Free Republic

A lot of history was made at the Zippy Invitational swim meet in Akron, OH, on December 3.Lia Thomas, swimming for the University of Pennsylvania, took 38 seconds off the Women’s 1650 Freestyle event.As my colleague Jim Thompson pointed out in BREAKING: Dude Beats Women at Swimming Because, He’s a Biological Dude, 38 seconds is a long, long time in swimming. Watching the video, Lia appears to have won by about two laps.And Jim also gave away the punchline. Lia is a man. Lia, back when he was still Will, swam for three years with UPenn’s men’s team and was...

In 2018, California resident Steven Childs wanted to know how much the state paid to a single vendor over a five-year period. Instead of the data, California Controller Betty Yee sent him an invoice for $1,250. Childs asked more questions and the Controller’s chief counsel, Rick Chivaro, admitted the state held electronic records and “warrant records” akin to “maintaining a checking account online.”Today, in a Sacramento superior court, the controller denies having a checkbook and claims the warrant register doesn’t contain vendor information. The Golden State is the only state in the nation not to produce state spending under open...

Kyle Morris Sat, December 11, 2021, 4:55 PM·2 min read In this article: President Biden on Saturday addressed the fatal weather that ravaged parts of the South and Midwest and used the tragedy to further his own beliefs on climate change. While speaking to reporters and virtually assessing the tornado damage from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden was asked whether he "could conclude that these storms and the intensity have to do with climate change." KENTUCKY TORNADO DEATH TOLL WILL EXCEED 70, GOVERNOR WARNS "All I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impacts as a...

A few days ago, researchers in South Africa shared data from a preliminary study showing that the Pfizer vaccine is less effective at blocking the omicron variant than earlier variants like beta and delta. Now, the team is telling us exactly how much less effective the vaccine is.According to the same data gleaned from the blood plasma taken from 12 patients who tested positive for omicron, the team found that a two-shot course of Pfizer's vaccine has just 22.5% efficacy against symptomatic infection with the omicron variant, though it can thwart severe disease, according to laboratory experiments in South Africa,...

Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected former President Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege, holding that the archivist of the United States could provide a tranche of Trump’s presidential records to the House’s “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”In a unanimous ruling, the federal appellate court concluded that President Biden’s conclusion that “an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States” controlled and that the archivist, therefore, must hand over the first of three sets of documents requested. The court added, however, that it would...

It's been over three-and-a-half years since Rachael DelTondo, a well-liked teacher in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, was gunned down outside her home — and there is still no arrest in the case. There were initially several leads to follow, including the actions of an Aliquippa High School athlete named Sheldon Jeter. The night of DelTondo's murder, texts suggest that Jeter may have been trying to track her movements. "He was obsessed with her," Rachael's mother Lisa DelTondo told "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty.

Mehmet Oz, the host of "The Dr. Oz Show" who is now running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, said in a recent interview that he believes Anthony Fauci should lose his job as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases."Dr. Anthony Fauci has lost the faith and confidence of the American people," Oz told the New York Post. "It’s time for a new face talking to the American people, one that is more trusted.""I believe Anthony Fauci should be held accountable for misleading, whether willfully or unintentionally, the American public and the United States Congress," he continued.Oz...

Americans are awakening to the call to protect children from being sexualized. Following the national news coverage of local school board meetings in Virginia, many U.S. citizens are shocked to learn that today’s elementary school lessons include material that would make most adults blush. Whether or not you are a parent, it is stomach-turning to learn that our taxpayer dollars have been used to make sexually explicit materials available in school libraries and attendance to pornographic sex-ed lessons mandatory.The alarm rang even louder when we found out that government officials were willing to assign weighty terms like “terrorist” to parents...

Last weekend in Chicago’s Loop, all hell broke loose as hundreds of teens rampaged across the downtown area near Millenium Park. A bus driver was assaulted, a young girl was shot, and 21 people were arrested. It’s becoming a distressingly familiar occurrence in Chicago. Mayor Lori Lightfoot blames the parents. “Do you know where your children are?” the clueless mayor asked. Last weekend’s “Wild in the Streets” moment was the result of social media influencers spreading the word on several platforms. But the “Flash Mob” wasn’t some harmless stunt. Two officers were injured in the melee, and the general sense...

