Free Republic

The White House on Monday announced that President Biden "clearly opposes" the ongoing recall effort against Gov. Gavin Newsom, adding to a growing chorus of Democrats voicing support for California's governor in recent days. "In addition to sharing a commitment to a range of issues with @GavinNewsom from addressing the climate crisis to getting the pandemic under control, @POTUS clearly opposes any effort to recall @GavinNewsom," Psaki said in the tweet.

Salesforce, the cloud-based software company that employs 54,000 people globally, announced Tuesday that it will allow most employees to work from home indefinitely, even after the pandemic ends.The news comes about two years after the completion of San Francisco’s massive Salesforce Tower, a 1,070-foot-tall skyscraper located in the city’s downtown area. Salesforce Tower is seen in downtown San Francisco, California on February 6, 2019. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty Images). Salesforce will offer employees three “ways of working”:Flex, meaning employees will spend one to three days in the officeFully remote, for employees who don’t live near an...

A law enforcement officer shot and killed an Idaho Falls man who was in the location where a suspect fled following a traffic stop early Monday morning. The Idaho Falls Police Department hosted a news conference explaining the situation. Police Chief Bryce Johnson said the man shot was a homeowner in his backyard and was holding a gun. The suspect was found in the vicinity a short time later. Neither of the names of the victim or suspect is being released at this time. According to a news release, IDPD said shortly after midnight a Bonneville County Sheriff’s deputy pulled...

Police officers in Beverly Hills have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram's copyright filters. Last Friday, a man entered the Beverly Hills police department, only to be treated to a mini DJ set that could potentially get his Instagram account banned. Sennett Devermont was at the department to file a form to obtain body camera footage from an incident in which he received a ticket he felt was unfair. Devermont also happens to be a well-known LA area activist, who regularly live-streams protests and interactions with the police to his more than 300,000...

LA Times columnist Virginia Heffernan is being slammed for a piece in which she compared the “Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway” in upstate New York — despite their “aggressive niceness” — to Nazi sympathizers and Hezbollah because they backed former President Donald Trump. The Brooklyn-born writer, also a cultural columnist at Wired, wrote on Friday that her neighbors, “who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.” “How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of...

San Francisco will begin vaccinating teachers and other essential workers on Feb. 26, but Mayor London Breed said the vaccines would likely not be enough to get staff and students back in public school classrooms. “I don’t think it is realistic we can expect schools to open this school year," she said.

The extreme and continued Covid-19 government mitigation mandates are unprecedented for any respiratory virus in our history. The economic consequences of these directives – masks; social distancing; testing, tracking and quarantines; travel, school and business restrictions − have led to historic levels of job losses and failing businesses. People looking for work have been crippled from finding jobs. Tens of millions of Americans are at risk of losing their group health insurance. As Americans grow increasingly more desperate, the government continues to restrict peoples’ options. The CARES Act epitomized the tenet of redistribution of wealth, growing the numbers of Americans...

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, were able to control the conductivity and magnetism of iron thiophosphate (FePS3), a two-dimensional material which undergoes a transition from an insulator to a metal when compressed. This class of magnetic materials offers new routes to understanding the physics of new magnetic states and superconductivity. Using new high-pressure techniques, the researchers have shown what happens to magnetic graphene during the transition from insulator to conductor and into its unconventional metallic state, realized only under ultra-high pressure conditions. When the material becomes metallic, it remains magnetic, which is contrary to previous results and...

(CNN)A livestream of a virtual court proceeding in Texas took an "appawling" turn when a lawyer appeared as a cat on screen. Judge Roy B. Ferguson of the 394th Judicial District Court in Texas kindly addressed the cat in the virtual room, suggesting that attorney Rod Ponton adjust his Zoom settings. The mishap on Tuesday was posted by the court's YouTube channel. "Mr. Ponton, I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings," the judge said. The small, white kitten looked sad with its concerned eyes darting back and forth. The kitten opened its mouth to speak....

Nebraska’s Lincoln County Republican Party on Sunday voted to censure Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), one of the U.S. Senate’s most vocal critics of former President Donald Trump, the North Platte Telegraph first reported. Lincoln County Republican Party’s 32 members voted unanimously for the measure, said chairwoman Carol Friesen. In the resolution, Sasse is accused of “dismissing the legitimate concerns” regarding allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The resolution also takes aim at Sasse for his conduct toward Trump, saying he failed to “respect the high office of the President of the United States.” Additionally, Sasse is criticized...

