Free Republic

Since 2014, state and local governments have filed thousands of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies they blame for causing the "opioid crisis" by exaggerating the benefits and minimizing the risks of prescription pain medication. The theory underlying these cases is pretty straightforward: Drug manufacturers lied, and people died. Two recent rulings -- one by a California judge, the other by the Oklahoma Supreme Court -- show how misleading this widely accepted narrative is. Both decisions recognize that undertreatment of pain is a real problem, and that bona fide patients rarely become addicted to prescription opioids, let alone die as a result....

The growing concern is that China and Russia see resident Biden’s weakness as a singular opportunity – best in decades – to double-team America, achieving regional goals with synchronized action while America stumbles. Warnings signs are everywhere. If leadership is not asserted, deterrence will fall away. China has been ramping up military pressure on Taiwan in ways unseen for decades, if ever. Mainland Communist leadership is aggressively threatening Taiwan, diplomatically, economically, and militarily, testing whether Biden will make Taiwan’s defense a clear priority or not. So far, little indication. China is methodically penetrating Taiwan’s maritime and air space with military...

Country says it can no longer be ‘rice first’ as it urges farmers in Mekong Delta to change planting techniques or consider alternatives. Mekong Delta, Vietnam – At the United Nations COP26 summit in Scotland, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh joined 109 countries in pledging to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. To meet the commitment, the Southeast Asian nation will need to look at rice – one of the country’s key exports and a staple food – but also the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions among foodstuffs after beef. The heart of Vietnam’s rice...

FORTRESS MONROE, Friday, Nov. 15. The United States steam-frigate San Jacinto, Capt. WILKES, arrived in the Roadstead at 12 1/2 P.M., having on board the rebel Commissioners, SLIDELL and MASON. They were taken from the English mail steamer on the 8th instant off Bermuda. Lieut. FAIRFAX and thirty-five armed men went from the San Jacinto with five officers, who boarded the steamer and picked out the Commissioners. Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON made feeble resistance, but were induced to leave with Lieut. FAIRFAX. The captain of the steamer raved and swore, called the United States officers "piratical Yankees," and other abusive...

Rep. Nancy Mace, a first-year Republican from South Carolina, introduced a bill on Monday that proposes to end the federal prohibition on cannabis.

By now you must have noticed how many of the big news stories that have political significance to the left, and are hyped for months or years (or even decades) on end throughout the mainstream media, turn out to be false. Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to hack and steal the 2016 election. Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist vigilante who went to Kenosha to make trouble. There is no such thing as Critical Race Theory taught in K-12 schools. “Climate change” is an existential crisis that can be easily solved at little cost by building wind turbines and...

<p>Twelve hours isn’t nearly enough time to properly riot, silly!</p><p>You need at least a weekend for sufficient criminality, I mean, those Molotov cocktails don’t construct themselves.</p><p>Sometimes you need weeks to get all the rage out of your system, like in Minneapolis, or even months like those slowpokes in Seattle. To paraphrase Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the former mayor of Baltimore, anarchists need sufficient time in which to destroy.</p>

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemNehemiah 1314 Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services._______________________________________________________God Bless America.ML/LTOS

The Andrews government’s controversial pandemic management Bill is in disarray with former government MP Adem Somyurek revealing he will block it. Mr Somyurek on Wednesday night told the Herald Sun he would sensationally return to parliament to oppose the Bill, saying it gives “too much power to the government” and could lead to a “tyranny of rule by decree”. Victoria was already “essentially an elective dictatorship”, he added, saying the bill does not include adequate checks to prevent abuses of power. The government had assumed it would win the upper house vote scheduled for Thursday with the support of three...

There’s evidence that he did just that while the DOJ and FBI are currently being very passive about actual threats of violence at a Fort Worth school board meeting. We know that, after conferring with the White House, the National School Boards Association (“NSBA”) sent a letter to the White House claiming that parents angry at Critical Race Theory and pornography in schools were tantamount to domestic terrorists. Attorney General Merrick Garland responded to the letter by promising to provide FBI support for school boards. When called before the House, Garland swore that he never thought angry parents were domestic...

he unmarked security vehicles parked outside the Kroger signaled trouble. So, too, did the police tape blocking the store’s entrance at Metropolitan Parkway SW and Cleveland Avenue SW several days ago. A small sign taped to an overturned shopping cart flapped in the wind telling shoppers the power was out. Thieves had stolen critical electric wiring. A much larger sign said “Temporarily Closed” and identified two other store locations for shoppers in the area, neither of which was easily accessible without some form of transportation. After one Hapeville resident recently found Kroger’s doors locked, she lamented on social media that...

