Free Republic

State legislators are advancing measures meant to bar public schools from using Native American mascots in the wake of a spotlight cast by the Washington Football Team's decision to drop its derogatory former name. Lawmakers in Colorado and Nevada last month passed bills to bar public schools from adopting Native American mascots. They followed Washington state, where lawmakers approved a similar ban earlier this year. Lawmakers in Connecticut and Massachusetts have measures pending later this year. Before this year, Maine was the only state to have barred schools from using Native American mascots under a 2019 measure signed into law...

The Lancet on July 5 published a statement reasserting that there is no "scientifically validated evidence" to suggest COVID-19 escaped from a lab, signed mostly by the same team of scientists who dismissed the lab-leak hypothesis in a February 2020 statement. But the new statement is missing three signatories from the original one, including William Karesh, who has ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Karesh is the executive vice president for health policy at EcoHealth Alliance, the group that was funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab with grants from the National Institutes for Health. EcoHealth's president, Peter Daszak,...

NASA and Northrop Grumman of Dulles, Virginia, have finalized a contract to develop the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) for Gateway, which will be a critical way station and outpost in orbit around the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program. NASA and its commercial and international partners are building Gateway to support science investigations and enable surface landings at the Moon, which will help prepare astronauts for future missions to Mars. The firm, fixed-price contract is valued at $935 million. Under the contract, Northrop Grumman will be responsible for attaching and testing the integrated HALO with the Power and...

Activist group Indecline has claimed responsibility for hanging a banner that declares “God Bless Abortions” over the statue of Christ of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas News reported Friday. According to the report, which contains photos of the banner being hung: Guerilla art collective Indecline said in a press release that it is responsible for a “God Bless Abortions” banner hanging across the 67-foot statue of Jesus located atop Magnetic Mountain. The group calls the banner a piece of protest art in “direct response to the dramatic attempts being made in Arkansas and throughout the South, to...

A team from the University of Ottawa, in Ontario, Canada, says its Risk Evaluation for Support: Predictions for Elder-Life in the Community Tool (RESPECT) can accurately project death within six months. Researchers based the tool on data from more than 491,000 elderly people who received home care between 2007 and 2013. The team says its tool is undergoing a pilot study in community settings in Ontario and hopes that physicians and home care staff use the calculator to help them understand the care their patients may need. Researchers say the tool focuses on older adults who use or need home...

How much does climate change* actually affect GDP? How much will currently-envisioned climate policies reduce that damage, and thereby raise GDP? As we prepare to spend trillions and trillions of dollars on climate change, this certainly seems like the important question that economists should have good answers for. I'm looking in to what anyone actually knows about these questions. The answer is surprisingly little, and it seems a ripe area for research. This post begins a series. I haven't gotten deep in this issue before, because of a set of overriding facts and logical problems. I don't see how these...

As the Biden Border Crisis continues with no end in sight, Senate Democrats are working around the clock to inject amnesty into a massive spending bill they are selling as an “infrastructure package.” The bill is slated is to be advanced through the little-known budget reconciliation process, which allows the party in power to pass legislation related to the budget with only a simple majority, bypassing the traditional 60 vote threshold. However, the budget reconciliation process has complex requirements, and it is not certain that the Senate parliamentarian would agree to including amnesty. The amnesty push accelerated when Senate Budget...

The book, Not My Idea by Anastasia Higginbotham, features a demonic-looking figure that offers a 'whiteness contract' The contract grants 'stolen land and riches' to anyone who signs it, but it will 'mess endlessly' with the lives of loved ones and all people of color Corlears School in Manhattan, which charges $55,000 a year tuition for pre-K to fifth grade students, has recommended the book for children over 8 years old Anti-critical race theory activist Chris Rufo identified 31 public school districts or individual schools that promote the book in some fashion The controversial book is the subject of a...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that the situation in Afghanistan had a tendency to swiftly deteriorate and said Moscow was ready to defend its regional allies if necessary. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday told Emomali Rakhmon, the president of Tajikistan, that Moscow would help the impoverished former Soviet republic contend with the fallout from NATO's exit from neighbouring Afghanistan if needed. Rakhmon has ordered the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists to bolster his country's border with Afghanistan after more than 1,000 Afghan security personnel fled across the frontier in response to Taliban militant advances. Lavrov, speaking...

President Biden will direct federal agencies on Friday to rein in the high cost of hearing aids and crack down on hidden fees from airlines and internet providers as part of a package of what administration officials say are pro-consumer moves. The White House said just four companies control 84% of the hearing-aid market and a pair, on average, costs $5,000.Mr. Biden wants to make hearing aids available over the counter, saying it will spur competition and decrease prices.

