Free Republic

A newly proposed South Carolina law would make it illegal for certain institutions to ask a person for their COVID-19 vaccination status. “The government has no place in making you or telling you to take the vaccination or threatening your livelihood if you don’t,” said state Rep. William Chumley, a co-sponsor of the bill, known as H.4848. A representative of a public, private, or nonprofit entity who asks about a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status should be fined more than $14,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, according to the text of the bill. “South Carolina didn’t want...

Amid the sex-trafficking investigation of Congressman Matt Gaetz, who has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing, the 2022 campaign for his House seat is gearing up, with the addition of another Democratic candidate. Democrat Peggy Schiller worked as a corporate litigator in New York City for several years and lived in Atlanta before moving to Santa Rosa Beach in 2018. What she saw when she arrived there shocked her. “Our congressman had been John Lewis in Atlanta, and here it was Matt Gaetz. I never thought of running until moved here,” Schiller said. “Because I think the people of...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was criticized for appearing to back President Biden’s claim that November’s midterm elections could be illegitimate if Congress doesn’t pass the Democrat-led federal election overhaul that stalled in the Senate earlier this month.

Today, Special Counsel John Durham provided a “discovery Update” to the court in the Michael Sussmann case. In this filing, available here, he disclosed that his team has obtained a tremendous amount of information ranging from a variety of sources – including Perkins Coie, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and former DNC/Clinton lawyer Mark Elias.While Sussmann has been charged with giving false statements to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker regarding the Alfa Bank/Trump Organization hoax (background here), Durham notes that the “Government also maintains an active, ongoing criminal investigation of” Sussmann’s conduct. In other words, Sussmann’s criminal conduct likely is not...

U.S. hospitals and staffing companies are extracting roughly 1,000 nurses each month from poor countries instead of recruiting and training Americans for the nursing jobs, say media reports. The New York Times newspaper described the extraction migration process on January 24: About 1,000 nurses are arriving in the United States each month from African nations, the Philippines and the Caribbean, said Sinead Carbery, president of O’Grady Peyton International, an international recruiting firm. While the United States has long drawn nurses from abroad, she said demand from American health care facilities is the highest she’s seen in three decades. There are...

(CNN)San Jose, California, is getting closer to adopting a first-in-the-nation law to address gun violence by requiring all gun owners to pay a fee and carry liability insurance. The Silicon Valley city's council is due to vote Tuesday on the ordinance, whose dual-pronged approach aims to reduce the risk of gun harm by incentivizing safer behavior and to ease taxpayers of the financial burden of gun violence. "Certainly the Second Amendment protects every citizen's right to own a gun. It does not require taxpayers to subsidize that right," Democratic Mayor Sam Liccardo said Monday at a news conference, estimating that...

In a twist of fate, after two years of increasing COVID communism in the Great White North, it looks like humble, courageous, and patriotic truckers might be the heroes who save this hallowed nation of snow and ice. In his letter to the Hebrews, the Apostle Paul tells us, “For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth.” In essence, God disciplines those He loves. Well, if that is the case, then God must really love Canada, because we have lived in a Trudopian dystopia for some time now, and until now it seemed that there was no end in sight. ......

Military sources told WRAL News Tuesday the 3rd Brigade Combat team from the 82nd Airborne Division will be deployed in less than 72 hours. Author: Aaron Thomas Published: 6:35 PM EST January 25, 2022 Updated: 6:35 PM EST January 25, 2022 FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Thousands of Fort Bragg families are bracing for the possibility of their loved ones to be deployed to Eastern Europe. On Monday, the Pentagon put 8,500 U.S. service members on high alert to be deployed as tensions between Russian and Ukraine continue to rise. Military sources told WRAL News the 3rd Brigade Combat team from...

A key Ukrainian national security official sat down today and told the country’s allies what they could do to help: please, calm down. But also: Keep the weapons coming. “We’re emphasizing this now and articulating to our partners that we cannot afford to let our economy collapse, so we also need help on this issue,” Ukraine National Security Council Chief Oleksiy Reznikov told BBC Ukraine on Monday. “After all, if people go into a state of panic, that’s a very dangerous situation for the country.” “We are concerned about the availability of weapons to protect against Russian aggression. And when...

