Free Republic

HARRISBURG — Former Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine is under pressure from U.S. House Republicans to provide more details about the state’s missing nursing home data ahead of her confirmation to a post in the Biden administration. At the same time, House and Senate Republicans are also calling on the state Department of Health to provide more details about its overall approach to nursing homes, citing Spotlight PA reporting on how historically weak oversight and failed plans hampered the response. Levine, who oversaw the state health department during the first year of the pandemic, was nominated by President Joe Biden...

Scientists at UC San Francisco have detected 109 chemicals in a study of pregnant women, including 55 chemicals never before reported in people and 42 "mystery chemicals," whose sources and uses are unknown. The chemicals most likely come from consumer products or other industrial sources. They were found both in the blood of pregnant women, as well as their newborn children, suggesting they are traveling through the mother's placenta. "These chemicals have probably been in people for quite some time, but our technology is now helping us to identify more of them...It is alarming that we keep seeing certain chemicals...

Ignoring and conceding small battles like six Dr. Seuss books or Mr. Potato Head is what empowers the left's culture warriors to take control of everything.Bill Maher made an interesting point on his show last Friday, arguing that America’s obsession with political correctness is crippling its institutions, leaving the country hobbled in the geopolitical race with China. That’s an accurate assessment, one that also tasks the defenders of cultural sanity with resisting wokeness while not getting bogged down by trivialities at the cost of basic efficiency. That’s an impossible balance to strike. Despite the left’s false but emergent narrative that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers union criticized Ford Motor Co’s plan to build a new vehicle in Mexico rather than at an Ohio plant, suggesting it might be in violation of the automaker’s contractual commitments.In a letter made public on Tuesday, UAW Vice President Gerald Kariem said Ford intends to build a next-generation vehicle in Mexico. “We 100% reject the company’s decision to put corporate greed and more potential profits over American jobs and the future of our members. We expect the company to honor its contractual commitments to this membership and when it fails to do so...

The Woke Corporation I work for has decided to need to speak out "Supporting Our AAPI communities" triggered by the Big Lie the killer in the ATL was motivated by race. Even the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer Political Officer has sent out her own statement. If the killer was motivated by race how about the 2 non-Asians murdered?

In 2014, Professor Gerald Horne of the University of Houston published a book with a startling thesis: that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. This was no genuine revolution, Horne argued, but rather a counter-revolution waged to defend slavery against the true revolutionary force, the abolitionist British Empire—hence the name of the book, The Counter-Revolution of 1776. The American victory was not a progressive or world-historic event. It was a catastrophe. Horne suggests an analogy: the American Revolution created “the first apartheid state.”

A group of current and former teachers and others in Loudoun County, Virginia, compiled a lengthy list of parents suspected of disagreeing with school system actions, including its teaching of controversial racial concepts — with a stated purpose in part to “infiltrate,” use “hackers” to silence parents’ communications, and “expose these people publicly.” Members of a 624-member private Facebook group called “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County” named parents and plotted fundraising and other offline work. Some used pseudonyms, but The Daily Wire has identified them as a who’s who of the affluent jurisdiction outside D.C., including school staff and elected...

America has been battling illegal street drugs for decades, but we have never seen anything like this. When the COVID pandemic hit the U.S., illegal drug use dramatically surged, and that has carried over into 2021. As I discussed a few days ago, the amount of meth that CBP agents have seized is up 9 percent so far in fiscal year 2021 and the amount of cocaine that CBP agents have seized is up 64 percent so far in fiscal year 2021. But the largest increase has been in fentanyl traffic. At this point, CBP agents have seized “more than...

A New Jersey school district is paying $325,000 to a former New Jersey teacher who claimed she was forced to digitally edit a Donald Trump T-shirt worn by a student in a yearbook photo. The Wall Township school board approved the settlement agreement with Susan Parsons on Tuesday, NJ Advance Media reported. The district made no admission of wrongdoing or liability. The money will be paid by the district's insurance carrier. Parsons was the high school's yearbook adviser when she said a secretary acting on behalf of the principal ordered her in 2017 to remove "Trump Make America Great Again”...

A double-barreled bow? 500-fps bolts? A digital range-finding scope? The top new crossbows from Excalibur, Ravin, and TenPoint have bowhunters asking if we’ve crossed a line. In truth, we crossed it a long time ago Arguments between vertical-bow hunters and crossbow hunters over what qualifies as archery equipment have been going on for 20 years. (Maybe longer if you count the Medieval Ages, when legend has it Pope Urban II banned the unholy things from being used in combat.) But particularly in the past five years, during which time crossbow developments have accelerated at breakneck speed, some have asked, “Where...

