Free Republic

Key Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is demanding more time to get "clarity" on the economic impact of the social spending package put forward by President Biden and other Democrats. In remarks to reporters on Monday, Manchin blasted House progressives for holding the bipartisan infrastructure bill hostage. "As more of the real details outlined in the basic framework are released, what I see are shell games, budget gimmicks that make the real cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be almost twice that amount, if the full time is run out, if you extended it permanently," Manchin told reporters...

Kavitha Kasargod-Staub was looking forward to sending her two kids back to elementary school this fall. After a year of remote learning in Washington, D.C., her kids spent the summer attending day camp. “I’m certainly not in the group of people who avoid all Covid risk,” she said, adding that camp activities were outdoors and there was testing for children if someone was exposed to the virus. But by August, Kasargod-Staub and her husband were watching Delta variant cases rise across the region. When her husband went to the school to review its safety protocols, he left alarmed, having learned...

HANOVER, Germany — How do you pronounce a word with an asterisk or a colon in the middle? And what's the German word for inclusivity? These are just two questions businesses and organizations in Europe's largest economy have been asking themselves as the country tries to advance gender equality. In Germany, the debate about gender-neutral and inclusive language is complicated by grammar. Just as in many other languages, gender in German isn't denoted by personal pronouns alone. German nouns that refer to people have traditionally been masculine or feminine. So, a male citizen is a Bürger and a female citizen...

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration’s COVID-19 vaccine incentive program launched on Monday has drawn mixed reactions across state government. While the 72,000 commonwealth employees who work under the governor’s jurisdiction now eligible for up to five paid days off or a lump sum equivalent if they get vaccinated by Dec. 31, many government workers who work outside those agencies will not be given the same enticement to get their shots. Neither the Senate chamber nor the House Republicans plan to offer anything similar at this time, spokesmen said. A spokeswoman for the Office of Attorney General said her agency doesn’t plan...

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down an appeal from a Catholic hospital in California that was sued after refusing to perform a hysterectomy for a transgender man. The court's denial, issued without comment, sends the lawsuit back to state court for further proceedings against the hospital and avoids, for now, the issue of when claims of religious freedom can trump anti-discrimination laws. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch said the court should have taken the case. The dispute arose when Evan Minton arranged with Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento to schedule a hysterectomy, which he...

Fauci: Proof of vaccination or negative test for domestic travel within the U.S. "is on the table for discussion."

After exploring this area for 1940’s ‘Rebecca,’ the legendary director made a lasting connectionThere are countless Alfred Hitchcock biographies, and many of them mention that he had an estate in the Santa Cruz area. But they never seem very interested in why he chose Scotts Valley as his home away from home—which is curious, since a sense of place was extremely important to the legendary director. He rose up through the ranks of a very regimented film industry in his native Britain, and was stung by accusations that he’d forgotten his roots after moving to the U.S. He found his...

How you say in English … Just shut up and go away? After parading around Vermont all weekend, staging a bizarre, impromptu roadside press conference and then posting happy-family Halloween portraits on Instagram, Alec Baldwin and his insufferable fraud of a wife eee-LAR-ia have lost any public sympathy they once had. Boom. Gone. All in about a week. “Parenting through this has been an intense experience, to say the least,” Hilaria posted on Halloween night. Really? Hilaria may want to talk to Halyna Hutchins’ widower about what it’s been like parenting their young son “through this intense experience,” his mother...

Shanghai Disneyland was temporarily shut down from Sunday after a visitor was found to be Covid-19-positive, underscoring the economic disruption businesses in China face as the country strives to stamp out infections. The world’s most populous nation has committed to maintaining “zero tolerance” for the virus despite criticism from business groups, a close to 80% vaccination rate, and a world which is gradually learning to live with Covid-19. China is taking stringent measures to contain pockets of the coronavirus in the country. It recorded 48 domestic cases on Saturday across several provinces. Though extremely low compared with countries that are...

