Free Republic

As we all slog into year three of this pandemic and the debates about mandates, masks, and a staggered economy, it feels as if we have lost sight of something important; namely, how does this end? At what point do we all just take a step back and return to some sense of normalcy, i.e., a pre-pandemic state? It’s like a bad TV series that is going on one season too long… you just want it to end. Early on, back in those bygone days when the media taught us all how to wash our hands, there was talk that...

The GOP-controlled Senate on Tuesday ended a nearly two-year Democratic filibuster of California judge Janice Rogers Brown, putting her on track to become the second black woman on what many people consider to be the nation’s second highest court. The 65-32 vote virtually assures the conservative jurist and Alabama native’s confirmation Wednesday evening to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, part of a historic deal to avert a partisan showdown over judicial filibusters. It takes 60 votes to bypass a filibuster. In November 2003, Brown’s Republican supporters were able to get only 53 votes for...

Sen. Joe Biden said Sunday that if President Bush nominates recently confirmed Circuit Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats will launch a filibuster. "If [Bush] sent up Edith Jones, I could assure you that would be a very, very, very difficult fight - and she would probably be filibustered," Biden told CBS's "Face the Nation." In the next breath Biden corrected himself, saying, "I misspoke, I misspoke. Janice Rogers Brown is what I meant to say." Asked whether that would break the Senate's much heralded compromise last month not to...

One of the big selling points for sticking our nose into a border incursion half-a-world away (while studiously ignoring a bigger border incursion right here at home) is that we need to show the world’s bullies and punks that America’s no pushover. Now, the people busy selling that line are the same people who presided over Iraq and Afghanistan, the places where our failed elite’s performance created said need to show the world’s bullies and punks that America’s no pushover. Think really hard about what foreign policy success our foreign policy elite can mark in the “WIN” column during the...

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Tick, Tick, Tick…. Is the End Nigh? The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was facing an immediate political death sentence, so what did he do? He declared the pandemic over. The question now on this side of the pond: Will Joe Biden—himself facing a political death sentence, though admittedly a few months away—learn anything from Boris Johnson? As the already relatively-weak omicron variant wheezes towards its nadir, the calls to end COVID-related restrictions—to remove the elephant that has been sitting on the congested chest of the world—have grown louder and more insistent. This increasing clamor has already appeared to...

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...