Free Republic

In 2013, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, and Governor Andrew Cuomo conspired to pass rigid and likely unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms by residents of New York State. The law was passed with a rushed vote under a controversial measure in the New York Constitution which gives the Governor and legislative leaders enormous power. The members of the legislature were forced to vote on it without any time to read it. From syracuse.com: The NY Safe Act was passed with no hearings, no testimony, no time for opponents to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin again attacked Western liberalism in a fiery address on Thursday, blasting so-called cancel culture and advances in gay and transgender rights. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin stressed that his country should adhere to its own "spiritual values and historical traditions," while steering clear of "sociocultural disturbances" in the West. Some Westerners believe "the aggressive deletion of whole pages of their own history, reverse discrimination against the majority in the interests of minorities . . . constitute movement toward public renewal," Putin said. "It's...

Polling shows that President Joe Biden has suffered a larger approval rating drop at the start of his term than any president since World War II. New polling from Gallup shows that Biden’s approval rating dropped from 56% in Q1 to 44.7% in Q3 which represents an 11.3% drop that has not been experienced by any president since World War II.

Lawmakers and legislative employees at the Washington state House must prove they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to access House facilities through early January, under a rule adopted by a House committee late last month. The policy took effect Monday, the same day that a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate deadline passed for many state workers and others to provide proof of vaccination — or an accommodated exemption — in order to keep their jobs. More than 1,800 state workers were either fired, resigned or retired due to the mandate.

We are happy to report that we are not experiencing any supply chain issues with regard to memes, pics, and headlines for TWiP. Hurricane Brandon continues to topple the ramshackle trailer park of the Biden White House leaving an ample debris field of comic material, while Democrats in Congress keep living up to Will Rogers’ famous line about how “I don’t belong to an organized political party—I’m a Democrat!” Let’s go Brandon!

The past few weeks have been hardly an easy time for Facebook.Frances Haugen’s leak, combined with a six-hour blackout last week, has reinforced some politicians’ desire to further regulate Facebook, or even completely break it up, as proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. However, while the EU and U.S. are thinking long and hard about their next move against big tech, China has been taking over our digital space in the West slowly but consistently. Following a report by an anonymous researcher, Hikvision, a Chinese surveillance company, is now facing scrutiny over a privacy breach in Europe. The high-tech cameras produced by...

Former President Trump attacked Meghan McCain and her family in a statement Friday, mocking her for saying she left ABC’s “The View” due to a toxic work environment and going after her father, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in 2018. “Isn’t it funny that Meghan McCain, who has always been a bully and basically a lowlife, is now complaining that it was she who was bullied by the Slobs and Radical Left maniacs of ‘The View,’ ” Trump said. “In any event, Meghan should fight the Communists instead of explaining how they beat her, hurt her, and...

Preliminary results from Auditor Doug Ringler's analysis of Michigan’s long-term care facility COVID-19 death data found about 800 additional confirmed and probable COVID-19 deaths than the state initially counted overall statewide between Jan. 1, 2020, and July 3, 2021. Ringler responded to a request from the Oversight Committee to investigate the accuracy of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ (MDHHS) COVID-19 death data in long-term care facilities. The request followed questions about the accuracy of MDHHS COVID-19 death data. Ringler told Johnson he used death certificate information from the Electronic Death Record System and COVID-19 case and death...

Merchants of Death, Bill Gates, Vaccines, Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Michael Yeadon, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Vladimir Zelenko

Vaccine mandates are interfering with the provision of goods and services; causing shortages of experienced health care workers, of police and of firefighters; culling the ranks of the military; causing experienced intelligence officers to resign, be put on leave, or be fired; and exacerbating supply chain problems. As more mandates are imposed, more resignations, early retirements, and terminations will ensue. Predictably many otherwise served by the employees pushed out will find themselves helpless or with substandard care, resulting in preventable deaths and injuries. The rise in unemployment from the mandates will leave many able-bodied people out of work, harming them...

A business group representing wholesalers told resident Joe Biden that jobs will be lost if he follows through with requiring companies with federal contracts to have their employees vaccinated. Eric Hoplin, president and CEO of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, laid out the case against the mandates and urged the resident to back off his edict in a three-page letter. He said that if the contractor rule is implemented, thousands of workers will be laid off and the supply chain problems will grow far worse. “NAW urges that the Executive Order’s implementation be revised to avoid this calamity and provide...

