Free Republic

I have never seen a worse politician in my life than Kamala Harris. And I live in a world where Eric Swalwell exists. Of all the “I can’t believe this is happening” things that have happened over the last two years, the “I can’t believe this is happening”est of all is that the woman who couldn’t break 3% in her own primaries, and couldn’t even hang in the race long enough to make it to Iowa, is now just one airplane staircase accident away from the most powerful office in the world. I have truly never seen a more inept...

The Government decision to introduce minimum unit pricing on alcohol this week has been welcomed by Alcohol Action Ireland. The new law will largely affect alcohol sold in off-licenses, shops and supermarkets. For that past decade, the Government has been seeking to bring in minimum unit pricing as part of a number of measures to help reduce the harm caused by excessive alcohol consumption. The aim is to change dangerous patterns of alcohol behavior particularly amongst young drinkers, who are buying cheap alcohol before they go out in what is known as pre-drinking. This alcohol will now be more expensive...

Rather than seeking to be places of excellence, often red states simply congratulate themselves that they ‘Aren’t Illinois or California.’New census figures show the United States added the fewest citizens in its entire history in 2021, with population growth at just 0.1 percent. The data also showed a continued exodus of Americans from Democrat-run states to Republican-run states, with New York, California, and Illinois losing the most residents and Texas, Florida, and Arizona gaining the most, respectively.The Wall Street Journal posted graphics illustrating these trends on a recent front page, then editorialized about the trend, pointing out the correlation between...

The Manhattan district attorney's office is closing its investigation into disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for his role in the state's nursing home deaths resulting from policies he implemented early on in the coronavirus pandemic, and the governor will not be charged.Elkan Abramowitz, a former federal prosecutor hired to represent Cuomo while he was still in office, announced the news in a statement released Monday."I was contacted today by the head of the Elder Care Unit from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who informed me they have closed its investigation involving the Executive Chamber and nursing homes,"...

There has been a “devastating” decline in religious practice among young people in Poland, says one of the country’s most senior church figures, Wojciech Polak, the archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland. He admits that the Catholic hierarchy’s failure to deal with sex abuse by clergy has been a primary cause, and has called for the church to continue the process of “purifying” itself. However, Marek Jędraszewski, the archbishop of Kraków, has questioned his colleague’s interpretation, arguing that in fact the church has been a “victim” of the pandemic and young people’s growing use of technology. Polak pointed to...

China’s anti-corruption watchdog has threatened Walmart Inc. with a consumer boycott, accusing the U.S. retail giant of “stupidity and shorted-sightedness” over its removal of Xinjiang-sourced products from its Sam's Club online app in response to the forced labor of religious minorities and the genocide of Uyghur Muslims. The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection accused Walmart and its Sam’s Club chain of boycotting products from the northwestern region of Xinjiang and trying to “muddle through” the controversy by not responding to complaints or releasing a statement, Reuters reported. “To take down all products from a region without a...

When Molly Burhans met with Pope Francis in 2018, she presented him with a map. The Catholic Church is one of the largest non-governmental owners of land in the entire world— by one estimate, the Church owns some 177 million acres. That land includes parish churches, cathedrals, hospitals, monasteries, convents, farms, schools, forests...even a few dubiously-purchased apartment buildings. But a lot of that land isn’t serving the Church’s mission. A lot of it is underutilized, being used for some purpose that’s not ideal, or harming the environment; or, it’s simply gathering dust. Burhans says one of the biggest reasons for...

One of the unresolved debates of the pandemic era is whether the zero-Covid public health strategy is the correct one. This strategy can be loosely defined as driving Covid-19 as close as possible to zero through strict control measures so that community transmissions no longer appear and, should that happen, be quickly re-suppressed. Initially, even Europe and the U.S. tried this (remember two weeks to flatten the curve?) but quickly gave up with the emergence of new variants, although through 2021 a number of small, or easily isolated, countries persisted in the attempt. As 2022 dawned, however, even these were...

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei in the east Chinese province of Anhui reports a new temperature record. At the end of last year, a plasma temperature of 70 million ° C could be maintained in the experimental nuclear fusion reactor for 1056 seconds, i.e. a good 17 minutes, reports the Institute for Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP). That is the longest time in which such a temperature could be kept constant. This creates a solid basis for further research into energy generation from nuclear fusion, writes the ASIPP. Its general director Prof. Yuntao...

