Free Republic

Presented by Wells Fargo NO SHUTDOWN — Congress avoided a government shutdown after Senate conservatives dropped their demands to nix President JOE BIDEN’s vaccine mandates in the funding bill — and Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER gave them a way out. All 100 senators agreed late Thursday night to quickly proceed to a bill funding the government through Feb. 18. The breakthrough came after Schumer gave Republicans a vote (with a simple majority threshold) to defund federal vaccination mandates. He did so only because there were two Republicans absent, meaning that even if Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) sided with Republicans,...

The fact that the Supreme Court hasn't ruled on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health abortion case didn't stop Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from attempting to delegitimize the decision, accusing Brett Kavanaugh of being "credibly accused of sexual assault on multiple accounts" with "corroborated details." Yet the court, says Ocasio-Cortez, "is letting him decide on whether to legalize forced birth in the US." Of course, "credibly accused" is not any kind of legal standard, unlike, say, liberal notions about due process and the presumption of innocence. Indeed, there is nothing for the FBI to investigate because there are no "corroborated details"...

The investigation into the 2019 Dayton, Ohio mass shooting shows the Bureau cannot be trusted to identify left-wing violence. ro-Antifa social media accounts are taking a victory lap this week following the announcement that the FBI has ruled out a political motive in the 2019 Dayton, Ohio mass murder of nine people, carried out by Antifa supporter Connor Betts. One of the victims was Betts’ sister. Betts interacted with multiple Antifa-aligned accounts online, including the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), a Marxist group whose members commonly provide armed support during Antifa actions. Betts himself attended Antifa protests while armed, and made...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemDaniel 12The End Times 12 “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise[a] will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness,...

On November 4, 2021, the Cook County (where Chicago is located), Illinois board amended a gun and ammunition tax which had been ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court on October 21, 2021. From chicagotribune.com: Cook County commissioners voted Thursday to amend a guns and ammunition tax that was found unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court, aiming to give the measure another lifeline by designating that money for violence prevention. In a 12-2 vote, with three commissioners absent, the county board approved the amendment, which states all revenue from the firearm and ammunition tax must go toward programs or operations...

Biden is the shepherd I did not want. He leadeth me beside the still factories. He restoreth my faith in the Republican party. He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line, I shall fear no hunger, for his bailouts are with me. He has anointed my income with taxes, My expenses runneth over. Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life, And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.. I am glad I am American, I am glad...

The founders of the company Spinlaunch are making a boatload, but it doesn't look as though they'll ever deliver. Spinlaunch is a high-tech company that is attempting to modernize that biblical weapon, the sling. The Brothers Yaney are marketing Spinlaunch as the most efficient means to sling small satellites into orbit. The physics is straightforward, but the mechanics are anything but, and the financial rewards for the Brothers Yaney are out of this world. Who would think separating the wealthy from their money could be so much fun? And no, that is not the tagline to the movie The Brothers...

Rachel Maddow is one of America's most popular proponents of socialism. Government is never big enough for Maddow. Bernie Sanders has a friend in Maddow. But when the subject is abortion, you will not find a more enthusiastic libertarian. After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Nov. 30 on Mississippi's law banning the termination of unborn children after 15 weeks, Maddow championed lawyer Julie Rikelman for the Center for Reproductive Rights for arguing this is "about American women being forced by the government to give birth against their will." She added: "This is what the supposed small-government conservative movement...

Republicans have been hammering the Biden administration over inflation. Democrats have tried to respond by blaming supply-chain shortages caused by the pandemic. But Republican senator Tom Cotton has a completely different theory: He blames inflation on Donald Trump’s poor selection to lead the Federal Reserve. Cotton’s view, laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, places the blame for inflation squarely on Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chairman. “Mr. Powell’s Fed has forced millions of American families to choose whether to pay the mortgage, feed their families, fill up their gas tanks, heat their homes or buy Christmas presents,” he argues....

There is way too much student anger; anger that has been seeded and nourished by school boards, administrators, and teachers. I sent my daughter off to high school this morning with a blend of regret and fear. There are threats against schools all over the map of Michigan today; copycats in the wake of the Oxford shootings. This is not a healthy way to live. In fact it occurs to me that there is way too much student anger; anger that has been seeded and nourished by school boards, administrators, and teachers. Just last week Russell Ball, who taught seventh-grade...

