Free Republic

Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt is resigning from the group's board amid a series of scandals that has rocked the high-dollar anti-Trump super PAC, Axios has learned.Why it matters: Schmidt, a veteran Republican operative, is the latest and most high-profile departure from the group, which is reeling from revelations that another co-founder, John Weaver, used offers of professional advancement in a series of attempts to solicit sex from young men.

Democrats in the New York State Assembly will weigh rescinding Governor Cuomo’s emergency powers as one of his top aides attempts to walk back her stunning admission that the administration covered up the true number of COVID nursing home deaths in order to avoid being attacked by the Trump administration. The Democratic lawmakers plan to hold a conference Friday morning to discuss stripping the governor of the emergency powers granted to him last year when the pandemic began, local news outlet NY1 reported. Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa recently admitted that the Cuomo administration covered up the real data...

Gonzalez, 32, of Ventura, California, was dubbed “The Capitol Rotunda Doobie Smoker” on a video posted on YouTube. When somebody on the video asked why he was smoking weed in the Capitol, Gonzalez responded in part by saying, “Freedom,” according to the FBI. Gonzlaez bragged about handing out marijuana to others who stormed the Capitol and could be heard saying, “Time to smoke weed in here!” on a video, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Bosse said. Gonzalez has talked on his videos about believing that we may be living in a simulation, that the Earth is flat and that the Smithsonian...

I have been invited to be an advisor for a group of Koine Greek scholars who are translating a new Bible. My role is to be sure they do not lose the context of the passage as they translate from Koine Greek to English. My predicament today is the usage of two words, "faith and trust". I am currently in a debate with one of the Greek Scholars as to which word, "faith" or "trust". In order to properly understand where I am coming from, I must tell you that this Bible will be as close of a literal word...

Joe Biden’s Deputy Press Secretary TJ Ducklo threatened a Politico reporter for pursuing a story about his romantic relationship with an Axios reporter. People Magazine recently ran a sympathetic article revealing that Ducklo is dating Axios reporter Alexi McCammond, who covered the 2020 Biden campaign. The White House announced that Ducklo would be suspended for one week. The confrontation began on Inauguration Day, January 20, after Palmeri, a coauthor of Politico’s Playbook, contacted McCammond for comment while one of her male colleagues left a message for Ducklo, according to the sources. Ducklo subsequently called a Playbook editor to object to...

Words like "historic," "unprecedented," and "extreme" are being thrown around like eggs from a short-order cook. It's easy to dismiss these terms as hyperbole but rest assured, this freeze could rival the storied ones from decades ago and bring the first single digits to Houston in over 30 years and for only the fifth time in our history. So just how extreme and rare is the freeze we're facing? Well, meteorologist Joe Bastardi from WeatherBell had this to say on Wednesday: "if this arctic outbreak were a hurricane, Texas would be taking a direct hit from a category 5." Pretty...

AUSTIN, Texas - Get ready for more cold weather here in Central Texas. In fact, the coldest weather is still ahead of us. Another potent shot of extremely cold air could bring the coldest weather in over 30 years for the Austin area by Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. So, let's put the numbers in perspective, starting with Monday afternoon. The current forecast calls for a high of 24 degrees in Austin on Monday. This type of cold is certainly very rare, but not completely unheard of. The coldest high temperature on record for Camp Mabry is 20 degrees on...

The Biden administration announced on Friday that, starting on February 19, thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico who have open asylum cases will be allowed into the United States. The announcement comes as the administration opened a new tent city in Texas to handle part of the expected crush of illegal immigrants now moving toward the border expecting succor from the Biden administration. “As President Biden has made clear, the U.S. government is committed to rebuilding a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “This latest action is another step in our commitment to reform...

House impeachment managers closed their prosecution Thursday with a warning to Republican senators: If they vote to acquit former president Donald Trump, the blood will be on their hands when he unleashes political carnage again. “When” is the proper word, for, given Trump’s long pattern of inciting violent threats and actions, the next brutal outburst is not a question of “if.” “If we don’t draw the line here, what’s next?” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, asked the senators. “Is there any political leader in this room who believes that, if he is ever allowed by the Senate...

The discovery of a dismantled stone circle—close to Stonehenge's bluestone quarries in west Wales—raises the possibility that a 900-year-old legend about Stonehenge being built from an earlier stone circle contains a grain of truth. Radiocarbon and OSL dating of Waun Mawn indicate construction c. 3000 BC, shortly before the initial construction of Stonehenge. The identical diameters of Waun Mawn and the enclosing ditch of Stonehenge, and their orientations on the midsummer solstice sunrise, suggest that at least part of the Waun Mawn circle was brought from west Wales to Salisbury Plain. This interpretation complements recent isotope work that supports a...

