Free Republic

Dennis Rodman flying to Griner’s rescue is no more. Two days after former NBA star Dennis Rodman told NBC News he had secured permission to travel to Russia, Rodman is now reneging the offer. On Monday, he told ABC News he no longer has plans to make the trip. Rodman’s hesitancy and ultimate reversal comes amid scrutiny from the U.S. government which condemned his ambitions, stressing such efforts would do “more harm than good” and that they did not stand in solidarity with the endeavor.

As California prepares for a referendum on abortion rights this November, most voters in the state – including many who consider themselves pro-choice – oppose late-term abortion. A new telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports and Real Impact finds that only 13% of California Likely Voters believe abortion should be legal at any time during pregnancy up to the moment of birth. Fourteen percent (14%) think abortion should be legal up to six months of pregnancy, while 32% say abortion should be legal up to three months of pregnancy. Nineteen percent (19%) believe abortion should only be legal during...

Americans who fancy themselves net-zero climate advocates might want to take a look at Britain for a guide to the future. Household energy bills were expected to rise 40% this autumn, but on Friday the government regulator announced they’ll leap 80% in a single bound. This boost follows a 54% rise in April and brings the average household’s annual bill to £3,549 ($4,208). The median household income is £31,400, which gives a sense of the growing proportion of each household’s budget that will go toward central heating, cooking and keeping the lights on. For the ruling Tories, this is a...

When you’re an adult and look back on the places that you spent time in as a kid, chances are, they feel remarkably smaller than you remember. But 12 years later, that’s not the case with the San Francisco Art Institute, the gray monolith that now sits alone and empty in Russian Hill. The school, once famous for its maximalist Halloween parties and illustrious faculty, which included the likes of Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Mark Rothko, recently made headlines after it graduated its final class — marking the end of a 151-year saga as one of the oldest art...

Jun 18, 2022 Braddock, PA....WOW... This place feels like a ghost town. This is an eastern suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is located Allegheny County. So many abandoned / dilapidated houses and buildings, and I think it's amazing! Definitely has an eerie vibe to it as I barely seen anyone outside at all, would you live here? Let's check it out

Russia and Iran are have begun talks to create an OPEC-like cartel for natural gas which would allow them to coordinate an “extraordinary” level of reserve output, giving them tremendous control over the tightness of the market and the price of the resource, according to a report by OIlPrice. The report said, “Occupying the number one and number two positions in the world’s largest gas reserves table, respectively – Russia with just under 48 trillion cubic meters (tcm) and Iran with nearly 34 tcm – the two countries are in an ideal position to do this.” Russia’s Gazprom and the...

Hungary’s state audit office has issued a report about the risks of the country’s education system being “too feminine”, saying it could hurt the development of boys and create demographic problems. The report was issued last month but had not caught the public’s attention until a newspaper article was published on Thursday. “The phenomenon called ‘pink education’ has numerous economic and social consequences,” states the report by the state body, which is seen as close to the nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán. As in many countries, the teaching profession in Hungary is dominated by women, accounting for 82% of the...

Google employees are receiving regular notifications from management of Covid-19 infections, causing some to question the company’s return-to-office mandates. The employees, who spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity, said since they have been asked to return to offices, infections notifications pop up in their email inboxes regularly. Employees are reacting with frustration and memes. The company began requiring most employees to return to physical offices at least three days a week in April. Since then, staffers have pushed back on the mandate after they worked efficiently for so long at home while the company enjoyed some of its...

A man was rescued by Cal Fire after falling down a cliff, Friday morning. >> Watch the rescue in the video player above. According to Cal Fire CZU, the man was walking at dawn in Moss Beach when the cliff crumbled underneath him. The man fell an estimated 100 feet and had to yell for help. Around 8:30 a.m. a woman heard his calls and called 911. The man was pulled up to safety by Cal Fire.

Novak Djokovic, a 21-time Grand Slam champion, is being robbed of the opportunity to further his legacy in the world of tennis, simply because he isn’t vaccinated. He announced on Twitter yesterday that he would not be able to travel to the U.S. for the U.S. Open due to travel restrictions mandating vaccination for entering the country.Keeping Djokovic off the court more than 2 years after the pandemic’s inception makes absolutely zero sense, especially because, as I profiled in a piece just days ago, the CDC has now changed its guidelines regarding people who have been in contact with someone...

