Free Republic

Three New York residents face life in prison for their roles in the kidnapping of a U.S. postal worker who they accused of stealing a package containing drugs, federal prosecutors say. Mark Rogers, 38; Joseph Way, 36; and Rogers’ girlfriend, Tashara Levans, 37, all of Rochester, pleaded guilty to kidnapping in the November 2019 incident, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced in a Dec. 15 news release. The postal worker, identified in court documents as “Victim A,” was delivering mail when Rogers and Way confronted her about a package of cocaine they were expecting...

Covid-19 is disrupting the NFL, NBA and NHL, sidelining dozens of players, including some of the leagues’ biggest stars. New cases this week have battered the leagues and prompted NBA and NHL postponements. The NFL is grappling with the virus’ wrath with the playoffs beginning next month. **SNIP** William Parham, a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and a psychologist who works with elite athletes, said professional sports leagues are doing well to keep their seasons afloat. He said athletes have been resilient. Covid-19 and its variants are here for the indefinite future, Parham said. Upticks in infections...

Johnson & Johnson said that it was still "confident" about its COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that Americans get inoculated with rival vaccines instead.... ...The CDC confirmed 54 cases of Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients developing the rare blood-clotting disorder thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), including nine deaths. All of those who developed TTS were hospitalized, while most of the deaths were in people with underlying conditions.... ...Research indicates that infection with COVID-19 is much more likely to result in the development of rare blood clots than vaccination against the virus....

President Joe Biden fumbled over his words while presenting the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award for valor in combat, to three men Thursday. The three men receiving the Medal of Honor were Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, and Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, according to a report.... ...Celiz and Cashe received the country's highest decoration posthumously, but mistakes in Biden's presentation were evident when the narrator declared that Plumlee had also been killed.... ...A very much alive Plumlee stood stoic next to the president...

The Senate parliamentarian dealt a significant blow to Democrats seeking to pass a $1.85 trillion social welfare and green energy bill, ruling that the measure cannot include a provision that would legalize millions of workers now living illegally in the United States. Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough told Democrats the legalization language extended too many rights to conform with special rules governing what can be included in the legislation, Majority Whip Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said Thursday....

My latest song. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Linux Mint 20.3 BETA "Una" The .iso is available here: https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=292 I loaded the Cinnamon Edition on a 120 Gb SSD and it took about 10 minutes to install. I used Aptik to make an image of my base computer. Then used the Aptik to install all of my base computer's extra software. I tested it and could not find a single problem. With all of my extra software, it just works. The size with all of the extra software is about 19Gb. Good Hunting... from Varmint Al

On Monday, singing sensation Billie Eilish, only 19 years old, confessed to Howard Stern that she had started watching porn movies on TV while still in grade school. “I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching when I was like 11.” Eilish believes that her habit — it started with entry-level, “normal” porn and spiraled downward into more extreme forms — really warped her mind. “It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent,” she admitted. As a result, her ideas about sex and relationships became “warped.” Eilish’s...

"Salt Lake City, UT — Richard Harward, a basketball player at Brigham Young University, announced this week that he was no longer going to be able to play with the team this season, according to The COVID World. Harward suffered blood clots and severe heart inflammation just days after taking a Pfizer shot, which he did not want to take. He said he had “horrible pressure and pain in his chest,” and he eventually collapsed during an exhibition game. ..."

Kari MacRae is trying to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. The Republican from Bourne who serves on her town’s school committee got fired from her teaching position at Hanover High School less than one month into the school year over a Tik Tok video in which she expressed conservative views; there is also an ongoing recall effort in Bourne to try to oust her from the school committee. Now, she’s running for the Massachusetts Senate in the Plymouth & Barnstable District. MacRae told NewBostonPost she’s running for state Senate because of the outpouring of support she has received...

"South Korean President Moon Jae-in has announced that the United States, China, and North Korea have reached an agreement “in principle” on declaring an end to the Korean War. With the war having ended with a 1953 armistice, the two Koreas remain in a technical state of war, even though full-scale hostilities haven’t resumed since then. Moon, who leaves office next May, has been keen to “institutionalize” progress in the area of inter-Korean peace since 2019. In 2007, when he served as chief of staff to former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Moon saw firsthand the risks of inter-Korean rapprochement...

Western allies on Thursday rejected Russia's bid to thwart Kiev's NATO ambitions and urged Moscow to halt its military build-up along Ukraine's border and return to talks led by France and Germany. European Union leaders, meeting in Brussels, insisted on "the urgent need for Russia to de-escalate tensions caused by the military build-up along its border with Ukraine and aggressive rhetoric". Separately, NATO's members used similar language, rejecting "the false Russian claims of Ukrainian and NATO provocations" and urged Moscow to "immediately de-escalate, pursue diplomatic channels, and abide by its international commitments." Both organisations, which share most of their member...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus but is much more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa, according to a major private study of the variant. The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, showed that risk of hospital admissions among adults who developed covid-19 was 29 percent lower than in the initial pandemic wave that emerged in March 2020. Discovery Health provided conflicting information about the size of the study. In the initial release, the company said the study was based...

The Cleveland Guardians said minor league catcher Andrés Meléndez died Thursday in Miami. He was 20. The team said Meléndez died suddenly. There was no immediate word on the cause of his death. The Venezuela native began his career with Milwaukee’s organization in 2018. He spent two seasons between the Brewers’ Dominican Summer and Arizona League teams before he was acquired in a trade by Cleveland in 2019.

""...I think small businesses have been through enough already." At least 13 counties in New York state are telling newly-tapped Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul that they will not be enforcing her mask mandate on private businesses — and some of the county leaders are letting their displeasure over the “dictate” be known. According to the New York Post, Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus ripped Hochul, telling the governor he opposes “using Gestapo tactics and going business to business and asking them if they are enforcing masking.” The order from Hochul puts the onus on businesses: either checking customers’ vaccine statuses...

“A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool” (Proverbs 17:10).

The U.S. Navy on Wednesday released dramatic photos from a demonstration of a high-energy laser weapon system that "successfully engaged" a floating target during a test in the Gulf of Aden. The laser was test-fired from the USS Portland, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, which previously used the laser in May 2020 to destroy a drone, which was considered a first-of-its-kind test of such a weapon, USNI News reported. The Navy took to Twitter to post futuristic infrared images that showed the laser training on its target. Another image showed sailors in a control room presumably wearing protective glasses....

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines over Johnson & Johnson’s shot for adults, after finding dozens of people developed a rare blood clot condition following vaccination with J&J shots. All of those patients were hospitalized, and nine died. The CDC has confirmed 54 cases of people developing blood clots and showing low blood platelet levels — a new condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS, which mostly affects younger women. Of those cases, 36 required treatment in intensive care. In a statement Thursday evening, the CDC said the U.S. has an...

The U.S. Senate approved legislation on Dec. 16 to ban all imports from China’s Xinjiang region, where Beijing is holding more than 1 million Uyghurs in internment camps, over forced labor concerns. The measure is now headed to the White House, where President Joe Biden has said he’ll sign it into law.The move complements a series of actions by the Biden administration aimed at holding the Chinese regime accountable over its repression in Xinjiang, which Washington has labeled as a genocide. The Senate approved the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act by unanimous consent two days after the House approved it...

"‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ host addresses the consequences of Biden’s ‘reckless’ policies."