Free Republic

SINGAPORE - From Wednesday (Dec 8), those who are unvaccinated "by choice" against Covid-19 and become infected will have to pay for their own treatment. We answer some questions you may have on this topic. Q: Does the rule apply to those who are already hospitalised before Dec 8? A: This will apply to all unvaccinated Covid-19 patients admitted on or after Dec 8, 2021, to hospitals and Covid-19 treatment facilities. The Covid-19 medical bills for those who are ineligible for vaccination, such as children under 12 years old or those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, will still...

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on one of the most divisive issues facing the state at the moment – the state-imposed mandate that children must wear face masks while in school to protect against COVID-19. Yet the nearly hour-long session in Philadelphia wasn’t really about the virus or controlling its spread or whether wearing those masks is an effective response to the pandemic. Instead, the arguments centered on whether the state’s Acting Secretary of Health, Alison Beam, had the legal authority to issue the mask mandate. As Justice Debra Todd observed, the high court was being tasked with conducting...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul sounded off on Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Biden administration for their response to the newly emerging omicron variant of COVID-19. On "America's Newsroom," Wednesday, Sen. Paul criticized Fauci for creating hysteria and fear, and noted that the scientist who discovered the variant called Biden's travel ban a "hysterical overreach." SEN. RAND PAUL: Dr. Fauci routinely ignores the science and causes hysteria and creates fear. This is the opposite of what you really want as far as someone leading your public health effort. The Omicron variant, the doctor who discovered it, we should be proud of...

Hatred of vaccine dissidents expresses itself first in marginalization and demonization. Then it advances to punishment. The larger end game appears to have little to do with public health.Twentieth-century authoritarian regimes were obsessed with cleansing the “unfit” from the national body. A revival of that toxic urge seeps toward us like gas under a threshold. The leakage is global. Nevertheless, recent news out of Germany provides a unique lesson in the tenacity of a malignant ideology. In mid-November, Germany’s Euthanasia Society declared COVID vaccination a requirement for physician-assisted suicide. Citing public health concerns, the nation that identified “life-unworthy-of-life” (Lebensunwertes Leben)...

NEW DELHI, India (Project Syndicate)—As the world’s largest, strongest, and longest-surviving dictatorship, contemporary China lacks the rule of law. Yet it is increasingly using its rubber-stamp Parliament to enact domestic legislation asserting territorial claims and rights in international law. In fact, China has become quite adept at waging “lawfare”—the misuse and abuse of law for political and strategic ends. Under “commander-in-chief” Xi Jinping’s bullying leadership, lawfare has developed into a critical component of China’s broader approach to asymmetrical or hybrid warfare. The blurring of the line between war and peace is enshrined in the regime’s official strategy as the “Three...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Prayed Privately, Followed By A FiremanAs could have been expected, Francis visited the column of the Immaculate Conception in Rome's Piazza di Spagna shortly after 6:00 AM on the feast of the Immaculate Conception for an unannounced prayer.After Francis had left, still in the dark of the morning, a fireman arrived with a ladder and placed a wreath of flowers on Our Lady's arm, CatholicNewsAgency.com reports (picture by Daniel Ibáñez).Francis, who "met the crowds" in Cyprus and Greece last weekend, cancelled the traditional outdoor ceremony at the column to "avoid crowds."

A sweeping $1.9 trillion spending plan, known as the Build Back Better bill, is making its way through Congress and could make a key part of President Joe Biden's economic agenda a reality. A majority of the funding is focused on transforming the nation's social safety net by reducing the cost of child and health care, as well as combating climate change. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation would increase the deficit by $367 billion over the next 10 years. But the White House has worked to make the case that the bill will be fully paid for...

This video estimates the amount of gold in the Roman Empire - and the approximate chances of that gold ending up in your smartphone.How much Gold did the Romans have - and where is it now? | December 7, 2022 | toldinstone

Airline corporations have explicitly demanded passengers wear masks between bites of food and sips of drinks. Despite a Harvard study reported by the Washington Post in 2020 that indicates “flying can be safer than eating at a restaurant during the pandemic” due to “onboard systems that constantly circulate and refresh air,” airlines have begun conducting in-flight announcements to cudgel people into donning masks while eating and drinking.

Special prosecutor Dan Webb continued his closing argument on Monday by laying out six key pieces of evidence that he believes “destroy” Jussie Smollett’s defense. In recapping what he already ran the jury through at trial, Webb summarized the case Wednesday in just six easy points for the jury to consider when they go into deliberations either later today or tomorrow: 1. Smollett allegedly withheld evidence from the police such as DNA evidence, medical records and his phone records. Webb believes this is because he didn’t want the crime to be solved. 2. Smollett actively attempted to mislead the police...