It’s a truth universally unacknowledged that Bobbie Gentry is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. There’s a literary nod in that opening line fit for her too. After all, she is the singing Carson McCullers—an outpost of classic Southern mysticism woven with the weathered air of a crooked history and a backbone as tough as old boots holding everything upstanding. And sadly, all too often overlooked in favour of gaudier lights and the names displayed in them. With wit and wisdom, Gentry conjured the sort of songs that you can sink into. The atmosphere embalms them with pillow-propped...

The CDC has admitted what was ban-worthy 'fake news' just months ago - that Covid mutated to evade current vaccines which were created for the original strains, after nearly 40% of the people hospitalized in the US with Omicron were vaxxed and boosted.As Bloomberg reports, from the end of March through May, when omicron BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 subvariants were the dominant strains, weekly hospitalization rates for all adults spiked, with those over 65 suffering the worst - though it should be noted that total omicron hospitalizations were far lower than when the delta variant was the dominant strain last fall.Of...

AUGUST 26, 2022 – On August 25, 2022, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which lays out a series of major actions DoD will implement to mitigate and respond to civilian harm. The plan, directed by the Secretary of Defense, creates new institutions and processes that will improve strategic outcomes, optimize military operations, and strengthen DoD’s ability to mitigate civilian harm during operations through a reinforcing framework. It will facilitate continued learning throughout DoD, enhance DoD’s approach to assessments and investigations, and improve DoD’s ability to effectively respond when civilian harm...

A heckler accused President Joe Biden of stealing the 2020 election while he was delivering remarks during a rally. During a rally on Thursday in Rockville, Maryland, the heckler could be heard shouting, “You stole the election! You stole it! You stole it…!” After the crowd began booing, Biden said, “No, no, no, no! Let him go. Let him go. Let him go. That’s okay.” Addressing the crowd a few moments later, Biden added, “Folks! Folks! Folks! Ignorance knows no boundaries.” The president received applause from the crowd. Biden continued to shout, “But we never gave up!” He added, “We...

I might not be the smartest man in the room but I have sense. Suppose the day after an election the people that voted show up in a rally in a nationwide movement. Drones allow counting. Easy comparison. The MSM can try to hide the overheads. They will not be able to. Someone should start a show your vote movement. Day after, take a day off. Show up. If you were serious enough to vote, and if you have been cheated repeatedly even down to dog catcher, it will be the biggest nut punch to the bunch of losers who...

A redacted version of the Affidavit that was the basis for DOJ’s Mar-a-Lago raid was made public today. In my judgment, it adds little to our knowledge of the case. The Affidavit recites various statutes and recounts the history of 15 boxes of documents that were removed from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and subsequently sent to the National Archives by President Trump. It says that those boxes included some documents that were marked as classified. It recites that there are additional boxes still at Mar-a-Lago, and says there is reason to believe that these boxes, too, may contain classified...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Three years before retiring from the U.S. Army in 2017, Donald Trump-backed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano posed in Confederate uniform for a faculty photo at the Army War College, according to a copy of the photo obtained by Reuters. The previously unreported photo, released by the War College to Reuters after a request under the Freedom of Information Act, showed Mastriano in a 2013-14 portrait for the Department of Military Strategy, Plans, and Operations, where he worked. Faculty at the time had been given the option of dressing as a historical figure, people familiar...

Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax that Attorney General Merrick Garland might not have enough to indict former President Donald Trump based on the Mar-a-Lago raid's affidavit.During a Friday appearance on "American Agenda," the Harvard law professor emeritus took issue with the Justice Department seeking a search warrant so early. However, he still argued that there was enough probable cause to issue it."I've gone through the affidavit very carefully, and I don't see any justification for them seeking a search warrant," Dershowitz said, noting that a subpoena was issued. "What was the rush?"So, I think that Merrick Garland has the burden of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umYOkGKOkZs

U.S. food and beverage companies are racing to keep operations running during a nationwide shortage of carbon dioxide. Companies including Tyson Foods and Kraft Heinz Co. have been searching for carbon dioxide as supply disruptions this summer exacerbated existing shortages, threatening production of goods from cold cuts to beer. Carbon dioxide is widely used throughout food and beverage industries, including to stun animals before they are slaughtered and to chill and process meat. The gas puts the pop in soft drinks and the fizz in beer, and is turned into dry ice to keep food frozen. [Snip] Maintenance shutdowns at...