A reporter asks about Biden and Harris’ tweets on Jussie Smollett.“Since the guilty verdict, are there any lessons learned here on rushing to judgement when a crime is alleged?”Psaki: “There are lessons learned, perhaps for everybody … including former president Trump.” pic.twitter.com/wtfzWnCart— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) December 10, 2021

This week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a new statewide mask mandate that will take effect on Monday, Dec. 13, citing a rise in case numbers. The mandate requires face masks to be worn in all indoor public places that don’t have a vaccine requirement. “A violation of any provision of this measure is subject to a maximum fine of $1,000 for each violation,” Hochul said in a statement. She also added that “local health departments are being asked to enforce these requirements.” But local governments were essentially blindsided by the announcement, and several counties with Republican executives are...

Senator Joe Manchin was right. In September, he suggested that Democrats “hit the pause button” on their massive spending plans. At that time, the Build Back Better bill was $3.5 trillion — an inflationary bomb just waiting to go off.Even after the Democrats cut the bill in half to $1.75 trillion, Manchin kept sounding the inflation alarm. He kept insisting that inflation wasn’t “transitory,” as Joe Biden still insists to this day. Manchin also asserted that it was fiscal madness to take on so much debt at this time.Manchin’s September op-ed in the Wall Street Journal summed up the danger.Those...

Colorado may have paid $73 million in fraudulent unemployment benefits, with payments made to dead people, inmates and underage applicants, a state audit found, more than double the $30 million state labor officials had previously confirmed was improperly paid. TODAY’S UNDERWRITER “Despite the numerous steps that the department has taken to prevent and detect fraud, our audit identified likely or potentially fraudulent claims that the department didn’t identify,” Ethan Greenberg, senior auditor with the Colorado Office of the State Auditor, told the legislative audit committee hearing Monday. The auditor’s report found 8,200 unduplicated claims for $73.1 million in payments between...

Vermont's Essex-Westford School District, which includes the town of Essex that last year fired a high school lifeguard for merely questioning Critical Race Theory, has done it again. In the midst of a national furor over a sexually explicit graphic novel, the school has proclaimed it has the duty to expose children to pornographic imagery — to support free speech.It is axiomatic that free speech rights do not extend fully into schools — they never have. For example, the First Amendment protects quite a shocking variety of pornographic materials, including bondage and rape videos. Are those acceptable, protected school teaching...

Twelve hours after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, then–Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted out congratulations to Biden and Harris for their victory along with a thank you to Trump for his friendship to Israel and to Bibi himself. Trump, however, feels that this congratulatory message, which Bibi later cemented with a video after Biden's inauguration, was a major betrayal.Netanyahu's November 8 tweeted message was short and to the point regarding the election outcome:Congratulations @JoeBiden and @Kamala Harris. Joe, we've had a long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years, and I know you as...

A new flavor in the French presidential race. Valerie Pecresse emerging from a "primary of the Right" in France to be the candidate of Les Republicains one of France's "mainstream" parties. Pecresse is President of the Ile de France region in and around Paris. Her victory last weekend led to instant polling that gave her second place in the first round behind incumbent Emmanuel Macron. And the polling for the second round showing Pecresse a winner over Macron by a narrow margin. Macron himself went before the media on Thursday for a press conference in the aftermath of the polls....

The more you look at Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, the more you like him.Here's his new plan on how to deal with Joe Biden's open borders policies that have brought the surge of illegal aliens into the country, in a neatly presented, effectively communicated Twitter summary:The failure to secure our nation’s border is affecting communities across our state & nation. Today, I outlined additional proposals for consideration in the next legislative session that will protect Florida from the Biden Admin's reckless border policies https://t.co/1yRVgUtoym pic.twitter.com/8KZkxNfUcb — Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) December 10, 2021It's impressive, frankly for multiple reasons.First, as noted above,...

Enormous thanks to all the commenters in my open thread, who provided reports on containment conditions in their own countries. I haven’t been able to include every last report, but I’ve tried to select representative and interesting examples from across the world, organised by region:

Steve Vai, who joined David Lee Roth's post-VAN HALEN band more than 35 years ago as lead guitarist, spoke to "CMS Music" about the musical influence and impact of legendary VAN HALEN axeman Eddie Van Halen. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm not unlike the average Edward fan in that he really had an effect. For Edward fans that really were touched by him, it's inexplicable, obviously; you can try to use words, but it doesn't really work. It's like that with many things. "I have a different position in that, yeah, one might say that I replaced the...

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was widely mocked over the weekend after he posted a tweet in which he bragged about how the United States pays its bills on time by taking on more debt. “The United States pays its debts when they are due,” Biden wrote in a tweet that also featured a video. “That’s why today, I signed a bill to fast-track the process to raise our debt limit.” “This bill will reassure all the economic markets at home and around the world that we’re going to continue to pay our debts when they are due,” Biden says...