Free Republic

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal on Monday said her caucus is ready to move forward on two bills key to President Joe Biden's agenda "as soon as tomorrow," a significant concession after previously seeking direct assurances from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on the legislation. Speaking with CNN's Victor Blackwell on "CNN Newsroom," Jayapal said that after spending the weekend reviewing the legislative text and conferring with the progressive caucus, she is ready to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill as well as the $1.75 trillion social safety net expansion bill once a few details in...

Japan's health ministry is planning to provide COVID-19 vaccine booster shots from December and has asked local authorities to prepare venues and reservation systems. The shots will be offered to anyone who has received two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccines. The ministry says 65 percent of the population has now had two shots. But the duration of the vaccines' efficacy is still unclear and "breakthrough" infections, which occur two weeks or more after the second dose, are being reported in Japan and overseas. ... Pushback from experts The booster plan has generated controversy in Japan, where some...

Tucker Carlson interviewed the reporter Julie Kelly who knows most about what really happened to people in Jail for Jan 6. She said most have been completely abandoned. It's a big order to contribute to legal bills, but it could really mean a lot to them individually to get petty cash in jail. But I have no idea about how to go about it.

Are culture wars bad? Or are they necessary to shape the direction of the country? Last week, former President Barack Obama stumped for Terry McAuliffe in Virginia: “This fake outrage that right-wing media peddles to juice their ratings” and the fact that Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin is “willing to go along with it instead of talking about serious problems that actually affect serious people — that’s a shame.” But what’s a shame is that people like Obama pretend wars over culture are irresponsible or “fake,” all the while engaging in that very same war. The issue propelling Youngkin is...

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Monday in two challenges to S.B. 8, the Texas law that bans almost all abortions in the state. After nearly three hours of argument by four different lawyers, the justices appeared likely to allow the case brought by a group of Texas abortion providers to go forward, even if they did not necessarily appear to agree on the rationale for that lawsuit. The justices were more skeptical about the lawsuit filed by the Biden administration, and they did not give any hint as to whether the law will continue to remain in effect....Monday’s...

There is an old saying: to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is truly the only point of view from which the administrations recommended “solution” to current port congestion makes any sense. Consider this: at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest containership ports in the United States, a massive influx of volume over the past year has caused perpetual congestion. With volumes consistently 30% to 40% above the norm over the past year or so, these ports simply cannot handle the volume. It has now become common for 50 to 100 ships to...

Tokyo, Oct. 26 (Jiji Press)--The COVID-19 vaccination rate in Japan has risen to 70.1 pct, the government announced Tuesday. Japan's vaccination rate is now the third highest among the Group of Seven countries, after 73.29 pct in Canada and 70.54 pct in Italy, having outpaced 56.47 pct in the United States and 66.69 pct in Britain, according to Oxford University's Our World in Data website as of Thursday. In Japan, vaccine rollouts have been progressing steadily since vaccinations for people other than medical workers and others with priority started in April, whereas some other countries are facing slow progress after...

**SNIP** Joe Manchin, the linchpin of the 50-50 deadlocked Senate, blew up the president's plans to pass both the "hard" infrastructure bill awaiting a House vote and the newly introduced reconciliation bill. While Biden struggles to stay awake at the COP26 climate conference, the West Virginia Democrat said in certain terms he's won't even consider the reconciliation bill without a CBO score. "To be clear, I will not support the reconciliation legislation without knowing how the bill would impact our debt and our economy and our country," Manchin said during a Monday press conference. "We won't know that until we...

In California, a Black college freshman from the South is telling a story about his Latino friends from home when he is interrupted by a white classmate. “We say ‘Latinx’ here,” he recalls her saying, using a term he had not heard before, “because we respect trans people.” In Philadelphia, Emma Blackson challenges her white neighbor’s assertion that Black children misbehave in school more than others. “It’s just my implicit bias,” the neighbor offers, saying that she had recently learned the phrase. In Chicago, Kelsey O’Donnell, 31, wonders why colleagues and friends have suddenly started saying “BIPOC,” an acronym that...

Former President Donald Trump mocked President Biden for appearing to fall asleep Monday before his speech at an international climate change conference in Scotland. Trump implied the snooze indicates Biden doesn’t truly believe global warming is a dire threat. “Even Biden couldn’t stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America, followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the ‘No Collusion’ finding of the Mueller Report,” Trump said in an email blast. “Biden went to Europe saying...

