Free Republic

One of the sharpest critics of the American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan this past summer says the episode left the United States “showered with shame.” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who earlier said he can’t think of a bigger “mess up” in his lifetime than the way the Biden administration handled the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies from Afghanistan, again criticized the removal in a Senate committee hearing Wednesday. The first-term senator said he wanted to talk about the decisions to go into Afghanistan and what lessons the U.S. might have learned or done differently. “But I can’t move on...

You have to learn to fight your own battles if you want to become a mature believer. You can’t always depend on someone else for your deliverance. Perhaps you have a prayer warrior friend you can call and say, “I’ve got a battle before me. Will you pray for me? I know you have power with God!” Now that is scriptural, but it is not God’s complete will for you. God wants you to become a warrior. He wants you to be able to stand up against the devil. When Israel was being oppressed by their enemies, God promised Gideon,...

Appearing before the Senate Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday, President Biden's nominee to head up the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) faced tough questions from Republicans over her past statements, writings, and actions that have raised eyebrows as Biden continues to stand by his nominee. Dr. Saule Omarova, a professor at Cornell University, has faced stiff opposition to her nomination due to radical views and statements. When asked about her desire for oil and gas companies to go bankrupt, Omarova brushed it off as "poor phrasing."

About nine in ten COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in Pennsylvania have involved people who are less than fully vaccinated against the virus, according to new data from the state health department. The data regarding deaths is based on 8,949 deaths attributed to COVID-19 between Jan. 1 and Nov. 2 of this year. Only 954 of the deaths, or 11%, involved people who are fully vaccinated, the state said. The state defines fully vaccinated people as having the full regimen of doses, usually two, and having passed the two weeks after the final dose needed for full protection. The state also...

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As golf balls, they're not all that big. Florida’s Governor has a pair. That’s the slogan emblazoned on new merchandise — golf balls — that debuted Wednesday as the Legislature made a decisive drive toward passing legislation Gov. Ron DeSantis called for to fortify Florida against those pesky federal vaccine mandates. “Hold the line,” says the box, under the line about the Governor having a pair. Even if the line isn’t specified on the new merchandise, there’s plenty of double entendre. Allusions to anatomy abound. “Standing firm and setting an example for the rest of the nation in defending freedom...

A New York man who pleaded guilty to rape and sexual abuse for assaulting four teenage girls during parties at his parents' home will not face jail time after a judge on Tuesday sentenced him to eight years probation. Niagara County Court Judge Matthew Murphy said he "agonized" over the case of 20-year-old Christopher Belter, who was accused of committing the crimes when he was 16 or 17. Belter pleaded guilty in 2019 to a series of felony charges that included third-degree rape and attempted first-degree sexual abuse, as well as two misdemeanor charges of second-degree sexual abuse. Although Belter...

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday that the two Republicans booted from committees this year, Reps. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), would get those seats restored if Republicans win the majority in 2022. “They’ll have committees,” McCarthy said at a press conference in the Capitol. “They may have other committee assignments. They may have better committee assignments.” McCarthy also reiterated his threat that a future Republican House majority may remove Democrats from committees as retaliation for the votes this year taking punitive action against Gosar and Greene.

A woman described by the San Francisco district attorney’s office as a prolific retail thief is facing multiple charges in connection with more than 100 thefts from Target that total more than $40,000 in value, district attorney’s officials said Wednesday. Aziza Graves has been charged with eight felony counts of grand theft and 120 misdemeanor counts of petty theft in thefts of items from the Stonestown Target store between October 2020 to November 2021, district attorney’s officials said. Graves was arrested by San Francisco police at the Stonestown Target location on Tuesday, authorities said. Target’s Asset Protection Team had reached...

California will have so much money next year that state officials will likely have to give some of it back to taxpayers to meet constitutional limits on state spending, according to a new forecast from the state's independent Legislative Analyst's Office. The state's annual “Fiscal Outlook,” released Wednesday, predicts a $31 billion surplus for the 2022 budget year that begins July 1. The analyst's office says that will exceed a constitutional limit on state spending by more than $14 billion. That could require Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers to either cut taxes, spend more money on schools and infrastructure...

