Free Republic

Good Morning/Afternoon, MEGAKeepTheLegacyHonoredDITTOS!

LONDON — Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands have joined the growing list of countries that have suspended the use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford over blood clot concerns. The Dutch government said Sunday that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would not be used until at least March 29, while Ireland said earlier in the day that it had temporarily suspended the shot as a precautionary step. On Monday, the German government also said it was suspending its use with the vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, calling for further investigations. The World Health Organization has...

ROME, March 15, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic Church cannot bless homosexual relationships, the Vatican declared today, calling such blessings “illicit.” A question to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about whether or not the Church has the “power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex” was answered in the “negative” by the congregation’s prefect, Luis Cardinal Ladaria Ferrer. The congregation’s statement was assented to by Pope Francis. While the statement was signed Feb. 22, it was only released today. The Congregation stated that it is “not licit to impart a blessing on...

BERLIN (AP) — The German government said Monday that it’s suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine over new reports of dangerous blood clots in connection with the shot. The Health Ministry said the decision was taken as a “precaution” and on the advice of Germany’s national vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which called for further investigation of the cases. In a statement, the ministry said the European Medicines Agency would decide “whether and how the new information will affect the authorization of the vaccine.”

On Sunday, Stacey Abrams said that Democrats need to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate to force through a US election reform bill. Abrams said that securing our democracy and voting was fundamental and deserved special treatment. Abrams comments are interesting given her own past involving elections. Abrams is a Democrat from Georgia who was famous for saying that she won the governor’s race in Georgia, despite losing by thousands of votes. She refused to concede the election and has remained prominent in state politics in Georgia.

Justin Lane is an Oxford University-trained artificial intelligence (AI) expert and entrepreneur with no patience for fluffy theories. His research spans the field of cognition — both human and artificial — as well as religion and conflict.That led to some fascinating fieldwork in Northern Ireland, where he studied Irish Republican Army and Ulster Defence Association extremists up close. Ultimately, he applied his humanities research to AI programming and agent-based computer simulations.Somehow, he managed to enter undergrad in Baltimore, Md. as a Green Party liberal and emerge from England’s ivory towers as a Second Amendment advocate. He now describes himself as...

The campaign to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom has collected 1,950,000 signatures, Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports, far more than the 1.4 million signatures needed to qualify the recall for the ballot. A full 1.6 million signatures were collected entirely by volunteers, and according to organizer Orrin Heatlie, 31.5 percent of the signers were “other than Republicans.” As the recall effort surges, Democrats turn up the volume against it. “Right-wing Republicans in CA are trying to recall Gavin Newsom for the crime of telling people to wear masks and for listening to scientists during COVID,” tweeted Sen....

Tucker Carlson is correct about utopian ideas from the national security blob resulting in flawed and destructive policies.For the first time in history, the leaders of the Quad—the informal alliance of India, Japan, Australia, and the United States—met in a virtual conference, agreeing to jointly form supply chains for crucial rare earth minerals and to supply vaccines to Asian states, diminishing their dependence on Beijing. The vaccine plan is crucial and a continuation of the Trump administration’s approach to China. As the Financial Times reports, the plan uses the competitive advantage of all the powers, from American and Japanese research...

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — It was a deadly weekend on Southern Nevada roads involving wrong-way drivers and hit-and-run crashes. A pedestrian was killed after being hit by a car near Lake Mead and Lamb boulevards around 9 p.m. Sunday night. Police say the car was driving west on Lake Mead when it hit the pedestrian and drove away. The victim was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. A man was hit and killed on Sahara Avenue near Sixth Street earlier Sunday evening. Police say he was hit by a white Ford pickup and that driver took off after the...

President Biden fired Equal Employment Opportunity Commission general counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson on Friday after she declined to resign under pressure from the White House. “At the time I was nominated, I was asked if I would commit to do my best to fulfill my four-year term, and I answered yes,” Gustafson said in a letter to Biden. “Unless prevented from doing so, I intend to honor that commitment. I have confidently given this advice to countless embattled clients of the last 25 years: hold your head high, do your best work, and do not resign under pressure. In solidarity...

A man was on a bridge, intending to jump and end his life. Another man saw him and cried out, "Don't do it! God loves you. Do you believe in God?" The conversation then went on like this: First man: "Yes." Second man: "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" First man: "A Christian." Second man: "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" First man: "Protestant." Second man: "Me, too! What franchise?" First man: "Baptist." Second man: “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" First man: "Northern Baptist." Second man: “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" First man: "Northern...

