Free Republic

It was not a good year for the national press. From the Chris Cuomo scandal to corporate journalists inventing stories about violent Border Patrol agents and Republican-led witch hunts, 2021 marked yet another lousy year in media credibility. Indeed, if 2021 proved anything, it’s that corporate newsrooms are perfectly content to burp out the same nonsense, make the same mistakes, embrace the same ignorance, overlook the same ethical lapses, and parrot the same partisan talking points that have made them about as distrusted as Congress. The following is a list of the worst major media moments of 2021. For brevity’s...

Sen. Rand Paul blamed Dr. Anthony Fauci for thousands of Covid deaths because he said the White House chief medical advisor pushed vaccines while ignoring therapeutics. The Kentucky Republican accused Fauci of having a 'bias' toward vaccines that dates back to the AIDS crisis. 'I would venture to say that thousands of people die in our country every month now because [Fauci's] deemphasized the idea that there are therapeutics,' Paul told his father, three-time presidential candidate and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, on 'Liberty Report' Monday. The senator also claimed that thousands had died because Fauci did not take into...

Outraged by a freewheeling Christmas Eve Mass that featured jazz musicians, choreographed dances around the altar, and theatrical lighting effects, some Catholics are calling on Cardinal Blase Cupich to crack down on liturgical abuses in Novus Ordo Masses in the Archdiocese of Chicago, rather than imposing severe restrictions on reverential Traditional Latin Masses. Father Michael L. Pfleger, a well-known social activist in Chicago, celebrated the Dec. 24 evening Mass, which was live streamed from St. Sabina Church, a predominantly Black parish on the city’s South Side. Pfleger has been the pastor there since 1981. Many of those upset by the...

A fourth shot of the COVID-19 vaccine may be in your future, but it’s too early to tell right now, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Before we start talking about a fourth shot, it will be very important for us to determine the durability of protection, particularly against severe disease for the third shot booster of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J,” Fauci said. “Right now, we don’t have that information.” Fauci said that COVID-19 cases are still surging throughout the country. More protection — which...

THE Liverpool bomber who blew himself up in a failed terrorist attack at the city's women's hospital may have faked his conversion from Islam to Christianity in order to remain in the UK, the inquest has been told. Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, died shortly before 11am on Remembrance Sunday last month when a bomb he was carrying partially blew up in the back of a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital. The Iraqi-born terrorist had constructed the homemade bomb with “murderous intent”, a coroner at Liverpool and Wirral coroner’s court said today. Al Swealmeen had also failed in an asylum application...

Several other people were injured in other mishaps involving fireworks in the German cities of Leipzig and Hamburg, German news agency dpa reported. The sale of fireworks for personal use was banned in Germany this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some Germans bought illegal fireworks or built their own, increasing the risk of accidents.

Knoxville’s Planned Parenthood building was engulfed in flames early Friday morning and is a total loss. Fire crews were called about 6:40 a.m. as heavy smoke was coming out of the back of the structure, Assistant Chief Brent Seymour said. There were no injuries to report. The building was being renovated and the clinic had not been used in some time. Seymour said it’s too early in the investigation, with parts of the building unsafe to enter, to be able to say what caused the fire. Representatives from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI have...

DENVER (KDVR) — Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said Saturday he has tested positive for COVID-19. “I’ve tested positive for Covid and I am now quarantining with mild symptoms. Please, if you haven’t been vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you are vaccinated, make sure you get the booster. It’s making a big difference in my case,” he said in a tweet.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the disgraced former sostituto of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, has written to Cardinal George Pell, the former prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, declining to explain why he sent millions of euros of Vatican funds to Australia during the run up to Pell’s 2017 criminal trial. In an open letter dated December 22, Cardinal Becciu wrote that he felt forced to respond to recent media statements by Pell which, he said, “were offensive to my personal dignity” and which impugned his decades of curial service. “Believe me,” Becciu said, “I am [writing this letter] against...

We know what the problems are with the Covid vaccines, namely that they’re neither safe nor effective. Some have good theories about why they’re being pushed so hard for The Great Reset. But there have been a scant few studies that dive into how the jabs kill people. Now, we have a new study (PDF) that is shedding light on the issue. In layman’s terms, the study claims the jabs confuse the immune system into attacking not just the coronavirus (which it doesn’t handle very well) but also the organs and cells of the host body itself. This is why...