Working Americans got good news on Friday. They may not have to worry about getting laid off because of qualms about the COVID-19 vaccine. A federal appeals court suspended the Biden administration's attempt to mandate the shots at private sector workplaces with 100 or more employees. Under resident Joe Biden's order, which would go into effect Jan. 4, employees who refuse the shots have to submit to weekly testing at their own expense or lose their jobs. Vaccines are not required to collect welfare or food stamps, or to come across the southern border and apply for asylum. They're just...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Dred Scott decision by the United States Supreme Court, delivered an opinion, written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, in 1857, that rocked the nation.Many claim the decision precipitated the secession of the southern states and the War Between the States, or the Civil War, as many prefer.One of the most famous passages in the decision is where Chief Justice Taney is explaining why black people cannot be allowed to be citizens:It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other...

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham questions DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about Afghan refugees and the border crisis during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

NYC mayor-elect Eric Adams promised to significantly reduce crime and bring the Big Apple back to its better days. Can he pull it off? When NYC mayor-elect Eric Adams ran for the job, his platform promised to significantly reduce crime and bring the Big Apple back to its better days — that is, the days before a left-wing nut named de Blasio got elected, presumably, if actions demonstrate intent, to destroy the residents, the businesses, and the tourist industry. I don't know if there's any logical thought still remaining in the minds of New Yorkers, but if there is, even...

Matías Romero (Mexico) (AFP) – Hungry and exhausted after three weeks walking across Mexico in a migrant caravan, Elsa Pineda implored US President Joe Biden to give her daughter a chance to escape the dangers of Honduras' gangs. "He has to help those of us who really need it," she said after a night on a concrete floor near the side of a road with hundreds of other migrants. Despite the perils of walking along busy highways through violence-plagued Mexico, sleeping outdoors at night, Honduras in comparison is "a thousand times" more dangerous, said Pineda, 35. "Although we've faced hunger,...

Source: Townhall Media/Julio RosasSince February, which was resident Joe Biden's first full month in office, 23 aliens who had previously been convicted of homicide in the United States were charged in Arizona with illegally reentering this country. We know this because the office of the U.S. attorney for Arizona regularly publishes these numbers. It puts out a monthly report on "immigration and border crimes" in its district, which encompasses all of Arizona. In February alone, for example, the office reported that 190 foreign nationals in Arizona had been charged with "illegal reentry" to this country. Among these, 151 had already...

Donald Trump was accurate all along when he called them the enemy of the truth. This guest essay on "The Steele Dossier," by Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin, constitutes, arguably, a new development in ostensible expressions of regret: the attack apology. Although Prof. Grueskin acknowledges that the Steele Dossier was largely "fictitious," the pain this admission causes him seems palpable. And due to his obvious discomfort, the words "false claim," "baseless allegations," "outright fraud" do not emerge from his computer. Here is one of the professor's acknowledgments: "Many of the dossier's allegation have turned out to be fictitious or,...

By the time you read this, the issue may be moot but, as matters stand, it’s definitely concerning. Anybody objectively watching the Kyle Rittenhouse trial could see that he should never have been charged. Witness testimony and video footage established clearly that Kyle acted in self-defense when he shot at three men, all of whom were vigorously engaged in trying to kill him. My worry from the beginning, though, has been that the jury will be so intimidated by the gathering mobs that it will affect their verdict. The facts seem to support my concern. Despite the clear evidence presented,...

As Democrats regroup to try to pass their $2 trillion Build Back Better Act, pressure grows for shining the light of fiscal responsibility on all this. Given resident Joe Biden's crashing approval ratings, there is some hint that the American people smell a rat. One sign of the smell of that rat is the alarming escalation of the rate of inflation to where it hasn't been in over 30 years. Let's start with the announcement from the Treasury Department a week ago that the revenue measures built in to finance the $2 trillion in spending will not only not add...