of release. He was released conditionally without bail on Jan. 15, after he was arrested and charged for his alleged activities at the U.S. Capitol amid the breach of the building on Jan. 6. According to the Washington Examiner‘s review of a court document from last week, a probation officer said that he “violated the conditions of supervision.” The DOJ said that Sullivan has been charged “with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without...

Voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, whose advocacy is credited with Georgia’s vote for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election and for both of the state’s new Democratic senators in last month’s runoff, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Lars Haltbrekken, a Socialist Party member of Norway’s Parliament, said in a statement Monday that he nominated Abrams because her “work follows in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights.” “Abrams’ efforts to complete King’s work are crucial if the United States of America shall succeed in its...

The financial stakes for dominating the global biotech sector — the industry that's bringing us the COVID vaccine — are staggering, estimated to be worth up to $4 trillion a year. For perspective, that's more than the valuation of Amazon and Apple combined. Not surprisingly, many U.S. companies want a piece of that pie and recognize that control over the future of health care lies in collecting and then analyzing massive quantities of data. So, like China, they too are building up vast libraries of health information. There are undeniable benefits to this — potential cures and treatments, some already...

CNN’s Brian Stelter said a “liar's reach” should be limited in order to combat “information pollution” on social media and competing news outlets. “How can that harm be reduced? Well, Big Tech platforms say they are removing lies about vaccines and stamping out stop the steal B.S. and QAnon cult content. Do these private companies have too much power? Many people would say sure. ... But reducing a liar’s reach is not the same as censors freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is different than freedom of reach,” Stelter said Sunday on Reliable Sources. “News consumers are both overfed and...

President Joe Biden canceled his planned speech to the State Department on Monday after the Washington, DC, area received two inches of snow. Biden was scheduled to address State Department staff with his Secretary of State Tony Blinken.

The world's largest animals are unusually good at taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.Seeing a whale stranded on a beach often provokes a strong reaction. It can make people curious – beached whales can do strange things, like explode. It can also be upsetting to witness a creature so magnificent in water reduced to lifeless blubber on land. What rarely registers, however, is the lost opportunity for carbon sequestration.Whales, particularly baleen and sperm whales, are among the largest creatures on Earth. Their bodies are enormous stores of carbon, and their presence in the ocean shapes the ecosystems around them.From...