Free Republic

A Florida lawmaker is considering legislation that would cut funding for school districts that implemented mask mandates despite a recent executive order, the Tampa Bay Times reported Monday. State Rep. Randy Fine, who chairs the PreK-12 Appropriations subcommittee, proposed a move that would punish the dozen districts that mandated masks, the Times reported. He said the school districts should have $200 million taken away and given to the 55 other districts that adhered to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ order. DeSantis passed an executive order banning mask mandates in schools as part of a “Parent’s Bill of Rights” that he signed into...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Vetter Cancels All 1962 Latin Masses in Diocese of HelenaOn February 1, 2022, Bishop Vetter made the decision to rescind his original position regarding the continuation of the Traditional Latin Mass (1962 Missal) in the Diocese of Helena. The position of the Diocese of Helena is that all Masses according to the Missal of 1962 are to cease as of Ash Wednesday. This was announced at St. Richard in Columbia Falls, on February 6th, via a sermon by Fr. Sean Raftis.Bishop Vetter did not issue an official statement, and instead stated via Fr. Bart Tolleson that he...

"Kenney just said we'll probably need to 'take an annual COVID shot He's saying all this. An annual shot Holy *hit" Ezra Levant Rebel News Twitter Post 754 pm Eastern US Time 2/8/2022 There was hope that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney would send a message of an end to COVID vaccine passports and other restrictions in the province often considered Canada's most Conservative today. But he sent shockwaves through the grassroots of Canadian Conservatism in his province by pushing more COVID shots in the future and laying out future scenarios for bringing the vax passports back when he spoke late...

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson has halted production of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, according to a New York Times report. The pharmaceutical company last year quietly shut down production at a plant in Leiden, Netherlands, which was the only facility where usable doses of the vaccine were manufactured, catching some of its customers off guard, the report states. Johnson & Johnson has instead been using the plant to work on an experimental and potentially more profitable drug that could protect against an unrelated respiratory virus, according to the report.

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that President Joe Biden “masterfully pulled together” NATO to block Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. Coons said, “I think it’s important that President Biden made it perfectly clear that if there is further aggression by Russia into Ukraine, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which has been constructed over many years and is a prize of real significance to Putin, that pipeline will be stopped.”

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced effective midnight Tuesday, the province’s COVID-19 vaccine passport program will end. At an evening news conference, Kenney said the restriction exemption program has served its purpose, but is no longer needed since Alberta passed peak of Omicron infections about three weeks ago. “The threat of COVID-19 to public health no longer outweighs the hugely damaging impact of health restrictions on our society,” said Kenney, adding his government would only move forward if it does not threaten the capacity of the health-care system. Capacity limits will also be nixed Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. for venues...

Republicans are struggling to break out of a cycle of Jan. 6 controversies, reigniting tensions within the party heading into the 2022 midterm elections. The fallout from the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) censure resolution is the latest controversy in recent weeks that has sucked up political oxygen and turned the spotlight from the Biden administration, where top GOP lawmakers would like to keep it, to intraparty divisions centered around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol carried out by a mob of former President Trump’s supporters. On Tuesday, the top two Republicans in the Capitol took opposite stances responding...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Feb. 7 declared a heightened terrorism threat due to “false and misleading narratives,” misinformation, and “conspiracy theories.” “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors,” the DHS bulletin said. The agency did not say what foreign or domestic actors are responsible for the alleged proliferation of misinformation or disinformation. “Mass casualty attacks and other acts of targeted...

Boxgate?: The chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee plans to “fully investigate” the appearance of 15 boxes of documents and other items at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, which should have been turned over as part of the Presidential Records Act. “The reporting on former President Trump’s apparent removal of presidential records and his failure to turn the records over to the National Archives for over a year is deeply troubling — but not surprising,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) told Jackie in a statement Monday night. “I sounded the alarm in December 2020 about the danger that the former President and...

Russia has denied reports that Vladimir Putin agreed a deal on Ukraine with French President Emmanuel Macron during talks in Moscow yesterday despite Paris' claim he managed to exact concessions from the Kremlin. The denial comes amid fiery warnings from Moscow that a nuclear war could break out if Ukraine joins NATO and after Putin accused the West of 'complete disregard for our concerns' following the six-hour-long talks yesterday. Macron had said Putin told him that 'he won't be initiating an escalation' in Ukraine and that there will not be any Russian 'permanent [military] base' or 'deployment' in Belarus, where...

