Free Republic

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denies existence of smash-and-grab robberies amid crime surge.Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss AOC's denial, calling her a 'danger.' See video at link.

CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett took the witness stand Monday at his trial on charges of staging a racist, anti-gay attack on himself and lying to Chicago police about it. On the witness stand Monday, Smollett told the jury how he grew up in a close-knit family of six children and started performing as a child actor before getting more into music. He said he “came to terms with my sexuality” in his early 20s, when he got involved in charity organizations, including a group that fights AIDS in the Black community

A week after several high-profile departures from the office of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Washington Post published a larger story on Harris' management skills based on interviews with "18 people connected to Harris." The Washington Post reported that "one consistent problem" staffers referenced was the fact that "Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared." It was this phenomenon that prompted a particularly biting quote by an anonymous former staffer. "It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,"...

A federal judge ordered that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOAI) request that was filed by a government accountability group called Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency.The group which has more than 30 esteemed members, including professors and scientists, asked the federal government to share any and all data that factored into the agency’s hasty decision to grant Pfizer’s experimental mRNA vaccine an emergency use authorization (EUA).The data amounts to over a massive 329,000 documents, and in what appears an attempt to bury the information, the FDA had previously...

Democrats are rushing to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion reconciliation package before the upcoming campaign year of the 2022 midterms. With the midterm elections less than a year away, campaigns are stepping into full swing. Democrat candidates are positioned to win primaries with hopes of defeating well-positioned Republicans in the general election.

The United States’ Strategy on Countering Corruption, a 38-page document released Dec. 6, outlines five pillars characterizing its goals. These are: modernizing, coordinating, and resourcing U.S. government efforts to fight corruption; curbing illicit finance; holding corrupt people accountable; preserving and strengthening the capacity to fight corruption; and improving diplomatic engagement, and leveraging foreign assistance resources to fight corruption. The White House calls the strategy a whole-of-government approach to elevating the fight against corruption.

The American educational system has been infected by the tyranny of mediocrity for decades. The emphasis on strange and unattainable forms of equality, self-esteem (as opposed to balanced emotional health), and ideology have nullified the possibility of good education. Of course, this is not true of all schools. But generally speaking, schooling in America is an exercise in destructive ideology rather than learning. In the last 20 months, our COVID-19 response has morphed very quickly into an authoritarian ideology that is trying to spread its infectious tentacles ever deeper into students’ lives. As bad as we knew things had gotten...

An Alabama death row inmate who survived a botched execution attempt in 2018 has died. Doyle Hamm passed away Sunday morning from lymphatic cancer, according to his attorney, Bernard Harcourt. Hamm was diagnosed with the disease in 2014, his attorney said. Hamm was sentenced to die for the 1987 murder of a motel clerk. The State of Alabama attempted to execute Hamm by lethal injection in February 2018, but failed after staff and medical personnel worked for 2 1/2 hours to find veins in his groin, feet and legs. After the execution was aborted, Alabama correction officials denied there was...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department sued Texas over new redistricting maps Monday, saying the plans discriminate against the very Black and Latino voters who have fueled the state’s population boom. The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Texas, claims the Republican-controlled state violated part of the Voting Rights Act in drawing up new maps for its congressional delegation and state legislature. The case is the first legal action challenging a state’s maps from the Biden Justice Department during this redistricting cycle. The lawsuit notes that the vast majority of Texas’ population growth over the past decade came...

Is the US engaged in a monetary cold war with Russia? It looks that way if we consider the Index of Global Easing and Tightening from the Council of Foreign Relations. Russia and Brazil are tightening along with Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Chile. Add Pakistan, The Czech Republic and Poland to the list of tighteners. The looseners? The US, of course, with Canada, Australia, China, India, Western Europe, Turkey and Nigeria. New Zealand is the quickest loosener. This looks very cold war-like. But a monetary cold war.

