Free Republic

A new bill has been proposed in California’s legislature. State senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) wants to require COVID “vaccination” for all the state’s schoolchildren, K-12 ostensibly to make schools “safe.” Meanwhile, there’s reality, which dictates that buyer’s remorse is hitting the populace in heavily vaccinated countries. But still, the press ignores it all. In Israel, with a 95% vaccination rate, there are currently nearly 450,000 active cases. There are fewer than 10,000,000 Israeli citizens, so around one in 20 Israelis currently have COVID. Denmark is similar—highly vaccinated, with an infection rate higher than ever before. Higher, even, than before there...

In an old episode of Star Trek, a powerful android threatened Captain Kirk and was defeated when asked an impossible question. Kirk actually employed “induced computer destruction” at least four times during the series. The human brain is like a computer in some ways and holding conflicting views can be very uncomfortable. The term “cognitive dissonance” comes up regularly in political discussions, probably because these issues are rarely cut and dried, but are considered very important. It is defined as “the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their...

10m ago 06:11 A senior Russian official has said a nuclear missile crisis between Moscow and Washington was unavoidable without measures to ensure restraint and predictability. The Russian state news agency Tass was quoting Vladimir Ermakov, a senior Russian foreign ministry official. According to Tass, he said Moscow thought the United States was preparing to deploy short and intermediate range missiles to Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. FacebookTwitter 25m ago 05:56 Philip Oltermann Philip Oltermann Germany’s restrictive stance on exporting weapons or military equipment to Ukraine is causing consternation in Kyiv and elsewhere in Europe, but the position has popular...

When Biden's going gets tough, his toughest dead-enders in the liberal media get going. Yesterday brought the latest polling blow: Biden's approval rating has sunk to an abysmal 39% in the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. Pro tip: any poll that has "Harvard" in its name is definitely not biased against Biden! And sure enough, the Morning Joe crew was out there today, doing its best to 'splain away Biden's dwindling support. First up was Jonathan Lemire, who in an exquisite bit of understatement called Biden's poll numbers "not all that high." Sort of like Mario Mendoza's batting average, Jonathan? Get the...

First school shooting in Montgomery County history follows vote to remove police from school buildings Maryland's Montgomery County became the latest Democrat-run jurisdiction to reverse its decision to remove police officers from schools after it suffered the first school shooting in the county's history last week, in which a 15-year-old boy was shot last Friday by a classmate. The district announced on Monday after the shooting that police would temporarily return to every high school in the county, a reversal of a March 2021 decision by county lawmakers to yank funding from its longstanding School Resource Officer program. The lawmakers...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) stock trades have reportedly become of great interest to those looking to beat the market in January. While Speaker Pelosi has been recognized as the “best trader on the Hill,” online searches for “Pelosi stock trades” have hit a record high, Reuters reported. Those on social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Tiktok reportedly study Pelosi’s trade disclosures after they are published on the House website. In 2021, Speaker Pelosi disclosed her husband Paul Pelosi has traded stocks valued up to $5 million. The stock trades are primarily in big-tech, such as Apple, Amazon,...

An F-35C Lightning II fighter suffered "a landing mishap" on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea on Monday. It left seven sailors injured while the pilot safely ejected and was later recovered, the Navy confirmed, marking the fifth major mishap aboard the deployed carrier since late November. Between Nov. 22 and Tuesday, Carrier Air Wing 2 reported four other major incidents involving aircraft. Naval Safety Center data shows that the first incident, which occurred Nov. 22, was an in-flight engine fire aboard an F/A-18E Super Hornet that was able to land successfully. Two days...

Groups such as Black Lives Matter and Women's March launched an effort calling for the justice's retirement News of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's intention to retire comes after months of pressure from the left to hang up his robe in time for President Biden to name his replacement. "There’s no question that Justice Breyer, for whom I have great respect, should retire at the end of this term," Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., said last spring, just months after Biden took office. "My goodness, have we not learned our lesson?"

If the Navy is forced to live with a yearlong continuing resolution, the service would have to cut the number of recruits it adds by nearly 10,000, prevent 37,000 moves, and stop the construction of ships it says are crucial to national security, service leaders are warning lawmakers. A continuing resolution, or CR, is the funding mechanism that keeps spending fixed when Congress fails to agree on a budget bill. Lawmakers are already three months late in delivering a new spending law, with no immediate end to the stalemate in sight. In a hearing with the House Appropriations Committee earlier...