“It’s really a very kind of CCP type of conditioning to kind of conform and watch our words” -------------------------------------------------------------------- Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show Wednesday, former Clinton advisor Naomi Wolf warned that Democrats are aligned with big tech in an effort to ‘consolidate power’ by censoring and removing any opinions they disagree with. The author spoke of how she has recently been suspended twice from Twitter, noting “I’ve been talking about all kinds of things for years on social media and have never had this problem until I talked to a conservative about how left and right should unite to...

Thursday, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle blamed former President Donald Trump for the Atlanta-area massage parlor shootings that left eight dead, six of which were Asian women. Barnicle acknowledged on “Morning Joe” that Trump’s “didn’t pull the trigger in Atlanta” but said his “language” and “behavior” makes him “responsible” for the attack. He explained Trump’s rhetoric has enhanced racial strife in the country.

To make up for lack of interaction under Covid-19 restrictions, apes at zoos 150km apart can now watch each others’ daily lives on big screens Humans might be tiring of video calls, Zoom birthdays and streamed performances, but the chimps at two Czech zoos are just starting to enjoy their new live online link-up. To make up for the lack of interaction with visitors since the attractions closed in December under Covid-19 restrictions, the chimpanzees at Safari Park Dvur Kralove and the troop at a zoo 150km away in in Brno, can now watch one another’s daily lives on giant...

Among the 600 new words and definitions are "supposably" and "finna." When Dictionary.com tweeted out some of the new words, those two additions racked up thousands more quote-tweets than any of the other words. Dictionary.com says the adverb "supposably" means "as may be assumed, imagined, or supposed." It describes "finna" as "a phonetic spelling representing the African American Vernacular English variant of fixing to."

Filmmakers behind 'Gosnell' are now raising funds for 'My Son Hunter' A movie about Hunter Biden’s "wild life and dodgy business dealings" will be the new focus of the Irish filmmaking couple who was also behind "Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer," a 2018 crowdfunded drama based on the real-life abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell. "Somebody has to tell this story, so we decided to make this movie," Phelim McAleer told Fox News Tuesday evening. "People need to know this story. It’s about some of the most powerful people in the country. Nobody knows it. But it’s...

The devastating fallout of the Biden administration's job-killing rampage continues after he canceled the sale of 80 million acres of Gulf of Mexico oil leases that was scheduled for Wednesday in New Orleans, KLFY-TV in Lafayette, Louisiana, reported Monday. “It would kill our state. It would kill workers,” Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, said of the Biden administration's move. “It would kill jobs, and it would be a terrible thing.” According to the Moncla and the association, nearly 250,000 Louisiana residents work in the oil and gas industry, and 98,000 of them have offshore jobs.

There is a man in Canada who can only be alluded to as He Who Shall Not Be Named: Robert Hoogland. For the sake of natural justice, it is important to speak this man's name. He is now the Canadian state's prison of conscience. The warrant was issued by a judge for the arrest of a father after calling his biological female child his "daughter," and referring to her with the pronouns "she" and "her." Hoogland was found to be in contempt of court. Hoogland is a father to a gender non-conforming biological female 14-year-old who identifies as transgender and...

PepsiCo Inc. PEP, -1.46% said Thursday that it will launch Pepsi Mango on March 22, the first permanent flavored cola to launch in five years. Pepsi Mango will be available in both regular and zero sugar varieties. Todd Kaplan, Pepsi's vice president of marketing, notes in a statement that mango is one of the most popular fruits in the world. Avocado producer Mission Produce Inc. AVO, 0.15% also noted the popularity of mango when it announced its plans to expand into mango production. Pepsi stock is up 9.8% over the past year while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.53% has...

A new bill introduced by California State Assembly Member Ash Kalra in San Jose would prohibit police officers from serving if they have used arbitrarily defined “hate speech” or are affiliated with a “hate group.” The bill, known as the California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform Act (CLEAR Act), claims to combat “the infiltration of extremists in our law enforcement agencies” and would mandate a background check for all officers who have “exchanged racist and homophobic messages.” Kalra claims that AB 655 is necessary to prevent “the apparent cooperation, participation, and support of some law enforcement” in the Jan. 6 Capitol...

John Kerry, President Biden’s administration’s climate envoy, appeared to forgo a mask while flying first class on an American Airlines flight from Boston to Washington, violating the federal mask mandate, prompting an investigation from the airline. The purported violation of the federal mask mandate occurred on Wednesday as Kerry departed Boston. A photo, first published by The Tennessee Star, shows the climate czar appearing to read a book, his face completely exposed. According to the outlet, Kerry was not eating or drinking: