Free Republic

President Joe Biden on Wednesday hoped relief was coming for Americans still suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, even as the country passed a grim milestone for deaths from the virus in 2021. “God willing, I think we’re just about to turn the corner again on the pandemic,” Biden said during an event on the White House complex.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday agreed to allow a short-term debt ceiling extension. The debt limit will be increased into December. “The unified Democratic government had two and a half months to address the debt limit through reconciliation. Instead, they drifted to the doorstep of yet another self-created crisis,” McConnell said in a statement on Wednesday. “To protect the American people from a near-term Democrat-created crisis, we will also allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December. This will moot Democrats’...

Dr Fauci gave a virtual lecture entitled d COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Remaining Challenges to Canadians at McGill University in which he made a startling declaration. Fauci boldly told Canadians who oppose vaccine mandates that they have “no right to make their own decision about what goes into their body” during the presentation, which outlined how the world continues to battle with the Covid pandemic. He said: “there comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision.” .. Fauci began his message to those freedom-minded Canadians who believe...

Here is what I just used for my COVID-19 vaccine religious exemption / accommodation! I hope this helps someone out there. Note: I owe a debt of gratitude to Freeper PastorBillRandles' son for sharing his legal expertise in creating this...Religion: Evangelical ChristianityReligious Objection: I have religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine and all vaccines in general. As a Christian, I believe that my God protects us from deadly viruses and heals us when we are exposed to deadly viruses.Specific Objection: My religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine and and all vaccines is rooted in the earnest believe that my God...

Amid some encouraging news that Pennsylvania’s rate of new COVID-19 cases appears to be leveling off, Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday once again drew attention to persistent COVID-19 related health disparities among minority communities. Wolf used the backdrop of one of the region’s largest providers of health care to impoverished communities to once again urge ethnic and racial minorities to get vaccinated. “This is a sales pitch,” said Wolf during a press conference held at the Hamilton Health Center in Harrisburg. The center provides care for more than 20,000 underserved central Pennsylvania residents, the majority of them Black or Latino....

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved an ordinance that will require customers to show proof of vaccination before entering venues such as indoor restaurants, gyms and salons. As the regional California news wire City News Service reported, the ordinance will go into effect beginning on Nov. 4 and is believed to be one of the strictest COVID-19 vaccine-related mandates in the U.S. Bars, gyms, entertainment venues and shopping centers will all be subject to this new requirement. The new ordinance does not apply to grocery stores and pharmacies.

Elmer McCurdy knew the end was nigh. Trapped in an old barn, surrounded by sheriff’s deputies, he resigned himself to die. He popped open a purloined bottle of whiskey and took a pull. Might as well die as he lived, Elmer thought: stone-cold drunk. Gunfire crackled through the Oklahoma air for an hour before deputies realized Elmer had stopped shooting back. They cautiously approached the barn and there, shot through the chest, lay the state’s most wanted outlaw. The Pawhuska undertaker declared him deceased on Oct. 7, 1911, and, after embalming the corpse, waited for relatives to come forward. Elmer...

For years, it seemed as if the Herkimer Battle Jitney—the massive rolling prop from the 1999 movie Mystery Men—would deteriorate to nothing in a California storage yard. Fans of this fictionalized military vehicle had sussed out where it was and what modifications had been made to it over time, and some had tried to contact its owner in hopes of putting it back in the spotlight. Their efforts, however, amounted to little more than idle chatter about a long-forgotten box-office flop until the day that Mark Zoran checked his email in the shower."When I saw it had come up for...

Preserving the blood-brain barrier might prove to be an effective way of preventing the onset of Alzheimer's disease As researchers continue to search for the causes behind Alzheimer's disease and age-related dementia, one possibility is that a leaky blood-brain barrier could have a role to play, allowing for the easy passage of harmful proteins. A new study has explored how this defense might be shored up through the use of an existing anti-cancer drug, with the authors demonstrating some promising results around the reversal of cognitive decline in mice. The blood-brain barrier is an almost impenetrable membrane that prevents harmful...

