Free Republic

Senator tells Pioneer his wife wants him to quit; decision coming this month Sen. John Thune is at the peak of his career. He’s in his third term in the Senate, is the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, is wildly popular in his home state and the heavy favorite to win a fourth term next year. So why he is considering retirement? Thune, in an exclusive interview with the Black Hills Pioneer on Saturday, said he is still undecided about running in 2022. “We’ll make that decision by the end of the month,” he said. Twice this year, he...

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will no longer be cooperating with a committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, despite previous efforts to work with them. Meadows and his attorney George Terwilliger notified the committee Tuesday morning, after the senior Trump administration official could not come to terms with lawmakers on an arrangement to work with them. Terwilliger said Meadows was looking to appear voluntarily before the committee and answer questions that Meadows believed were not protected by executive privilege. Meadows is set to appear on "Hannity" Tuesday evening.

The Northwest Regional Corrections Center in Crookston, Minn., can house 200 inmates, but this week, a 60-bed housing unit will close, cutting the jail capacity to 140. Tri-County Community Corrections is operated by Polk, Norman and Red Lake counties. The jail needs about 38 full-time officers to meet state staffing requirements, but Executive Director Andrew Larson says the rate of staff turnover has become unsustainable. "This year, for example, we've had 40 resignations through Nov. 30, 2021. Last year we had 20," said Larson. Staff departures have been climbing since 2016, but the issue reached a critical point this year....

Diverse Sample Shows the Power of President Trump's Endorsement Nationwide Today the Las Vegas polling firm SoCo Strategies announced the results of a multi-state poll, focused on a diverse sampling to look for current trends in the Republican primary landscape. The results demonstrate two emerging narratives. Our polling showed that President Trump is a dominant force in Congressional Primaries across the country. Trump endorsed candidates Joe Kent and Harriet Hageman lead their anti-Trump incumbent opponents and Pro-Trump candidates Mike Collins and Anthony Sabatini lead their open primaries by double digits while another Pro-Trump candidate, Graham Allen, was tied in South...

For her first Great Dickens Christmas Fair in 2015, LaToya Tooles fashioned a gown out of dollar-store hula hoops and a tablecloth. A friend had invited her to the annual event, a festive re-creation of 19th century London inspired by the works of Charles Dickens that has been running in San Francisco for nearly 40 years. Almost as soon as she arrived at the antique winter wonderland, she joined the revelers on Fezziwig’s dance floor and didn’t stop waltzing for hours. “I met some of my greatest friends at the Dickens Fair,” says Tooles, who went on to join the...

[Aircrew] have been on an aeroplane for upwards of 25 hours, sometimes closer to 30 hours if there are any delays," says Clark*, another Cathay Pacific pilot. "They have to sit on a plastic chair and can't sleep, waiting for the tests. The whole process takes about four hours from the time you've landed to the time you get home." If they test negative, they get to go home - but they're still not free. In the first three days after arriving in Hong Kong, aircrew must remain at home. They can only leave for a maximum of two hours...

Under oath, Smollett maintained his innocence Monday and testified “there was no hoax” and the hate crime he suffered was real and carried out by brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo.

The funeral of student Mahran Khalilia in the village of Jaba in the Jenin area. He was stabbed to death during an argument with Fatah students at the American University of Jenin. This caused heavy tension in the Jenin area and clashes broke out between the villagers and the PA security forces.

New York City saw two more “random” attacks in or near Manhattan’s Morningside Park on Thursday. One man, a student at Columbia University, is dead and an Italian tourist is in the hospital.If Morningside Park rings a bell it’s because it’s the same park where Tessa Majors was “randomly” stabbed to death in 2019. Or was it a “robbery gone bad”? Perhaps it was a “random robbery gone south.” Either way, three black teens stabbed Majors to death.Majors’ parents wrote a scathing letter in June 2020 that began, “We dropped her off at Barnard College in New York City to...

