Free Republic

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland is taking aim at former President Donald Trump for targeting some House Republicans who earlier this month voted for a wide ranging bipartisan infrastructure bill. After 13 House Republicans crossed party lines and voted with nearly the entire House Democratic conference to narrowly pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure measure - the largest investment in the nation's crumbling roads and bridges in decades – Trump called them RINOS (the acronym for ‘Republicans in name only’) who should be "ashamed of themselves." The crossover Republican votes helped the majority House Democrats pass the bill – which...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the U.S. Capitol rioter known as the "QAnon Shaman" for his horned headdress to 41 months in prison for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack by followers of then-President Donald Trump. Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to impose a longer 51-month sentence on Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty in September to obstructing an official proceeding when he and thousands of others stormed the building to try to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election. The sentence matches one Lamberth imposed on a former mixed martial...

How many lefty Facebook chowderheads have you seen say, “If Rittenhouse was black the cops would have shot him dead!” Let’s look into that. Eighteen-year-old Timothy Simpkins recently got beaten up at school. He came back later, pulled a gun, shot the kid who beat him up, and shot two others in the process. A fourth person was injured in the fracas. He was out on $75,000 bond in less than 24 hours. His mommy threw him a party. Seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three white rioters who were assaulting him. He was deemed a “white supremacist” by lefty news. He...

A Canadian minister has said he has "no doubt" that a deadly storm in British Columbia is linked to climate change. Thousands were evacuated after an "atmospheric river" - a long strip of moisture in the air that transports water from tropical areas towards the poles - dumped the region's monthly rainfall average in 24 hours. The storm severed road and rail links and caused mass power cuts. One person was killed in a landslide, and at least two others are missing. Mike Farnworth, the local minister of public safety, told reporters he had "no doubt these are climate-related events".

One-time White House strategist Steve Bannon moved to plead not guilty Wednesday to criminal contempt of Congress charges after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday, facing two counts: one for failing to appear for an Oct. 14 deposition before the panel and another for refusal to provide documents. The filing anticipates a slated Thursday arraignment for Bannon in which he was expected to plead not guilty. His lawyers filed a motion on Wednesday to enter the not guilty...

Maddy McAllister had her first taste of scuba diving at 15 and has loved it ever since.(Supplied) Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article Maddy McAllister spent her childhood in south-east Western Australia listening to her grandfather's tales of ships lost at sea. Now Dr McAllister has turned her love of fishermen's tales into a career. As the senior curator of maritime archaeology at the Museum of Tropical Queensland, she spends her days overseeing about 8,000 artefacts recovered from 28 shipwrecks along the Queensland coastline. "I would spend my summer holidays snorkelling and exploring anything underwater I...

Underneath the headlines, though, is an approach whereby China seeks to leverage emerging technologies and innovative operational concepts—for both conventional and strategic operations—to become a leading military through an approach described as “intelligentized” warfare. According to the report, China “seeks to dominate technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution” (p. 145) because it will help China become a world-class military. Below, we outline critical aspects of China’s military modernization efforts referenced in the report, focusing particularly on developments related to defense innovation and emerging technologies. China believes that emerging technologies will shape and increase the speed of warfare, meaning future...

Now that President Joe Biden has had almost 11 months to prove his worth, voters are losing confidence in his health and fitness for office, according to the latest Politico/Morning Consult Poll. Biden is 10 points under water with voters, half of which now disagree with the statement Biden "is in good health." Just 40% combined agree somewhat (26%) or strongly agree (14%), but 50% disagree, including a plurality of 35% of voters strongly disagreeing. This is a 29-point swing since the last time the same survey polled that same question in October before the 2020 presidential election. Before that...

The jury in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse asked Judge Bruce Schroeder in the Kenosha County Court on Wednesday morning whether it should view video evidence in court or in private, prompting the judge to quip: “My nightmare has come true.” The judge was referring to controversies over the video evidence presented by the prosecution during the trial, including whether zoomed-in images enhanced by artificial intelligence were admissible, and whether the prosecution withheld a higher resolution version of a video than the version that had been provided to the defense until the last day of the trial.

WASHINGTON—President Biden called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil-and-gas companies are participating in illegal conduct aimed at keeping gasoline prices high. In a Wednesday letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan, Mr. Biden alleged that there is “mounting evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil-and-gas companies.” He said gasoline prices are rising even as the price of unfinished gasoline goes down. “This unexplained large gap between the price of unfinished gasoline and the average price at the pump is well above the pre-pandemic average,” Mr. Biden wrote. “Meanwhile, the largest oil-and-gas companies in America are generating significant profits off...

