Free Republic

The Golden State has consistently gone blue in every presidential election spanning from 1992 through 2020. ================================================================================= The Supreme Court has declined to hear a lawsuit regarding the constitutionality of California's winner-take-all method for choosing presidential electors. "Petitioners are two California Republicans and two non-profit organizations who have alleged their votes for President and Vice President are diluted by California's use of the so-called winner-take-all system," the petition said. "That system, by law, results in the appointment of members of only one political party to the Nation's largest electoral college delegation." Among the petitioners are actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez...

For more than a century, the United States was home to the best college and university system in the world. High-potential students from all across the globe came here to study. Many stayed after graduating and used their education to benefit America. During this time, few institutions contributed more to America's prosperity, quality of life and technological superiority than the academy. Unfortunately, over time, higher education in America has changed, and not for the better. The academy is in decline because it is suffering from self-inflicted wounds. Too many of our colleges and universities have become "woke" institutions governed by...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Sunday that he and President Biden hadn't reached a deal about lifting coronavirus border restrictions after discussing the matter. Trudeau said during a press conference that he spoke with Biden about lifting the ban on nonessential travel between the U.S. and Canada. The restrictions were imposed in March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both U.S. and Canadian business leaders have complained about the border restrictions, which lowered tourist travel between the two countries, affecting Canadian businesses and airlines that depend on tourism, Reuters noted. Trudeau said Canada needs more of...

Officials today would not disclose why three missile-armed Hawaii Air National Guard F-22 fighters were scrambled Sunday afternoon for an “irregular air patrol” requested by the Federal Aviation Administration. “The 154th Fighter Wing launched two F-22 Raptors from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam at approximately 4 p.m.,” Pacific Air Forces said in an email. “A third was launched at approximately 5 p.m.” The Hickam-based Air Force command added that the FAA requested that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command “conduct an irregular air patrol and the situation resolved, prompting the fighters and a KC-135 Stratotanker (a refueling plane) to return to base. We cannot...

“Cancel culture” has claimed many victims this year. Actress Gina Carano was fired from the hit Disney+ series The Mandalorian for then-recent comments she made on social media. Meanwhile, Teen Vogue’s brand-new editor Alexi McCammond had to immediately resign for social media posts from a decade earlier when she herself was a teenager. Books by Dr. Seuess have been pulled from shelves for questionably insensitive content, and even queen of nice Ellen DeGeneres found herself in the crosshairs for apparently not actually being nice all the time to employees.

Production on the series originally paused on June 2, when the studio was made aware that a crew member had tested positive for giardia. (According to The Wrap, as many as 40 crew members were ultimately affected by the parasite, leaving people "collapsing" on set due to "awful explosive diarrhea" and "being forced to run into port-o-potties." ) Working with L.A. and Ventura County Health Departments, NBCUniversal employed a third-party environmental lab to run tests on the location's water source and determined that it was negative for giardia. However, additional testing conducted on June 10 turned up positive tests in...

A San Jose community is in limbo and left wondering if their personal information, credit cards, and other packages are in the hands of a thief. That's because last week a surveillance camera captured someone clearing out a postal truck near the Evergreen community. The United States postal inspector is asking for the public's help to capture the suspect committing what they said is a very serious federal crime. Surveillance video from Sturla Drive shows a man, who is not a postal service employee, opening the sliding back door of a mail truck. He then brings in a woman, and...

Right now, Donald J. Trump’s opponents can’t quite believe what they’re seeing. Just a few short months ago, the “Swamp” denizens of Washington were breathing sighs of relief. They had done it! They had defeated the awful Trump, handed the White House to Joe Biden, and could now begin implementing all their cherished plans for a post-Trump America. And then an amazing thing happened. A twice-impeached former president who had supposedly incited an “insurrection” at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 has returned—and he’s looking stronger than ever. On the night of Saturday, June 5, Trump emerged to give only...

The Group of Seven pledged to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. World leaders at the G7 Summit this past week agreed to cut in half greenhouse gas emissions 2030 and by next year stop the funding of some coal production overseas. However, they declined to agree on a deadline for using coal as electricity to slow climate change. The G7 nations, which collectively produce about a quarter of the world’s climate pollution, also declined to pledge significant new funding to help developing countries manage the impact of climate change and move away from burning oil, gas...

