Free Republic

Auditors hired by the Arizona state Senate backtracked Tuesday from claims that a key database had been deleted from Maricopa County's elections servers -- admitting in a hearing held by the Senate Republicans overseeing the audit that the data is intact and they'd been looking the wrong way...But, Maricopa County officials explained and auditors acknowledged Tuesday, those conducting the audit had made a technical mistake and the database was never deleted...RAID arrays, used in enterprise servers, are designed for redundancy: They split data among multiple hard drives in a way that allows the data stored on those drives to be...

From April 29 to May 3, Rasmussen Reports and The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank, conducted a nationwide survey of 2,000 likely voters. From April 29 to May 3, Rasmussen Reports and The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank, conducted a nationwide survey of 2,000 likely voters. Included in the poll was a series of questions asking likely voters how they receive news and information, as well as questions about a variety of topics in the news: the U.S. national debt, the percentage of Americans without health coverage, and tax rates paid by wealthy individuals and families....

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama judge who handles domestic relations cases used fake social media accounts to harass people with cases before her, verbally abused office workers and lawyers and showed signs of drug use and mental instability, state judicial investigators alleged. A complaint against Jefferson County Circuit Judge Nakita Blocton by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which charged her with violating multiple rules of judicial ethics, also claimed she took an inordinate amount of time to dispose of cases. Blocton has been temporarily removed from duty and denied allegations that include multiple improper communications through Facebook detailed in the...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie threw some shade at former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley over remarks she made about whether or not she would run for president in 2024. Last month, Haley was asked if she would support former President Trump if he threw his hat in the ring, which she said "yes," but also made clear that she would not launch a GOP primary bid against him. "I would not run if President Trump ran and I would talk to him about it," Haley told the Associated Press. "That’s something that we will have a conversation about...

Pope Francis Appoints Fellow Jesuit as New Bishop of Hong KongROME — Pope Francis has appointed Jesuit Father Stephen Chow Sau-yan to be the new Bishop of the Diocese of Hong Kong as the latest elevation of members of his order to positions of influence.Father Chow, who currently serves as the Provincial of the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus, will replace Cardinal John Tong Hon, who has served as the Apostolic Administrator of Hong Kong since January 2019.In naming Chow to occupy this important and controversial post, Pope Francis has continued his penchant for appointing members of his...

“Black dwarf supernovae”. They sound quite dramatic! And indeed, they may be the last really exciting events in the Universe.It’s too early to be sure. There could be plenty of things about astrophysics we don’t understand yet—and intelligent life may throw up surprises even in the very far future. But there’s a nice scenario here:• M. E. Caplan, Black dwarf supernova in the far future, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 497 (2020), 4357–4362.First, let me set the stage. What happens in the short run: say, the first 1023 years or so?For a while, galaxies will keep colliding. These...

Newly released home surveillance footage captured the shocking moments that a teen allegedly abducted a 4-year-old from his Texas bedroom — before the child was found dead in the street. The video, obtained and published by The Daily Mail, allegedly shows suspect Darriynn Brown, 18, breaking into Cash Gernon’s bedroom around 5 a.m. Saturday morning and taking the boy, who had been sleeping next to his twin brother. He appears to momentarily hesitate before picking up Cash, and leaving the room. Less than two hours later, Cash was stabbed to death with what police called an “edged weapon,” and his...

Several polling locations in York County ran out of ballots Tuesday, county spokesman Mark Walters confirmed Tuesday night. “It’s, unfortunately, something that’s happened before, but it’s something that we take very seriously and are certainly apologetic for,” Walters said. With a little over 30 minutes left in voting, Walters said anyone who is in line at 8 p.m., when polls close, will be allowed to vote. Replacement ballots were sent to at least 5 polling locations that ran out. Walters didn’t have a list of affected polling locations but said two of them were Eastern York High School, which is...

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is leading a campaign to plant 6 billion trees across the country this year. It forms part of his ‘’Green Legacy’’ project to promote eco-tourism and combat the effects of climate change. The initiative highlights his focus on the environment ahead of the elections. At the launch in a meeting hall filled with freshly watered seedlings Tuesday, Abiy encouraged Ethiopians to plant billions of trees.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge plans to spent $5 billion under President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) to fund 70,000 housing vouchers for homeless people between now and 2030. “While most of us spent more time in our homes than we ever have, more than half a million Americans had to spend the last year either in crowded shelters or sleeping outside,” Fudge said in announcing the program.

