Free Republic

DRESS REHEARSAL Over the past few months, all three companies have been running dress rehearsals by practising on known SARS-CoV-2 variants. This involves updating their vaccines to match variants such as Beta and Delta, testing them in clinical studies, tuning their internal workflows and coordinating with regulators. Their goal is to learn from these warm-up trials and smooth out kinks in their processes, so that they can move fast if, or when, a true escape variant emerges. “At some point, inevitably, we’re going to have to make variant vaccines — if vaccines are the way population immunity will be maintained...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. After a long cross-country flight, I made it out of LAX and into an Uber. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, but the driver was. And hearing that I was a journalist, he wanted to tell me a story. I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years, but this may have been the most important one I let go. He hadn’t always been driving an Uber at 11:30 at night. Not all that long...

We hear a great deal about “privilege” in America these days, but the truth is that those who are supposed to have it do not, and those who claim to be marginalized are actually the elites. Anyone who doubts this should study the case of Mohamed Noor, the Somali Muslim migrant cop in Minneapolis who shot an unarmed woman, Justine Damond, to death. His murder conviction was recently overturned, and now he has been sentenced to less than five years in prison for manslaughter. Despite the appalling leniency of this, some people are enraged that he got that long...

“Many Halloween costumes perpetuate gender stereotypes and exclude those who don’t conform to traditional gender norms, especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming."

Maybe I don’t understand how the supposed plan is supposed to work. There is no tax credit for unrealized capital losses, right? So you won’t want to hold volatile asset classes any more, right? Imagine the value going up, you pay some tax, and then the value falls and you move into loss territory. You still paid the tax! You get nothing back. By exactly how much do the prices of these assets have to fall, ex ante, so that holding them is a good idea in the first place? Or maybe the wealthy investors subject to this tax are...

The Dongguan Great Mosque in Xining, China, photographed in 2018. Its main green dome and minaret domes have since been removed. XINING, China — The Dongguan Mosque has adopted some very different looks in its nearly 700 years in China's northwestern city of Xining. Built in the style of a Chinese imperial palace, with tiled roofs and no domes, and adorned with Buddhist symbols, the mosque was nearly destroyed by neglect during political tumult in the early 20th century. In the 1990s, authorities replaced the original ceramic tiles on the roof and minarets with green domes. "The government says they...

Senior Democrats confirmed that a proposal to tax billionaires’ unrealized capital gains will likely be included in President Biden’s $2 trillion spending package.Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explained on CNN Sunday that the proposal, raised by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, would impose an annual tax on unrealized capital gains on liquid assets.“I wouldn’t call that a wealth tax, but it would help get at capital gains, which are an extraordinarily large part of the incomes of the wealthiest individuals and right now escape taxation until they’re realized,” Yellen said.The tax is expected to affect people with $1 billion in assets or...

President Joe Biden hosted breakfast for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Sunday but emerged with no deal to help pay for his nearly two trillion entitlement spending plan. The president hosted Manchin and Schumer at his home in Delaware, as he continues leaving Washington, DC, on weekends. His agenda remains stalled in Congress as the Democrat moderates and progressives struggle with the price tag of his agenda and how to pay for it.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two years ago, Apple threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram from its app store over concerns about the platform being used as a tool to trade and sell maids in the Mideast. After publicly promising to crack down, Facebook acknowledged in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press that it was “under-enforcing on confirmed abusive activity” that saw Filipina maids complaining on the social media site of being abused. Apple relented and Facebook and Instagram remained in the app store. But Facebook’s crackdown seems to have had a limited effect. Even today, a quick...

VIDEOIt was the friendly CNN townhall that turned into a nightmare Townholio for Joe Biden who seemed to channel Cornholio with his locked arms and clenched fists. Of course, it instantly launched a bunch of hilarious President Cornholio memes, some of which are presented here in this video.