USS Bowfin Bing browser - Pearl Harbor Day 2021 https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=USS+Bowfin+&form=hpbap1&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover

A second-grader at a St. Louis elementary school was found with a loaded handgun on school grounds last week, officials said. St. Louis Public Schools said the weapon was found during recess on Friday when a teacher at Pamoja Preparatory Academy picked up on “unusual behavior.” A second-grader at a St. Louis elementary school was found with a loaded handgun on school grounds last week, officials said. St. Louis Public Schools said the weapon was found during recess on Friday when a teacher at Pamoja Preparatory Academy picked up on “unusual behavior.”

President Biden this week will host the first-ever Summit for Democracy, which will focus on strengthening democracy, defending against authoritarianism, fighting corruption and promoting human rights. Biden will deliver the summit’s opening remarks on Thursday and closing remarks on Friday. The virtual gathering is expected to include more than 100 participants from governments, civil society, and the private sector. Senior administration officials said the summit will put strengthening democracy “on the front burner in terms of the global conversation.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's fines over mask rules are unconstitutional as GOP lawmakers fight back Video...

Governments around the world are warning their citizens that COVID-19 vaccines present heart risks in some populations. But if Twitter users try to look up similar research, they may receive a warning that the information is "unsafe." Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare "raised the alert level for 'side reactions'" to the Pfizer and Moderna two-shot mRNA vaccines on Dec. 3, according to an English translation of a report by the Japanese Kyodo News Service. Just the News couldn't find a native English version. "Serious" symptoms of myocarditis and pericarditis are being reported among the vaccinated "more frequently in...

VIDEO: Former Jordanian Minister of Information Saleh Al-Qallab: "Erdogan is the real Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Turks know this. Everybody knows this. He himself declares this! The Muslim Brotherhood is an actual terrorist organization. Most of the countries in the world consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. One day, he will stand trial in Turkey for terrorism"

Anyone who has suffered through rush hour traffic in Washington DC knows even the slightest traffic incident can cause hours of delay. This prevents emergency first responders from saving lives and keeps our dear leaders from getting to work. While some may see the latter as a positive, it’s still an act of insurrection against our government when purposeful actions are taken to halt their fulfillment of duties. Considering the hyperventilating congressional Democrats experience every time there’s a “right-wing” protest in DC, it’s conspicuous that they did not call in the National Guard when climate change “activists” decided to halt...

Pope says ‘gossip’ pressured him to accept bishop’s resignation after alleged affairPope Francis defended Paris Archbishop Aupetit, after the prelate resigned over allegations of sexual relations with a woman. Mon Dec 6, 2021 - 2:39 pm ESTMon Dec 6, 2021 - 4:54 pm EST (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has defended the former Archbishop of Paris, who resigned 11 days ago after allegations of having an intimate relationship with a woman, saying that he had only accepted the resignation “not on the altar of truth but on the altar of hypocrisy.”Speaking to Vatican-approved reporters on the flight from Greece to Rome,...

Joseph McBride, who is an attorney representing several Jan. 6 defendants, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he is requesting that the government release explosive videos concerning at least 4 “agent provocateurs” that will reveal the “truth” about what happened that day. “The truth is going to come out,” McBride adamantly told Carlson. “They cannot stop it. That is why we are asking for the government and the judge, quite frankly, to release these tapes and let the chips fall where they may.”

EXCLUSIVE: Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Democrats made COVID-19 vaccines "political," slamming mandates as "the wrong way to go" and encouraging public officials on educating the public, rather than "indoctrinating" them. In an interview with Fox News about his new book, "Republican Rescue: Saving the Party from Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden," Christie discussed the issue of vaccines and how inoculations became political.

Russia’s natural population has undergone its largest peacetime decline in recorded history over the last 12 months, according to an analysis of official government statistics made by a prominent independent demographer, as the country battles a deadly fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The natural population, a number calculated from registered deaths and births, excluding the impact of migration, declined by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021, the demographer Alexei Raksha has calculated.