Free Republic

The Washington Free Beacon unearthed a trove of documents outlining how far President Joe Biden's government was willing to push Big Tech to censor criticism of COVID-19 vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “coordinated with social media companies and Google to censor users who expressed skepticism or criticism of COVID-19 vaccines,” The Beacon reported. Thirty-five pages of documents reportedly shared by America First Legal with The Beacon indicated “CDC officials regularly communicated with personnel at Twitter, Facebook, and Google over ‘vaccine misinformation.’” The documents showed correspondence between officials from Facebook, Twitter and Google and the CDC. At...

The Biden Administration on Wednesday announced new steps to tackle the housing supply crisis. The plan(link is external) by the U.S. Department of the Treasury allows the use of $350 billion in American Rescue Plan funds by state, local, and tribal governments toward the development, repair, and operation of affordable housing units. The following is a statement from National Association of Realtors® President Leslie Rouda Smith: "The top issue around the country among our 1.5 million members is housing supply. NAR commends the White House for addressing this challenge head-on and working across agencies on a comprehensive plan to provide...

Larry Fink really has let all of those trips to Davos go to his head. In what is, so far as I know, the BlackRock CEO’s most recent act of public grandiloquence, he and BlackRock have urged the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to modify its proposed greenhouse-gas emissions disclosure rule. That standard Fink megalomania comes not from the request itself, but from its grounds. He does not ask that it be withdrawn because it is illegally beyond the SEC’s statutory remit, though it surely is, especially in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. He doesn’t seek its...

"Experts" tell him this will reduce inflation costs. I would hope so, given the stupid name.

Tony Dow, the actor who personified the role of America’s big brother as the elder sibling Wally Cleaver on the TV classic sitcom Leave It to Beaver, died today. He was 77, and had been battling cancer. His death comes a day after his passing was mistakenly reported by his management team and his wife. Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery A statement on his Facebook page now reads: We have received confirmation from Christopher, Tony’s son, that Tony passed away earlier this morning, with his loving family at his side to see him through this journey. We...

Germany’s economy hasn’t grown for nearly five years. Its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has been weaker than any major advanced economy. Its ability to fill its energy needs is in question. And now the country once known as the economic engine of Europe is teetering on the brink of a recession. It’s a sharp turn of fortunes for Germany’s large manufacturing sector, which flourished over the past two decades just as other Western nations saw industrial jobs migrate to Asia. Germany’s big and long-successful bet on manufacturing relied on four engines: Free and open global trade, surging demand from...

A new poll shows gubernatorial incumbent Brian Kemp edging out challenger Stacey Abrams, with Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker essentially tied in the race for Senate. On November 8, Georgians will cast their ballots to choose their state's next governor and senator. A new poll shows gubernatorial incumbent Brian Kemp edging out challenger Stacey Abrams, with Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker essentially tied in the race for Senate. The poll, conducted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the University of Georgia, surveyed 902 likely voters between July 14 - 22. It found that 48 percent of respondents preferred Kemp, with...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was in fine form on Tuesday. As we noted earlier, he got in a sweet dunk at Whoopi Goldberg and Hunter Biden. But he also raised an incredibly significant issue during the questioning of a witness from the Biden State Department. While he was asking about the State Department, it’s a question that likely needs to be asked across the Biden Administration — because the Biden Administration is likely trying to staff radicals across the departments. Cruz was questioning State Dept Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley. She was appointed in April 2021, and he...

1232 The impossible regulatory state of Joseph Biden is greatly increasing inflation and it’s virtually ignored except for occasional articles or brief mentions on network TV. The Foundation for Government Accountability, a nonprofit think tank, published a paper on the regulatory kingdom that is turning our economy into a hyper-controlled federal government entity. It’s shocking and doesn’t bode well for the future. It’s leading to inflation in ways that slip through the cracks of public attention. People are moving out of blue states over crime and taxes and economic regulations that kill small businesses. “The size of the regulatory state...

Sanctions strengthened Putin and caused “unfriendly nations” to form a closer alliance against the West. As the West suffers from an energy crisis with no solution in sight, Russia is benefitting from this in more ways than one. You may have heard of the China–Russia East-Route Natural Gas pipeline or the Yakutia–Khabarovsk–Vladivostok pipeline. Construction was approved in 2007, and in 2012, Putin ordered Gazprom to begin construction and renamed the project “Power of Siberia.” China and Russia signed a 30-year deal for $400 billion in 2014, and by December 2019, the pipeline was functional. The mainstream media focuses on the...