[Catholic Caucus] German Catholic bishops welcome initiative seeking change in Church teaching on sexualityGerman Catholic bishops on Monday welcomed an initiative that is calling for a change in Church teaching on sexuality and gender identity.The initiative titled “#OutInChurch — For a church without fear,” launched on Jan. 24, appealed for the revision of what it described as “defamatory and outdated” expressions of Catholic doctrine, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.In a seven-point list of demands, the organizers wrote: “Defamatory and outdated statements of Church doctrine on sexuality and gender need to be revised on the basis of theological and...

Hunter Biden planned to share his family’s office space in Washington, DC, with a Chinese intelligence-linked firm that employed a man Hunter described as “the f**king spy chief of China,” according to Peter Schweizer’s new bombshell book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win. According to the book, Hunter Biden planned in 2017 to set up an office in Washington that would house his businesses, his father’s Biden Foundation, and a representative of a Chinese global energy company he had cultivated close ties to, CEFC China Energy.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov told reporters on Tuesday that Kyiv considers – and intelligence reports from the West agree – that “internal destabilization” caused by panic over a potential further Russian invasion is “the number one issue,” not any potential invasion. With this “destabilization” – leading to generalized panic and the collapse of the national currency, the hryvnia – “the Russians have nothing to do here,” Danilov asserted, according to state outlet Ukrinform.

A Danish newspaper has apologized to its readers for not questioning the government’s data and narratives more throughout the first two years of the pandemic. The Ekstra Bladet, founded in 1904, said it should have done more due diligence in examining the government’s data and conclusions before reporting them: “For ALMOST two years, we - the press and the population - have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities' daily coronatal,” wrote Bladet journalist Brian Weichardt. “THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn out tremendously on all of us. That is why we - the press - must also take stock...

The anticipated decision Tuesday of former Rep. Mark Walker to abandon his bid for the Republican Senate nomination and instead seek a return to the House from a newly-carved district in North Carolina surprises relatively few observers of Tarheel State politics. Walker had consistently been running third in most polls, behind former Gov. Pat McCrory and fellow Rep. Ted Budd (who carries the blessing of Donald Trump, the most-sought endorsement for anyone in a contested GOP primary). The anticipation now is that without Walker, the Trump base among North Carolina Republicans will coalesce around Budd and be a big assist...

Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones revealed Monday that he met with the House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot — and exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination “almost 100 times.” “I just had a very intense experience being interrogated by the January 6 committee,” Jones said on his podcast. “They were polite, but they were dogged.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that the White House "is moving in the right direction" in considering a deployment of troops to Eastern Europe amid concerns Russia is on the cusp of invading Ukraine. "They're preparing to take steps before an incursion and not afterwards," McConnell told reporters back in Kentucky, per a video from WYMT-TV. "It appears to me that the administration is moving in the right direction." McConnell added that he has pressed the White House from the beginning to get Ukraine access to surface-to-air Stinger missiles and anti-tank weapons immediately; the US began sending...

Two US officials involved in negotiations over renewing the 2015 Irn nuclear deal have stepped back from the talks and a third has left the team altogether amid internal discord over how firm the White House should be with Tehran, according to a report. Richard Nephew, the State Department's deputy special envoy for Iran who pushed for a tougher approach, has not been part of the talks since early December, Wall Street Journal reported Monday. A State Department spokesman told Reuters late Monday that Nephew was no longer in the envoy role, though he was still at the department. Two...

"When you're in the arena, you have to be able to take a punch or throw a punch - for the children." Nancy Pelosi (video at link)

The killing of two Canadians at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast last week was motivated by debts between international gangs apparently dedicated to drug and weapons trafficking, according to a senior Mexican prosecutor. “The investigations indicate that this attack was motivated by debts that arose from transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in,” said Oscar Montes, the chief prosecutor of the Quintana Roo state, on Tuesday. “The information [is] that they were involved in weapons and drug trafficking, among other crimes.”

Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee said Tuesday that he will retire after more than 30 years in elected office, declaring there was “no way” for him to retain his seat under a new congressional map drawn up by state Republicans. Cooper is the 29th Democrat to announce he won't seek reelection to the chamber in the fall. Now in his 16th term, he is also one of the longest-serving House Democrats to retire ahead of a challenging midterm election year for the party. His announcement comes just a day after Tennessee’s GOP-controlled General Assembly approved a new congressional map...