Free Republic

Cam Newton was the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. Barack Obama was still in his first presidential term. The iPhone 4 was just released. That was also the last year Michigan defeated Ohio State in football... until Saturday. The Wolverines, after 10 years of frustration, finally defeated their bitter rivals, 42-27. Michigan (11-1), which entered at No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings, will now jump into position to make its first playoff appearance. A win in the Big 10 championship game next weekend would nearly guarantee it. Ohio State (10-2) moved up to No. 2 in...

Again and again, public health inspectors returned to the Italian restaurant at the Westlake Village shopping center. They found Novo Cafe serving diners indoors and out, despite a Los Angeles County order forbidding it during the worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to county records. Over and over, they handed out citations with a $500 fine. In February, the county revoked the restaurant’s public health permit. Novo Cafe stayed open. This summer, co-owner Massimo Forti told an NBC4 news crew who filmed unmasked workers in the restaurant that he saw adhering to mask requirements as a “sign of submission.”

On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Alex Witt Reports,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) argued that changes in the price of gas are one reason why “we have to accelerate our program to get off of fossil fuels” and control of the oil supply by other countries is “another reason why we need to accelerate our efforts to get off of fossil fuels.” Cardin said, “The challenge, of course, is we have to transition off of the fossil fuels to renewable fuels. We need to do that for our economy. We need to do it for our environment. We need to do...

[H/T Grey_whiskers]TWiV 641: COVID-19 with Dr. Anthony Fauci - YouTube (37 minute video with TRANSCRIPT) CLICK HERE TO jump to the 4:32 mark in the video, where where Fauci begins explaining that running PCR 'tests' at 35 cycles and above renders meaningless results. Vincent Racaniello 102K subscribers Dr. Anthony Fauci joins TWiV to discuss SARS-CoV-2 transmission, testing, immunity, pathogenesis, vaccines, and preparedness. Computer-generated video transcript posted to Free Republic.

Kenneth Pennington, a top digital strategist for Beto O’Rourke, had a simple plan. Mr. O’Rourke would announce his bid for governor of Texas early on a recent Monday morning and then Mr. Pennington would break the news via email to Mr. O’Rourke’s lucrative list of supporters, a loyal following that had already raised tens of millions of dollars for Mr. O’Rourke in his past bids for the Senate and the White House. But Mr. Pennington soon noticed something troubling: a parallel wave of look-alike emails from groups completely unaffiliated with the O’Rourke campaign that were designed to capitalize on the...

LONDON (AP) — The new potentially more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in more European countries on Saturday, just days after being identified in South Africa, leaving governments around the world scrambling to stop the spread. Many countries have slapped restrictions on various southern African countries over the past couple of days, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Thailand and the United States, in response to warnings over the transmissibility of the new variant. This goes against the advice of the World Health Organization, which has warned against any overreaction before the variant was...

​A whole bunch of data about the economy was released Wednesday — a day early because of Thanksgiving — and a lot of it was positive. ​We learned that the Federal Reserve is bullish on the economy’s prospects through the end of next year. In the minutes of the Open Market Committee meeting earlier this month, the central bank’s staff predicts gross domestic product will post “sizable” gains this year and next. ​Some of Wednesday’s news was a downer — consumer confidence fell to its lowest point in a decade, according to the University of Michigan. And the personal consumption...

It’s easy to amend the Constitution. It’s been done dozens of times since WWII. Send the right case with the right litigants at the right time to an adequately Leftist-leaning Scotus and voila’, amend the Constitution. Pretty slick, eh? Through their silence, this is the end-run around the Constitution that Article V Opponents defend. When did We The People, through Article V, ensconce abortion and homosexual marriage as rights? We The People never empowered the early Administrative State and later the Deep State which threaten our republican existence. Since the 1950s we’ve witnessed the detrimental effects of Christianity’s absence from...

An Oakland security guard has died from a bullet wound he suffered after the retired cop was shot while he protected reporters at the scene of an armed robbery in the crime-ravaged Bay Area Kevin Nishita, a father of two and grandfather of three, was on assignment to guard the KRON4 team as it was reporting on the latest smash-and-grab raid in California on Wednesday when a robber targeted the TV crew for their cameras. Nishita, a former police officer, confronted one of 12 masked robbers to protect the reporters, and the thief shot him in the lower abdomen. He...

