Free Republic

Just reading this on a Twitter thread (see link for document), the Alberta (Canada) Health System is asking (begging?) the 1400 doctors and nurses they dismissed because of vaccine refusal to return - but they will be forced to be tested frequently.

On December 23 (and just in time for the holidays) the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bizarrely gave a Christmas present to combustible cigarettes in the form of a modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) order for 22nd Century Group, Inc.’s VLN cigarettes. The MRTP order is an enhancement to the already-authorized premarket tobacco product application (PMTA), which the FDA ordered in December of 2019. It doesn’t make sense that a deadly combustible cigarette would be classified as “modified risk.” In the news release, the agency responsible for protecting American public health claims that 22nd Century Group’s products “help reduce...

The arrival of Omicron is causing COVID déjà vu in the U.S. With cases surging, many political leaders are considering lockdowns right before the holidays. In New York, the Rockettes have announced the closing of their Christmas Spectacular, and the fate of NYC’s annual New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square is in question. Meanwhile, existing vaccines against COVID seem to have no effect on the spread of this variant — and even the New York Times admits it. Pfizer is already indicating that it will use the occasion to urge a “fourth dose” of the vaccine. In New...

White coat supremacy -- a major threat to freedom and democracy in America. Francis Collins, the first appointed National Institutes of Health director to serve more than one president, stepped down on December 19, leaving behind a record open to question. For example, in an October 8, 2020 email, Collins told Dr. Anthony Fauci, “there needs to be a quick and devastating public takedown of its premises. I don’t see that on line yet. Is it underway?” Collins’ target was the Great Barrington Declaration, signed by more than 900,000 epidemiologists and public health scientists to show concern about the damaging...

Christmas is a season, not just a day. And it only begins on Dec. 25. The Rockefeller Center tree and elves on shelves and all the rest can be deceiving. We were merely preparing for Christmas, and are now celebrating it, at least until the Epiphany. Others will celebrate until the feast of the Presentation in early February. It's a season that renews Christians' faith and hope, and reminds them of their capacity for joy. "There is no reason to lose heart or give up and be depressed," Jesuit priest Alfred Delp wrote from a Nazi prison cell in 1944....

No, but a recent YouGov poll does prove that about half of us are. Is America officially a nation of sheep? No, but a recent YouGov poll does prove that about half of us are. It showed that Democrats are both more fearful than the rest of us of COVID and more authoritarian when it comes to mandating vaccines for those who have chosen not to submit to the jab, the “Fauci-ouchy” as Michael Knowles calls it. So, one can conclude that democrats are indeed more sheeplike. The Democrat party was not always scaredy-cats, motivated by fear and a will...

Actor Alec Baldwin has posted a video on Instagram days before Christmas where he appears to wallow in self-pity over the 'really tough time' he has been having in recent weeks after accidentally shooting dead a cinematographer on the set of Rust. Baldwin, 63, uploaded a video on himself speaking directly into the camera two months after the tragic shooting on his Western movie set in New Mexico, when the actor accidentally shot and killed Halyna Hutchins, 42. In a three-minute long rambling video, Baldwin appears despondent and weary as he tells followers how the only thing he is living...

All I want for Christmas is… Covid? Our twenty-something son came home for the holidays with the sniffles and we had him take a home Covid test, which came up positive. He’s going to the health department today for a formal test, but it does appear that we have an uninvited guest in the house. My wife, 16-year-old son, and myself are not vaccinated. We are going to keep our distance and take some basic precautions. We will also be consulting our MD for advice and get ourselves tested after a suitable incubation period. We are taking zinc, vitamin D,...

Australia’s chief pharmacist says the public “just need to accept” they will have to take regular vaccine booster shots and continue wearing masks for “many years” to come. Asserting that the bio-security police state will become a permanent fixture, Trent Twomey, National President of the Pharmacy Guild, says Aussies will have to get a COVID booster jab “every six months” if that’s what experts tell them to do. “I think booster shots, just like your annual influenza shot [are] something we just need to accept, its [Covid-19] not going to be with us for many weeks and months, it’s going...

