Free Republic

Senate Democrats are bracing for the possibility for life under a divided government, with President Biden in office and a strong possibility of a Republican-controlled House. Democrats hope they can retain their majority in the Senate, where a number of political handicappers say the party is favored. That would give Democrats more leverage and congressional support for Biden over the next two years. But if the House does fall as expected, lawmakers expect partisan gridlock. Some Democrats are predicting government shutdowns and standoffs over raising the federal debt limit will take center stage. “If Republicans win control of the House,...

For a country that ISN”T overrun with Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, Ukraine sure does seem to contain lots of folks sporting Nazi tattoos or patches on their clothing. The latest to be revealed is one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bodyguards, who was spotted during a visit to the recently liberated eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum sporting a so-called Totenkopfverbande patch, celebrating the guards who ran Nazi concentration camps and later made up Hitler’s personal guards. Jimmy and The Dive’s Jackson Hinkle wonder at the regularity with which Nazi sympathies crop up in a country that we’re told doesn’t have...

“The pandemic is over” is surely what everyone wanted to hear. President Biden made the declaration in a Sunday “60 Minutes” broadcast. But before rushing out to the ticker-tape parade, sit down. The pandemic is still raging - in the sense that a dangerous virus is infecting, sickening and killing people, mutating to survive and haunting the globe. The pandemic has shifted - and normalcy has returned in many ways - but it is not over. Why Mr. Biden said otherwise is obvious. The midterm elections are coming, and Americans feel an overwhelming sense of fatigue. “If you notice, no...

Dog (2002) Two former Army Rangers are paired against their will on the road trip of a lifetime. Army Ranger Briggs (Channing Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog) buckle into a 1984 Ford Bronco and race down the Pacific Coast in hopes of making it to a fellow soldier's funeral on time. Along the way, they'll drive each other completely crazy, break a small handful of laws, narrowly evade death, and learn to let down their guards in order to have a fighting chance of finding happiness.—MGM

Satellite images show that Russia’s military moved old anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine as it faced a shortage of advanced weapons this summer, inflicting heavy damage on civilians as a result, Finland’s Yle broadcaster reported Sunday.At least four out of 14 anti-aircraft missile bases surrounding St. Petersburg were “emptied of equipment” in August and September, Finnish military expert Marko Eklund was quoted as saying."It is most likely that the equipment that has been removed is primarily from the old S-300 system," Eklund, who has monitored the Russian armed forces for over 20 years, added.The remaining missiles that protect the airspace over...

Lawmaker says FBI shift in focus is coming at the expense of other crimes, including child sex exploitation.The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Monday a whistleblower has come forward detailing how the FBI is manipulating cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to create "the illusion" that domestic violent extremism is a widespread problem in the United States. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray that the "manipulative case-file practice" was being conducted by the bureau's Washington field office, which was instructing local FBI offices to open up cases on...

In June we reported that consumer credit - particular revolving credit - was through the roof, as tapped-out consumers relied on credit cards to make ends meet. This has only gotten worse.. Illustration: Aïda Amer/AxiosAcccording to an Aug. 30 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card balances increased by $46 billion from last year, becoming the second-biggest source of overall debt last quarter.While both student and car loans hit all time new highs at the end of the 1st quarter.And so it comes as no surprise from Bloomberg that more US consumers are saddled with credit...

BEIJING, Sept 19 (Reuters) - A senior Chinese health official advised people to avoid contact with foreigners to prevent monkeypox infection after the first known case of the virus on mainland China was reported. "To prevent possible monkeypox infection and as part of our healthy lifestyle, it is recommended that 1) you do not have direct skin-to-skin contact with foreigners," Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention posted on his official Weibo page on Saturday. Wu also called for people to avoid such contact with people who have been abroad within the past three...

Come Holy Spirit, fill us with the balm of your healing love. Amen. The pattern for many leaders is to be exalted in life and forgotten after death. The pattern for all who serve God – famous or obscure, respected or ignored – is that death is the door to glory. Her Late Majesty famously declared on a 21st birthday broadcast that her whole life would be dedicated to serving the Nation and Commonwealth. Rarely has such a promise been so well kept! Few leaders receive the outpouring of love that we have seen. Jesus – who in our reading...

New Yorkers are feeling more optimistic about the economy, according to a new Siena College poll released Wednesday, Sept. 14. The New York State Index of Consumer Sentiment was up 9.1 points to 70.8 in the third quarter of 2022, the poll found. That’s 12.6 points above the nation’s Index of 58.2. The current index rose nearly 12 points from the previous quarter to 64.1 and the future index increased nearly eight points from 67.6 to 75.2, researchers found. Future confidence in the state is 17.2 points higher than the nation’s 58.0. “New Yorkers’ collective sentiment continues to outpace the...