When my petite 8 year old granddaughter was taking Tae Kwon Do lessons we went to a demonstration. The male instructor was making the students bow to him and say “Yes sir”. Things started out slowly and students were supposed to yell with forceful aggression as they executed the movements. I noticed our granddaughter getting intimidated. I looked at the little girls using small hands and feet to defend themselves; they did not know at that age what the threat against them would be. I recalled standing in terror before a new stepfather. I had bought a candy bar with...

Illegal immigrants have been flooding to the southern border of the United States, and they’re bringing COVID-19 with them. According to the CBP, Illegal immigrants are testing positive for COVID at a rate double the national average, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott says is accusing the Biden administration of withholding data from his state about the total number of illegals caught at the border who have tested positive for COVID-19.Abbott, during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, said Texas “is responsible for fully reporting out anybody in our state who has COVID-19,” and that the Biden administration “has refused...

A poem defending Dr. Seuss was posted on Facebook recently. I expect it to be banned soon, so I’ll re-post it here: =============================================================== Alas they’ve come for Dr. SEUSS, they wish to hang him with a noose. They claim his tales were racist bent, they judged him fast, missed what he meant. But if we look inside his tales, you’ll find the balance of the scales. Remember when Horton heard a Who, and we heard the wisdom of the Lorax too. The lesson behind Green Eggs and Ham, that changed the mind of Sam I am. Remember too the rotten...

Poor Coca-Cola. The company jumped on the woke train recently with a few moves that went public.First, Coca-Cola was outed for sending their employees to training on how to be “less white.” It turned out that this was not internal training. Instead, LinkedIn provided it through a learning link and the company assigned it. The backlash to this disclosure caused LinkedIn to remove the training, but plenty of vendors are available to conduct it internally if that is Coke’s preference.Coca-Cola also sent a notification to their legal firms to tell them that they would monitor their outside legal teams’ diversity....

The words of diversity ring hollow, as hard-working Asians from every socio-economic background, with stable family structure and strong disciplined work ethic, face dAsian Americans are beginning to realize that their values are no longer aligned with the shifting Democratic Party.A recent spike in Asian hate crimes has led to leftist and corporate media that deliberately refuse to talk about the perpetrators and their motives. They insinuate the hate crimes are due to either structural imbalances in society or a direct result of white supremacy rhetoric. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bizarrely blamed the rise in attacks on Asians on former President...

In December of 2020, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was allegedly the victim of a cyberattack as they were reviewing documents received from Pfizer regarding their mRNA COVID vaccine trials in preparation for issuing emergency use approval for the vaccine in Europe.More than 40 megabytes of classified information was allegedly published on the dark web, and sent to several journalists, including The BMJ which just published a review of the leaked documents last week.One of the key issues revealed in the leaked documents, according to The BMJ, was that European regulators had major concerns over unexpectedly low quantities of intact...

MANILA, March 14 (The Straits Times/ANN): The Philippines now has all three variants of the coronavirus that have been fuelling record-breaking spikes in infections across the globe, and a Philippine variant that has the same lineage as the infectious Brazilian variant. This comes as the country is seeing another surge in Covid-19 cases to levels not seen since the outbreak here peaked in the middle of last year. The Health Ministry reported on Saturday (March 13) that it had detected the Brazilian variant in a Filipino who recently came back from Brazil. The strain had swept through Manaus city in...

Concerns have been raised that rapid response Covid-19 tests are providing too many false positives, therefore 'ruining' the return of students to UK schools. It has been reported that pupils are testing positive with on-the-spot Covid tests, isolating, and then testing negative with more reliable lab tests. The Royal Statistical Society has said that more of the new positive cases recorded in schools by rapid testing methods could be inacurate than accurate. It is believed this is the case because infection rates are currently low. Meanwhile, the Government has released a new analysis reassuring the public that lateral flow tests...

The 2021 Academy Awards are officially the most diverse yet with a record-breaking number of actors of color being nominated and two female directors receiving nods for the first time. A total of nine actors of color have been nominated this year, including Steven Yeun, who is now the first Asian American to receive a nod in the best actor category for his work in Minari. It is also the first time two female directors have ever been nominated in the best director category, with Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) both receiving nods. Only five women...