Free Republic

Ex-CDC Director Robert Redfield believes COVID-19 came from Wuhan lab "Post-vaccination “breakthrough” COVID-19 infections are being taken “seriously,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday as federal officials expressed concern about rising coronavirus cases in the US. “With regard to the breakthrough cases of people who have been vaccinated and ultimately have gotten infection, obviously this is something that we take seriously and follow closely,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert said during virtual White House coronavirus briefing. Fauci’s comments come after Minnesota reported this week 89 breakthrough infections among people who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Idaho health officials...

For former President Donald Trump’s GOP allies, President Joe Biden’s recent stumble on the Air Force One stairs was a sign of bigger problems. But Republican senators who’ve met with Biden say the 78-year-old president is just fine, with one describing him as “sharp as a tack.” Biden’s fitness for office, a longtime fixation among conservatives, is dominating conversations on the right as Trump openly sows doubts about the health of the man who defeated him. One Republican senator recently texted an acquaintance his private suspicions that Biden, the oldest president in history, is mentally unwell. In on-the-record interviews, however,...

An attack on an oil terminal on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast set one fuel tank ablaze, the country’s petroleum ministry said, after several Houthi drones reportedly targeted two cities not far from the border with Yemen. A projectile struck an oil terminal in Jizan, a port on the Red Sea north of the Saudi-Yemen border, on Friday, igniting a fire but resulting in no casualties, according to a statement from the Saudi Oil Ministry. “The kingdom condemns this cowardly attack directed against vital installations, which does not target the kingdom only, but also targets the security of petroleum exports,...

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock on Friday blasted a sweeping bill to tighten voting rules in the state, a day after it was signed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R). Warnock, speaking to reporters in Georgia, called the GOP bill an attempt to "arrest the voices and the votes of the people. It will not stand." "So what's the purpose behind all of this? So you're literally going to make public policy based on a lie? Based on the feeling that some people have that things didn't turn out the way they should have turned out? Is that how we...

Despite Parler being the only social media company to be de-platformed after the Capitol riots, the company said it warned the FBI dozens of times about potential violence on Jan. 6. Pushing back on criticism that it turned a blind eye to user content ahead of the riot, Parler said in a letter to the Committee on Oversight and Reform chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney, it “took the extraordinary initiative to develop formal lines of communication with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) to facilitate proactive cooperation and referrals of violent threats and incitement to law enforcement,” after it experienced considerable...

"I didn’t write the loopholes you exploit, @amazon – your armies of lawyers and lobbyists did. But you bet I’ll fight to make you pay your fair share. And fight your union-busting. And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets."

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday urged federal regulators to help pave the way for a return to cruising in the United States — or else the state will consider legal action to force the matter. DeSantis made his comments at Port Canaveral's Cruise Terminal 3, during a roundtable discussion focusing on the plight of the cruise industry in Florida and nationwide. The vast, $155 million terminal that served as the venue for the event was completed last summer, but remains unused because of the cruise industry shutdown since March 2020 caused by the coronavirus pandemic. DeSantis was joined at the...

NEW: Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg says that the Biden administration is considering taxing drivers by the mile to fund infrastructure Video...

The New York Times economist Paul Krugman tried to hoodwink Americans by downplaying inflation concerns brought on by President Joe Biden’s massive $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Krugman’s new op-ed was headlined, “How Not to Panic About Inflation.” The article was published just a few days before Axios released a story headlined, “77% of Americans are worried about inflation.” Krugman’s tactic was to get Americans to remember the “great inflation scare of 2010-2011.” He argued that conservative worries about inflation failed to materialize after former President Barack Obama injected the economy with his own asinine stimulus. His only criticism of Obama’s...

The fp L is billed as the world's smallest and lightest mirrorless camera with a 61-megapixel full-frame sensorSigma VIEW 7 IMAGES Back in 2019, Sigma unveiled a 24.6-megapixel full-frame mirrorless camera claimed to be the world's smallest and lightest. Now the imaging company has turned the fp into a series with the addition of the fp L, which packs a 61-MP full-frame sensor into the same body dimensions as its older sibling. "The Sigma fp is one of the most innovative cameras available today, and the new fp L brings even more to the table," said Sigma America's Mark Amir-Hamzeh....

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that to fund President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, a tax on mileage traveled looks promising. When asked about a mileage tax, Buttigieg said, “I think that shows a lot of promise. If we believe in that so-called user-pays principle, the idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive. The gas tax used to be the obvious way to do it; it’s not anymore. So, a so-called vehicle miles traveled tax or a mileage tax, whatever you want to...

