Free Republic

First Lady Jill Biden defended her husband and his administration's performance in an interview published on Tuesday, saying she wished voters could see just how hard he was working on the problems facing the nation. President Joe Biden's personal standing has been battered by crisis after crisis, from the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan to inflation and high gas prices. This week it fell to 38 percent, according to Gallup, marking a new low.

BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Xinhua News Agency is authorized on Tuesday to release the following notice: from 1200 (Beijing Time) August 4 to 1200 (Beijing Time) August 7, 2022, the Chinese People's Liberation Army will conduct important military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills in the following maritime areas and their air space bounded by lines joining: 25-15.26N 120-29.20E, 24-50.30N 120-05.45E, 25-04.32N 119-51.22E, 25-28.12N 120-14.30E 26-07.00N 121-57.00E, 25-30.00N 121-57.00E, 25-30.00N 121-28.00E, 26-07.00N 121-28.00E 25-34.00N 122-50.00E, 25-03.00N 122-50.00E, 25-03.00N 122-11.00E, 25-34.00N 122-11.00E 22-56.00N 122-40.00E, 23-38.00N 122-51.00E, 23-38.00N 123-23.00E, 22-56.00N 123-09.00E 21-14.00N 121-33.00E, 21-33.00N 121-18.00E, 21-07.00N 120-43.00E, 20-48.00N 120-59.00E 22-43.00N...

... While UNC did, in fact, offer Nikole Hannah-Jones a position, which she did, in fact, accept, there was a devil in the details. The job she accepted did not come with tenure; it came with a five-year contract with an option for tenure review. Whatever the interior machinations at the Hussman School, this was not an unreasonable offer. Hannah-Jones, quite simply, had not done the sort of academic work that tenure rewards. Journalism and academia are two very different animals. Nonetheless, she fomented a public campaign to be granted tenure, alleging racial discrimination in the process. To no one’s...

Over the weekend, Houston's Democrat Mayor Sylvester Turner held a gun buyback event in a church parking lot where residents could turn in their firearms and receive a gift card ranging from $50 to $200 with no questions asked. According to the Mayor's announcement, the funds provided to those turning in firearms came from the American Rescue Plan — aka American taxpayers — and the amount-per-firearm was $50.00 for a non-functioning firearm, $100.00 for a rifle or shotgun, $150.00 for a handgun, and $200.00 for a fully automatic rifle. Heralded as a success by the mayor and hyped up by...

The Biden administration filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Idaho for restricting access to abortion to patients who need lifesaving medical treatment, the first such Justice Department challenge since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer. Idaho's near-total abortion ban, which will take effect later this month, would make it nearly impossible, according to the Justice Department. for patients who need an abortion in emergency medical situations, such as an ectopic pregnancy or other complications, from receiving potentially lifesaving treatment.

BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday issued a statement on Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's visit to China's Taiwan region. Following is the full text of the statement: On 2 August, in disregard of China's strong opposition and serious representations, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited China's Taiwan region. This is a serious violation of the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués. It has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty and...

There are many ways to prepare and consume hot dogs, and I enjoy the entire spectrum. Give me a grilled dog, an air fried dog, a split or spiraled dog, a Costco dog, or a chili dog. I will eat them all. I do, however, have a special place in my heart and stomach for dirty water dogs. Dirty water dogs are those classic, iconic hot dogs you get from a cart on the street, usually in New York, though not exclusively. (My favorite dirty water dog cart growing up was run by a man named George who hung out...

Everyone, do you remember the YouTuber or blogger who was actively posting about the Clinton Foundation not too many years ago? I seem to remember they had an ally investigator who was distinguished in accounting, if I remember correctly. They often would go live on Sunday nights, and I think they kept a website with records. I used to listen faithfully, and now I’m having a devils time remembering who they were, and I can’t find it by searching Google. Thank you! Missing you all… Just being…

A man armed with an AR-15 fled from a California liquor store screaming 'He shot my arm off!' after the 80-year-old owner blasted him with his shotgun. Craig Cope opened fire after the 23-year-old armed intruder entered his shop in Norco early Sunday morning. As they suspects frantically ran away, Cope suffered a minor heart attack from the shock of the incident. Four suspects armed with guns and wearing facial coverings had planned to rob the store, Riverside County Sheriff's Department said in a news release. But employees say Cope, who has owned the store since 1967, spied the suspects...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used his self-granted emergency powers to decree that farmers must reduce nitrogen fertilizers by a minimum of 30% from current levels. Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture David Marit expressed his concern with what he called "an arbitrary goal. Fertilizers have helped drive increases in Canadian crop yields, grain sales, and exports. Trudeau's decree will drive a lot of farmers out of business and worsen global hunger." The Prime Minister admitted "there may be some hardships. However, the quest to avert a climate disaster requires making the tough choices. Given the growing prevalence of obesity in Canada,...

