Free Republic

We all believe our favorite pizza shop is the best. But, apparently, most of us are wrong. In honor of National Pizza Day, Yelp has released a list of the country’s “Top 100 Places for Pizza” to highlight some of the best restaurants and slice shops from coast to coast. Topping this year’s list is Cheese Board Pizza, an offshoot of a popular bakery/cheese shop in Berkeley, California. The pizza joint, which specializes in vegetarian-only sourdough-crust pizza, currently boasts a four-and-a-half-star rating on Yelp based over 5500 reviews. (Not bad for a pizzeria that’s only open nine hours per week.)...

Democrats’ plans to resurrect some version of their Build Back Better social spending and climate package already appeared to be hanging by a thread, with some in the party acknowledging that they might have to shelve the roughly $1.7 trillion plan indefinitely while Congress turns to other items that will fill up the calendar for months. Thursday’s inflation report likely snipped a few more strands from that thread, making it even less likely that Democrats will be able to scrounge up the votes they’d need to pass a large and ambitious spending bill along the lines many in the party...

President Biden was greeted by dozens of Trump supporters waving signs and shouting the viral social media rallying cry "Let’s Go Brandon!" as he arrived in Virginia to deliver a speech on Thursday. Groups of protesters carrying signs that said "Joe Biden Sucks" and "FJB" could be seen as Biden’s motorcade passed through Culpepper, Virginia to lend support to Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, according to Daily Mail. Another sign that greeted Biden on his way into Virginia said "Build Crack Better," a reference to the president’s stalled "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill and reports that his administration was planning on...

In what may be the oddest coupling in radio history, former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner will be co-hosting a New York show with Guardian Angels founder and former Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa. The ex-pol — who was sidelined by a number of sexting scandals, and sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for transferring obscene material to a minor — will co-host a new opinion program called “The Left vs The Right” on John Catsimatidis’ 77 WABC Radio starting this weekend. But Weiner says the new high-profile gig isn’t part of a larger comeback plan as a media maven....

President Biden said he is not seeking an "ideological" Supreme Court nominee, insisting that he wants someone of the same "capacity" as outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer for a replacement. Biden's remarks came during a Thursday evening preview of his interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, which is slated to be released in full on Sunday prior to the Super Bowl.

President Biden claimed Thursday that Democrats are “close” to passing his sweeping social spending bill — just hours after official data revealed inflation hit a new 40-year high in January, stiffening opposition to the $2 trillion plan. Biden gave the dubious spin about his agenda’s status in a speech in Culpeper, Va., after annual inflation hit 7.5 percent, which centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said was more reason to resist massive new spending.

Juliette Kayyem, a CNN contributor, Harvard professor and Obama’s former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intergovernmental Affairs, advocated for violence and property damage to deal with the freedom trucker convoy currently blocking the Ambassador Bridge. (snip) Juliette Kayyem @juliettekayyem The convoy protest, applauded by right wing media as a "freedom protest," is an economic and security issue now. The Ambassador Bridge link constitutes 28% of annual trade movement between US and Canada. Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks

Slash the tires, empty the gas tanks . . . and then move the trucks? Well, these are the kind of people who engineered the Afghanistan debacle, so it tracks.Juliette Kayyem @juliettekayyem The convoy protest, applauded by right wing media as a "freedom protest," is an economic and security issue now. The Ambassador Bridge link constitutes 28% of annual trade movement between US and Canada. Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks ✔️Our ruling class is made up of people who’ve never actually done anything and it shows.

‘Reign of terror’: Former FSSP priest calls Pope’s restrictions on Latin Mass an ‘attack’ on God‘We see this abuse of a spiritual father trying to devastate those who hold on to tradition,’ said Fr. Mawdsley about Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Latin Mass.Mawdsley about Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Latin Mass. Fr. James Mawdsley offering a first Mass, 2016.(LifeSiteNews) — An English priest has issued a blistering attack on Pope Francis and the Vatican hierarchy, saying that the Pope’s restrictions on the Latin Mass are an attack on “God’s revelation” and a rejection of Christ.In a January 28 video, entitled...

Critical race theory (CRT) maintains that the United States is founded on racial supremacy and oppression. The US Constitution, legal system, and institutions, according to critical race theorists, are inherently racist. Unequal outcomes, they suggest, are a reflection of systemic racism. America’s material achievement and economic growth, critical race theorists argue, has only been achieved through exploitation and coercion. The free market, far from elevating the condition of all Americans, is a tool of extortion. Critical race theory is perhaps best thought of as a form of Marxism. Old-school Marxists divided the world by class—capitalist oppressor versus oppressed workers. Critical...