Some pastries are so scrumptious that nothing will deter fans from tearing into one—not even giving it an off-putting name. The French-Canadian pet de soeur (“sister’s fart”) is no exception. Québécois often bake the flaky spirals of dough during holidays. The pastry, glazed in butter, brown sugar, and occasionally cinnamon, pays crass homage to the nuns who first made it, and it’s significantly tastier than the title implies. Regarding its name, explanations abound. Some say it stems from the sound the dough makes as it’s being fried in oil. Others tell tales of one nun’s fart causing such hysterical laughter...

The best, imo

Though the coronavirus devastated the entire travel industry, cruising took a particularly brutal blow. After years of steady passenger growth and cruise lines competing with each other to launch the biggest and most elaborate ships, suddenly the industry went full astern. Ships like the Diamond Princess and the Grand Princess were major coronavirus hotspots, with passengers being locked in their staterooms as the disease spread quickly. Some countries also refused to let ships dock, leaving passengers stranded onboard for days. It was enough for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue a No Sail Order on March 14,...

A river of whiskey flowing freely through the Irish streets. There's just one problem - the whole thing is on fire. "The Dublin Whiskey Fire took place on the 18th of June, 1875 in the Liberties area of Dublin City. It lasted a single night but killed 13 people, and resulted in €6 million worth of damage in whiskey alone (adjusted for inflation), None of the fatalities suffered during the fire were due to smoke inhalation, burns, or any other form of direct contact with the fire itself, but from alcohol poisoning after drinking from the 6-inch (15.24 cm) deep...

Cops appear to do nothing amid a drive-by shooting in Atlanta as residents of the wealthy Buckhead area say it's a warzone and demand to secede. Video shows people lining up near a dark-colored van parked on the side of the road. A white car passes by and shots ring out with one going straight through the dark van striking a passersby and sending people scrambling. A few seconds later blue lights could be seen reflecting off the windshield of the black van symbolizing police cars passing by and not stopping at the scene in the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood. Bill...

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Karl Marx's comment came to mind as President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to equate their tete-a-tete at the G7 confab in Cornwall, England, to the Atlantic Charter conference of 80 years ago. Those were historic days, to which these days cannot compare. In August 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt met secretly on warships off Newfoundland to confer and commit to a set of principles that were to govern the world after the defeat of a then-triumphant Nazism. Aboard HMS Prince of Wales,...

Luis Elizondo told the Washington Examiner that the U.S. government has intelligence-analysis predicated reason to further investigate whether these UFOs are indeed not of Earthly origin. It matters because Elizondo says these UFOs (what the government refers to as "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena"/UAPs) are not believed to be of Earth nation origin. Instead, Elizondo says it is a credible line of government inquiry that these UFOs are "extraterrestrial, extra-dimensional," or the creation of an Earth-based intelligence entirely unknown to our human society. Elizondo says it is "nothing more than an infinitesimally small possibility" that these extraordinary UFOs are of either U.S.,...

Walker, who previously served as the No. 4 House Republican, has pinned blame on Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina, saying that a year-old disagreement between Meadows and himself had factored into the endorsement. “My first thought — it was that Mark Meadows had orchestrated this whole event,” Walker told the USA Today Network over the weekend. He said that his endorsement last year of Rep. Madison Cawthorn over a Meadows family friend in the House race for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District had caused “friction” with Trump’s former chief of staff.

Almost exactly a year ago, race riots paralyzed more than a dozen of America's great cities, from New York to Seattle. The smoke hasn't gone away. As we should have learned from the last episode of urban rioting during the late 1960s, the devastating adverse effects from rage and lawlessness are long-lasting and borne mostly by minorities, immigrant communities and the poor. Amazingly, the media had rarely investigated what really happened last summer when criminal gangs seized control of cities under the guise of racial justice. The politicians cynically celebrated the violent protests as "mostly peaceful" and gave cover to...

Several hundred thousand votes that were counted in Maricopa County, Arizona are associated with missing ballots, according to an audit organizer who is speaking regularly with people on the audit floor. “We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,” Josh Barnett, an audit organizer who led the affidavit drive to make the audit happen, tells NATIONAL FILE. “It looks like a couple hundred thousand ballots are unaccounted for. The ballots are missing.” “I also know that there were boxes filled with blank ballots in those pallets. There were blanks in there,” Barnett said, citing...

The Pentagon is to start training for service members leaving the military to prevent them being radicalized by violent extremists, as part of the country's first domestic terrorism strategy due to be unveiled on Tuesday. It follows a review that found the most dangerous elements of the threat today come from white supremacists and anti-government extremists. The strategy includes $100 million for the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for analysts, prosecutors and investigators.