A truck driver bashed MSNBC host Tiffany Cross after she criticized the industry for employing mostly white men over 55 who allegedly have road rage. Carl Tharp-Porter responded to Cross’s comments Tuesday night on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder, Tucker Carlson. Cross said she interviewed truck drivers who allegedly experienced acts of racism while working. Her guest, a truck driving school owner, said that attracting more women to the industry is key to the success of the industry. “There is a divide but it’s not on the issue of race,” Tharp-Porter said. “A lot...

Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX), a biotechnology company dedicated to developing and commercializing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, and Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. (SII), the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, today announced that the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for Novavax' recombinant nanoparticle protein-based COVID-19 vaccine with Matrix-M™ adjuvant. The vaccine will be manufactured and marketed in the Philippines by SII under the brand name COVOVAX™. "With less than a third of the Philippine population fully immunized, we expect the option for a protein vaccine, built on a well-understood technology...

Europe’s medicines regulator said Wednesday it could greenlight Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine “within weeks” if data provided is able to demonstrate the shot’s efficacy and safety, a major boon for the Maryland-based biotech, which has been plagued with manufacturing difficulties and until November had not managed to bring a vaccine to market in its 34-year history. KEY BACKGROUND While Novavax may be late to arrive, the shot has a number of advantages over existing vaccines and has the potential to dramatically boost vaccination rates worldwide. It appears to have an impressive efficacy on par with mRNA vaccines from the likes of...

Engineers have successfully transferred digitally encoded information wirelessly using nuclear radiation instead of conventional technology. Radio waves and mobile phone signals rely on electromagnetic radiation for communication but in a new development, engineers from Lancaster University in the UK, working with the Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia, transferred digitally encoded information using “fast neutrons” instead. The researchers measured the spontaneous emission of fast neutrons from californium-252, a radioactive isotope produced in nuclear reactors. Modulated emissions were measured using a detector and recorded on a laptop. Several examples of information, i.e., a word, the alphabet, and a random number selected blindly,...

The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History is doing its annual monarch butterfly count. They are seeing thousands more than last year. "So the importance of counting is to understand one what's happening with the population overall," said Stephanie Turcotte-Edenholl, the educational volunteer at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. Every year western monarchs are counted across the Western U.S. The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History counts the monarchs at the Butterfly Monarch Sanctuary, behind the Butterfly Grove Inn in Pacific Grove. On Thursday, Oct. 29th, the museum counted 9,544 monarchs. In 2020, the sanctuary saw zero monarchs....

A group of states has sued President Joe Biden and his administration challenging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Interim Final Rule (IFR) setting COVID-19 vaccination requirements for a range of employees working at Medicare- and Medicaid-certified providers and suppliers. On November 10, 2021, 10 states led by Eric S. Schmitt, the attorney general of the State of Missouri, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri seeking a declaratory ruling, as well as preliminary and permanent injunctions enjoining CMS from imposing the IFR’s mandate. Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire,...

Scientists have made what is being described as a once-in-a-lifetime discovery, finding a new plant species on the giant rock of Uluru in Australia. What's more, the fig has been hiding in plain sight for years. Ficus desertorum, or the desert fig, is the name that's been given to the new plant. Before now, it was believed to belong in a sub-category of Ficus brachypoda, a species of fig tree found extensively in the northern and central parts of Australia. A closer look has revealed that this is in fact its own distinct species, with its own distinct regional habitat....

White House officials insisted on Tuesday that President Joe Biden does not consider China's President Xi Jinping an 'old friend' after an interpreter said as much during their virtual meeting on Mondahttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10211263/White-House-insists-Biden-Chinas-Xi-arent-old-friends-following-Monday-meeting.htmly. 'You've heard explicitly from the president himself, that he has a longstanding relationship with President Xi,' said White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates on Tuesday. 'They've spent a great deal of time together. They are able to have candid discussions, be direct with each other, which helps them be productive. 'But he does not consider President Xi an old friend,' Bates told reporters. Biden and Xi spent...

The prosecution for the state against Kyle Rittenhouse committed egregious improprieties with their actions, including the way the questioned Rittenhouse and more importantly the way they handled evidence. Of particular note was the fact that they provided a lower-quality version of the FBI drone video to the defense. The defense has filed a motion for mistrial with prejudice, meaning that if granted by the judge, there will be no retrial. Cont'd pic.twitter.com/JJf97z5VSI — Jacek Posobiec 🇺🇸🇵🇱 (@JackPosobiec) November 17, 2021 Comparing the compressed version of the drone video given to the defense to the HD version the prosecution held, it’s...