Free Republic

This week, New Yorkers — who pride themselves on slinging the finest slices — found themselves dethroned and defeated in a shocking new ranking that gave its pizza a mere bronze medal. That’s according to Food & Wine Magazine‘s latest pizza report, which included a top 10 list of states where the pies reign supreme. Not only did New York place third, but its bitter rival, New Jersey, came in first. Adding insult to injury, Connecticut elbowed its way past the Empire State to claim second place. The Garden State’s official Twitter account trumpeted the news by sharing a Food...

More than a dozen House Republicans Friday are questioning Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on whether there "was any political interference" in the final census numbers used to decide how many House members each state will get for the coming decade… The Republican House members cited gaps between the number of House seats some right-leaning states were projected to gain -- or some left-leaning states were projected to lose -- and the final results announced this week. They told Raimondo, overseeing the Census Bureau, that they "have questions about the methodology and the role the Biden White House may have played...

High-tech new weapons are useful, but current military reform shortfalls hinder the PLA’s ability to employ such hardware.On March 3, Ryan Haas published an article in Foreign Affairs cautioning analysts and policymakers against adopting an exclusively alarmist attitude toward China. Such an alarmist attitude leads to increased anxiety among analysts and policymakers but is not based on the totality of the evidence. Haas speaks directly to how successful authoritarian regimes project strength while concealing weakness by controlling information leaving their borders. He argues that “policymakers in Washington must be able to distinguish between the image Beijing presents and the realities...

Sen. Joe Manchin on Friday said that he did not support the D.C. statehood bill, a blow to advocates pushing to make it the 51st state after the legislation passed the House last week."If Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment ... and let the people of America vote," the West Virginia Democrat told Hoppy Kercheval of West Virginia's MetroNews in a radio interview.

After my recent move to Arizona I am amazed at the night time sky. I am now looking for a decent telescope to study the Messier objects, planets and such. It appears that there are some great buys below $2,000 in the Schmidt Cassegrain field, even some Macs. Does anybody have any information they can give on this? I had an old 8" Newtonian, which was a royal pain to take anywhere.

Tourism Department has issued Everest permits to 377 individuals so far, and the number is expected to rise close to 400.Nepal has introduced a quota system setting the maximum number of climbers that will be permitted to make an attempt on Everest in a desperate measure to prevent overcrowding on the world’s tallest peak as the country braces for a record number of mountaineers this season beginning May. Issuing a directive on Wednesday, the Department of Tourism said a specified number of mountaineers, selected on the basis of their climbing permit numbers, would be allowed to make attempts at...

City officials in St. Louis, Missouri, are moving forward with a plan to cut $4 million from the police budget and remove 98 vacant officer jobs. The local Board of Estimate and Apportionment voted 2-1 in favor of the spending plan, which pledges to remove $4 million from the $171 million police budget and reallocate that money to social services, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. The plan, according to St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, is intended to “address the root causes of crime and support the victims of crime as well as those who have been underserved and...

Republican lawmakers are coming to the defense of Sen. Tim Scott after he faced a torrent of racist responses from some Democrats to his rebuttal to President Biden’s first address. Speaking to Fox News Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the smears against his GOP colleague “disgusting” before slamming Democrats and Twitter for allowing a racial slur to trend. “Tim is a good friend, and he understands the miracle of opportunity that is America, that there’s no nation in the history of the world that has enabled so many people to start with nothing and achieve the American dream,” the...

Rancher Whit Jones figures he's spent more than $30,000 since January fixing fences and gates, like this one, that human smugglers busted through in order to "bailout." John Burnett/NPR [snip]"They drive as far as they can on the property and tearing down fences as they drive. The car stops and everybody bails out of the car. So that's why they call it a bailout," Jones says.Cowboys on the Jones Ranch noticed a change as soon as the Biden administration came in and loosened immigration policies.When immigration policy changes in Washington, D.C., it's felt immediately on the Jones Ranch, located an...

Doesn't look like the Pfizer clinical trial for children is going well. Maybe this will encourage them to reconsider their plan to seek approval to vax children by June. "The landmark Pfizer-BioNTech Phase 3 clinical trial began in late July 2020, recruiting participants aged 12 and over. Close to three thousand participants were adolescents: 2,259 participants were between the ages of 12-15 and 754 participants were 16 and 17 years old." VAERS ID 1242573 15 year old male, vaccinated with Pfizer, died 4/20/2021, two days after vax. Adverse event description, heart failure Symptoms: cardiac failure, death VAERS ID 1243516 16...