Dartmouth College Republicans hosted three up-and-coming conservative voices in an event Sunday night. Remarkably, all three of these articulate, patriotic voices are young:North Carolinian Madison Cawthorn is the youngest Congressional House Member in the nation at age 26;Congressional hopeful and rising star Karoline Leavitt presents a very strong case (at age 23) why she should join him; andAlex Bruesewitz (24) is a proven campaign strategist who schools career politicians. From left to right: Alexander Bruesewitz, Madison Cawthorn, Karoline Leavitt (Photo by author)But for the Dartmouth College Democrats, what united the three was their allegedly intolerable political views. Predictably, there was...

On page 23 of PHE's "COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report Week 42," British health officials report a shocking finding. They believe their serology tests are underestimating the number of people with prior infection due to "recent observations from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data that N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following 2 doses of vaccination." In other words, the vaccine might be reducing the all-important N antibodies that one generates from natural infection. Kudos to former NYT reporter Alex Berenson for discovering this important point. Until now, we've been operating under the assumption...

Scapegoats are a necessity for tyrants, because somebody has to take the blame for their failures. That’s one of several reasons to be uneasy about the campaign by Joe Biden, in concert with most elements of the progressive establishment, to persecute those who resist vaccine mandates, falsely claiming, as Biden did in his CNN townhall last week, that the unvaccinated are responsible for killing the vaccinated.But what happens when the bullies get their way and practically everyone is vaccinated, yet Covid cases continue to rage?Jack Cashill, writing in the American Spectator:In the Republic of Ireland, however, health officials are running...

Joe Biden's transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, can't let it go.Two weeks after drawing public criticism from the likes of Fox News's Tucker Carlson and others for taking family leave at a time of multiple transportation crises, including a big supply chain breakdown at West Coast ports, he's decided to campaign for ... family leave. Never mind the ports. According to The Hill:Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is aiming to use the fierce criticism he faced from conservatives over taking paternity leave as a way to have a conversation about the issue, amid efforts from the White House to get paid family...

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday endorsed Herschel Walker’s bid to oust Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in the latest sign that GOP leaders are warming up to the former football star’s Georgia Senate campaign. “I am proud to endorse Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate in Georgia,” said Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican leader. “Herschel Walker is a fighter, a uniter, and a proven winner with the ability to bring Republicans together to win in November.” Thune is the fifth Republican senator to throw his support behind Walker and the first member of Senate GOP leadership to do...

Obama argued that Youngkin was campaigning on the outrage, rather than talking about “serious problems that actually affect serious people.” “That’s a shame,” he said. “That’s not what this election is about. That’s not what you need Virginia. Obama also accused Youngkin of fueling “conspiracy theories” that led to the Capitol Hill protest on January 6. “Either he actually believes in the same conspiracy theories that resulted in a mob, or he doesn’t believe it but he is willing to go along with it, to say or do anything to get elected,” Obama said. “And maybe that’s worse … because...

To great public fanfare, Joe Biden has anointed Rachel Levine a “four-star admiral” in the Public Health Service (PHS). The public relations campaign in support of Levine has emphasized his status as the first transgender four-star “admiral” in the “eight U.S. uniformed services.” That PR campaign is misleading, and it is part of a dangerous effort to undermine the military. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) kicked off the propaganda campaign, leading with the “four-star transgender” meme: On October 19, it announced “the nation’s first openly transgender four-star officer across any of the eight uniformed services of...

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As Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain continue to spar over energy issues this week, one car maintenance measure has (rather surprisingly) taken center stage: inflating your tires. Popular Mechanics's senior automotive editor and Saturday Mechanic steps out of the arena and into the garage.

An illegal alien charged with murdering four Americans over the course of a week in Nevada in 2019 will plead guilty and accept a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Wilbur Ernesto Martinez-Guzman, a 20-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador, was charged with murdering 56-year-old Connie Koontz, 74-year-old Sophia Renken, 81-year-old Gerald David, and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon David, between January 10 and 15. Prosecutors said he was looking to steal money from victims to buy more meth. The state of Nevada had sought the death penalty but Martinez-Guzman's defense argued he was “mentally disabled” and...