I have personally suffered from unfair feminist attacks by the police and the courts in the leftist police state of Victoria in southeastern Australia. I survived but suffered crippling suicidal ideation. What was done to Cardinal Pell was worse than what was done to me. He was imprisoned for conducting a mass. That is what he did on the day in question. 20 witnesses contradicted his accusers testimony but the corrupt Victorian legal system imprisoned him for over 400 days. In his mid seventies. He survived. In my way of thinking his survival was a miracle. His personal strength seems...

The ruling Monday is a major victory for the police unions which sued the city over vaccine requirements. A Cook County judge on Monday suspended the city of Chicago’s policy requiring that all of its police officers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of the year. The ruling is a major victory for police unions, who have held that the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates their collective bargaining agreements. Judge Raymond Mitchell ruled Monday that the mandate should be halted for police officers until those complaints can be settled in arbitration. Mitchell’s ruling does not impact other city workers,...

Tuesday is what less evolved societies than Virginia still quaintly call "Election Day". The Democrat candidate, the unlovely Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe, claims that "we are substantially leading on the early vote". In the fullness of time he will also be substantially leading on the late vote, if he isn't already. That leaves the votes on Voting Day up for grabs. The Republican candidate, Mr Youngkin, is a squish of no fixed beliefs who will govern as Mitt did in Massachusetts or Pataki did in New York. But he has been handed a winning issue that he would probably not...

In Liberty Counsel’s class action lawsuit against Joseph R. Biden, the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal court in Florida ordered the defendants to submit an extensive verified list of information regarding COVID shots and the military by November 12. Liberty Counsel represents members from all five branches of the military, federal employees, and federal civilian contractors who have been unlawfully mandated to get the COVID shots or face dishonorable discharge from the military or termination from employment. In preparation for Navy SEAL 1 v. Biden, Judge...

Former President Donald Trump called on “every MAGA voter” in Virginia to get behind Republican Glenn Youngkin’s bid to defeat Democrat Terry McCauliffe in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election, warning, “Everything is on the line.” ​”​Hopefully everyone will get out and VOTE tomorrow for Glenn Youngkin, who will be a fantastic Governor for the Great State of Virginia. Glenn is a very successful businessman who knows how to make Virginia’s economy (which is doing poorly!), great—and he has had my Complete and Total Endorsement for many months!​,” Trump said in a statement sent via email on Monday.​ The former president noted Youngkin’s...

Seconds after being shot by Alec Baldwin, cinematographer Halnya Hutchins told a boom operator on the “Rust” movie set, “That was no good. That was no good at all.” Hours later, she was pronounced dead. The haunting final words of the 42-year-old mom, who had been working as the director of photography on Baldwin’s upcoming Western flick, were reported by the Los Angeles Times based on interviews with 14 crew members, emails and text messages. A few moments earlier, Baldwin had been preparing for a shootout scene inside a church by making sure the camera crew got its angles right...

Rep. Jon Lancaster, elected to the state House of Representatives in 2019 as a Democrat, is the latest to switch affiliation to the Republican Party, adding to the GOP’s legislative supermajority. Lancaster’s defection was a bit surprising in that so many legislators have switched over the past two decades that it almost appeared that there were none left to change parties. There are now at least 12 current members of the House of Representatives who were elected as Democrats but are no longer serving as Democrats.

Dr. Wilbur H. Chen has a problem. On one hand, he is on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices which is responsible for approving vaccines on behalf of the CDC. On the other hand, he has a thriving medical business that requires funds to operate properly. This may not seem to be a problem until we realize that $437,250 of the funds paid to him last year were from companies that manufacture vaccines. If they’re going to get their vaccines approved, they’ll have to go through Dr. Chen and his advisory committee. In the good ol’ days, we would call...

Explanation: The dream was to capture both the waterfall and the Milky Way together. Difficulties included finding a good camera location, artificially illuminating the waterfall and the surrounding valley effectively, capturing the entire scene with numerous foreground and background shots, worrying that fireflies would be too distracting, keeping the camera dry, and avoiding stepping on a poisonous snake. Behold the result -- captured after midnight in mid-July and digitally stitched into a wide-angle panorama. The waterfall is the picturesque Zhulian waterfall in the Luoxiao Mountains in eastern Hunan Province, China. The central band of our Milky Way Galaxy crosses the...

On Oct. 21, the 42-year-old was accidentally shot by Alec Baldwin with a loaded weapon that was handed to the actor by an assistant director who mistakenly believed it was safe to use on the New Mexico set of "Rust." Responders flew the 42-year-old in a helicopter to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Director Joel Souza was also hit and injured but has since been released from the hospital. On Wednesday, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said in a press conference that a lead projectile that was taken from Souza’s shoulder came from the F.LLI Pietta Long...