Declarations of Covid-19 as a health emergency, followed by extreme and continued government mitigation mandates, are unprecedented for any respiratory virus in our history. The economic consequences of these directives – masks; social distancing; testing; travel, school and business restrictions − have led to historic levels of job losses and businesses stopping new hiring. People looking for work have been crippled from finding jobs. Tens of millions of Americans are at risk of losing their group health insurance. As Americans grow increasingly more desperate, they are more willing to be convinced to accept government bailouts. Government handouts come with strings...

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who serves as the chair of the House Oversight Committee, wrote a letter to Parler COO Jeffrey Wernickon Monday demanding that the social media platform reveal its investors and creditors. “In the weeks leading up to the assault on the Capitol on January 6, Parler users actively took to the platform to call for violence and even ‘civil war,'” began Maloney in her letter. “A recent analysis by USA Today shows a strong connection between President Trump’s speech at the January 6 rally and a significant uptick in calls for violence on Parler,” she added. “Immediately...

Explanation: It somehow survived an explosion that would surely have destroyed our Sun. Now it is spins 30 times a second and is famous for the its rapid flashes. It is the Crab Pulsar, the rotating neutron star remnant of the supernova that created the Crab Nebula. A careful eye can spot the pulsar flashes in the featured time-lapse video, just above the image center. The video was created by adding together images taken only when the pulsar was flashing, as well as co-added images from other relative times. The Crab Pulsar flashes may have been first noted by an...

In my travels around the world I have witnessed a “spiritual tsunami” of evil drifting. Entire denominations have been caught up in the waves of this tsunami, leaving in their wake the ruins of apathy. The Bible warns clearly that it’s possible for devoted believers to drift from Christ. A Christian who goes after “peace and safety at any cost” and merely hangs onto salvation pays a high spiritual price. So, how can we guard against drifting from Christ and neglecting “so great a salvation”? Paul tells us how: “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things...

“‘Thou art the same, and Thy years will not come to an end’” (Psalm 102:27). God never changes, so He can be trusted to do what He says. God alone is unchanging (or as the theologians say, immutable). The psalmist says, “Even [the heavens and earth] will perish, but Thou dost endure. . . . Thou art the same, and Thy years will not come to an end” (Ps. 102:26-27). Though Israel deserved destruction for its sin, God was faithful to His covenant with Abraham, saying, “I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not...

Let’s all get acquainted over what a liberal media figure assures us is the latest philosophical crisis: If your driveway is buried under thick snow, and your Trump-supporting neighbor plows it, for free and without even asking, are you to speak to him? Acknowledge him? Would saying “Thank you” be a betrayal of all your superior and infallible political beliefs? Such is the quandary explored by Virginia Heffernan in a column for the Los Angeles Times. “What to Do with the Nice-Guy Trump Voter Next Door” has quickly gone viral, and not for the reasons Heffernan surely hoped.

The shooter who opened fire inside a Minnesota health clinic Tuesday was “no stranger” to law enforcement — and had been disgruntled with the healthcare system, police said. Gregory Paul Ulrich, 67, has been identified as the gunman who critically injured five unidentified people around 11 a.m. at the Allina Health Clinic in Buffalo, police said. “We are very familiar with the suspect,” Buffalo Police Chief Pat Budke told reporters. Budke said that it was likely a targeted attack against the facility or someone inside — noting that Ulrich had previous conflicts with health care clinics in the area.

n 2014, France’s High Audiovisual Council banned one of the most moving TV commercials ever made. Titled “Dear ­Future Mom,” the ad addressed women pregnant with children diagnosed with Down syndrome. “Dear future mom,” said one child with Down syndrome. “Don’t be afraid,” said another. “Your child will be able to do many things.” “He’ll be able to hug you.” “He’ll be able to run towards you.” “He’ll be able to speak and tell you he loves you.” In France, 96 percent of Down syndrome pregnancies are terminated ... “Dear Future Mom” was a modest attempt to arrest the eradication...

The Senate voted Tuesday to move ahead with the unprecedented impeachment trial of former President Trump after listening to hours of arguments on whether it is constitutional to try a president who is already out of office.The vote was 56-44.Trump's legal team said the trial is unconstitutional because he's no longer in office and can't face removal, which is the standard judgment of an impeachment conviction.

Perhaps the most prominent commonality among conservative authors and bloggers is their emphasis on first principles and their application to modern times. Everything flows from first principles. Since laws and traditions connect to the past, great truths will not appear until we see the chain that links them to others. Our Framers studied the past, yet were not slaves to it. They let experience be their guide as they applied first principles to their British and colonial heritage. As Charles de Montesquieu showed, and our Founding generation demonstrated, the first principle, the spring from which republics emerge and are maintained...