(President Trump's Operation Warp Speed Update) (New Cases rose over 26K on this report, highest in six weeks, in a quick jump - Hospitalizations slightly rising, Deaths still low - Vaccination slow but steady on this report - Delta Variant is now the dominant strain in the USA, over 80% in four States) Total Vaccine Doses Delivered: 386,058,070 (21,434,300 J&J) Administered: 332,966,409 (12,751,618 J&J) People Vaccinated, At Least One Dose: 183,542,871 Fully Vaccinated: 158,629,431

Biden’s Anti-BudgetThe President seeks a larger government, not a larger economy.Media outlets on both the left and right have paid remarkably little attention to the Biden budget. It’s true that it contains all the usual numerical and analytical density that make budget analysis so impenetrable, but the Biden budget deserves attention for the unprecedented direction it clearly intends to take the country.Biden plans to enlarge Washington’s role in the economy to new levels, not as an emergency measure but fundamentally and permanently. Even more unsettlingly, the Biden budget planners seek no economic growth either from the ambitious programs the White...

Oracle Films recently produced an interview with Professor Sucharit Bhakdi in collaboration with Oval Media in Germany, for an upcoming documentary.As an aside to the interview, Dr. Bhakdi emphasised the urgent need to share the following information that has emerged from new scientific literature.PLEASE take the time to process this presentation. Dr. Bhakdi explains clearly, based on new scientific evidence, why he believes:- Your immune system is your best defence against SARS-CoV-2, and indeed all coronaviruses.- If you have been infected, even if you experienced no symptoms at all, you are immune to all variants.- We have already reached herd...

A University of Chicago student blasted Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday for her “blatant lie” that crime was plummeting — just days after a fellow student was killed by a stray bullet on the train. Audrey Unverferth, a rising senior, said she’s lost confidence in Lightfoot following the violence that besieged Chicago over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. “Lori Lightfoot had the nerve recently to say that crime in Chicago is on the decline — that’s a blatant lie,” Unverferth told “Fox & Friends.” “Crime is not on the decline. Homicide and shooting rates are up and as we’ve...

The Biden administration will ease restrictions placed on undocumented people who are pregnant, postpartum or nursing, the latest change in its broader efforts to soften immigration detention policies put in place by former President Donald J. Trump. Under the new policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers generally will not detain or arrest people who are pregnant or nursing, or who had a baby within the previous year, according to a draft of the plan shared with The New York Times and a person familiar with the policy. The language in the policy will be gender neutral, acknowledging that transgender men...

This morning, Arizona State Senator Kelly Townsend informed us on how to protect ourselves against Vaccine Nazis. I have spoken to local law enforcement and if you don't want the Federal government on your property asking about vaccines, they advise you to post a no trespassing sign in a visible location. This is a prerequisite to be able to charge someone for being there against your will.

(Washington, D.C.) Today, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has decided to introduce legislation banning fireworks nationwide since they are an obvious, blatant, in your face expression of support for all things Trump. Said an insider: “After studying the subject, AOC has decided to introduce in the near future, legislation that will ban the manufacture, sale, transport or possession of fireworks of any and all types in all 50 states and territories since they are expressions of all things Trump.” “We know that at the previous presidents inauguration, he enjoyed watching a waste of taxpayers money to the tune of millions and his...

Police in Florida released bodycam video of a fatal officer-involved shooting over July Fourth weekend that shows a man pointing a gun at an officer before being shot. The incident happened just after 10 p.m. Sunday when Tampa police responded to a call about a fight near the 3700 block of Temple Street, where one man was reportedly armed with a gun, the Tampa Police Department said. Officer Bryan Velazquez, 33, shot John Reuben Turbe Jr. when Turbe raised a gun at the officer during a foot chase, police said. Turbe, 40, died at a hospital. Tampa police released about...

(CNN)As the world's top athletes head into the Tokyo Olympics, a wave of penalizations and criticism are shedding light onto how Black women in sports are treated. In recent weeks, the governing body for aquatic sports refused to approve the use of a swimming cap designed to accommodate natural Black hair during international competitions. A US Olympic hammer thrower was also criticized for protesting during the playing of the national anthem and two Namibian sprinters were ruled ineligible to compete in a race due to naturally high testosterone levels. Those incidents, experts say, show how sports policies don't necessarily...

Barry Diller made his name in the film industry as the chairman and CEO of two Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures and what was then 20th Century Fox. Now, he is declaring the industry dead."The movie business is over," Diller said in an exclusive interview with NPR on the sidelines of the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, a media and technology conference in Idaho. "The movie business as before is finished and will never come back."Yes, that has to do with a substantial decline in ticket sales and the closure of movie theaters during the coronavirus pandemic. But Diller, the...