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — A decorated, retired Oakland police captain, Ersie Joyner, was shot in an robbery attempt Thursday afternoon at gas station off Interstate 980 in Oakland. Ersie Joyner was at Highland Hospital being treated for multiple gunshot wounds, Alameda County Sheriff spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly confirmed to KPIX. A law enforcement source confirmed that Joyner was out of surgery and recovering in the ICU at Highland Hospital after being shot six times. From start to finish, the incident lasted less than a minute. Surveillance video shows Joyner pumping gas when three men rush him from a vehicle on...

Boris told us this week that if we are to meet the Government’s targets for reducing carbon emissions we must abandon our gas boilers and install heat pumps. Well, I was ahead of the game. The conditions were ideal. We were rebuilding the house from scratch so we laid the underfloor piping before the floors went down. The walls were stone, but strict building regulations meant our insulation was state of the art. And better still, the field behind the house was perfect for laying the pipes needed for a ground source system, which is far more efficient than the...

First thing's first: Nancy Pelosi's select committee probing the January 6th Capitol riot is a political animal. It became one the second that Nancy Pelosi vetoed Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's choices of Republicans to serve on the panel. Pelosi made it clear: only Trump-haters were welcome in this “bipartisan” endeavor. Otherwise, there would be a danger that the select committee might actually think critically about what happened on January 6th, and the Left's narrative about an “insurrection” might be damaged or discredited. Crazy Nancy was having none of that. It has been clear from the start that the select committee...

Cancel culture is everywhere. A celebrity might be canceled over a tweet made decades ago. A picture of a politician at a party might trigger a demand for his resignation. Using the wrong pronoun can get a person fired, sued, even arrested. The hardest hit are universities, where the love of learning has been replaced by an obsession for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The diversity on display may be slavish conformity to progressive thinking and values, and there is certainly no inclusion for anyone who questions progressivism, but no matter. The individuals devoting themselves to DEI are different colors...

"Alta was alive and breathed on her own for 90 minutes after her breathing tube was removed," -- Rabbi Elisha Greenbaum said, stating the key fact as clearly as can be. The United Kingdom wanted 2-year-old Alta Fixsler dead. The powers-that-be may not have put it that baldly, but they decided to end her life. A severely disabled Hasidic girl, Fixsler's parents wanted to bring her to Israel. There were offers from U.S. and Israeli hospitals to try experimental treatments. But the medical establishment and the judiciary decided they knew best. "According to Jewish law, everyone has the right to...

For perspective, let's imagine a hypothetical Republican politican we'll call "Joe" who mixed his bank accounts with a wastrel son of his we'll call "Hunter..." Most of the media, along with other Democrats, are campaigning to give the IRS huge amounts of additional money for their budget so that they can pretend to pay for the two huge slush funds they are peddling for the tax agency. They want banks to report the receipts and disbursements on any bank accounts where the annual deposit amount is more than $10,000. Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post says that Republicans are only...

"The biggest defeat in our nation's history!" bellowed Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal President Kennedy cut with Khrushchev regarding the missiles. Aaw come on, Humberto!' Some amigos retort. 'Gen. LeMay was a serious war-monger and NUTCASE!—the model for Gen. Ripper in Dr Strangelove! Are you saying we shoulda started a worldwide nuclear war with tens of millions incinerated to liberate a two-bit Caribbean island of barely 7 million people?!'Nothing of the sort. In fact, the choice at the time was never between nuclear...

"Normal" is the last word you would use to describe her appearance at a podium yesterday in New York City. The Vice President of the United States spoke yesterday at the brand-new Northeast Bronx YMCA, promoting the so-called infrastructure bill that actually would transform the economy into dependence on unreliable “green” power and the populace into unsustainable financial dependence on borrowed money from the US Treasury. But forget about the substance, bad as it is, and focus on her behavior at the podium, which was, frankly, bizarre enough to suggest something is deeply wrong. Watch her arms in this clip....

Just like that, the DoJ is now in the snowflake protection business. Merrick Garland is taking political weaponization of the DoJ to a whole new level. It started with the National Association of School Boards (NASB) asking the DoJ for protection against protesting parents. You know, those parents who have objections to making gender fluid racists out of their children. They should know that what schools choose to teach their kids is none of their business -- just ask Terry McAuliffe. Luckily, the NASB’s union backers have been paying for influence for many years. Now they’re cashing in their chits...