I detect an emerging trend in the anti-conservative mainstream media — using conservatives to attack other conservatives. The New York Times is leading the charge. How else does one explain the Times publishing the op-ed by “common good conservative” Adrian Vermuele attacking originalism? Or an op-ed by three leading common good (or national) conservatives attacking the Republican foreign policy establishment? The publication of the two pieces can partially be explained by the Times’ contempt for originalism and by its foreign policy dovishness. But the spectacle of conservative-on-conservative clash is surely the main selling point. I’m not unhappy the op-eds were...

This makes three Senate races this fall in which the GOP won’t be fielding its strongest possible candidate, almost certainly because moderate Republicans don’t want to come to Washington knowing they’ll have to operate under Trump’s thumb. Or potentially have to contend with a Trump-backed primary challenge before they’ve even won their seat.

How did neoconservatives get their name?It started out as an insult. The founders of the movement were liberal intellectuals who became disenchanted with the direction of the American left during the 1960s and 1970s. Their original goal was to reform the Democratic Party from within. But mainstream leftists scoffed at these people who called themselves new, or neo-, liberals, saying it was more apt to call them neo-conservatives. The first neocons soon embraced the name. To them the prefix highlighted the fact that while they had once been leftists, they now had a new orientation. Irving Kristol, the godfather of...

On the other hand, my guess is that Democrats aren’t keen to see this battle continue. Petersen’s handing the party exactly the sort of off-ramp from restrictions that other Democrats like Phil Murphy in New Jersey have begun to take. The national party wants to blunt the GOP’s edge on its “back to normal” messaging before the midterms. A protracted court battle between the Republican Youngkin and masking-forever local Democrats is a bad look for Biden’s party. Especially since the takeaway for swing voters will be that Democrats need to be replaced at every level, not just in the governor’s...

A shocking video captured an Iranian man grinning as he walked through the streets clutching the severed head of his 17-year-old wife — whom he decapitated in an “honor killing,” according to a report. The gruesome footage shows Sajjad Heydari strolling through a neighborhood in Ahvaz, a city in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, on Saturday with Mona Heydari’s head in one hand and a blade in the other, East2West News reported. Mona, who also was Sajjad’s cousin, had been forced to marry him when she was just 12 years old, according to the Women’s Committee of the National Council...

Significant press release with Ex-RCMP officer and Ex-RCMP anti-terrorism expert and acknowledged expert witness, ex-intelligent agent and political scientist. (Thomas Quiggin) From the anti-terriorsm expert on the vid: “. . . The only people ADVOCATING violence so far in this whole mess have been the Prime Minister, the Mayor, the leader of the MVP Party, people like Councilor Dean, and a few others. . . folks like them, and Chief Stoly”. (Dean is a city councillor and Chief Stoly is Chief of Police Ottawa)

A MURDER bid thug torched the family home of a former friend during a dispute over boxing gloves. Stephen Robertson, 50, started the blaze at the house Brian Hendry shared with his wife Nicola and deaf son Ethan. A judge watched horror CCTV footage of the fire ripping through the property in Renfrew, Renfrewshire on May 23 2021 as the family slept. The trio luckily managed to escape the inferno which wrecked the house leaving a £140,000 repair bill. Robertson pled guilty at the High Court in Glasgow to the attempted murder of Brian, 48, Nicola, 48, and Ethan, 21,...

Over the weekend Georgia gubernatorial candidate and far left activist Stacey Abrams forced a number of small children to wear masks during a visit to a local elementary school. The photo went viral and Abram's hypocrisy was roundly condemned. In response, Abram's team claimed she wore a mask during the event and only took it off for photos and to speak. They also accused critics of racism during Black History month. But now, additional photos of the event obtained by Outkick show Abrams took more than one photo and did not wear a mask for the event. "OutKick has obtained...

U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said Tuesday that an officer conducted a security check of a Capitol Hill office that was left open, rejecting a GOP congressman’s claim that police were involved in an illegal probe last November. In a Twitter thread Tuesday, Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.) claimed without evidence that “The @CapitolPolice Intelligence Division investigated my office illegally and one of my staffers caught them in the act.” Nehls accused Capitol Police leadership after one of the officers entered his office in the Longworth House Office Building with no prior notice Nov. 20, 2021, ahead of the...

The homotrimeric spike glycoprotein (S) from SARS-CoV-2, particularly its S2 subunit, is a fusion protein extraordinaire. It can fuse viral particles to cells and also fuse cells to cells to create multifarious syncytia among different cell phenotypes. Depending on which exact versions are under consideration, the spike can perform these feats via multiple mechanisms acting at both the intracellular and extracellular sides of cell membranes. These fusion functions are somewhat analogous to typical homotrimeric ENV (envelope) proteins like our syncytin-1 endogenous retroviral ENV protein, and the GP160 ENV glycoprotein from the HIV virus. GP160, the HIV 'spike' protein, is ultimately...