Free Republic

Sarah Brunner opened the irrigation spigots on her farm in March, three months early. The rain should have still been falling in California. Now that summer is taking hold, she and her husband are considering shifting their meager water supplies into pastures so their animals will have enough to eat. Brunner’s worries don’t stop at the barnyard. The family’s fields of shallots, garlic and goats are surrounded by thick Northern California forests, dried out and primed to burn. An early season wildfire near her home recently prompted Brunner to document her possessions and reevaluate her fire insurance. “I don’t feel...

With COVID-19 cases falling in many parts of the world and vaccination programs ramping up at warp speed, international travel no longer seems like a distant dream.The Henley Passport Index, which has been regularly monitoring the world’s most travel-friendly passports since 2006, has released its latest rankings and analysis.Visual Capitalist's Anshool Deshmukh details below that the most recent data provides insight into what travel freedom will look like in a post-pandemic world as countries selectively begin to open their borders to international visitors.Prominent Countries Still Holding StrongThe rankings are based on the visa-free score of a particular country. A visa-free...

I'm somewhat familiar with the leftist environment in the Pacific Northwest large cities, but wanted a perspective from the ground. Some good friends of mine who owned and operated a restaurant near me for the past decade are relocating from Texas to the Seattle area for his job. They are great, conservative, Christian emigrants from Africa (here most of their lives from childhood) who do not subscribe in the least to the racist rhetoric of the left. I think they could weather the political climate themselves, due to some solid founding in biblical values, but my concern is for their...

Social distancing measures costing some businesses over 40 per cent of their normal turnover.. England is set to drop all face mask rules on July 19th after it was revealed that keeping such restrictions in place is costing the economy billions and will force many businesses to close. “The requirement to wear facemasks on public transport and in shops will be replaced with guidance advising people to wear masks in certain circumstances, rather than compelling them,” reports the Times. The decision follows the findings of an internal economic impact assessment produced by the government’s Events Research Programme which detailed the...

Tsukumo No. 24. (Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Kyoto University) ================================================================================== The risk of death from an encounter with a shark may be grossly exaggerated in popular culture, but that's likely small consolation to a man who lived and died 3,000 years ago. His remains now represent the oldest known shark victim ever found. According to an analysis of his bones, the man had a particularly nasty meeting with one of the marine predators, in the Seto Inland Sea of the Japanese archipelago. Nearly 800 wounds scored his skeleton, none of which showed any signs of healing - suggesting, strongly, that...

The end of slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment should be heralded as the most important anti-racism day in American history. It was the biggest step towards the equality of opportunity we have in America today, a step that was absolutely necessary for any other race advancements in America’s history to take place.Despite this, Democrats have taken “Juneteenth” to be the day they celebrate the fight against racism. This makes absolutely zero sense until we take a look at the politics behind the history. Dinesh D’Souza did just that in a Tweet on the new national holiday.“Democrats prefer...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn't just cause enduring damage to the lungs and the heart. A large number of patients who contract COVID-19 also report long-lasting neurological issues, including brain fog, memory loss, difficulty concentrating, hallucinations, headaches, and loss of smell or taste. More than a year into the pandemic, scientists are still trying to figure out why. While some initial autopsies have found small signs of the virus within our brains, other autopsies have turned up nothing of significance. Even if the SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn't directly infiltrate our noggins, or does so rarely, some scientists think its presence in the...

Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Republican Utah Senator Mitt Romney have announced that a bipartisan group of senators has reportedly reached a "framework" deal for Democratic President Joe Biden's infrastructure spending bill. The group is expected to discuss the deal with Biden on Thursday. "We came to an agreement on a plan that we have and we're just going to try to wrap it up tomorrow," Manchin told reporters. While full details of the proposal have not yet been released, the $1.2 trillion plan was created by a bipartisan group of 21 senators known as the "G-21." The...

Texas has joined another multistate coalition defending Second Amendment rights, this time asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down California’s assault weapons ban in the case of Miller v. Bonta. California is appealing a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who ruled that the state’s 1989 ban violates the Second Amendment. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the ruling was “a direct threat to public safety and innocent Californians.” But in his 94-page ruling, Benitez wrote that the California law “bans an entire class of very popular hardware – firearms that are lawful under federal law and...

Firebrands FirstThe political necessity of fighting spirit In Tales of the Hasidim, a collection of vignettes and folktales collected in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, the great Jewish theologian Martin Buber tells a story of a 18th century Hasidic rabbi: A Hasid complained to Rabbi Wolf that certain persons were turning night into day playing cards. “That is good,” said the Zaddik [holy man]. “Like all people they want to serve God and don’t know how. But they are learning to stay awake and persist in doing something. When they have become perfect at this all they need...