On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough cited a report that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had to bring peace between the members of his caucus “who are closely aligned with former President Donald Trump” and more moderate GOP members who joined the Democrats in passing the recent infrastructure spending package. The “extreme” members, to Scarborough’s thinking, are those who opposed Biden’s $1.2 trillion ‘infrastructure’ bill. Scarborough made these comments on his program “Morning Joe.” Scarborough said McCarthy “sacrificed his political soul to be Speaker of the House” which in turn meant losing the respect of former President Donald Trump." The “Morning...

In October, the caravan violently pushed through a national guard roadblock in Mexico. Irineo Mujica, a member of a “pro-migrant” organization, is quoted as saying “with or without papers, we’re ready for war.” “It’s true that if they are pushed back into Mexico or halted by the Mexicans, that they will riot. They do get out of hand,” security expert Todd Bensman, with the Center for Immigration Studies, said. “They might try to charge the bridges. They may try to charge over some spot in the river.” Bensman adds that the White House is largely ignoring the threat, making it...

Remember those "shovel-ready jobs" promised by the Obama-Biden administration in 2011? When many failed to appear after passage of this spending boondoggle, President Obama joked, "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected." That law, noted Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), cost $787 billion, of which $48 billion was supposed to go for infrastructure. It was disingenuously called the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein calculated that each job created would cost taxpayers $200,000. When asked about this statistic in a September 26, 2011 interview with ABC News, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not dispute the figure,...

The coronavirus pandemic boosted home education among African Americans, but it wasn’t the only factor... ....The COVID-19 pandemic drove an increase in homeschooling across all demographics, but the boost was particularly large among African American families. According to Census Bureau data, the percentage of black families educating children at home grew fivefold in six months, from 3.3 percent in April 2020 to 16.1 percent in October 2020. Steven Duvall, director of research at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), said that in previous years African American families homeschooled at about half the rate of white families. But more recent...

In the 1980 presidential campaign, the Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan, said, "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his." The Gipper turned out to be correct. The gale-force winds of rising inflation had knocked working-class people to the ground, with paychecks shrinking month after month. Reagan wound up winning a landslide victory, and Carter was bounced out of office. The middle class hates inflation. The New York Times recently surmised that the effects of inflation are mostly "psychological," and that people should appreciate that...

Cummins Inc., a century-old maker of truck engines powered by diesel and other fossil fuels, may not seem like the most likely attendee at the UN Climate Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, but CEO Tom Linebarger was there this week telling industrial partners and customers the company is working to help them shift to low- and no-carbon vehicles powered by batteries and hydrogen. As battery-electric passenger models gain market share in the U.S., Europe and China, attention is shifting to electrifying larger, dirtier commercial vehicles including semi-trucks, construction and mining vehicles, as well as trains, ships and aircraft. Currently, no...

WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton dined in Chicago on Tuesday night at the home of Fred Eychaner, the philanthropist, Newsweb Corporation chair and major Democratic donor. The dinner was at Eychaner’s Lincoln Park home, next to his Wrightwood 659 art and architecture gallery designed by the noted architect Tadao Ando. Eychaner is a longtime supporter of the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s presidential bids and Democratic causes and candidates. The dinner was a fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation, with the attendees described by a source as “old friends getting together to support President Clinton and his foundation.”

Judge Bruce Schroeder has announced Thursday that staff from MSNBC will no longer be allowed inside the Kenosha County Courthouse following the incident in which a person was observed following a bus that the jury uses to get to and from the building. “I have instructed that no one from MSNBC news will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial. This is a very serious matter and I don’t know what the ultimate truth of it is, but absolutely it would go without much thinking that someone who is following the jury bus – that is...

America’s First Mom Raided By FBI Since October 4th DOJ Memorandum? She Fought Against Voter Fraud, Critical Race Theory and Forced Masking in Schools An FBI SWAT team raided the home of an activist mother of three in Colorado on Tuesday, Nov. 16, knocking down her door, bursting into the house and handcuffing her while she was homeschooling her children. This is the first known case of the federal government making good on its promise to not only intimidate but actually carry out a raid on a mom who was involved in her local school board politics, said Brannon Howse,...

Hello Old Schoolers! I recently sat down with long-time friend and martial arts expert Jack Toufenkchian to discuss the spiritual connection in the martial arts. I think you’re really going to enjoy this one! To Contact Jack Toufenkchian ......... ......... To your Health, Success, and Freedom! Patrick