Free Republic

The Senate parliamentarian has nixed Democrats' back-up plan for getting immigration reform into a sweeping spending bill, handing them a second setback. Democrats had pitched parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants by making a change to the date for when undocumented immigrants within the United States can apply to adjust their legal status. But MacDonough told Democrats that the option was a non-starter, according to a copy of the guidance obtained by The Hill. Democrats are pursuing other back-up plans with the Senate referee, according to a source familiar with Democrats' strategy. Changing the registry date is...

Democrat leaders all over the country have spent the past year trying to force as many people as they can to get vaccinated against COVID-19. In order to make this happen, they’ve teamed up with the leftist media to try and silence anyone who dares to question what’s actually in the vaccines, to begin with. That’s why Dr. Carrie Madej can be described as the leftwing establishment’s worst nightmare. She’s one of the few people who has actually had the chance to examine what’s really in the vaccine vials that are being forced into the arms of millions of people,...

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania legislature unanimously voted Wednesday to extend dozens of regulatory waivers put into place last year to help health-care providers fight COVID-19. Without action, the waivers would have expired Thursday, potentially exacerbating ongoing staffing crises in hospitals and long-term care institutions, which are again facing rising COVID-19 cases. Health-care workers and their advocates had warned any lapse in the relaxed rules would have renewed administrative burdens and made fighting the ongoing pandemic more difficult. Wednesday’s action will keep the waivers in place until March 2022 while the legislature considers a number of bills that would make the...

Stocks tumbled around the world on Monday as markets focused on the severe troubles of property developer China Evergrande Group. A Chinese debt crisis will — either now or in the near future — bring down China’s economy, and the U.S. must delink from that country to reduce the damage to itself. A crucial test comes Thursday, when Evergrande must pay $83.5 million in interest on its March 2022 bond. Payment of 232 million yuan due the same day has been “settled through negotiations.” Then, on Sept. 29, $47.5 million comes due on its March 2024 bond. The betting on...

News AnalysisFrom the beginning of his reign, Xi Jinping has been preaching China’s need to end U.S. world dominance, create Chinese independence, and rewrite the global social order.The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ascribes names to the various plans and initiatives that it hopes will culminate in Chinese global domination, including “Made in China 2025” (MIC 25), the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), “common prosperity,” “dual circulation,” and a host of other initiatives. Recently, Xi has stepped up the nationalist rhetoric, but it seems that MIC 25 and the BRI have fallen victims to China’s zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy and Xi’s crackdown...

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday it’s not clear when a new rule from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requiring more than 80 million private sector workers to take the COVID-19 vaccine will go into effect.President Joe Biden’s executive order, announced Sept. 9, is set to require all workers at private businesses with 100 employees or more to be vaccinated for COVID-19 or show a weekly negative test. It will also require employers with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for workers to get vaccinated or to recover if they suffer...

If you’ve been following along, once you saw the massive effort the Biden Administration was undertaking to push booster shots despite the hesitancy of the FDA to approve their use for all adults, you knew what would be coming next.Now, here it is.In an interview with The Atlantic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he believed that booster shots would become standard in the future to be considered fully protected.Having said that, I’ve made it clear that my opinion has always been that I believe that a third-shot booster for a two-dose mRNA [vaccine] should ultimately and will ultimately be the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced earlier in the week that she would be taking a second try at a vote on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Thursday, after putting it on Monday because she didn’t have the votes.But it’s looking like she still doesn’t have the votes now, and in the words of The Hill, is “poised to pull the infrastructure vote” yet again.As we reported earlier, the progressives have made it clear that they don’t intend to vote on it, putting it in jeopardy. But if she puts it off again, after promising it for Monday,...

The NBA is not playing around when it comes to getting players vaccinated. The NBA announced on Wednesday that it will withhold payment from unvaccinated players who miss games due to local vaccine mandates. While the NBA has not mandated the vaccine itself, cities that require the vaccine to enter public spaces will not allow unvaccinated players inside the basketball court. “Any player who elects not to comply with local vaccination mandates will not be paid for games that he misses,” Mike Bass, the NBA’s executive vice president of communications, told media outlets in a statement on Wednesday. Under the...