Zacharias “made her pray with him to thank God for the ‘opportunity’ they both received” and, as with other victims, “called her his ‘reward’ for living a life of service to God,” the report says. Zacharias warned the woman—a fellow believer—if she ever spoke out against him, she would be responsible for millions of souls lost when his reputation was damaged. The findings, alongside details revealed over months of internal reckoning at RZIM, challenge the picture many have had of Zacharias. When he died in May, he was praised for his faithful witness, his commitment to the truth, and his...

Attorney Alan Dershowitz has criticized the House impeachment managers for going on 'too long' in presenting their case against Donald Trump to the Senate, where he is charged with inciting the January 6 Capitol riot. Dershowitz, who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial but is on the sidelines for the second, was reacting after House Democrats acting as prosecutors rested their case on Thursday. Trump's defense team will make their case on Friday. 'The Democrats overplayed their hand today, they went on too long, too repetitious, they should have rested yesterday,' Dershowitz told Fox News host Sean Hannity on...

<p>If you cannot stomach reading an entire column about three syllables, you should stop here.</p><p>Oh, Naaaaaaancy is a very specific scene from a horror movie. Oh, Nancy is what the protagonist hears when she is hiding in a parking garage, or in a stairwell, or crouched under her desk, or pressed flat on the ground in a damp cornfield. Her terror is played out for entertainment, whether that means a narrow escape or a bloody death.</p>

Establishment media journalists are fuming over news that Biden deputy press secretary T.J. Ducklo will remain in his role after a report alleging he threatened Politico author Tara Palmeri for revealing his relationship with Axios’ Alexi McCammond. As Vanity Fair reported Friday: The confrontation began on Inauguration Day, January 20, after Palmeri, a coauthor of Politico’s Playbook, contacted McCammond for comment while one of her male colleagues left a message for Ducklo, according to sources. […] But instead of calling the male reporter who initially contacted him, Ducklo tried to intimidate Palmeri by phone in an effort to kill the...

Explanation: This gorgeous island universe lies about 85 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Fornax. Inhabited by young blue star clusters, the tightly wound spiral arms of NGC 1350 seem to join in a circle around the galaxy's large, bright nucleus, giving it the appearance of a cosmic eye. In fact, NGC 1350 is about 130,000 light-years across. That makes it as large or slightly larger than the Milky Way. For earth-based astronomers, NGC 1350 is seen on the outskirts of the Fornax cluster of galaxies, but its estimated distance suggests that it is not itself a cluster member....

The Chicago Public Schools have been closed for about a year now, but they finally got a deal. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles: they will finally return to the workplace... part time for now, and only for some early grades. Why the long delay? Because the Chicago Teachers’ Union, like so many people across the country, have spent the past year primarily concerned about being “safe.” “Safe.” Such an interesting word. Its definition has been radically transformed, hasn’t it, in the twelve months since news began to leak out that the Chinese government was welding shut the doors and...

Expecting math students to get the right answer is now considered to be a form of “white supremacy”From page 6 of this PDF:Original: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210212205034/https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdfDeconstructing Racism in Mathematics InstructionWhite supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.The table below identifies the ways in which white supremacy shows up in math classrooms.Dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms We see white supremacy culture show up in the mathematics classroom even as we carry...

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, who admitted to state Democratic lawmakers that the governor’s administration withheld vital data on nursing home deaths from the U.S. Department of Justice while they were under investigation, now says that they were “comprehensive and transparent” in responding to requests for information from the Justice Department. New York, along with three other states, was under investigation for the excessive number of deaths that occurred in nursing homes during the pandemic. DeRosa said in the call that the withheld data could “be used against us” in any legal proceeding. Well, yes, but for what...

President Biden announced today the pardon of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (aka Governor Death) for the thousands of deaths in New York nursing homes. Biden announced the pardon to keep Gov. Cuomo from being indicted by the State of NY on manslaughter charges. The pardon precluded state charges under the principle of double jeopardy. Since the pardon wipes the slate clean, Gov. Cuomo is expected to continue to serve as Governor for the foreseeable future. On the down side, the Governor has be requested to return his Emmy.

Lindsey Graham is trying to introduce Nikki Haley to big political donors and it’s not going well. The ambitious former ambassador the United Nations released a calculated break from President Trump the same day his defense begins in the sham impeachment trial. The problem: Haley is as unpopular among donors as she is among Republican voters. “Lindsey Graham is making this pitch for Nikki Haley and he’s calling around to people to ask if they will meet with her,” said Richard Baris, director of Big Data Poll. “These donors are angry and they do not want to sit down with...