Something strange is afoot in the party of Jefferson. With the Democrats still spinning after the collapse of their election bill — and progressives furious with the White House’s seeming lack of commitment to that effort — the president has already pivoted, announcing a plan to tackle the violent crime wave besetting American cities.And the vice president? She’s on her way to the border, 91 days, two countries, and countless laughs after it was first assigned by the boss.Some might notice that cracking down on rampant crime and tackling a crisis at the border were not topics of discussion when...

Don’t expect Texas to have a single style of barbecue. That would be like French winemakers hawking a single grape varietal. Like Champagne, Central Texas brisket might be our most recognized brand and most popular export, but we’ve got plenty more to offer. Barbecue changes pretty significantly across the state. It is 857 miles from Orange to El Paso, after all. . For your Lone Star barbecue tour, bring along cash, just in case. There are still plenty of rural joints that don’t take kindly to plastic, and no decent barbecue hound would pull out a credit card for a...

The death of Apple Daily marks the end of Hong Kong's free press, and the west must ask: is it wise to continue empowering the CCP's destruction of values we cherish?The Chinese Communist Party and pro-Beijing Hong Kong authorities forced Apple Daily, the last pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, to cease operation this week. The death of Apple Daily marks the end of a free press in Hong Kong, once one of the freest places on the planet.Founded By a Refugee of CommunismThe newspaper was founded 26 years ago by outspoken Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai. Born in mainland China,...

A report to Congress from the Pentagon and various intelligence agencies about sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by military personnel is scheduled to be made public shortly. The report reportedly concludes that some of the UFOs are likely real objects whose nature cannot be assessed with any confidence. [snip] The possibility that the Pentagon UFOs are human-made can potentially be excluded by identifying behavior that cannot be reproduced by our most advanced equipment. We know our technological limits because any advance that goes well beyond them would have introduced major commercial or military benefits and would have been represented...

The ‘Party of Science’ Can’t Do Math The Maricopa County election audit is necessary and there’s no legitimate logical reason for anyone to oppose it. The Democrats can pretend to be the “party of science” but one thing is for sure: they are definitely not the party of math.The 2020 election has been and likely will continue to be a point of great contention among Americans in all 50 states. Even as a young American born during the Clinton Administration, I’ve noticed a skyrocketing spike in partisan strife between ordinary Americans. In the past few years alone, we’ve watched the...

National Guardsmen just completed a two-week training exercise which saw them respond to a simulated cyberattack that took out critical utilities across the United States. The exercises have become an annual event, but this year took on even more significance after coming on the heels of several major ransomware and cyber attacks that crippled large parts of American infrastructure in recent months. The exercises were part of the seventh Cyber Yankee, an training event that brings together guardsmen from throughout the New England region to test their responses against simulated cyberattacks. This year’s exercises simulated a cyber attack that targeted...

As a young woman working in both Republican politics and the environmental space, I’ve heard time and time again that the GOP supports neither women nor climate action. Yet, in my decade of working in the conservative movement, I’ve found the GOP increasingly disproves this and other stereotypes. In fact, just this week, Maggie’s List, a PAC founded specifically to elect conservative women, announced 2022 endorsements that showcase a GOP fueled by powerful, intelligent women. Let’s begin by taking a look at the record number of GOP women winning seats and inspiring future women in leadership positions. A total of...

During a portion of an interview with theGrio released on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated that Republicans are blocking federal election legislation “Because they can’t win any other way. They can’t win any other way. So, they have to suppress the vote.” And compared the situation to the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War. TheGrio D.C Bureau Chief April Ryan said, “The reality, you just brought up the Republicans, Mitch McConnell is leading the effort saying, no, no, no to voting rights.”

It has been a week of staggering home prices increase news which has seen the median existing home price surge to a record $350,000…… up a whopping 24% from a year ago…… while today we learned that the median new home price surged 18%, also to a record $374,400 (the average selling price was also a record $430,600)…… the result being a collapse in homebuyer sentiment…… leading to a sharp slowdown in actual sale transactions, as the soaring prices start to adversely impact the broader market.Remarkably summing up what’s going on in the housing market, veteran housing analyst Ivy Zelman...

Dr. Robert Malone, the “inventor of mRNA vaccines,” told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that a broadcast of a podcast he did discussing his concerns with the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube.Carlson argued Malone “has a right to speak,” even if it’s contrary to what NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci is saying."[O]ne of my concerns are that the government is not being transparent with us about what those risks are. And so, I am of the opinion that people have the right to decide whether to accept vaccines or not," Malone said of the vaccines, noting that they...