The CyFIR Report on Friday showed the digital findings from Maricopa County’s forensic audit of the 2020 election. Founder Ben Cotton and his team allegedly found instances of cybersecurity breaches and malfeasance on the part of Maricopa County. Cotton remarked at one point in his presentation, “The election was neither accountable or secure.” CyFIR’s founder, Ben Cotton, is no stranger to the world of digital forensics. “A technical visionary and pioneer in Cyber Security and Computer Forensics for the U.S. Government and the SOCOM,” Cotton’s bio states: “[Mr. Cotton is a] twenty-one year veteran of the US Army, Special Operations...

Looks like Dr. Anthony Fauci may have been right about something (for once).Scientists are saying that the "Mu" variant - also known as variant B.1.62 - which once sparked fears of igniting yet another wave of "breakthrough" infections has already been "eradicated" within the US. According to the most recent data on on the virus-tracking website Outbreak.info, Mu-related infections are accounting for 0% of new infections in the US.Previously, the "Mu" strain had been found in nearly every US state. The variant peaked back in June when it accounted for just 3% of all new cases.The strain was first detected...

Watch it slipWatch it slideI bet $10 on the losing horseFeel the gripOf my brideWatch me do it againWhere’s my dinner?!– Short Lip Fuser, Rocket from the CryptEmpty StomachsEvergrande’s going down. And it’s taking the life savings of countless good people down with it.But while Evergrande’s going down. Food prices are going up. Moreover, they’re going up a lot.According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global food prices were up nearly 33 percent year over year in August. Vegetable oil, grains, and meat all cost more. Unfortunately, rising food prices – and empty stomachs – often presage...

Given the future plans of that Joetato in D.C. regarding the economy and USA life in general: would it be better to keep funds in a local financial institution or purchase farmland?

Australia's corporate sector has finally had enough of the ongoing lockdowns that have left the country's economy hobbled and its people cut off from the rest of the world for months.Increasingly frustrated by a slow vaccine rollout and the ongoing lockdowns, the leaders of many of Australia’s biggest companies, including BHP, Macquarie and Qantas have signed a letter demanding that the government acknowledge it's time to "learn to live with the virus," as many other countries have done, since "COVIDZero" has finally been exposed as an impossible dream.In the letter - which was reported on by the FT - the...

Tommy Kirk, whose career as a young leading man in Disney films like Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog and Son of Flubber came to an end, he said, after the studio discovered he was gay, has died. He was 79. Kirk lived alone in Las Vegas and was found dead Tuesday, actor Paul Petersen announced on Facebook. TMZ reported that he died at home, and no foul play is suspected. Kirk first made his mark starring as sleuth Joe Hardy in a pair of Hardy Boys TV serials, “The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure” and “The Mystery of the Ghost...

The cardinal described his progress as ‘steady but slow.’(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Raymond Burke has left the hospital and his health is slowly improving following a stay at an Intensive Care Unit for COVID-19, he wrote in a letter Saturday. The letter is the second update provided by the cardinal since he was released from the ICU last month and the first one since leaving the hospital. Burke expressed his gratitude to the faithful for their prayers and to the saints for their intercession. “In thanking you, I thank, above all, Our Lord, who, in answer to your prayers, has preserved...

This is my beach (another link here), and I love all the dogs. The owners do a great job of cleaning up after them.

ALI EHSANI IS A 38 -YEARS-OLD LAWYER BASED IN ITALY. After a very long and difficult journey, he arrived in Italy at age of 13; he was all alone. He had fled Afghanistan after his Christian parents were killed because of their faith. His only brother died along the way. In Afghanistan he had lived his faith in absolute secrecy.As a child, he considered himself “normal” and no different from the rest of his friends, all of whom were growing up in Muslim families. But this was not the case. Even though he was not aware of it, Ali was...

The federal government has always required large personal bank transactions to be reported, just in case. I remember that number being $10,000… Somewhere along the way, it was increased to $20,000. With inflation, that makes sense. Why the requirement? Because large cash transactions might be an indicator for black market activity, such as drug dealing, contract hits, political bribery, etc. Americans have a healthy distrust of government. We don’t want every personal transaction reported to the feds, but we understand the need to report some. With inflation, we expect such numbers to be periodically revised upward. We certainly do not...

On Tuesday, the Diocese of Wichita held a vigil and rosary for Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun, who died in a prison camp May 23, 1951 at 35 years of age. His remains were identified in March 2021 and returned to his family earlier this month. His body’s return to his home 70 years posthumously was marked by a send-off Mass in Honolulu on Sept. 23, last night’s vigil, and a funeral Mass that will take place Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Central Time. The vigil was livestreamed and recorded on the Diocese of Wichita’s YouTube channel, and shown live...