Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration says it's ready to join talks with Iran and world powers to discuss a return to the 2015 nuclear deal, in a sharp repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” that sought to isolate the Islamic Republic. The administration also took two steps at the United Nations aimed at restoring policy to what it was before Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. The combined actions were immediately criticized by Iran hawks and drew concern from Israel, which said it was committed to keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Besides signaling Thursday...

Thirty-five Capitol Police officers are under investigation — including six who have been suspended with pay — for their actions in the deadly January siege, according to the department. Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman has indicated that any officer whose actions were found to be unacceptable on Jan. 6 will be disciplined, a department spokesman said in a statement to WTTG on Thursday. “Our Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating the actions of 35 police officers from that day. We currently have suspended six of those officers with pay,” the statement read. Some Capitol Police officers were caught on video watching...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday she hoped to pass a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan "sometime at the end of next week" despite Republican opposition to its components. ... In a 50-50 Senate party makeup, one Democrat vote against the relief bill would prevent it from being approved.

During a Friday appearance on “CNN Newsroom,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) announced an independent September 11-style commission to investigate the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Leahy, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the group of rioters, said the commission “is a superb one.” He added the commission should “have subpoena power.”

Hugo's death from pneumonia on 22 May 1885, at the age of 83, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped the Third Republic and democracy in France. All his life he remained a defender of liberty, equality and fraternity as well as an adamant champion of French culture. In 1877, aged 75, he wrote, "I am not one of these sweet-tempered old men. I am still exasperated and violent. I shout and I feel indignant and I cry. Woe to anyone who harms France! I do...

Less than a month after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, most voters believe the Democrat is “a puppet of the radical left” and not the moderate “nice guy” he was portrayed as being during the election campaign. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters say they agree with this statement: “Joe Biden’s not the moderate nice guy that they made him out to be. He’s a puppet of the radical left.” Forty percent (40%) of voters disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here.) (Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s...

“Trump isn’t getting reinstated until after he wins the 2024 election.” =========================================================== Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) suggested Thursday that Capitol Police and Democrats are hyping up the bizarre online theories of QAnon as justification for keeping Washington DC under ‘occupation’. Following a story in Newsweek that highlighted how some QAnon followers believe President Trump is to be ‘reinstalled’ on March 4th, Capitol authorities and Democrats used it as a reason to keep troops and razor wire fences in place. During a Wednesday hearing, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith said “Some of these people have figured out that apparently...

Joe Biden is proving to be exactly what we expected- a pathetic doddering old dementia-affected man. In the last few days he's determined to validate the belief. To wit: Biden quits work at 7 pm and is back at the world's most important job at a leisurely 9 am. Well, an old man does require a lot of sleep and at his age he likely sundowns. Claimed (again) that Trump did not condemn the Proud Boys (Trump did)I’ve said it many times, and let me be clear again, I condemn the KKK. I condemn all white supremacists. I condemn the...

MRI scan of damaged heart. Blue means reduced blood flow, orange is good blood flow. In this figure the inferior part of the heart shows dark blue, so the myocardial blood flow is very reduced and the black and white angiography, which looks directly at the blood vessels, shows that the vessel which supplies the blood to this part of the heart is occluded. The 3 colored images are 3 different slices of the heart: the basal the mid and the apical slice. Credit: European Heart Journal ================================================================ Around 50% of patients who have been hospitalized with severe COVID-19 and...

Prayers up for continuing progress and success!! FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties -- not even the IRS -- trying to control what we do or say. We are self-funded, fiercely independent and enjoy our freedom to speak plainly...

John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s administration’s climate envoy, sounded the alarm on an upcoming climate crisis. Kerry told CBS “This Morning” reporter Ben Tracy in an interview which aired Friday, that the winter weather seen across the country could be the “new normal” and needs to be prevented by cutting global carbon emissions.