America has two paths before it—the path of fear and neuroses versus the path of courage and mental health—a choice it must make sooner rather than later. America’s bipolar approaches to COVID—with one side seeking totalitarianism, health paranoia, and division, and the other side seeking personal liberty—remind us that the lessons of history are not easily learned. If we are to return to a normal America, one that encourages people to be mentally resilient when it comes to their physical health and is predicated upon health autonomy, we have very little time to stop the modern-day American despots. The 20th...

VIDEOPublic servants getting into the Christmas spirit as you can see.

I've heard it said that all CRT wants to do is to look at American history through the lens of race. But no, it's much worse than that. My grandmother's friend was decapitated in front of her because she made the mistake of not bowing before the Japanese officer as he walked by. I sit on the bed, listening, as she tells me the story. My grandmother's sullen eyes stare out the sliding glass door of our Los Angeles home. Her vegetable garden is directly outside, but she's looking at something farther away. It was hot that day, she recalls....

It's been well-documented that allies of Vice President Kamala Harris are frustrated with how she has been utilized and treated by the Biden administration. In November, CNN reported that Harris' team believes Biden's team hasn't provided enough support while giving her tasks that put her in "no-win political situation[s]." Now, some of Harris' allies are dropping their anonymity and going on the record critiquing the administration's treatment of the vice president. In a New York Times story published Thursday, two Harris allies - prominent San Francisco Democratic donor Mark Buell and, more notably, Rep. Karen Bass, who was in consideration...

As a Christmas present to statistics lovers, the Census Bureau has released its estimates of the population of the nation and the 50 states as of July 1, 2021. The Bureau admits up front that, due to COVID, its numbers are subject to more uncertainty than usual. But overall, they provide important clues as to how Americans have coped with the pandemic, and how it may have changed the trajectory of national growth and contraction. A comparison of these estimates with the April 1, 2020 census covers almost exactly 15 of the first 16 months of the COVID pandemic. The...

Evidence suggests there are powerful actors among us whose intentions, capabilities, and disregard for anyone else effectively render them implacable enemies of humanity. In the movie Aliens Newt, who has witnessed her family’s grisly end and survived being hunted by their monstrous killers, asks Ripley why adults tell little kids there are no monsters. Events since 2016 make that question more resonant now than at the movie’s release. Evidence suggests there are powerful actors among us whose intentions, capabilities, and disregard for anyone else effectively render them implacable enemies of humanity. No one sane wants to reach that conclusion; no...

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, echoing the complaint of the Democratic Party establishment, believes that Sen. Joe Manchin engaged in an "egregious breach" of President Joe Biden's trust by refusing to support his welfare expansion plans. "The idea that Joe Manchin says that he can't explain this back home to his people is a farce," Ocasio-Cortez said. Elsewhere, Bernie Sanders similarly noted that Manchin would have to do a lot of explaining in West Virginia after abandoning Build Back Better. The reality, as they know, is that the Democrats' legislation is probably more unpopular in Manchin's home state -- with 74%...

Minnesota says healthcare providers should provide non-white patients with preferential access to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s written in a state document and apparently upheld by local hospitals.

Source: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. BoghosianHere we are on the eve of Christmas, that day of joy set aside for celebrating the birth of Christ who came down to earth 2,000 years ago to show mankind the way to eternal salvation. Yet, the present mood of America at Christmas 2021 seems better captured by Jimmy Carter in his "malaise speech" in July of 1979, several days before he cashiered half of his Cabinet. "The threat" to America, said Carter, "is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemLuke 18Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King 28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 Those who...

In March 2020, when COVID-19 first exploded onto the scene, sports fans waited with bated breath to see which teams, and which leagues, would bow out on precautionary grounds. The answer quickly became clear: all of them. But actions that were more justifiable at that particular juncture, when we knew nothing about what was then called the "novel coronavirus," is now silly and perhaps inexcusable. As we approach 2022, and as the exceedingly contagious but exceedingly nonlethal omicron variant spreads like wildfire, sports leagues and organizations should all commit to resisting COVID hysteria and keeping their doors open. The initial...