Free Republic

All of the problems that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is facing today come from fundamental structural factors that can’t be resolved. This is its biggest crisis.Western countries also encounter issues, but under their democratic form of government, there are solutions. Whether it is fast or slow, deep or shallow, democracies can mitigate conflicts and ultimately redress the balance. However, the CCP’s problems require rectification to bring order out of chaos.Rigidly adhering to communism is the CCP’s major structural problem. As proven by history, communism is wishful thinking. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the communist...

I was just reminiscing over palmtops, becuase in some limited ways, they had their charm over cellphones and I found a site where you can still buy a modernized one.

CARY, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Cary couple is mystified by their current situation. Joy McGrael and her husband, Brent Eischen, are both sick and dealing with COVID-19, even though they're both fully vaccinated. "I was definitely shocked and disappointed. I was like 'Darn, I thought I'm doing everything right,'" McGrael said. She has a cough, can't smell or taste. "I keep going around and picking up candles and seeing if I can smell them," McGrael said. Eischen got COVID first last week. "I was just shocked -- thought I was one of these unlucky people," he said. The couple took...

One of the recurring mantras heard at America’s News Leader, CNN, is how Fox News is fueling anti-vaccine sentiments. Their desire to smear their rival is so entrenched that in the past weeks, as more on-air personalities at Fox have encouraged vaccinations, Brian Stelter and others in the press have still scorched the network…for doing the very thing they have accused them of not doing.Yet as this mentality is continuing to be sold on the air at CNN on a daily basis there is something lacking in their strident opinion — evidence. While the desire to impugn Fox as the...

Last week the CDC issued a notification titled “Lab Alert: Changes to CDC RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 Testing” via its Laboratory Outreach Communication System regarding COVID-19 testing — and managed to confuse everyone in the process. In the statement, CDC reported that they were withdrawing their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) request to the FDA for their CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, and suggested anyone using this test switch to one of the many viable and FDA-approved alternatives. In short, there are a number of tests out on the market now with FDA authorization, and there really is no need to...

The chief executive of the company that makes Marlboro cigarettes was quoted by Britain’s Mail on Sunday as saying that the tobacco company foresaw an end to its sales of traditional cigarettes in Britain within 10 years. “I want to allow this company to leave smoking behind,” Jacek Olczak, the CEO of Philip Morris International, was quoted in the paper saying. “I think in the UK, ten years from now maximum, you can completely solve the problem of smoking.” […] For years, Philip Morris has said that its future will not include Marlboro cigarettes as it shifts to electronic devices....

Chinese farmer Cheng wades through knee-deep water, pulling dead pigs behind him one-by-one by a rope tied around their ankles as he lines up the bloated carcasses for disposal. More than 100 of Cheng's pigs drowned in floods that paralysed China's central Henan province last week, and the outlook for those left alive is bleak. "I'm waiting for the water levels to go down to see what to do with the remaining pigs," said the 47-year-old farmer from Wangfan village, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of provincial capital Zhengzhou. "They've been in the water for a few days now...

On this date in 1916, Captain Charles Fryatt was shot at Bruges, Belgium as an illegal combatant. Fryatt was a 42-year-old civilian mariner captaining the SS Brussels on the Harwick-Hook of Holland route when, in March 1915, a German U-Boat ordered him to heave to. Fryatt wheeled the Brussels around on the submarine and attempted to ram it. The German ship escaped by a whisker only by scrambling an emergency dive. The Admiralty gave Fryatt a gold watch and a pat on the head for bravery. It was not until the following year that the Germans captured that same vessel...

A particularly exciting show with Brian Jones apparently in good form

More than half of Covid hospitalisations are patients who only tested positive after admission, leaked data reveal.The figures suggest vast numbers are being classed as hospitalised by Covid when they were admitted with other ailments, with the virus picked up by routine testing.Experts said it meant the national statistics, published daily on the government website and frequently referred to by ministers, may far overstate the levels of pressures on the NHS.The leaked data – covering all NHS trusts in England – show that, as of last Thursday, just 44 per cent of patients classed as being hospitalised with Covid had...

