Free Republic

one of the great fears in any vaccination campaign is that the vaccine can wind up becoming the driver viral evolution and making the virus more dangerous. this is a special concern around imperfect (so called “leaky”) vaccines that are non-sterilizing. such vaccines do not stop spread or contagion of the virus. this means the virus will have lots of chances to replicate. when you combine this with a vaccine that reduces severity of cases and prevents deaths in the vaccinated, it’s a bit of a perfect storm. you get full spread but break the evolutionary gradient towards mildness that...

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that wider use of mail-in voting will lead to more cheating in elections, including 51% who say it’s Very Likely. Twenty-eight percent (28%) don’t think more mail-in voting will mean more cheating, including 14% who say it is Not At All Likely.

Angry by officials’ efforts to have a “F- — Biden” sign removed from a local resident’s property, a caravan drove through parts of Kokomo and in front of Mayor Tyler Moore’s house in protest Saturday. The caravan, organized by Evansville politician Gabe Whitley, was a dozen vehicles long. Participants also drove past the house belonging to Greg Sheline, executive director of the Kokomo-Howard County Plan Commission, in protest of the commission and city’s efforts to fine Brandon Adams if he doesn’t remove the flag from his property. “The government has no right to fine and intimidate and send government officials...

‘View’ Brings on 2016 Election Conspiracist Hillary Clinton to Trash Trump over 2020 Election Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was warmly welcomed to plug her new book and talk politics on ABC this morning. While on morning talkshow The View, the twice-failed presidential candidate was invited to trash former President Trump over and over again for sowing doubt in the 2020 election results. But no one seemed to be bothered by the idea that Clinton spent years calling her 2016 opponent an illegitimate president who unfairly won. Co-host Sara Haines started out worrying that Trump’s attempts to “delegitimize President...

Stores across America have empty shelves thanks to a series in supply chain problems that are prolonging inflation and could stretch into the new year, with some retailers like Costco and Walmart limiting the amount of toilet paper people in fear that they may soon run out. More than 60 cargo ships are waiting to dock in California, carrying hundreds of thousands of containers, and may be stuck for months in a traffic jam after arriving from China and Asia. Millions of dollars of American goods are still sitting in warehouses in China, awaiting shipment. There are similar problems with...

Six children, including a 2-year-old girl, were among 46 people shot in Chicago during the weekend. Most recently, between Sunday evening and Monday morning, four people were shot, one of them fatally. A total of three people died after being shot during the weekend. The weekend also saw a few shootings with multiple victims, including an attack that left dead one of the five people who were shot in a Wicker Park drive-by early Sunday and another that left wounded three people who were shot in Lawndale Saturday night, including two teenagers. In the Wicker Park shooting, officers were called...

Lego is striving to make sets "more inclusive" to boys and girls, according to chief product and marketing officer, Julia Goldin. Getty Images Lego on Monday vowed to rid its toys of “gender bias and harmful stereotypes” in a push to make them more accessible to girls. The world’s largest toymaker has already stopped labeling its products as “for girls” or “for boys” and its website does not allow searches by gender, The Guardian noted.

Stores across America have empty shelves thanks to a series in supply chain problems that are prolonging inflation and could stretch into the new year, with some retailers like Costco and Walmart limiting the amount of toilet paper people in fear that they may soon run out. More than 60 cargo ships are waiting to dock in California, carrying hundreds of thousands of containers, and may be stuck for months in a traffic jam after arriving from China and Asia. Millions of dollars of American goods are still sitting in warehouses in China, awaiting shipment. There are similar problems with...

U.S.—Kids are getting their Halloween costumes together, and this year there's a particularly spooky one going around: some kids are wearing a popular new mask that depicts a human face not wearing a mask. Move over, zombies and werewolves! This mask is guaranteed to make anyone run away screaming! The new horrifying masks come in either boy or girl and show a smiling child's face, completely uncovered by any sort of mask. The uncovered human face, smiling innocently, is sure to scare and delight. "AHHHHH!!!" screamed one liberal mother in Portland as she saw her daughter wearing her new...

Israeli lawmakers flanked by former president Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law launched an initiative in Jerusalem on Monday to advance the Abraham Accords that saw Arab states normalise ties with Israel. Jared Kushner, a former White House adviser married to Ivanka Trump, was a major architect of the deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. At the launch of the Abraham Accords Caucus in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, Kushner said the agreements created a "new paradigm" in the region, which could have "very different outcomes" depending on the actions of current leaders. Critics of the...