... Business Insider columnist Josh Barro suggested that woke capitalism provides a form of parapolitical representation for workers and corporate consumers. Given their perceived political dis­enfranchisement, woke capitalism offers them representation in the public sphere, as they see their values reflected in corporate pronouncements. Others have suggested that corporations have gone woke only to be spared cancellation by Twitter mobs and other activists, that wokeness is a good “branding tool,” or that progressive shareholders also demand corporate activism. But woke capitalism cannot be sufficiently explained in terms of placating coastal leftists, ingratiating left-liberal legislators, or avoiding the wrath of activists....

The CDC has released new guidance for how states should deal with the pandemic by telling everyone to just go ahead and do what Texas did 12 months ago. "Yeah, we were pretty much wrong about literally everything. Sorry about that!" said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to the press. "It would seem the official science has changed. We should now be doing whatever Texas has been doing for over a year. To be clear, this doesn't mean Texas is good. They're still bad and we hate them. We just want to make sure that's understood." The gathered journalists then began...

Yelp dropped a list Tuesday ranking the best pizza in America — while simultaneously celebrating the made-up holiday National Pizza Day and trying to hire its inaugural “Chief Pizza Officer.” All that hullabaloo is to say: Yelp decreed that the top-ranked pizza spot in the U.S. is Cheese Board Pizza in North Berkeley, beating out New York City’s uber-popular (and troubled) Prince Street Pizza. The charms of the restaurant co-op are apparent for anyone who’s stepped into the perpetually long line: Crisp pizza dough topped with a rotating list of fresh, always vegetarian toppings, with the free green sauce, makes...

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., speaks in favor of seafood provisions in the COMPETES Act in the House of Representatives. Office of Rep.Jared Huffman image. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the American COMPETES Act on Friday, Feb. 4 on a near party-line vote. The $350 billion spending bill tackles supply chain and trade issues included several fishing provisions from other bills – including the expansion of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) to cover all species that enter American ports. H.R. 4521 passed by a 222-210 vote. One Republican member joined Democrats in support, and one Democratic member joined Republicans...

Explanation: The star with an orange tint near top center in this dusty telescopic frame is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars. Next to it (right) is a yellow cosmic cloud historically known as Hind's Variable Nebula (NGC 1555). About 650 light-years away, at the boundary of the local bubble and the Taurus molecular cloud, both star and nebula are seen to vary significantly in brightness but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young (less than a few million...

Germany’s Synodal Assembly calls for change on deacons, bishops’ selection Maria Boxberg, theologian and spiritual director of the Synodal Path, speaks during the third Synodal Assembly in Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 5, 2021. (CNS photo/Julia Steinbrecht, KNA). FRANKFURT, Germany (CNS) — The Synodal Path of the Catholic Church in Germany wants laypeople to be able to participate in choosing bishops and wants the Church to have women deacons.The third Synodal Assembly to bring about reforms to the Catholic Church ended on Feb. 5 with the first concrete decisions of the process. Most German bishops signaled they are prepared to support far-reaching...

Two weeks of protests in Canada’s capital over a cross-border vaccine mandate requiring truckers to be vaccinated upon crossing has produced dozens of investigations and numerous arrests — leading to a state of emergency declaration. Efforts to stage similar protests in the U.S. are emerging, with the Department of Homeland Security issuing a memo warning police partners of demonstrations in the United States. The demonstrations and protests reflect widespread pandemic fatigue around the world but have also stirred controversy. Here are five takeaways on the protests. Ottawa is under siege The protests in Canada’s capital city led Ottawa mayor Jim...

[Catholic Caucus] So It Begins: Chicago’s Fight for the Mass of the Ages So It Begins: Chicago’s Fight for the Mass of the Ages The following article was written by a laywoman from Midwestern America.Bagpipes sounded on State Street, and a truck with flashing images of the Mass of the Ages rolled by. We stood shoulder to shoulder or knelt on the sidewalk and prayed the Rosary with Holy Name Cathedral looming large behind us. Men held signs aloft for the traffic to read: “Cardinal Cupich: Why are you punishing faithful Catholics?” It was the First Sunday of February.Over...

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is “all for” trucker convoys coming to the United States. The Republican senator discussed the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” during a Thursday interview with The Daily Signal following an NBC News report that a similar trucker convoy may form for this weekend’s Super Bowl in Los Angeles–and potentially come to Washington, D.C., for the State of the Union address in early March. “I’m all for it,” Paul said. “Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights, you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.”...

We are learning more about a pizza delivery driver shot and gravely wounded in Philadelphia Monday night. Family members have identified the victim as 41-year-old Benziane Mohamed. He is married and has two young children. Police say he was making a pizza delivery on the 1400 block of Mayfield Street Monday night when he was shot in the head near Broad and Indiana Streets. He then crashed into a home on North 15th Street. Investigators say the shooting appears to have been a set-up and possibly an attempted robbery.