Free Republic

Dr. Rand Paul Objects to Proposed Sanctions Against the Nord Stream II Pipeline Rumble...

Reflecting the Pentagon’s new focus on China, US aircraft carrier strike groups almost doubled deployments to the South China Sea in 2021 compared to the year before. According to the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI), US carrier strike groups entered the South China Sea 10 times in 2021, compared with six times in 2020, and five in 2019. “The US military have drastically reinforced their military deployment in the South China Sea since last year, in terms of training scales, sorties and scenarios,” SCSPI director Hu Bo said Friday, according to The South China Morning Post. Hu said...

A failed vote on filibuster reform guarantees little progress on voting rights — and many other policies. The Senate on Wednesday voted 48-52 against changing the chamber’s filibuster rules, dooming much of Democrats’ agenda for the near term. Democrats were ultimately split on the rules vote, with two opposing the change, and 48 in favor of it. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) were the only Democrats who voted against the rules change, which would have made an exception to the 60-vote threshold many bills need to advance. No Republicans voted to support the reform. Had it passed,...

Democrats' attempt to change Senate rules to pass the voting rights bill failed Wednesday night, with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) voting with Republicans.

The FBI on Wednesday said it was conducting "court-authorized law enforcement activity" near what was reported to be the Texas home of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). In a statement to The Hill, Rosanne Hughes, a spokesperson for the FBI's San Antonio office, said authorities were present in a neighborhood in Laredo where Cuellar reportedly lives but would not "provide further comment on an ongoing investigation." “The FBI was present in the vicinity of Windridge Drive and Estate Drive in Laredo conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity," Hughes said in a statement. Cuellar's office confirmed to The Hill that an investigation was...

Joe Biden held his first White House press conference of 2022, and it was a complete and total disaster. Biden kicked off the Wednesday presser by blaming Republicans for his policy failures and insisting he did a great job as president in his first year. Biden even claimed he “over-performed” as president despite supply chain breakdowns, rampant inflation and energy price hikes.

The first meal of the day may soon become more expensive for consumers as food inflation soars. A combination of citrus disease and adverse weather conditions have plagued Florida’s orange crop and may soon constrain supplies, which has already forced orange juice prices to multi-year highs as demand remains robust. “You have your classical supply-demand mismatch,” Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors, which specializes in agricultural commodities analysis, told CNN Bussiness. Due to dwindling supply, “much higher prices are coming to supermarkets,” he warned. Last week, the US Agriculture Department issued a report about the state of Florida’s orange...

Overwhelmed supply chains and truck driver shortages worsened when Canada imposed new border mandates prohibiting unvaccinated American truckers. With low vaccination rates among US drivers, Canadian supermarkets are already reporting rising food inflation and shortages of certain products, according to Bloomberg. Canada’s vaccine mandate for truckers came into effect on Saturday. The new rule requires US truckers to be vaccinated to cross the border. We warned earlier this week such a mandate would have “consequences.” The vaccine mandate has exacerbated the shortage of truck drivers and made wait times at border crossings even longer. Eighty percent of trade between the...

@tariqnasheed But Stop Asian Hate, tho, right? *** WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE ***Clip...

Mark Levin's full interview with President Donald Trump after President Biden's news conference.

Parents in a Pennsylvania school district have expressed outrage after a photo of a school employee using tape to affix a mask to a child's face went viral online. The school district has confirmed that the photo is genuine.

Google and Apple are furious with antitrust legislation getting a fresh look in Congress and warned that what’s bad for them is bad for America. As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to review new antitrust proposals, the Big Tech titans are working to undermine support for the bills that could damage their market power. The judiciary committee is reviewing two proposals on Thursday: the Open App Markets Act, which intends to foster competition with Apple and Google’s app stores, and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which seeks to block Big Tech companies from giving preference to their products...

A man was in custody last night charged with the murder of Ashling Murphy (23) just outside Tullamore, Co Offaly, last Wednesday. The accused man, 31-year-old Jozef Puska, appeared before a special sitting of Tullamore District Court. Det Sgt David Scahill gave evidence of the arrest, charge and caution and said Mr Puska replied “No” when the charge was put to him at 7.45pm. Insp Kieran Keyes applied to Judge Catherine Staines for a remand in custody, in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin, to a sitting of Cloverhill District Court next Wednesday, January 26th. The accused man, wearing a grey hoodie and...

An 11-month-old child was shot in the face while sitting in a car with his mother in the Bronx, a senior NYPD official told NBC New York. The shooting occurred on Valentine Avenue near East 198th Street in the Bedford Park neighborhood around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, senior police officials said. The child and mother were sitting in the car when a shot was fired into the car, striking the infant in the left cheek, according a senior police official. A blood-stained pink baby jacket could be seen left in the street after the incident. The child was initially taken to...

@RepThomasMassie Cognitive dissonance: Left wing media outlets normalizing a former Oath Keepers president organizing protestors to go into the Capitol on January 6th, while simultaneously calling it a radical right-wing insurrection on par with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor

Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that President Joe Biden was tough and showed stamina during his first solo news conference of 2022. Carville said, “I thought today was a very good day. The best time to plant an oak tree was 25 years ago. The second-best time is right now. I think President Biden planted an oak tree. He decided that, ‘Hey, look, our political situation has deteriorated here, and I’m going to personally take charge of it.’ It is not a minor feat to stand there for an hour and 50 minutes, on your...

When patients' hip or knee replacements were delayed in response to COVID-19 surges, chatbots delivering encouraging messages not only benefited the mental health of patients—they also experienced boosts to their physical health, too. A paper showed that twice as many of the patients who received the messages informed by psychotherapy experienced meaningful clinical improvements compared to those who didn't. "We think it is very significant that we saw benefits in both mental and physical health," Christopher Anthony, MD. "This demonstrates the importance of the relatively unexplored area between a patient's psychological well-being and their joint function." The study team employed...

The FBI on Wednesday said it was conducting "court-authorized law enforcement activity near what was reported to be the Texas home of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas)...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a self-appraisal that didn’t always fit with the facts, President Joe Biden on Wednesday made the dubious assertion that he’s outperformed all expectations on the pandemic in his first year and inflated his contribution to COVID-era economic growth. A look at some of Biden’s comments in a news conference that stretched for nearly two hours: PANDEMIC BIDEN on COVID-19: “I didn’t overpromise. I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen.” THE FACTS: That’s a stretch. BIDEN: “We just made surprise medical bills illegal in this country.” THE FACTS: He ignores the fact that President Donald...