Beige is considered a calming paint color, and scientists have new evidence that beige fat has a similar impact on the brain, bringing down the inflammation associated with the more common white fat and providing protection from dementia. They have found that beige fat cells, which are typically intermingled with white fat cells in the subcutaneous fat present on “pear shaped” people, mediate subcutaneous fat’s brain protection, Dr. Alexis M. Stranahan and her colleagues report in the journal Nature Communications. Pear-shaped people, whose weight is generally distributed more evenly, rather than “apple shaped” individuals with fat clustered around their middle...

At least 12 major U.S. cities already have set annual homicide records with three weeks remaining in 2021. Chicago led the nation with 739 homicides as of the end of November. That's up 3% from 2020, according to Chicago Police Department crime data, but well short of the city's 974 homicides in 1970. ABC News reported that Philadelphia, a city of roughly 1.5 million people, has had more homicides (521 as of Dec. 6) than the nation's two largest cities, New York (443 as of Dec. 5) and Los Angeles (352 as of Nov. 27).

A smash-and-loot crime spree is sweeping the nation. Like many other "trending" fads, this innovation arose from California where left-wing jurisdictions thought it would be a "woke" triumph to decriminalize the theft of $950 or less by any one thief at any one occasion. The trending fad started out slowly a couple of months back as lone thieves shoplifted a few items. Now, gangs of a dozen or more barge into stores, smash display cases with hammers, and load getaway cars parked outside before fleeing with their loot. The Los Angeles Police Department announced the arrest and immediate release of...

For the first time, Hillary Clinton is sharing the speech she would have made if she had won the 2016 presidential election. The former first lady and secretary of state grows emotional in an upcoming MasterClass lesson as she shares the speech that she had hoped to give on Nov. 8, 2016, when she ultimately lost the election to former President Donald Trump.

CNN anchor Don Lemon allegedly sent disgraced actor Jussie Smollett texts during the Chicago Police Department’s investigation of his alleged hoax hate crime. Testifying at his own trial on Monday, Jussie Smollett reportedly said under oath that he received a text message from Don Lemon informing him that Chicago police did not believe his account of what happened the night he claimed to have been the victim of a hate crime by two white Trump supporters. According to the Daily Mail, Smollett’s remark “was presented and then struck from the record.” “He said things began to seem off when he...

Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA vaccine, breaks down the "mass formation" (crowd psychosis) phenomenon that makes it difficult to reason with those who have fallen victim to the globalist leader propaganda. Hear what he says is the hope we have before a total takeover.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Rev. Craig Duke has been a Methodist minister for three decades, building a reputation as a staunch advocate of LGBTQ inclusion. His pastoral duties have now been terminated — the result of a bitter rift surfacing in his Indiana church after he sought to demonstrate solidarity by appearing in drag alongside prominent drag queens in the HBO reality series “We’re Here.” Duke, 62, said he thought most of his 400-member congregation at Newburgh United Methodist Church shared his inclusive views, and he was taken aback when a prominent congregation member, soon backed by other churchgoers,...

When “the left” becomes the party of wealthy elites and state security agencies who preach racial division, state censorship, contempt for ordinary citizens and for the U.S. Constitution, and telling people what to do and think at every turn, then that’s the side you are on, if you are “on the left”—those are the policies and beliefs you stand for and have to defend. It doesn’t matter what good people “on the left” believed and did 60 or 70 years ago. Those people are dead now, mostly. They don’t define “the left” anymore than Abraham Lincoln defines the modern-day Republican...

As Parks and Recreation’s Martin Housely said, “Weird, wacky stuff.” We now have the S&P 500 REAL earnings yield at -2.33%. REAL US average hourly wage growth is at -1.43% and the REAL 30-year mortgage rate is at -3.11%. The cause of this weird and wacky economic stuff? How about the surge in M1 Money and The Fed Balance Sheet? I can almost see Fed Chair Jerome Powell imitating Martin Housely and saying “Weird, wacky stuff” in his testimony before Congress.

In a head-to-head matchup in the race for governor of Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott leads Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, 52 - 37 percent, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of Texas registered voters released today. Republicans back Abbott 90 - 5 percent, independents back Abbott 47 - 37 percent, and Democrats back O'Rourke 87 - 6 percent. A majority of voters, 54 percent, say O'Rourke is too liberal, 3 percent say he is too conservative, and 35 percent say he is about right. Forty-one percent of voters say Abbott is too conservative while 6 percent say he is...