Are our beliefs shaped by our environment? Why do we believe what we believe? We followed a liberal and a conservative for a day to see if their every day realities overlap. Liberal vs Conservative: 24 Hours Side By Side

To celebrate the new year, China National Space Administration (CNSA) published astonishing pictures of the Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter above the north pole of the red planet, according to Shanghai Morning Post. CNSA said the images were taken by a detachable sensor equipped with two high-definition cameras. The first picture shows the orbiter above the north pole ice cap of Mars. The second picture is a close-up of the orbiter’s golden exterior skin where high-speed data communication antennas and a solar wing are seen. Beyond the orbiter are ice caps though not the ice we consider on Earth. Mar’s ice caps...

After repeatedly accusing Google of ignoring Russian laws on obscenity, Russia has dramatically escalated its long-running battle with major US-based internet platforms. On Friday a Moscow court imposed an unprecedented fine of almost $100 million on Google for corrupting minors with porn, propaganda and transgenderism. . .Crucially, Kremlin officials and the regulator have long charged Google with promoting politically subversive messaging with the intent to stir up protests in support of jailed dissident Alexei Navalny. Furthermore, Silicon Valley-based internet companies have been accused by Russia of allowing themselves to be used as a hidden hand of US foreign policy inside...

I’ve been a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) for years, and a fellow for the past six or seven years. I sat on their Council of Representatives, which theoretically sets policy for the APA, for three years. I am just ending my term as president of the APA’s Society for Media and Technology, where I have met many wonderful colleagues. Yet, at the end of 2021, I decided to resign my membership in the APA. My concern is that the APA no longer functions as an organization dedicated to science and good clinical practice. As a professional guild,...

With aquamation, or “alkaline hydrolysis”, the body of the deceased is immersed for three to four hours in a mixture of water and a strong alkali, such as potassium hydroxide, in a pressurised metal cylinder and heated to around 150C. The process liquifies everything except for the bones, which are then dried in an oven and reduced to white dust, placed in an urn and handed to relatives. First developed in the early 1990s as a way to discard the bodies of animals used in experiments, the method was then used to dispose of cattle during the mad cow disease...

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday endorsed freshman Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois against another sitting House Republican, bucking the advice of GOP leadership. Shortly after Trump's endorsement, Miller, who was left without a seat after the state's redistricting process, announced she would run in the state's newly drawn 15th District, where GOP Rep. Rodney Davis is seeking reelection. "President Donald Trump inspired me to run in 2020 because our country needs principled conservatives in Congress who always put America First," Miller said in a statement on Saturday. "Today, President Trump is endorsing me because I am a conservative fighter...

Hillary Clinton may end up in prison sometime after November 2022 as majority of the analysts in the world of politics believe, Republicans are going to win back control of the House of Representatives and the Republican lawmakers will use the opportunity to get revenge on Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton. It is also anticipated that with the US Congress going into the control of Republicans would initiate investigations in Hunter Biden’s artwork scandal, which is seen by most of the political analysts as an indirect bribery channel of Joe Biden’s scandalous son. Florida Rep. Kat Cammack said, in an exclusive...

ASPIRE TO A VISION A scene in the movie Karate Kid was quite striking. Daniel went to see Mr. Miyagi and found him trimming a delicate bonsai tree. Daniel was fascinated and wanted to try it, but he had no idea how it was done. Miyagi told him to close his eyes and picture in his mind the way he wanted the tree to look. After Daniel found that vision in his mind, Miyagi told him to open his eyes and start trimming the tree. Daniel's every move was deliberate and focused. Then he stopped. He asked, "How do...

New York City will take a patient’s race into account when distributing potentially life-saving COVID treatments, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealed on their website.The city will “consider race and ethnicity when assessing individual risk,” reads the agency’s official guidance from Dec. 20, which adds that “longstanding systemic health and social inequities” can contribute to an increased risk of dying from COVID-19.

It's rare for a single election result to spell the likely end of the careers of two politicians, but Virginia Democrats appear to have accomplished just that in 2021. With Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin's two–percentage point upset victory, angry parents likely put an end to the careers of current Gov. Ralph Northam and 2014–2018 Gov. Terry McAuliffe. As we bid adieu to 2021, let's take a ride down memory lane as we also bid good riddance to Northam and McAuliffe. McAuliffe's four years in office were plagued by corporate cronyism, which was not surprising given that an electric car company McAuliffe...