Switzerland has just legalized a new way to die by assisted suicide. The country’s medical review board has just given authorization for use of the Sarco Suicide Pod, which is a 3-D-printed portable coffin-like capsule with windows that can be transported to a tranquil place for a person’s final moments of life. Conventional assisted-suicide methods have generally involved a chemical substance. Inventor Philip Nitschke of Exit International told the website SwissInfo.ch that his “death pod” offers a different approach. “We want to remove any kind of psychiatric review from the process and allow the individual to control the method themselves,”...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) praised the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics on Monday after the Biden administration announced that no government officials will be traveling to the Chinese capital for the Winter games. The Utah Republican said the administration's decision was "right." “The Administration is right to refuse diplomatic presence at the Beijing Olympics: America will not turn a blind eye to China’s predation, persecution, and genocide,” Romney wrote on Twitter.

Nightclubs in France will be ordered to close for four weeks starting this weekend to counter surging Covid-19 cases that have seen hospitals announce emergency protocols as beds fill up, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Monday. Stricter social distancing and extended use of face masks will also be required in schools as France faces a fifth wave of virus cases, said Castex, who himself just emerged from quarantine last week after contracting the virus. "We have all had a tendency to lower our guard" in recent weeks, he said. But the government held off on imposing stricter measures for...

After the tragic events in Waukesha, Wisconsin last month where a man ran down innocent paradegoers in a Red SUV, killing 6 and injuring dozens of others, the dancing grannies, one of the groups victimized in the parade, made a return this Saturday. FOX News Reports– The Milwaukee Dancing Grannies made their first appearance in a Christmas parade Saturday since a suspect drove through a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last month, killing four of the group’s members and two other people. (video)

CNN is bracing for a legal battle with fired host Chris Cuomo over his contract, sources said Monday — after a bitter back-and-forth about what the network knew of his secret efforts to aid his embattled brother, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Chris Cuomo, 51, has hired lawyers and is preparing to file suit against CNN if it doesn’t honor the remainder of the four-year contract he signed last year, sources familiar with the matter told The Post on Monday. The deal is reportedly worth $6 million annually. But CNN has “no intention of paying [Chris] Cuomo a penny,” an insider said....

The Belgian Health Minister pic.twitter.com/oxzMw5pOno — David E Brady (@davidebrady) December 5, 2021 Don’t skip the video at the top — In Belgium, government health policy consists of beating you over the head with a baton and using water cannons against Freedom Fighters in the winter. Meet the Health Minister of Belgium Maggie de Block — Wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_De_Block

Terminal often intimidates new users. However, once you get to know it, you gradually start liking it. Well, that happens with most Linux users.Even if you are using Ubuntu as a desktop system, you may have to enter the terminal at times. New users are often clueless about many things. Some knowledge of basic Linux commands always helps in such cases but this article is not about that.This article focuses on explaining small, basic and often ignored things about using the terminal. This should help new Ubuntu desktop users to know the terminal and use it with slightly more efficiency.The...

Prince Harry today advised people who feel 'stuck in jobs that don't bring them joy' to quit and said leaving work was something to be 'celebrated', nearly two years after his acrimonious departure from the Royal Family. The Duke of Sussex, who lives in an £11million mansion in California and has a series of endorsement deals with companies that pay him to represent their brands, said people should leave their jobs to put their happiness first. The 37-year-old prince's comments may be seen by some as referring to how he and wife Meghan Markle stepped down as senior royals last...

Attends indoor event surrounded by thousands of maskless people.. An MP who claimed she felt “unsafe” around people who don’t wear masks proudly posted maskless photos of herself to Twitter enjoying a party surrounded by people not wearing masks. Whoops. “I feel incredibly unsafe in the chamber,” when Tories don’t wear masks Labour MP Zarah Sultana stated during a recent BBC News interview. ... Those fears were apparently absent when Sultana visited the MOBO awards in Coventry, during which she was photographed in close proximity to others at an indoor event attended by thousands. “The @MOBOAwards came to Coventry last...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki refused to back down Monday from her claim last year that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation,” despite the fact that it was corroborated at the time and has been vindicated in reports since. Democrats, establishment media, and Silicon Valley actively suppressed the New York Post‘s story last October, which revealed that emails on a laptop abandoned by Biden showed that he introduced a Ukrainian colleague from the Burisma energy company to then-Vice President Joe Biden, despite the latter claiming that he had no knowledge of his son’s business activities. Other emails showed Hunter...