Scandal: Newly Leaked Data Show Over Half of ‘COVID Hospitalizations’ Were for Other Ailments in U.K.The COVID-19 data have been largely distorted and utilized for political purposes. A scandalous development from the United Kingdom is shedding light on just how exaggerated the pandemic threat has been. New data leaked from the NHS in the United Kingdom show that “over half” of hospitalizations that were classified as “COVID hospitalizations” were admissions for other ailments that subsequently incurred positive COVID tests.In an exclusive in the Telegraph, the data were leaked casting further doubt on COVID data all over the world.“More than half...

The Nation of Islam, an extremist antisemitic group ran by Louis Farrakhan, was banned from Twitter for criticizing mRNA vaccines. Twitter previously declined to ban Farrakhan’s personal account or the group account for their routine harassment of Jewish people.Twitter moved to ban the account last week after being targeted for promoting “misinformation.” In reaction to the ban, a high-ranking member in the group tweeted, “Unsurprisingly, Twitter, Inc. has suspended The Nation of Islam’s official account: @OfficialNOI.”A report cited by the White House this month said that 12 Twitter accounts are responsible for 65 percent of supposed anti-vaccine content. One of...

Intelligence officials in France warned U.S. State Department officials in 2015 that communist China planned to cease its collaboration agreement at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a former State Department COVID-19 investigator.Former State Department official David Asher indicated to the Daily Caller that the U.S. government was given preliminary information regarding China’s move to stop working with France at the lab. In 2004, France and China launched the project, which continual evidence indicates could be the originating area of COVID-19.Asher said France was formally “kicked out” of the lab in 2017, which resulted in foreign officials contacting the...

Vladimir Putin boasted yesterday that Russia had the power to launch an 'unpreventable strike' against its enemies in a show of strength following the confrontation with Britain in the Black Sea. The Russian president told a navy day parade in St Petersburg: 'We are capable of detecting any underwater, above-water, airborne enemy and, if required, carry out an unpreventable strike.' It comes as military officials announced tests of advanced new weapons – some of which come from an arsenal Mr Putin has described as 'invincible'. He added: 'The Russian navy today has everything it needs to guarantee the protection of...

The annual data on coral cover for the Great Barrier Reef, produced by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, was released on Monday showing the amount of coral on the reef is at record high levels. Record high, despite all the doom stories by our reef science and management institutions. Like all other data on the reef, this shows it is in robust health. For example, coral growth rates have, if anything, increased over the past 100 years, and measurements of farm pesticides reaching the reef show levels so low that they cannot be detected with the most ultra-sensitive equipment....

BIDEN: Where's mom? Mom? Is she here? ... Mom, you can't stand up if you're home. [Applause]

Two new large studies of China's CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine showed good efficacy against symptomatic infection and severe disease, albeit with lower efficacy than the two mRNA coronavirus vaccines currently in use. Overall 83.5% efficacy against infection Interim efficacy and safety results from a phase 3 trial in Turkey were published yesterday in The Lancet. A team led by researchers from Hacettepe University School of Medicine in Ankara randomly assigned either the inactivated whole-virion CoronaVac vaccine or a placebo to 10,214 healthcare and community volunteers aged 18 to 59 years at 24 centers from Sep 14, 2020, to Jan 5, 2021....

A new study from Denmark reveals that the connection between people who experience schizophrenia and who smoke a problematic amount of weed is on the rise, CNN reports. The study, which was published in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry, shows that the link between the mental health disorder and cannabis use disorder in Denmark was two percent in 1995, four percent in 200, and eight percent in 2010. Cannabis use disorder is the clinical name for cannabis addiction. “I think it is highly important to use both our study and other studies to highlight and emphasize that cannabis use is...

… Manchin also pushed back at suggestion that it's time to pass the $3.5T budget plan if the $1.2 trillion bipartisan deal falls apart. "I would say that if the bipartisan infrastructure bill falls apart, everything falls apart.”

Today, only eight states including New York are “may issue” for gun carry permits — meaning government officials “may issue” permits to applicants but are not required to (and hardly ever) do so. Litigation over what the Second Amendment means and requires is mostly limited to those states who are ruled by mega-cities. A law-abiding citizen who passes a background check in those states is still subject to a discretionary and random government decision about whether that person has “proper cause” to carry a firearm for self-defense. That means New Yorkers must distinguish themselves from their fellow citizens and be...