Free Republic

US consumer sentiment weakened in February to its lowest in more than 10 years as surging inflation made Americans feel less optimistic about the economy and personal finances. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index dropped to 61.7 from a final January reading of 67.2, which is its lowest since October 2011. Economists polled by Refinitiv expected the index to improve to 67.5. In the February survey, one-third of all consumers said higher inflation adversely affected their personal finance and almost half expect inflation-adjusted incomes to decline this year. “The recent declines have been driven by weakening personal finance prospects,...

Government in the Sunshine Meeting Notice Advanced Notice of a Meeting under Expedited Procedures It is anticipated that the closed meeting of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, February 14, 2022, will be held under expedited procedures, as set forth in section 261b.7 of the Board's Rules Regarding Public Observation of Meetings, at the Board's offices at 20th Street and C Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.. The following items of official Board business are tentatively scheduled to be considered at that meeting. Matter(s) to be Considered: 1.Review and determination by the Board of...

When they learned President Joe Biden would be visiting Culpeper on Thursday, Culpeper Republicans decided would not go unanswered. https://t.co/k2r8u747XD — The Star-Exponent February 10, 2022 One of criticism of Biden was his lax border policies have led to illegal immigration. “These people are criminals and need to be vetted. Biden won’t even require them to be vaccinated to enter our country.” A military veteran, Cissman also took aim at Biden’s foreign policy blunders, particularly botched Afghanistan withdrawal. “Inflation is up,” Biden said. “It’s up. And when the price of gas went up, you felt it in the household,...

“‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 5:3). Poverty of spirit means recognizing how truly deficient we are apart from God. It means seeing ourselves as we really are: spiritually lost, hopeless, and helpless. Without the gospel of Jesus Christ, everyone is spiritually impoverished, regardless of his or her material accomplishments, educational achievements, or even religious knowledge and church activities. The “poor in spirit” are people who have recognized their spiritual destitution and their total inability to save themselves—their complete dependence on God. They know their only hope of salvation is to repent...

A family of six was stabbed while asleep inside their Philadelphia home Friday morning, multiple sources reported. Police received an emergency call around 4 a.m. regarding a stabbing spree in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, according to ABC 6. A 29-year old member of the family was reportedly arrested shortly after the attack, local authorities said. “It’s a very violent scene,” Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told ABC 6, adding that the stabbings occurred in three bedrooms on the second floor of the house. Blood was found on walls, floors and doors throughout the home, with the door to...

These days pizza can arrive by car, delivery bot and even drone. Now you can also get a piping hot pie from a vending machine. What's happening: PizzaForno, a Toronto-based company, is rolling out its automated pizza vending machines across North America, including in Michigan and other U.S. locations. For $10 to $13, they can serve up a hot, 12-inch pizza in under three minutes. How it works: The pizza is fresh, not frozen, and made by humans but served by a robot. Assembled at a regional commissary "with hand-stretched crusts" and "locally sourced ingredients," the uncooked pizzas are loaded...

Just a 27 second video of the kids learning no more masks.

An estimated 1,500 pro-freedom demonstrators continued to rally outside the New Zealand Parliament on Friday in defiance of the police and the government. They gathered in what was described as a carnival atmosphere just 24-hours after some 120 of their number were arrested and removed.

New Mexico's main transparency group is urging U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and his staff to release more information about his health following a stroke two weeks ago.Why it matters: Luján is notoriously private, but a lack of health updates is making some New Mexico Democrats nervous about the future of his seat in a 50-50 Senate. Driving the news: The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government said in a statement Tuesday that state residents have been "left confused and concerned" about the lack of information from the senator’s office."While all of us respect the family’s wishes for privacy...

Conservative Party interim leader Candice Bergen demanded an end to trucker-led “Freedom Convoy” protests blockading international borders on Thursday, urging anti-mandate demonstrations to end. Her statement in the House of Commons appeared to be a dramatic shift from her initial support for the protests, which have lasted nearly two weeks in the national capital, Ottawa, but have begun to dispute Canada-U.S. supply chains through blockades along Canada’s southern border. Ambassador Bridge, the largest American-Canadian crossing, has come to an ongoing standstill this week as hundreds of trucks park themselves on and around it, inhibiting international traffic.