South Africa has practiced and modeled good science and good sense. Dr. Angelique Coetzee (pronounced koot-see-a) was among the first to alert South African epidemiologists to what has now been named the omicron variant of COVID-19. Or, as dubbed here, the “OMG! variant.” A calm clinician, Coetzee had deduced that what she was seeing in her patients—and successfully treating—was a heretofore unseen COVID variant with attendant mild disease. Quickly were South Africa’s skilled and responsible epidemiologists alerted and the genetic sequencing commenced. And, voila: A mutation! Also a completely unremarkable occurrence in the annals, and course, of epidemics. As molecular...

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A few weeks into Joe Biden’s presidency, I had the following thought: How many articles, opinion pieces and stories can be written and/or reported about one person’s utter stupidity? At some point, the sheer repetition of pointing out Scranton Joe’s uselessness as a leader, speaker, role model and human being would become background noise. It’s now just accepted that this man has no discernable virtues as a leader, no abilities that come to the fore, and is possibly the most annoying blowhard that has ever been in government. None of this is a revelation to anyone who has been awake...

The Los Angeles District Attorney announced Tuesday that a man is facing four separate felony cases for stealing over a dozen cars within a three month period. Jose Enrique Esquivel faces 14 felony counts for auto thefts between the March 30 and June 15. Esquivel, 24, was reportedly arrested on March 30 for stealing a truck and then immediately released following coronavirus emergency bail schedule – which sought to reduce jail populations during the pandemic. “The defendant was again arrested for either driving or attempting to steal a truck but released on April 28, May 8, twice on May 14,...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Los Angeles police have arrested 14 suspects in connection with a series of smash-and-grab robberies at local stores last month. Police say there were at least 11 such robberies around Los Angeles in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, resulting in the theft of some $338,000 in retail goods.

Secret Service records confirm the details of Hunter Biden’s trips described in a series of emails obtained and published by the New York Post. Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said Hunter Biden received Secret Service detail from January 2009 to early July 2014. In one email reported by the Post, sent from Hunter Biden to his business partner Devon Archer dated Apr. 13, 2014, Hunter refers to a trip to Houston slated for “tmrw.” Secret Service records released by Johnson and Grassley corroborate details of the trip with a travel entry from Hunter Biden for...

The Supreme Court, as this is written, is hearing oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, challenging Mississippi's law banning, with a few exceptions, abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There's a powerful argument that the Court can't logically uphold this statute, which is less restrictive than most other nations' abortion laws, without overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that overturned all 50 states' abortion laws. What is the likely political effect of such a decision? Democrats backing abortion rights predict a "revolution" of outraged voters ousting anti-abortion Republicans in elections for state legislatures...

Universities and corporations are desperate to hire people whose sole job is to tell you how racist you are. In a recent discussion about the "wokeness" situation in American universities, Prof. Kimberly Johnson presented a table showing the salary compensation data for DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) personnel at Michigan State University (MSU) in 2018–2019. It contains 82 full-time positions ranging from a modest $42,000 salary for the administrative assistant to $408,000 for chief diversity officer (that's just above the salary of the POTUS, at $400,000). The total annual compensation for DEI staff at MSU is $10.6 million. Isn't that too...

On Thursday's Morning Joe, Scarborough mocked the masculinity of Republicans, while by inference boasting of his own machismo. [snip] He then turned to Mark Meadows, who has been described as writing "fake news" reports in his new book where he claimed that former President Trump had tested positive for Covid prior to his first debate with then-candidate Joe Biden. That, in turn, led a smirking Scarborough to do a cutesy little limbo with words: "These guys put their masculinity in a lockbox for Donald Trump. There is another body part: I'd like to use it. Rush Limbaugh used it. I...

At last month's National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, Florida, I used my speech to criticize "Fusionism," the postwar conservative movement's default political alliance built upon an attendant "Fusionist" political philosophy, and instead argue on behalf of an alternative path forward. Fusionism, as formulated and popularized by the midcentury theorist Frank Meyer, "fused" together economic laissez-faire dogma with privately held social and cultural conservatism. Fusionism remains today the philosophical lodestar for many of the leading institutions of Conservatism, Inc., such as National Review and The Heritage Foundation. In the speech, I criticized Fusionism as "effete, limp and unmasculine" because the political...