SNIP"Anderson Cooper: 360" performed the strongest of CNN's weak primetime shows last month. The program reached 1 million viewers six times in September, averaging 916,000 viewers, a 41% decrease from his 1.55-million average in September 2020. By comparison, Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" averaged a whopping 3.3 million viewers and MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes" averaged 1.3 million in the 8 p.m. ET timeslot.SNIP"Cuomo Prime Time," once CNN's most-watched show, trailed behind Anderson Cooper, reaching 1 million viewers just twice last month and averaging 874,000 viewers. Fox News' "Hannity" averaged 2.9 million during the same 9 p.m. ET timeslot,...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republican colleagues at lunch Wednesday that he will make a new offer to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a path forward to raising the nation’s debt limit, marking the start of long-awaiting negotiations between the two leaders.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) former chief of staff, Roy McGrath, was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud and embezzlement charges.

Another important step in the fight against cancer has been enabled thanks in part to research from BYU scientists. Dr. Josh Andersen, who heads the university's Fritz B. Burns Cancer Research Laboratory, discovered the mechanism by which a gene, called TNK1, becomes an oncogenic driver in cancer. TNK1 is present in all cells, but when mutated, it becomes dangerous and able to convert normal cells into cancer cells. This puts TNK1 in a select category of cancer driver genes. "You can think of cancer drivers as the engine that makes cancer grow and progress," said Andersen. Andersen and colleagues also...

The wealthiest person in Illinois said the state's governor refused to deploy the National Guard in Chicago during civil unrest in the summer of 2020 because of the optics doing so would create, the Chicago Tribune reported. Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin said he implored Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., to declare a state of emergency and deploy the National Guard as more than 2,100 businesses across Chicago were damaged following the killing of George Floyd. "I told him to deploy the National Guard and he goes, 'It won’t look good for there to be men and women on Michigan...

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” that the Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling limit after they “ran up the credit card when Donald Trump was president” was like the friend who never pays a dinner check. Kaine said, “I would argue that flirting around with default is unconstitutional, absolutely. I happen to believe that the way we do debt management through a debt limit is foolish.”

The parent of a teenage girl blew the whistle on a horrific case of abuse in a scout group where adult instructors had underage children conduct sex games in the Balkan country of Northern Macedonia. The children were instructed to get nude in front of each other, to paint their genitals and leave imprints, and adult instructors would commend them about the size of their private parts. We are talking about 16 year old children, some not even that old. They were asked to name how many types of condoms they can identify. Then, they were asked about the number...

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to pass an ordinance that, as of Nov. 4, will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter restaurants, movie theaters and many other private businesses. Now, the businesses that must require vaccines also include restaurants of any kind (fast food establishments, coffee shops, tasting rooms, cafeterias), gyms and fitness venues, entertainment venues (movie theaters, shopping centers, concert and performance venues, sports arenas, museums, arcades) and personal care establishments (spas, nail salons, hair salons, tanning salons, estheticians, skin care, tattoo shops). “If we ever want to get back to normal, to what Los Angeles...

Suffering under the tyranny of a woke Socialist Left political leadership, Melbourne, Australia, has become the most locked down city in the world. The teenage suicide rate has doubled. Old people in nursing homes, cut off from their loved ones, stop eating and die. More women are dying of breast cancer. I was a health professional (nurse and midwife) for 32 and want to know what is happening under lockdowns with other causes of death.(I am not the only one. "Death and Lockdowns | City Journal" https://www.city-journal.org/death-and-lockdowns) I have written to the Prime Minister Scott Morrison (ScoMo) and called his...

I got the go-ahead from Microsoft that my Lenovo laptop can be upgraded to Windows 11. But every time I try, it gets to about 75% then stalls. I have tried about 10 times. Yes, I have turned off the firewall. Any suggestions?

Will no one rid us of this troublesome A-10 ‘Warthog’? The United States Air Force (USAF) has spent almost two-thirds of its existence as an independent service trying to get rid of the A-10, one of its most well-known aircraft. But has the Air Force finally given up? It is odd to think that a fifty-year-old aircraft might have more job security now than at any time in its long history, but it does seem that the Warthog now has a relatively secure space in the USAF fleet.