A strange and dangerous phenomenon has taken hold among a significant segment of the U.S. population in recent years — a profound distrust of scientists and scientific consensus. It is puzzling that a nation responsible for so many remarkable achievements in medicine, technology, you name it, in the past century includes so many people who refuse to give credence to provable scientific facts. Instead, they put full faith and credit in easy-to-disprove “alternate facts” and conspiracy theories they find on amazing scientific devices that could not have been conceived of decades ago. The COVID-19 pandemic is the poster child for...

President Biden on Monday apologized for the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, saying doing so set the world back in the fight against climate change. “I guess I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact the United States in the last administration pulled out of the Paris accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit,” Biden said during a session on “action and solidarity” at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow. Biden, who rejoined the Paris climate deal upon taking office in January, said that...

In a new CNN Special Report hear from Republicans about the final days of the Trump presidency and how close the nation came to losing our democracy. Trumping Democracy – An American Coup begins at 9 p.m. ET on Friday

Disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday accused Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple and state Attorney General Letitia James of "incompetence" and "abuse of law" after he was charged with a misdemeanor sex crime last week. "In the last 72 hours, Sheriff Apple and Tish James have epitomized the worst combination of politics, incompetence and abuse of the law," the Democrat tweeted.

Ambush shootings of police have jumped 139%, and the top police union blames the anti-law enforcement rhetoric liberal politicians have spewed. The Fraternal Order of Police released new numbers of attacks on men and women in blue, reporting 109 officers have been shot in 86 ambushes. Worse, 281 officers have been shot this year so far and 52 killed by gunfire.

A Trump-loving business owner is filled with regret after posting an anti-Biden sign outside of his Italian restaurant. Eddie’s Ristorante is located in Jupiter, Florida, just 20 miles away from Mar-a-Lago. A staunch supporter of former president Donald Trump, Eddie Lubic took it upon himself to hang up a sign that claimed the restaurant was only serving “Patriots of the USA.” It continued: “If you are still a Biden supporter, this restaurant is not for you.” Lubic recently admitted to the Palm Beach Post that he “may have made a mistake” and that he “probably lost more [customers] than I...

President Joe Biden met with Pope Francis this weekend at the Vatican and the meeting was long compared to other president’s meetings with popes. No one appears to know why the meeting went as long as it did, but on Saturday a rumor began circulating the Internet that claimed the president had a bathroom accident during the meeting. It is important to note that there is no evidence to support the veracity of these claims nor has anyone with official knowledge of the meetings confirmed or denied the rumors. But that did not stop them from trending like wildfire on...

McAuliffe cancels event in Virginia Beach, Youngkin set to hold event in Virginia Beach tonight

Did Joe Biden fall asleep during the opening speeches of the COP26 climate jamboree in Glasgow? It’s hard to blame him if he did. A conference dedicated to saving the planet is generating nothing but hot air, some of it carboniferously heavy with the exhaust of the armada of private jets that brought the guests. But it’s Biden’s job to stay awake, look lively and remember his lines. The footage shows a frail man who’s jetlagged, pushing eighty and trying his best to absorb the torrent of heated eco-bilge that’s being pumped into his ears. But he’s only human. The...

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s (R) and his supporters did not believe slavery and the Holocaust were real. Stoney is the co-chair of the Terry McAuliffe (D) campaign. Mitchell said, “How did Terry McAuliffe let Glenn Youngkin reframe the debate on education, including things like Toni Morrison’s book ‘Beloved’ becoming a flashpoint in this race with the issue of Critical Race Theory, which is not even taught in Virginia schools, but it’s become, according to most of the polls a big deal?”

Two “news” stories broke over the weekend, and they have one thing in common: Political operatives, including journalists who claim not to be political operatives, frantically tried to protect Democrat politicians and in the process made hilarious fools of themselves.First up, we had this ridiculous hoax in Virginia:Just in time for Halloween, a few young people decided to cosplay as Charlottesville Neo-Nazis, complete with tiki torches. They stood in front of Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus and claimed to be his supporters. Y’know, like ya do....And no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you:A woman and a black guy. Even...