A severe winter storm could dump up to 18 inches of snow across the eastern US Monday as some half a million homes are already without power in the southeast — but New York will largely be spared, forecasters said Monday. The heaviest snowfall — likely between 6 and 10 inches — is expected in parts of northern Virginia and Maryland, as well as in Delaware and southern New Jersey, AccuWeather meteorologist Nicole LoBiondo told The Post.

On Saturday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, tweeted: “Martyr Soleimani is an eternal reality that will live on forever. His assassins – including Trump & the like – will go down in history’s garbage bin, but of course after receiving retribution in this world for the crime they committed .” This is a clear threat, but Twitter has not banned or suspended Khamenei’s account. After all, he was threatening Donald Trump, and as far as Twitter is concerned, what could be wrong with that?Khamenei was referring, of course, to Qasem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force commander...

The Pope is expected to call his 8th consistory in 2022, adding to the 70 cardinals he has already chosen.VATICAN CITY — Predicting the coming year at the Vatican is always tricky, and that’s especially so in light of our current papacy of surprises and COVID-19. But one event that can safely be foreseen is a consistory of new cardinals. Currently the College of Cardinals has 120 cardinals under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave. An advisory limit of 120 set by Pope St. Paul VI has often been exceeded, including by Pope Francis....

First lady Jill Biden will make a visit to Kentucky on Thursday to accompany state and federal officials as they survey the damage from the tornados that tore through the state last month. "First Lady Jill Biden and Deputy FEMA Administrator Erik Hooks will travel to Bowling Green, Kentucky where they will join Governor Andy Beshear and First Lady Britainy Beshear to survey recovery efforts following the devastation from recent tornadoes," the White House said in a statement.

President Biden counted on the vaccines he inherited to make him the hero in the fight against COVID. However, things haven’t worked out as he hoped, and cases are surging to levels far higher than at any point in this pandemic. But through it all, the Biden administration has pushed vaccinations, even for kids, who are largely unaffected by COVID. Unfortunately, his efforts to get people vaccinated have run into a few snags. Remember the pause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that caused a wave of vaccine hesitancy?However, now that the omicron variant is causing a record spike in...

The 74.9-megawatt plant, called the Archer Solar Project, would span the 650-acre vacant farmland plot near the Saint Peter neighborhood area. “This is not a facility that’s compatible with the residential community,” Rutledge continued. “Our families have ties to those types of experiences since the Civil War, Jim Crow, and having to escape,” said Gerrie Crawford, another resident who lives across from the proposed site. She explained that many families, including hers, have worked and purchased land there since the 1800s. Crawford also said that many residents in the town are descendants of African Americans driven out of Rosewood, a...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general recently subpoenaed former President Donald Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., demanding their testimony in connection with a civil investigation into the family’s business practices, according to a court filing made public Monday. The subpoenas, stemming from Attorney General Letitia James’ yearslong investigation into matters including “the valuation of properties owned or controlled” by Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, came to light after James went to court last month seeking to force the Trumps to comply. The attorney general’s attempt to get testimony from the...

Rick Saleeby, Jake Tapper’s former producer at CNN, has resigned and is now under investigation by law enforcement after text messages of his were made public by Project Veritas. The texts showed him soliciting photos of underaged girls and describing in graphic detail what he wanted to do sexually with his fiancee’s teen daughter.NBC News reported:The man, Rick Saleeby, a former senior producer at the network, is being investigated by detectives of the child exploitation unit of the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Bureau, the police department confirmed in a statement Thursday. A spokesman for the police department said...

Moscow, December 29, Interfax - Death penalty may be reinstated in Russia only if the relevant moratorium is suspended, but that won't happen in the coming years, as Russia and other countries will not agree to that, Secretary of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights Alexander Tochenov said. "Countries of the so-called civilized world, to which Russia belongs, have signed an agreement on death penalty moratorium. Therefore, this may happen only in the case of moratorium suspension under certain circumstances. Anyway, I believe that won't happen in the coming years because Russia will not agree to...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is using the January 6 protest to advance “systemic reforms” in Congress — namely, pursuing far-left voting legislation — deeming it necessary to “repair our democracy.” “Let me be clear: January 6th was a symptom of a broader illness, an effort to delegitimize our election process, and the Senate must advance systemic reforms to repair our democracy or else the events of that day will not be an aberration—they will be the new norm,” he declared on Monday:

Five of the world’s nuclear powers on Monday pledged to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arms and have also said that nuclear war is not an option. In a rare statement issued jointly, China, France, Russia, the UK and the US said: “We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented.” The statement went on to say: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” There was also affirmation that “nuclear weapons — for as long as they continue to exist — should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war.” The permanent...