Free Republic

Russia's ambassador to Washington has been recalled to Moscow for "consultations" to determine how to move forward with relations with the U.S., the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.Why it matters: The news came hours after an interview aired in which President Biden agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "killer" and pledged to hold the Kremlin accountable for interfering in the 2020 election.Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova did not provide specific reasons for the recall of Ambassador Anatoly Antonov, but she said relations with the U.S. "are in a difficult state, which Washington has brought...

The fault doesn’t lie with the universities. The fault lies with horribly performing public K-12 schools — a result of protecting teacher unions from competition. Hoping that colleges can make up for this damage is irresponsible.

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled unconstitutional a national moratorium the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has instituted for most residential evictions to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Siding with a group of landlords and property owners challenging the evictions freeze, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, ruled the CDC exceeded its authority under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. “The court concludes that the federal government’s Article I power to regulate interstate commerce and enact laws necessary and proper to that end does not include the power...

State officials have recorded 21,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Illinois since the outset of the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed 19,893 deaths through the end of February in Illinois where COVID-19 was listed among multiple causes. Of those deaths, about 1,830, or 9.2 percent, had COVID-19 listed as the sole cause of death. That percentage is higher than it was in September 2020 when the rate was about 6%. But a county coroner is calling for a full audit after reviewing some of the deaths in his county. “My concern is, I’ve reviewed several cases, (of...

Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. (Psalm 130:7-8)Israel is a microcosm of the entire human race.What is true of her, is true also of the human race, thus this Psalm is Her cry, and is a promise for her future. On a personal level it applies to all of us, but Israel is in view here. Every experience in this Psalm is the experience of Israel. It is she who cries “Out of the depths”, time and again....

The Irwin family has long been in the world’s eye as one of the most popular conservationist families. It’s clear that though Steve is gone, he has not been forgotten by fans or family, and his children got his passion for wildlife. Back in August 2020, amidst all the trouble that the world was facing, Bindi Irwin and her husband Chandler Powell made a very exciting announcement. “Baby Wildlife Warrior due 2021,” she shared on Aug. 11. “Chandler and I are proud to announce that we’re expecting! It’s an honour to share this special moment in our lives with you....

It wasn’t long ago when a “public meeting” of the city council or state legislature meant the general public could show up to watch and, quite often, speak about proposals and perceived problems. The coronavirus pandemic has put an end to that in many places, perhaps permanently altering the way the American public interacts with government. A year after COVID-19 triggered government shutdowns and crowd limitations, more public bodies than ever are livestreaming their meetings for anyone to watch from a computer, television or smartphone. But in some cases, it's become harder for people to actually talk with their elected...

President Joe Biden will hold his first formal news conference on March 25, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. While the president has periodically taken questions from reporters, Biden has been under increased fire from conservative news outlets — as well as some political allies...

Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing for more than $106 million to go toward his initiative to expand civics education in Florida schools. DeSantis said Wednesday at North Collier Regional Park in Naples he wants to "make Florida the national leader in civics education." DeSantis urged the Florida Legislature to take up his proposal this session and allocate funds available through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act. During his announcement Wednesday, DeSantis took on critical race theory and "unsanctioned narratives," stating they will not be in Florida's curriculum. Critical race theory holds that American institutions are inherently...

On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris dodged a question about the unaccompanied minor crisis on the U.S. Southern border, telling reporters that she hadn’t “been briefed on it today.” The surge of unaccompanied minors being apprehended at the border and housed in U.S. facilities has been going on for weeks. Harris made her comments while promoting the $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package during a trip to Colorado.

Joe Biden is giving companies a second chance at outsourcing American jobs to foreign H-1B visa workers.The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the agency will allow companies to reapply for foreign H-1B visa workers who were previously denied such visas when they applied for them over the last four years of former President Trump’s administration.USCIS rescinded three reforms pertaining to the H-1B visa program, which has been readily used for years by companies to replace Americans in high-paying white-collar jobs. The reforms helped prevent multinational corporations from using Indian outsourcing firms to grab loads of foreign...

A continuation from last week’s thread. Discussion of the three Covid vaccines currently available in the USA — Comparisons. Contrasts. Pros. Cons. First hand experiences, scientific insights, etc... The current vaccines available on the market are: 1) Pfizer/BioNTech (mRNA) 2 doses 2) Moderna (mRNA) 2 doses 3) Johnson & Johnson (DNA adenovirus vector) 1 dose

Jordan Fuchs Named as Source of False Trump Quotes in Washington Post The original story, by Amy Gardner, ran on January 9. “President Trump urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to ‘find the fraud’ in a lengthy December phone call, saying the official would be a ‘national hero,’ according to an individual familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the conversation,” the story said before the correction.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in its declassified report, says that Moscow viewed the prospect of Joe Biden’s election to the White House in 2020 as potentially disadvantageous to Russia’s interests and that drove their efforts to undermine his candidacy. “We have high confidence in this assessment,” the report says. The primary race for the Democratic nomination was just the start. “Moscow’s range of influence actors uniformly worked to denigrate President Biden after his entrance into the race. Throughout the primaries and the general election campaign, Russian influence agents repeatedly spread … claims against Biden and his...

Shawna Eccles owns a house in Brooklyn, but she lives out of her Toyota. The reason? New York’s Democratic legislature — which has long been hostile to landlords — passed a law during the coronavirus pandemic that prevents homeowners from evicting deadbeat tenants from their properties. Eccles told the New York Post that her tenant has refused to pay rent for over seven months. But because Eccles still had to pay the mortgage, property tax and utilities on the home, she had nothing left over to cover her own housing needs. “If anything gets cut off, it will be considered...

The Internal Revenue Service plans to delay this year’s tax filing deadline by roughly a month, to mid-May, according to an official familiar with the plans. The official said the decision was made in order to allow filers more time to navigate tax situations complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Lawmakers, led by Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, had urged the move, citing the pandemic. Last year, the IRS moved the deadline to July 15, giving Americans an additional three months to file their taxes amid the pandemic.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With a nod to Women’s History Month, the Democratic-led House is on course to pass two measures Wednesday, one designed to protect women from domestic violence, the other to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The latter measure passed by a vote of 222-204. Debate is ongoing with the Violence Against Women Act. Both measures face a more difficult path in an evenly divided Senate. The White House announced its support earlier Wednesday for reauthorizing the act, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through...

The Judicial Crisis Network has launched a new ad targeting West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin as he considers voting for the confirmation of Vanita Gupta, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden to become the next associate attorney general at the Department of Justice.West Virginia has the highest overdose rate in the United States and Gupta owns millions of dollars worth of stock in a company accused of making a key heroin ingredient for Mexican cartels.

In a sparkling silver dress, the homecoming queen at J.M. Tate High School in Cantonment, Fla., stood on the football field on a brisk evening in late October to accept her crown. But among the students, whispers had already begun spreading about her victory. The homecoming queen had bragged for years about abusing the access her mother had to student records as an assistant principal in the same school system, witnesses later told investigators. Now, witnesses said, she was boasting about using the same access to cast hundreds of ballots in her own election. On Monday, the 17-year-old senior and...

Reading the comments is rarely a good idea. But when opening a breaking news tweet on March 16 about a rash of horrific murders across Atlanta, including six Asian woman working in three separate spas, the overwhelming sameness of the replies was unavoidable, infuriating, and instructive. “Not quite the happy ending they were expecting,” crowed one. “No happy ending then?” asked another. “Definitely not a happy ending,” declared another, throwing in a gif of a stick figure drumming a “heyo!” rimshot to make sure anyone reading it would understand that they wanted a laugh. Endless tweets of the same snark,...