The first generation-IV nuclear reactor design has been approved for certification by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). NuScale's small modular reactor design promises safe, clean energy at radically reduced cost, land use and installation time.The NRC released news last week that its staff have been directed to make a final rule certifying the NuScale reactor design for use in the United States. This is just the seventh design approved by the NRC since it was established in 1974, and the first of a coming generation of next-gen technologies designed to make nuclear power cheaper, easier and safer to implement...

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — African officials outlined their priorities for the upcoming U.N. climate summit, including a push to make heavily polluting rich nations compensate poor countries for the environmental damage done to them. How much funding Africa gets is the biggest factor for how prepared it will be for a hotter future, said Harsen Nyambe, the director of sustainable environment at the African Union Commission. “We recall the $100 billion that was promised has never been fulfilled and current assessments show that even that amount is not enough,” Nyambe said. He added the continent only received about 7.5% of...

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed Monday by America’s secretive and gruesome R9X Hellfire missile — which is also known as the “flying Ginsu.” The strangest variant in the Hellfire family of missiles — built as a precision weapon of targeted assassination — the R9X’s most distinguishing characteristic is that it doesn’t explode and simply uses its weight, momentum and blade-like appendages to kill. First revealed by the Wall Street Journal in 2019, the modified R9X trades the standard Hellfire’s explosive warhead for a halo of six metal fins that look like swords and are sharp enough to slice...

Wind turbines. Solar panels. Electric cars, nuclear reactors, geothermal energy. The $369 billion climate package unveiled by Democrats last week is chock-full of subsidies for technologies meant to rein in planet-warming pollution. But there’s one popular, emissions-free machine conspicuously absent from what could be the nation’s most significant piece of climate legislation yet: the bicycle. Provisions designed to supercharge the sale and use of traditional bikes and the battery-powered variety were dropped from the climate deal reached by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), the Senate’s most conservative Democrat. The absence is grinding the...

Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy on October 26, 1962:Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you,...

Prominent Southern Baptist theologians have published a statement clarifying the meaning of the word "pastor" amid controversy within the United States' largest Protestant denomination stemming from Rick Warren's Saddleback Church ordaining female pastors last year. The document "A Statement Concerning the Baptist Faith & Message and the Word' Pastor'" was released last week by two Southern Baptist seminary presidents and the former head of the denomination's public policy arm. The signatories are Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary; and Richard Land, who served as the president of the...

WASHINGTON — The government and publishing titan Penguin Random House exchanged opening salvos in a federal antitrust trial Monday as the U.S. seeks to block the biggest U.S. book publisher from absorbing rival Simon & Schuster. The case comes as a key test of the Biden administration’s antitrust policy. The Justice Department has sued to block the $2.2 billion merger, which would reduce the Big Five U.S. publishers to four. The government’s star witness, bestselling author Stephen King, is expected to testify at Tuesday’s session of the weekslong trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Mr. King’s works are...

It all comes down to Senator Kyrsten Sinema with nearly half a trillion dollars in new spending and taxes on the line, now that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s lips are firmly planted in the area of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s buttocks. The Arizona Democrat has remained mum on whether she’ll support the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. Schumer needs support from all 50 members of his caucus, or the bill will fail when it comes up for a vote, probably later this week. When asked by Fox News, a spokesperson for Sinema said, “Sen. Sinema does not have comment as...

Chrystia Freeland called climate action 'an insurance policy against higher energy prices.'. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s World Economic Forum-linked finance minister told Canadians on Tuesday that record-high fuel prices are a “reminder of why climate action is so important and why as a country we need to work even harder and move even faster towards a green economy.” “It’s an insurance policy against higher energy prices,” Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said at a press conference. Freeland’s statements come after the Liberal government increased the cost of fuel overnight by imposing a “carbon tax” on Canadians on April 1. On...

An asteroid ...is set to fly safely past Earth later this week after being discovered just a few days ago. The space rock, dubbed 2022 OE2, will make a close approach to our planet on Wednesday, figures from NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) database show. At 8:23 p.m. ET on that day, the asteroid is predicted to come within around 3.2 million miles of Earth in its own orbit around the sun. ...astronomers usually provide a range for size estimates, which in the case of 2022 OE2 is 170-380 meters (558-1,247 feet). According to the CNEOS figures,...