… As New Zealand shifts to a policy of “living with the virus,” residents accustomed to living virtually Covid-free for most of the pandemic are being confronted by rising case numbers and widening vaccine mandates. Opposition to vaccination as well as frustration with ongoing pandemic restrictions is fueling a small but vocal protest movement inspired in part by American politics. In a working paper published in November, a team of researchers in New Zealand said there had been a “sharp increase in the popularity and intensity” of disinformation around Covid-19 since August. The researchers said the disinformation was “being used...

I have written numerous times about nothing has been the same since the housing bubble burst and ensuing financial crisis of 2008. The crisis led to bank bailouts (TARP) and banking legislation (Dodd-Frank) giving The Federal Reserve even more power. And then the COVID lockdowns led to even MORE power for The Fed. And a horrid decline in money velocity (the ability of printing money to increase economic growth … or GDP). But let’s take one step backwards. One the causes of the housing bubble that burst was President Clinton’s infamous National Homeownership Strategy that encouraged “partners” with the Federal...

GB News is quietly turning into a ratings winner – which will dismay the Guardianistas who predicted and hoped otherwise. Last night’s viewing figures show the upstart news channel outflanking Sky News and the BBC with its evening programming: both Farage and Brazier smashed Sky News Tonight and BBC News at 8pm, with Dewbs & Co beating News Hour with Mark Austin – and even performing respectably against BBC News at Six. BBC News at Six is still a blockbuster as news channels go. The situation changes immediately Farage is on screen at 7pm:

[H/T Melian]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp4ncch9b1M

J.K. Rowling's controversial posts about trans women continue to divide her fans, with the furor against her reaching a new level over the weekend, when activists shared the author's home address on Twitter. The incident has since prompted outrage from her supporters and a lengthy Twitter statement from Rowling on Monday. "I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out," she wrote in part. "Perhaps — and I’m just throwing this out there – the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is soaring, businesses are struggling to hire and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been in free-fall. The White House sees a common culprit for it all: COVID-19. Biden’s team views the pandemic as the root cause of both the nation’s malaise and his own political woes. Finally controlling COVID-19, the White House believes, is the skeleton key to rejuvenating the country and reviving Biden’s own standing. But the coronavirus challenge has proved to be vexing for the White House, with last summer’s premature claims of victory swamped by the more transmissible delta variant, stubborn millions...

A team of experts has found a mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old on Peru's central coast, one of the archaeologists who participated in the excavation said on Friday. The mummified remains were of a person from the culture that developed between the coast and mountains of the South American country. The mummy, whose gender was not identified, was discovered in the Lima region, said archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna. "The main characteristic of the mummy is that the whole body was tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face, which would be part...

Prior research has shown that other galaxies have features called feathers—long gas filaments with barbs that look from Earth like feathers. But because it is very difficult to study the Milky Way galaxy from an Earth perspective, no such features have been seen, until now. In their work, the researchers were studying concentrations of carbon monoxide gas in data from the APEX telescope in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. They noticed concentrations that had not been seen before, and after taking a closer look, discovered that it was part of a large gas formation that extended from near the center...

"It has long been assumed that if there are a lot of deceased babies in a burial sample, then infant mortality must have been high," lead author Dr. Clare McFadden, from the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, said."Many have assumed that infant mortality was very high in the past in the absence of modern healthcare."When we look at these burial samples, it actually tells us more about the number of babies that were born and tells us very little about the number of babies that were dying, which is counterintuitive to past perceptions."The researchers examined United Nations (UN) data...

ransomnote: I believe these are anti-mandate protests which are occurring all over world. In some areas, the police show support for protesters. This is the first time I've seen them march in support.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aZb_BtnP1Y

CAMPBELL (CBS SF) — Two men suffered non-life-threatening injuries and a high school playoff crowd was forced to flee to safety while the teams drove to the ground for cover on the field Friday night after gunshots rang out at the CCS Division 1 championship game between St. Francis and Serra high schools.