This “gran” scheme didn’t get very far… Two Florida women dressed up as “grannies” in an attempt to get vaccinated against COVID-19, health officials said Thursday. Their wacky getup included “the bonnets, the gloves, the glasses — the whole thing,” said Dr. Raul Pino, the director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County.

“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). These are Paul’s closing word to the Philippians. He wasn’t saying, “I am in prison and these chains are a blessing. I’m so happy for this pain.” I’m convinced Paul prayed daily for his release and at times cried out for strength to endure. Even Jesus, in his hour of trial and pain, cried to the Father, “Why have you forsaken me?” That is our first impulse in our afflictions, to cry out, “Why?” And the Lord is patient with that cry. But God has also made provision...

Newly appointed Swiss bishop declines to have his own episcopal coat of armsThe 72-year-old Bonnemain is an Opus Dei priest (ordained in 1978) and, while he initially had worked in the 1990s under the conservative former Bishop of Chur, Wolfgang Haas, he has since turned toward a more progressivist attitude, inclined to collaborate with the very secularist Swiss public.SWITZERLAND, February 18, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Joseph Maria Bonnemain, who Pope Francis picked on Monday for the Diocese of Chur, Switzerland against the wishes of the local ecclesial leadership, declared on Wednesday that he won’t have his own episcopal coat of arms....

“‘The Lord, the Lord God, [is] compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth’” (Exodus 34:6). God’s grace is His undeserved favor shown to sinners. God’s grace has always been a focus of praise for believers. Today’s verse is quoted several times in the Psalms and elsewhere in Scripture (for example, Neh. 9:17, 31; Ps. 86:15; 103:8; 145:8). Paul is grateful for God’s abundant grace in 1 Timothy 1:14, and John writes, “For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16). Today some of our favorite hymns are “Amazing Grace,” “Marvelous...

Sen. Ted Cruz is in the doghouse with some critics who blasted him for reportedly leaving his pet pooch, Snowflake, at home amid freezing temps — as he and the rest of the family jetted off to Cancun, Mexico. The Republican lawmaker has claimed in the wake of public outrage that he was merely escorting his pre-teen daughters on their trip with friends — noting that, like millions of his fellow Texans, his family had lost heat and water.

Capitol Police leadership has suspended six officers and placed 29 others under investigation amid its review of the events of Jan. 6, a spokesman told CNN on Thursday."Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman has directed that any member of her department whose behavior is not in keeping with the Department's Rules of Conduct will face appropriate discipline," spokesman John Stolnis told CNN.The suspensions are with pay and included an officer taking a selfie with a demonstrator and another who wore a Make America Great Again hat and helped direct people around the building, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, told CNN.

Rep. Burgess Owens slammed Democrats for immigration policies that harm Americans as the majority party gets set to unveil a Biden-backed bill that will provide a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. Owens (R-UT), in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, said the Biden immigration agenda will unfairly affect the black community and ruin the American dream for so many. “The leftists have never been our friends,” Owens said. “They are the ones that are anti-choice, they want open borders [which] they know is going to end up hurting those that are trying to get their...

David Gilbert went to prison a revolutionary, raising his fist and scorning authorities who prosecuted him for an infamous 1981 armored truck robbery in which a guard and two police officers were killed. Four decades later, advocates for the 76-year-old inmate’s release include San Francisco’s chief prosecutor, the son left behind at 14 months old when both his parents were arrested. “As long as I can remember, I’ve known that the most likely scenario is that my father is going to die in prison,” said Chesa Boudin, sworn in as district attorney last year. Boudin ran a progressive campaign in...

Despite encouraging national trends in coronavirus-related hospitalizations and cases, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worries that “pandemic fatigue” come spring could significantly hamper the country’s trajectory toward vaccination-induced herd immunity. [cut] “I worry that it will be spring and we will all have had enough,” Walensky told Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of JAMA in an interview Wednesday. “At around that time, I worry that life will feel and look a little bit better and the motivation for those who might be vaccine hesitant will be diminished.”