Nearly 1,000 service members have been discharged over the Biden administration’s military vaccine mandate, according to recently released numbers from the military services. The number to date of service members discharged is at least 948, according to the latest statistics provided by each of the services. The Navy announced Wednesday they have discharged 240 sailors for not complying with the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for the military — a big jump from last week’s 118 discharged. The Marine Corps announced Thursday it has discharged 566 Marines so far, up from 469 Marines last week. The Department of the Air Force,...

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Friday criticized conservative media members for “inciting and encouraging people to break the law” with their coverage of the Freedom Convoy. Whitmer said on CNN’s “New Day” that the Canadian trucker protests in the name of pushing back against coronavirus restrictions were devastating to the U.S. economy because families and businesses rely on them. She warned conservative media that encouraging the protests was “downright dangerous.”

https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2022-02/processed/jupiter-aurora_1024.jpg ======================================================================== Jupiter has finally been observed spitting out X-rays in high-energy wavelengths. Emanating from the giant planet's permanent auroras, and detected by NASA's space-based X-ray telescope NuSTAR, the emissions are the most energetic light seen coming from any planet in the Solar System (aside from Earth). The detection could shed light on the most powerful auroras in the Solar System, and solves a longstanding mystery: why the joint ESA-NASA Ulysses spacecraft didn't detect any Jovian X-rays in its nearly three decades of operation between 1990 and 2009. Jupiter's auroras constitute an absolutely fascinating phenomenon. At both its poles, the...

School officials in Virginia’s embattled Loudoun County have been trained in obtaining warrants against parents or students who follow a new statewide order that allows them to forgo face masks on campus, according to a leaked email. The progressive district’s director of safety and security, John Clark, emailed step-by-step instructions on Tuesday last week, according to a copy tweeted by conservative political activist Ned Ryun. The email’s subject was “Mask Enforcement” in “preparation” for the county’s ongoing mandate in defiance of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order allowing parents to opt out of masking their kids. Clark, a former Secret Service...

"The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants,” lead supporter Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy (D-Mass.) told the Senate during debate. “It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

The youngest of the U.S. women's single competitors, 16-year-old Alysa Liu, was raised by a single father from Sichuan Province, who had participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that were violently suppressed by the Chinese government. He fled to the U.S., where he became an attorney in California's Bay Area. Among the biggest stars of the U.S. figure skating team is 22-year-old Nathan Chen, who has won three straight world championships. While Chen was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, his mother hails from Beijing, and he remembers his family taking him to the Chinese capital as...

Protesters angry over pandemic restrictions are driving toward Paris in scattered convoys of camper vans, cars and trucks to blockade the French capital despite a police ban French convoys protesting virus rules move toward ParisThe Associated PressPARIS PARIS (AP) — Protesters angry over pandemic restrictions drove toward Paris in scattered convoys of camper vans, cars and trucks Friday in an effort to blockade the French capital, despite a police ban. From the Mediterranean coast to the northern city of Lille, the protesters organized their “freedom convoys” online, galvanized in part by truckers who have blockaded Canada’s capital and blocked border...

The scientific data reveals Omicron infection a “natural vaccine” against COVID, giving millions immunity and serving as a primary force driving down new COVID cases world and nation-wide. On March 1, as President Biden arrives at the House lectern to give his State of the Union Address, there may well be fewer than 200,000 new United States COVID cases that day, down from a peak of 1.3 million in early January. New cases are dropping precipitously and consistently in every state. The causative variable is not a huge increase in vaccinations but the extraordinary spread of the highly contagious Omicron...

In the midst of all his fury hurled at Sarah Palin by Politico founding editor John F. Harris in his column on Monday, he made quite an interesting revelation. Namely that thanks to the discovery process made by Palin in her lawsuit against the New York Times, we now have documentation about the utter moral cowardice of the publisher of that periodical, A.G. Sulzberger.Harris makes no secret of his complete dislike of Palin in "The Cynical Spectacle of Sarah Palin’s Lawsuit Against the New York Times." Absolutely no surprise there. Also no surprise that Harris thinks that the former (fired)...

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal cybersecurity agency says a report by an expert who says he’s identified security vulnerabilities in voting machines used by Georgia and other states shouldn’t be made public until it has had time to assess and mitigate potential risks. The report has been under seal since July in federal court in Atlanta, part of a long-running lawsuit challenging Georgia’s voting machines. Its author, J. Alex Halderman, said in sworn declarations filed publicly with the court that he examined the Dominion Voting Systems machines for 12 weeks and identified “multiple severe security flaws” that would allow bad...