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Earlier this month, the leader of the Air Force Recruiting Service was seeing warning lights flashing for the Air and Space Forces’ 2022 goals. In an email to the command, he is seeing fewer leads on possible new recruits... Maj. Gen. Edward Thomas, Jr., commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service, told Federal News Network. “The aggregate effect of these two years of COVID is driving downward trends in our pool of qualified applicants.” So far, in the first fiscal quarter of 2022, the Air Force is meeting expectations. The service wanted to recruit 6,030 members to the active duty...

A Los Angeles-area homeless encampment near the venue slated to host Super Bowl LVI was cleared out Tuesday after reports of people setting fires in the area. The California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, said the encampment near SoFi Stadium in Inglewood needed to be cleared because of a fire safety issue. The venue will host the NFL's annual championship affair on Feb. 13. "Caltrans’ responsibility is to ensure the safety of the traveling public and to protect and maintain California’s highway infrastructure," a Caltrans statement said. "The department is coordinating with local partners to provide outreach and support including...

Significantly more children were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with previous years, a single-institution study suggested. From March 2020 to March 2021, a total of 187 children were admitted for new onset T1D at a San Diego children's hospital, a 57% increase over the 119 children in the prior year, according to Jane Kim, MD, of the University of California San Diego, and colleagues. And for part of this pandemic period (July 2020 to February 2021), they found significantly more new diagnoses than would be predicted based on averages from the previous 5 years....

A retired teacher who says he is the 'world's most prolific sperm donor' has claimed to have fathered 129 children during the last nine years. Clive Jones, 66, who lives in Chaddesden, Derby, has been donating his sperm from his van for nearly ten years and says he has another nine children currently on the way. Mr Jones, who is originally from Burton, was unable to become an official sperm donor as he only started donating aged 58, while banks have an upper donor age limit of 45. But health experts have warned against his actions, saying that all donors...

Beginning Thursday, it's rolling out the "Spicy Lover's Pizza" for a limited time. The pie features spicy marinara sauce, two types of pepperoni (classic and crispy cupped), red jalapeño peppers and a sprinkled topping custom made with herbs and crushed chili peppers. Three versions are available: double pepperoni, chicken and pineapple, and a veggie version topped with green bell peppers, onions and mushrooms. Prices start at $12.99 for a large. People are increasingly craving spicy food, Pizza Hut says. A third-party report from Technomic, a research firm that specializes in the food service industry, found that nearly 80% of fast...

A gun rights group and a gun owner have filed a lawsuit against a California city for a newly passed ordinance requiring citizens to obtain firearm liability insurance and pay an annual fee.The National Association for Gun Rights and a local gun owner sued the city in federal court Tuesday after City Council members voted to approve the ordinance believed to be the first measure of its kind in the United States. An attorney representing the plaintiffs said Wednesday the law is unconstitutional and infringes on both the First and Second Amendments.San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said that having liability...

The Hyattsville Mayor reportedly shot himself dead in a Virginia park, authorities revealed. Kevin Ward, 44, a father-of-two, died on Tuesday from an 'apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.' His body was found in Fort Marcy Park in Virginia, roughly 20 miles away from Hyattsville, in Maryland, the Washington Post reported. Ward, who leaves behind two children and a husband, was elected in May as the first African American and strived to help his community rebuild after the pandemic and create a safe haven for undocumented immigrants and the LBGT+ community. The politician renamed the largest park in the city after African-American...

A French surgeon is facing legal action and condemnation after auctioning an X-ray of a gunshot wound from a victim of the 2015 massacre at the Bataclan theater in Paris where 90 people were killed. The surgeon promoted the sale of the X-ray in the form of a non-fungible token on the marketplace called OpenSea. The surgeon has been identified as Emmanuel Masmejean, an orthopedic surgeon at the European Hospital Georges Pompidou in southwest Paris. Martin Hirsch, who manages Paris' public hospitals, called the incident "disgraceful," in a tweet in French, as translated by Insider, saying, "This act is contrary...

“Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips. A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?” (Proverbs 27:1 KJV).

A security guard died after a fight broke out over the weekend at a Mesquite fitness center, police said. Mesquite police were called about 4:30 p.m. Saturday to the Fitness Connection in the 2000 block of Town East Boulevard, near LBJ Freeway, where the man was assaulted. The man, identified by family as 43-year-old Patrick Prejean, was taken to a hospital and later died. A family member told KDFW-TV (Channel 4) he’d been working as a security guard at the gym since last summer. Police said his cause of death has not been determined. Police said they were aware of...