A Florida teacher charged with having sex with a 15-year-old student is now pregnant — but she won’t say who the father is, according to a report. Heiry Calvi, 41, was arrested last Thursday for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with the male student at JC Bermudez Doral Senior High School, the Miami Herald reports.

Chaotic scenes and embarrassing irregularities at Berlin’s ballot stations at last month’s general election have shaken confidence in Germany’s election system, while providing ammunition for the many people who question the German capital’s bureaucratic efficiency. On Thursday, October 14, final election results will be published, giving the green light for what is expected to be several legal challenges.On September 26, Berlin held elections at federal, state and local council levels, as well as a referendum on socializing major housing companies. This saw many voters in the German capital waiting for hours at voting stations as election volunteers ran out of...

LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Charles says he shares the concerns of Greta Thunberg and other environmental activists that world leaders "just talk" about climate change and were not doing enough to prevent its catastrophic impact. Speaking ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP26, the heir-to-the British throne, 72, who has spent most of his life speaking out on green issues, said he understood why campaigners took direct action when faced with the inactivity of politicians. "They just talk," Charles told BBC TV in an interview broadcast on Monday. "And the problem is to get action on...

Former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is set to hit the campaign trail with former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) in his bid for a second term as governor of the Old Dominion. Abrams will campaign with McAuliffe on Sunday, where the two will attend three churches in Norfolk, Va., and take part in a "Souls to the Polls" event in the city. McAuliffe and Abrams are then slated to host a grassroots event in Northern Virginia in the afternoon. The Georgia Democrat's visit comes as polls show the governor's race, viewed as a bellwether for next year's midterm...

WEST HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut mayor has asked for a forensic investigation into the city’s spending of federal pandemic relief money after coming across issues she says make her suspect fraud. West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi, who is also a certified public accountant, said in a video posted on the city’s YouTube page that she came across several large expenditures that might be fraudulent. Charles Grady, a spokesman for the FBI in New Haven, told Hearst Connecticut Media that agents visited City Hall on Friday, but would not confirm whether an investigation was underway. The federal pandemic relief...

Maybe this helps with understanding. NOTE: MANY AMERICANS JUST DON’T FOLLOW OR UNDERSTAND THE FINANCIAL SIDE OF GOVERNMENT. HERE IS A SIMPLE WAY TO VIEW THE PROBLEM OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING. Lesson #1: * U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000 * Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000 * New debt: $1,650,000,000,000 * National debt: $19,271,000,000,000 * Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000 Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget: * Annual family income: $21,700 * Money the family spent: $38,200 * New debt on the credit card: $16,500 * Outstanding balance on the credit card: $192,710 * Total budget cuts so far: $385 Got...

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — The state of Vermont is hoping to use $5 million in COVID-19 relief funds to help buy out and move mobile homes in areas at risk of flooding. The plan builds on lessons learned during flooding from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, and aims to assist mobile home residents with finding a new place to live if they accept the buyout, said Vermont Emergency Management Hazard Mitigation Officer Stephanie Smith. The task is made more complicated because many mobile home residents own their homes, but rent the land where they are located. Many older homes can’t...

Texas lawmaker: 'You have to respect the commitment to the illusion' -------------- Dr. Anthony Fauci said it was "tough to predict" when Americans could again mingle maskless indoors on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. "It's always tough to predict that," Fauci told co-host Dana Bash when she asked him when vaccinated Americans can once again show their faces inside. "I think if we continue to go down in the cases that we're seeing right now and more and more people get vaccinated, as the dynamics of the outbreak, namely the amount of virus circling the community goes down, I...

If you hoped grocery stores this fall and winter would look like they did in the Before Times, with limitless options stretching out before you in the snack, drink, candy and frozen foods aisles, get ready for some disappointing news. Many of the country's biggest food makers are telling grocers that they will have limited quantities of a number of their products, including items such as Rice Krispies Treats, Sour Patch Kids, some Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors, McCormick gourmet spices and Marie Callender's pot pies because of labor, commodity and transportation constraints throttling supply chains, according to emails...

The co-chief of Germany's far-right AfD Joerg Meuthen said on Monday that he would not seek to continue as head of the eurosceptic and islamophobic party. After six and a half "incredibly challenging" but also "enriching" years, Meuthen said in a statement that he would "no longer bear the role of federal spokesman" for the party. Formed in 2013, the AfD first won seats in the German parliament in 2017 but lost ground in elections at the end of September this year. Despite topping the poll in two former east German states, the party received around 10 percent of the...