SATAN IS ON THE MARCH: The Francis Court's “disturbing gallery of horrors”“Anybody who is acquainted with the state of affairs in the Vatican in the last 35 years is well aware that the prince of darkness has had and still has his surrogates in the court of St. Peter in Rome.” ~Malachi Martin 1996Scandal weary Catholics who disregard news of ongoing clerical sex abuse do so at the peril of the Catholic Church. Despite media campaigns that promise the clergy abuse scandal is “in the past” or “the Catholic Church is the safest place for children”, the harsh reality is...

It is unclear who paid for the attacks in the race which features 23 candidatesA mysterious robocall targeted the widow of the late Rep. Ron Wright, R-Texas with what her allies are calling a "criminal smear," accusing her of murdering her husband and claiming her campaign for Congress is a cover-up. Susan Wright is a candidate in the special election for Texas’ 6th Congressional District, where she is the frontrunner to replace her late husband. Her campaign learned of the robocalls accusing her of killing her spouse on Friday, one day before the primary election. The late congressman died in...

Direct Scheduling for Mass Vaccination Sites Begins Saturday, May 1 ANNAPOLIS, MD—With consistent improvements in key statewide health metrics and a fast pace of vaccinations, Governor Larry Hogan today lifted the outdoor mask mandate in Maryland and all restrictions for outdoor dining. The governor also announced that the state has entered a new phase of its vaccination campaign, moving to direct scheduling at mass vaccination sites and continuing to expand points of distribution. “As our vaccinations continue to expand and our health metrics continue to improve, we expect to be able to take additional actions in the weeks ahead and...

Former Obama health advisor says forged vaccination cards are 'a serious threat'Former Obama health advisor and Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel expressed his disappointment Friday in the Biden administration's decision not to implement a "QR code" based system to track those who haven't received a coronavirus vaccine. Emanuel cited concerns while appearing on MSNBC over potentially forged proofs of vaccination being used by people who weren't really vaccinated to attend events, travel, and return to work. Host Andrea Mitchell asked Emanuel how serious the threat of forged vaccination cards was. "I think it’s a serious threat. I think it's inevitable, and...

Former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid believes US defense contractor Lockheed Martin may have once had fragments of a crashed UFO in its possession, it was revealed Friday. Reid, 81, told The New Yorker that he had never actually seen proof of the remnants — but tried, unsuccessfully, to get approval from the Pentagon to find them. “I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials,” the Democrat told the magazine. “And I tried to get, as I recall, a classified approval by the Pentagon to have me go look at the stuff. They would not approve...

Employees of a vendor paid to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing in Pennsylvania may have compromised the private information of at least 72,000 people, including their exposure status and their sexual orientation, the state Health Department said Thursday. Workers at Atlanta-based Insight Global “disregarded security protocols established in the contract and created unauthorized documents” outside the state’s secure data system ... “We are extremely dismayed that employees from Insight Global acted in a way that may have compromised this type of information and sincerely apologize to all impacted individuals,” Ciccocioppo said. Insight Global acknowledged it mishandled sensitive data and apologized. The...

I am on the Board at a local dog club. We have many club members that are asking in classes or other occasions if other club members present are vaccinated. A few times I've been close by and said out loud "that is private medical information and you can't ask that" at which point the person usually sheepishly says they "were only kidding" (right!). One of the venue organizations that puts on trials locally recently put this out on their site: "Clubs, Judges and or Exhibitors are not permitted to require, determine eligibility, or ask about exhibitors' vaccinations in such...

A high-stakes fight over drug companies’ response to the coronavirus pandemic has split the Biden administration, with activists and progressives urging the White House to back an international petition to waive the companies’ patents — and some senior officials privately signaling they’re open to the idea. The debate has reignited decades-old tensions in global health, pitting such influential figures as Pope Francis, who backs the patent-waiver proposal, against philanthropist Bill Gates, who’s opposed. The proposal was discussed last week by Anthony S. Fauci, a top coronavirus adviser to President Biden, and Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, who spoke about...

Anne Arundel County has filed a lawsuit against more than two dozen fossil fuel companies over the costs of dealing with the fallout of climate change. “Filing this suit is about protecting our taxpayers and businesses from the growing fiscal impacts of climate change,” County Executive Steuart Pittman (D) said in a statement. “The damage inflicted by these companies damages our environment, and creates massive costs that shouldn’t be borne on the backs of our residents.” The lawsuit seeks to help Anne Arundel County recover damages from companies whose “decades of deception” is harming land and infrastructure in the county,...

Despite President Biden’s Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns testifying he cut ties to a Chinese Communist Party-linked influence group, The National Pulse can reveal the controversial relationship between the Carnegie Endowment – formerly led by Burns – and the Chinese Communist influence group continued through 2021. Burns became president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March 2015 and claimed, during Senate confirmation hearings, that he merely “inherited” the think tank’s longstanding relationship with the China-United States-Exchange Foundation (CUSEF). CUSEF is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, which seeks “to co-opt and neutralize sources...