On Friday, the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) announced its first-ever chief diversity and inclusion officer, Richard Torres-Estrada, and the announcement prompted a backlash from social media users questioning the hiring decision.In an Instagram post, SOCOM said, “On Monday, March 1, 2021, USSOCOM welcomed its first-ever Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Mr. Richard Torres-Estrada. Mr. Torres-Estrada has nearly two decades worth of experience working diversity and inclusion programs and activities in federal agencies. Mr. Torres-Estrada’s arrival corresponds with the publication of the USSOCOM D&I Strategic Plan, which will guide the enterprise-wide effort to institutionalize and sustain D&I. We look forward...

It boggles my mind to see the American National Anthem replaced in Prince William County, Virginia, by the recitation of the Equity Code, a Marxist creation by the woke revolutionaries As more brick-and-mortar stores are filing for bankruptcy, desperate to keep their stores open, merchandise variety is dwindling, and shopping experiences become more and more unpleasant. Grocery stores could not keep their shelves stocked in 2020, in part due to food hoarding driven by ginned-up fear, government forced closures, and wholesalers and packing plants shuttering due to mandated closings and flu-infected employees.

Keeping the public schools closed is mean, cruel, inhumane, and evil, and it has nothing to do with COVID-19By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)March 26, 2021Please take a lot at all these things, and please note the date on each one.All of these things, taken together in context, proves that keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with COVID-19.Keeping the public schools closed is mean, cruel, inhumane, and evil.May 28, 2020Reopening schools in Denmark did not worsen outbreak, data showshttps://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-05-28/opening-schools-in-denmark-did-not-worsen-outbreak-data-showsMay 29, 2020Denmark, Finland say they saw no increase in coronavirus after schools re-openedhttps://justthenews.com/world/europe/denmark-finland-say-they-saw-no-increase-coronavirus-after-schools-re-openedJuly 13 , 2020German...

“I knew my life would never, ever, ever be the same,” said Eric Coomer, 50, in an interview with Yahoo Finance earlier this week. The director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems—now on paid leave—Coomer was recalling a nationally televised press conference in mid-November when Trump Campaign lawyers Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell denounced him individually, by name, as having helped rig the 2020 presidential election. In the most in-depth print interview he has given since going into hiding that month, Coomer describes below what it’s like to be public enemy No. 1 to the conspiracy theorists...

Dear Quentin, I live in Utah, and I have been seeing a married man for almost six years. No, I’m not ashamed. Although we both care greatly for each other, our relationship started as and remains a mutually beneficial one: money for me, companionship for him. He has been my sole source of income for the last 5 years, paying every single expense I have, and he is happy to do so because he loves me and I provide an escape from his miserable home life (his words). He’s been married a long time, and his only child is grown....

Surviving against all odds in an already Covid-ravaged 2021, the privilege of being in business now relies on a business operator’s willingness to declare—publicly declare—that the outcome of the 2020 election was legit. In order to survive, business operators must ‘cry uncle’ to former federal prosecutor, now NBC News and MSNBC analyst Glenn Kirschner, or make ready to sink their own ships into deep and murky waters. In other words, repeat in public that the fractious 2020 election was not only legitimate but positively kosher—or join America’s woefully long unemployment lines.

Large pockets of first responders, front-line health workers, and other public-facing employees are so far refusing COVID-19 vaccination by the thousands in Massachusetts, prompting calls for state government and private employers to make getting shots a condition of hiring. Already, the president of one of the largest senior care operators in the state, Hebrew SeniorLife, has said its facilities plan to require COVID vaccines for new employees later this spring when shots are more widely available. And Attorney General Maura Healey earlier this week suggested that public safety employees, such as State Police and prison workers, should be expected to...

Boulder shooter Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, no white supremacist he, just may have carried out his murderous grocery store massacre in retaliation for U.S. activities in the Middle East, including Joe Biden’s bombing of Syria little more than a month into his presidency. If so, he would be the latest in a line of Islamic terrorists who have tried to wreak revenge for our war on terror by slaughtering innocent Americans. On Feb. 25, a moth into his presidency, the Biden administration wagged the og and bombed Syru, conducting an airstrike that reportedly killed 22 Iran-backed fighters in an apparent...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi might as well have declared, “I am the Congress” with her latest remarks about the Iowa House seat that’s become another ‘stop the steal’ story for the 2020 cycle. She pretty much said she has the right to seat or unseat members of the House of Representatives regardless of the election result. The empress has spoken. Also, a tad creepy, huh? Iowa’s second congressional district race ended with Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks winning by literally a handful of votes. She was certified. She was seated, but her Democratic opponents, Rita Hart, wants the certification overturned...