New Zealanders are dying from COVID-19 at record rates as the country battles a new wave of the Omicron strain that is particularly affecting the older population. Deaths from the virus reached 151 in the seven days to July 16, compared with 115 in the worst week of the previous wave, in March, according to Health Ministry data. In the latest 24 hours, 26 people died from COVID, all aged over 60, the ministry said in a statement on Friday. The Omicron BA.5 sub-variant is driving the current wave in New Zealand, which has 5.1 million people. There have been...

Nearly three years after the first cut of steel for the first Great Lakes freighter in nearly 40 years, the 639-foot M/V Mark W. Barker embarked on her maiden voyage today from Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding. “This is a monumental day for our company and the US flag fleet as our much-anticipated freighter departs on her first voyage in what will be a long life of service on the Great Lakes,” says Mark W. Barker, President of The Interlake Steamship Company and namesake of the vessel – the company’s first new build since 1981. “The construction of this vessel, which was...

The Black Futures Lab released on Thursday the findings of its Black Census Project 2022 which shows that Black America is most concerned with the state of the U.S. economy. Activist and study organizer Alicia Garza, of the Black to the Future Action Fund, told theGrio, “The number one issue for Black people in America is economics.” Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Alicia Garza speaks during the Women’s March “Power to the Polls” voter registration tour launch at Sam Boyd Stadium on January 21, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Demonstrators across the nation gathered over the weekend, one year after the...

The Senate’s high-tech funding bill will create high-tech jobs for people in heartland America, not just in immigration-inflated Silicon Valley and other coastal sites, according to Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), the leading Republican behind the bill. “This bill will establish regional technology hubs across our country, which will become centers for the research, development, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing of new key technologies,” Young said in a Wednesday speech shortly before the bill was approved.

Huge lines have been spotted forming every morning outside of a bank in Sydney’s CBD - and it could point to a worrying issue overseas. Lengthy lines outside a Sydney bank have come as an eerie warning about what is unfolding in China, where hundreds of thousands of customers have been left unable to withdraw their own money. Dozens of members of the public have been spotted forming a long line every day outside the Haymarket branch of the Bank of China in the CBD. The scene attracted the attention of curious bystanders on Tuesday, one of which shared an...

As was pre-ordained, the House Judiciary Committee passed HR 1808 on to the full House of Representatives yesterday. The bill moved on after a party-line vote which was preceded by some of the most entertaining debate and testimony in recent memory. And by entertaining, we mean in a facepalmingly sardonic, end-of-the-empire kinda way. As was noted yesterday in a piece by the Outdoor Wire’s Jim Shepherd, this is all an exercise in election year kabuki. Democrats don’t really want to run on $5-a-gallon gas, 9% inflation, and scarce baby food this November. They know damn well that, particularly after passing...

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch told Jared Kushner, former President Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, that there was nothing he could do about the network’s decision to call Arizona for President Biden on election night 2020. In an upcoming memoir, Kushner writes about election night at the White house and says he called Murdoch shortly after Fox’s Decision Desk called Arizona for Biden, a move that shocked and infuriated the Trump campaign. Murdoch told Kushner he would look into it, Kushner wrote, and then the media mogul called him back. “Sorry, Jared, there is nothing I can...

We might now call the proxy war in Ukraine a tale of two Victorias — a contest between the world views of assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and Indiana congresswoman Victoria Spartz. Nuland magically vanished from the headlines after the post-coup phase of the now decade-old Ukraine fiasco. Recall that Nuland, an abrasive neo-conservative, was instrumental in the 2016 Maidan coup, which overthrew Viktor Yanukovych and a Ukrainian regime that dared to look East to Moscow as a potential ally.Recall also, that when Ms. Nuland was queried about European concerns, she replied, "F--- the E.U."So much for putative allied...

Republican voters in Florida’s 26th congressional district will choose between 19-year incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart and challenger Darren Aquino in the Aug. 23 primary election. Waiting in the wings for the Nov. 8 general election will be Democratic candidate Christine Olivo, a political newcomer who is running unopposed in her party’s primary.

The Florida woman charged with hate crimes for pepper-spraying a group of Asian women in New York City last month will reportedly be released from Rikers Island after her bail was scrapped. Madeline Barker, 47, of Florida’s Merritt Island, was arrested nearly a week after the alleged incident at the intersection of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in Chelsea on June 11. One of the alleged victims, Nicole, told NextShark that it all started when she and her friends, who were walking around the area, stopped to rest near a woman in pink, who then allegedly accused them of “trying...