Free Republic

"“Thanks to the USDA for their continued collaboration with HHSC to provide healthy meals to Texans across the state,” said Abbott. Despite businesses across Texas struggling to find employees to staff open positions, Gov. Greg Abbott has announced that Texas will once again dole out even more additional food stamp funds in light of the COVID emergency declared in March of 2020. In an announcement Wednesday, Abbott said the Texas Health and Human Services Commission will distribute more than $307 million in emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in January, to be given to more than 1.5 million Texas...

"Left-wing demonstrators have long made a habit of attacking, infiltrating, and occupying government buildings. Self-absorbed congressional Democrats held a group therapy session on Capitol Hill on Thursday as they work tirelessly to immortalize Jan. 6 as an annual day of doom, but the rest of us are old enough to remember a few more times when riots and protests overwhelmed government buildings with no such theatrical response. More than a few times, actually. The 2020 summer of rage was more or less “incited” by these same top Democrats, who race-baited as if their lives depended on it, and even our...

On Friday the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of President Biden's order that all businesses with 100 or more employees must compel their workers to be vaccinated or required to submit to weekly covid testing. Scott Keller, attorney for the National Federation of Independent Business, argued that "the power to make getting vaccinated the law of the land is clearly reserved to Congress in Article I of the US Constitution." Several of the Justices questioned this argument. Justice Elena Kagan posited that "the general welfare clause of the Constitution's preamble seems to trump...

"The U.S. economy added just 199,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent. Economists had forecast 422,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, although this week’s report on private payrolls from ADP indicating that the private sector added 807,000 jobs had created some anticipation that the official figure would be higher than the consensus forecast. ..."

"The United States saw the widest gap in unemployment rates for African Americans and whites in years at the conclusion of the first year of Biden’s presidency, underscoring an uneven recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and the Biden administration’s failure to meet its promises to foster racial equity in the economy. The jobless rates for whites fell half a percentage point to 3.2 percent, while the rate for blacks rose from 6.7 percent to 7.1 percent, according to data released by the Labor Department on Friday. ..."

[17:09 video clip] "‘Gutfeld!’ panel reacts to Jan. 6 one year later and Democrats using it for political leverage."

[1:36 video clip] "How many of the biggest media lies from 2021 can you remember? Here’s my rapid fire version of the 2021 media lies. Share it to remind people just how much disinformation gets distributed by official media sources in a given year."

The Biden administration has cut detentions of illegal immigrants despite the historic surge across the border, and it is relying more on ankle bracelets to monitor migrants despite reports they don’t work. Syracuse University’s Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse, which charts federal immigration statistics, said that just 20,623 illegal immigrants are being detained, down from 22,000, raising questions from critics about where thousands of other border-crossers are.... ...An Arizona Sun Times report quoted the mayor of Yuma saying that just 1% of those nabbed by border agents are being deported.... ...“The historical data clearly shows any alternative to detention has been...

I remember the call from my husband on May 31. It was our anniversary, and he was out running errands before he came home—not because we had plans, but because there was a curfew in place in Minneapolis. He called to tell me he had to drive to a nearby suburb to pick up a medical prescription. "Our Walgreens on Hennepin Avenue isn't there anymore," he said. "It was burned to the ground." Over the spring and summer of 2020, thousands of businesses were looted, damaged, or totally destroyed during the George Floyd protests—especially here, where Floyd was killed. Every...

Grammy-nominated Five For Fighting singer John Ondrasik said his new music video that shows footage of President Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan has been censored and removed by YouTube. A search for the song on the video service shows a lyric video and a still image video that plays the tune, called 'Blood on Your Hands,' but does not appear to feature the controversial video Ondrasik posted. The singer, best known for hits like Superman and 100 Years, announced the removal of the video - which features images of what he calls 'Taliban atrocities' - on his Twitter account.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed on Wednesday Border Patrol agents working in the Big Bend Sector rescued 25 illegal immigrants who were abandoned in a locked trailer in low temperatures. ... ...While the Big Bend Sector in Texas is one of the most remote sectors along the U.S.-Mexico border, it had experienced an increase in illegal activity in 2021 during the still ongoing border crisis. Compared to fiscal year 2020, fiscal year 2021 saw a 233 percent increase in unaccompanied children encounters, a 62 percent increase in family encounters, and a 365 increase in single adult encounters. ...

“Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?” (Proverbs 8:1 KJV).

ransomnote: The Worldometer uses, as its source, many organizations which have their own credibility problems. Since 'someone' rewrote the content of Wikipedia's entry for Worldometer to eliminate mention of it's flaws/limitations, I thought I should capture what Worldometer says about itself before it, too is revised and sanitized."Sources and MethodsOur sources include Official Websites of Ministries of Health or other Government Institutions and Government authorities' social media accounts."Worldometer links their sources on another page. Here's just a subset of a larger list - their dominant source is the United Nations.Worldometer - Sources (worldometers.info)United Nations, Statistics DivisionEconomic Commission for Asia and...

ransomnote: Worldometer.com seems to the be SNOPES of demographic & statistical data sharing. It's rather humorous to see CNN posturing as if its standards are higher than that of Worldometer.Excerpts:Instead of citing Johns Hopkins, Spanish officials are now pointing to testing rankings from a data aggregation website called Worldometer — one of the sources behind the university’s widely cited coronavirus dashboard — and prompting questions about why some governments and respected institutions have chosen to trust a source about which little is known.SNIPThe website claims to be “run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers” and “published by...

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams on Friday named his younger brother as a deputy NYPD commissioner, police sources said — a move that immediately raised conflict-of-interest questions. Bernard Adams was assigned to the office of new Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, sources said. The post — which comes with a yearly salary of around $240,000, according to SeeThroughNY.net — is believed to be temporary. Sources expect Bernard Adams to be transferred elsewhere once other high-level personnel moves are finalized.... ...The appointment by Adams, who won office on a tough-on-crime platform, raised eyebrows among government watchdogs....

During a speech on the occasion of Friday prayers in the Iranian city of Mashhad which commemorated this week’s second anniversary of the US killing of IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, the top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force (who was Soleimani’s replacement) vowed to take vengeance “from within the US”. Iranian state and other foreign regional media featured Brigadier General Esmaeil Qaani’s ultra-provocative words, translating them as follows: “We will prepare ground for the hard revenge against the US from within their homes, as we do not need to be present as supervisors everywhere.” IRGC Quds...

We’ve known for some time now that the omicron variant of COVID-19, which is driving the current surge in coronavirus cases, is more transmissible but less deadly than past variants.Recent studies have shown, for example, that while previous variants heavily attacked the lungs, omicron is far milder, mostly infecting the upper airways and not deep lung tissue.Not that that stopped the usual suspects from pressing the panic button.But evidence continues to grow that omicron is a signal that the worst of the pandemic is over. Scientists are now saying omicron appears to have a death rate 100 times less than...

Labour MP Jack Dromey dies at 73British lawmaker Jack Dromey passed away “suddenly” on Friday, his family said. He was 73.Dromey was the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, and the shadow minister for immigration. “Jack Dromey MP died suddenly this morning aged 73 in his flat in Erdington,” the family statement read. “He had been a dedicated Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington since 2010.” Dromey was the husband of Labour MP Harriet Harman, and they had three children together.The British prime minister said he was “deeply saddened” by the death of Dromey. “My thoughts are with Harriet and the...

The Ty-Nant cat sanctuary near Port Talbot in South Wales is 'a not-for-profit organisation that helps cats find loving homes'. It also raised more money in 2020 than one of the most high-profile, A-list charities in the world. So too did the Surrey And Hampshire Canal Society, the French Porcelain Society and the Hindley Amateur Rugby League Football Club — to name only a few with similar financial profiles that can be found in the Charity Commission's records. But that is not to say that these worthy — if somewhat niche — causes drew in millions of pounds of donations;...

New York has finally released hospital data that breaks out hospitalizations *with* Covid vs. those *from* Covid, finding 57% of cases statewide are “admitted due to Covid or complications from Covid”:New York has its first official breakdown of what share of people are hospitalized for COVID vs. how many are hospitalized with incidental COVID. In NYC it's 49% for COVID, everyone else just happened to test positive. pic.twitter.com/fNUmMK2DM9— Alyssa Katz (@alykatzz) January 7, 2022This follows what we’re seeing in other places, like in Florida:Across the Jackson Health System hospitals, we currently have 327 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19....