Last month, at least 50,000 people fled the Mozambican town of Palma following an Islamist attack on the town that left dozens of people dead. It took the Mozambique army supported by a private military contractor nearly two weeks to reclaim the town. An Amnesty International report released on Thursday said White contractors were given priority over local Black people during a rescue operation at a hotel in Palma when the attacks by an armed group known locally as al-Shabab began in March. The report compiled accounts of 11 Black civilians who were present at the Amarula Hotel during evacuation....

President Biden on Tuesday praised as a “fighter” Israel critic Rep. Rashida Tlaib — a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement who once tweeted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — following his call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden and the Palestinian-American congresswoman engaged in what appeared at times to be a tense eight-minute chat on the tarmac of Detroit’s airport before he praised her at a nearby Ford facility, which he toured wearing an anti-COVID-19 mask pursuant to company policy, a White House official said. Biden three times referred to “Rashid” Tlaib...

Michigan’s 13th District Judge Kevin A. Elsenheimer made a big decision today about whether the 2020 election voter fraud case can move forward in the courts. 100 Percent Fed Up reports – Matt DePerno, the attorney for William Bailey, the plaintiff in the Antrim County election fraud case, was dealt a big blow today when Judge Elsenheimer squashed the lawsuit. DePerno has worked tirelessly to gather evidence of voter fraud. DePerno has uncovered multiple ways in which the election results could have been manipulated or compromised in the November 2020 election. ... Judge Elsenheimer ruled that Michigan’s dishonest Secretary of...

"El Paso" is a western ballad written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins, and first released on Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs in September, 1959. It was released as a single the following month, and became a major hit on both the country and pop music charts, reaching No. 1 in both at the start of 1960. It won the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1961, and remains Robbins' best-known song. Robbins wrote two songs that are explicit sequels to "El Paso", "Feleena" in 1966, and "El Paso City" 1976. Marty Robbins - "El Paso" (1959)

America has come to the point where baby animals are treated with more dignity and respect than baby humans. In Colorado, for example, a five-week-old bald eaglet died last week after the tree it was living in split down the middle, according to CBS Denver. Local news outlets noted the baby bird’s death and mentioned plans for its funeral. Meanwhile, this same state allows unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to birth. The hundreds of viable, late-term babies who are killed there every year never make the news, and few mourn their deaths. In the case of...

The House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday to address the increase in hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, clearing the legislation for President Biden to sign. The COVID–19 Hate Crimes Act passed by a 364-62 vote; all 62 votes against the bill were from Republicans. The Senate approved the legislation last month. A rise in COVID-19 cases, the first instances of which were reported in China, has been linked to an increase in attacks on Asian Americans. Democrats have pointed to former President Donald Trump's frequent use of racist phrases such as "kung flu"...

Voting Machines in Pennsylvania County Rejecting Ballots… but Only REPUBLICAN Ballots A judge of elections in Fayette City, Pennsylvania, thought he was going to have a challenging election day when reports started coming in that some ballots were being rejected by the voting machines. But it quickly turned from being a minor headache to the potential for a major scandal after he learned that it wasn’t just his city that was being affected. The entire county was having issues. To make it worse, it wasn’t all of the ballots that were being rejected. A certain type of ballot was being...

Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan of Georgia on Monday announced that he won’t seek a second term in office in next year’s elections. Duncan, a vocal critic of former President Trump’s repeated efforts to reverse his razor-thin November election defeat in battleground Georgia to now-President Biden, said he’ll serve out his remaining 19 months in office but would also begin work toward "healing and rebuilding a Republican Party that is damaged but not destroyed." "It always feels coldest right before the sun rises," Duncan said in a statement that he released on Twitter. "I believe that is the exact moment...

Due to disastrous lagging sales for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's book, an incentive is going to be offered to buyers of Cuomo's new book. Although the book deal is a thinly disguised laundered money bribe and payoff, a minimum number of books need to be sold to keep the appearance of legitimacy of the book deal. To date, only a limited number of sketchy buyers have opted to purchase the book. To entice the larger number of sketchy buyers the publisher has purchased 100 puppies to be raffled off to the buyers of the book. Each book buyer will receive one...

There is an extraordinary column in the Washington Post from Glenn Kessler on a key figure in past coverage on the removal of Confederate statues. The Post ran a widely cited article on how Robert E. Lee’s own descendant wanted the general’s statues to be removed. The problem is that no one at the Post appears to have actually checked to see if Rev. Robert W. Lee was an actual descendant. It now appears that he is not, according to Kessler.