Remember the Charlton Heston movie Soylent Green? It comes to mind, because this 1973 futuristic movie was set in 2022.Let that sink in.It also comes to mind because thanks to Biden’s economic agenda (or lack thereof), much of the dystopian ethos of that world is being baked into our everyday lives. The World Economic Forum keeps pushing new forms of insect protein on us, and it was only a matter of time before cannibalism was happily presented as an idea whose time had come.For the sake of the environment, even our death traditions are being restructured to fit the paradigm...

The number of encounters with illegal immigrants at the border has passed 2 million in a single fiscal year for the first time in U.S. history, according to new U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics released on Monday. Southwest land border encounters jumped to 203,598 in the month of August from 200,195 the prior month. Of those encountered in August, 22% "had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months." The total number of encounters so far in the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30, is now 2,150,639, according to CBP. For comparison, last fiscal...

If the DOJ grants Democrats’ requests to target Republicans for handling the border crisis, it will be the nail in the coffin of justice.News that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew a small group of illegal border crossers to the rich island of Martha’s Vineyard escalated last week when several Democrats in Florida, Massachusetts, and California asked the Department of Justice to investigate red states such as Florida and Texas for “trafficking” migrants against their wills. As DeSantis noted, “these are voluntary transportation” to a location that once boasted of being a “haven” for migrants, but that didn’t stop blue state...

Early intervention with rituximab, a drug used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), can reduce the risk of deterioration in myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disease that causes loss of muscle control. This is according to a randomized clinical study. "Patients with new onset myasthenia who received rituximab as a complement to standard of care showed greater improvement compared with patients who were given a placebo," says Fredrik Piehl. "They also needed fewer adjuvant treatments and lower doses of cortisone than the placebo group." In myasthenia gravis, the immune system attacks the receptors between nerves and muscles, causing abnormal muscle...

Supreme Court review of these laws will prove a victory for conservatism, as the originalist majority can cast aside evolving standards and return to the roots of the First Amendment.A Texas law prohibiting social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, from discriminating against users based on their speech does not violate the First Amendment, a federal appellate court held on Friday. Conservatives, whose speech represents the overwhelming target of censorship, are cheering the Fifth Circuit’s decision in NetChoice v. Paxton. A different federal court, however, struck down Florida’s law prohibiting Big Tech from censoring political speech, setting up a...

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in a new interview predicts that GOP lawmakers will demand a vote to impeach President Biden “every week” if Republicans take control of the House in the midterms. Kinzinger, a frequent critic of former President Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill, compared previous efforts by congressional Republicans to what he predicts “crazies” will attempt to do under a GOP majority. “Back before we had all the crazies here — just some crazies — you know, every vote we took, we had to somehow defund ObamaCare. … You’ll remember, right when we took over it was...

Recent events suggest that the Democratic Party is fast becoming one of the most fascist, un-American organizations in the United States. This trend appears to be a continuation of one initiated by former President Barack Obama. The DHS bulletin went on to explain that "there is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud." More importantly, prohibiting opinions other than those advanced by the government is a blatant violation of the First Amendment freedom of expression. To recap, the government may consider you a domestic terrorist: If you object to your child being introduced to...

A healthy lifestyle reduces the risk of dementia in those with type 2 diabetes (T2D), according to a study. The study found that individuals with T2D and an unhealthy lifestyle were much more likely to develop dementia than people without T2D and a very healthy lifestyle. However, a healthy lifestyle almost halved the likelihood of people with T2D developing dementia. An unhealthy lifestyle and T2D are known to individually raise the risk of dementia. It hasn't, been clear, however, whether a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of dementia in those with T2D. The 445,364 participants (54.6% female) had an...

If you’re going to make a documentary film about America’s response to the Holocaust, shouldn’t you at least know how many Jewish refugees were admitted to the United States during those years? Surprisingly, filmmaker Ken Burns appears to be unaware of that basic information—or is for some reason seeking to misrepresent the facts. Burns has announced that his forthcoming film will challenge the “myth” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned Europe’s Jews. That remarkable assertion flies in the face of the historical record that numerous scholars have thoroughly documented. Nonetheless, in recent interviews, Burns has claimed that during the Roosevelt...

Immune checkpoint blockers, or ICBs, have revolutionized treatment for various cancers. However, three-fourths of advanced-melanoma patients are resistant to ICBs. Now, researchers reveal a potential target—using the clinically approved drug ruxolitinib—to suppress ICB-resistant melanomas. "Since ruxolitinib is clinically approved and being tested in patients with advanced solid tumors, non-small-cell lung cancer and triple-negative breast cancer, our study justifies further testing of ruxolitinib in patients with advanced melanoma that are resistant to ICBs," said Lewis Zhichang Shi, M.D., Ph.D. It was known that tumor loss of interferon-gamma signaling was a major mechanism of resistance against two ICB drugs, anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1....