Free Republic

The COVID-19 pandemic sent Heidi Whitney’s daughter into a tailspin. Suddenly the San Diego middle schooler was sleeping all day and awake all night. When in-person classes resumed, she was so anxious at times that she begged to come home early, telling the nurse her stomach hurt. Whitney tried to keep her daughter in class. But the teen’s desperate bids to get out of school escalated. Ultimately, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, failed “pretty much everything” at school and was diagnosed with depression and ADHD. As she started high school this fall, she was deemed eligible for special...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is still actively searching for ways to safeguard abortion access for millions of women, even as it bumps up against a complex web of strict new state laws enacted in the months after the Supreme Court stripped the constitutional right. Looking to seize on momentum following a midterm election where voters widely rebuked tougher abortion restrictions, there’s a renewed push at the White House to find ways to help women in states that have virtually outlawed or limited the treatment, and to keep the issue top of mind for voters. In reality, though, the...

U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Tom Manger said the “big failures” that occurred during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack have been fixed, but acknowledged there is more work to do for the force to be better prepared in the future. In an interview shared Monday by NPR, Manger said he plans to hire 280 officers a year and is on track to meet that goal, with 195 officers currently in training.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nathan Blacksmith is the Sacramento Native American Health Center’s first chief traditional health officer, and his role was recently created to weave cultural practices and medicines through the center's services. One of those cultural practices is gathering in a drum circle. Blacksmith said the beating of a drum and the accompanying vocals creates a spiritual song, brought to life with a sacred sense of pride and purpose.

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Boy, they sure don't want any of the evidence in the case against Paul Pelosi's attacker to be made public. Very strict protective order recently filed:

The FBI interfered in the 2020 elections, not the Russians or any other foreign government, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., tells Newsmax, saying that the agency "preplanned" a "sabotage" of the Hunter Biden laptop story before it ever surface. "I think people should find that shocking," Johnson said Monday on "Rob Schmitt Tonight" "It doesn't shock me, but the FBI had the computer, we think, as early as December 2019." Whistleblowers, Johnson said, have said the FBI had a scheme in August 2020 to downplay any derogatory information on Hunter Biden as the presidential election approached. "That same month they provided...

The Bible In Paintings ~ Encouragement for Appreciating and Applying God's Word ~ JESUS RAISES JAIRUS' DAUGHTER ֎ Featuring 38 Paintings ֎ M A R K CHAPTER 5* When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So...

The US Federal Reserve continues to grapple with inflation, which at 7.7% (October CPI) is more than triple the Fed’s 2% target, without causing a recession by lifting interest rates too high. The Fed has two options when it comes to interest rate increases designed to tackle the highest US inflation since the early 1980s. The first is it continues to hike rates, beyond what the economy can handle, causing a recession, usually defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. This is the “Volcker Fed” playbook. In 1979, then US Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker faced a serious...

AFP — Ukraine worked to restore power on Tuesday after Russia’s latest wave of missile strikes caused power disruptions across the country, right as winter frost builds and temperatures plunge. Out of the 70 missiles launched by Moscow, “most” were shot down, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, but the barrage still hit Ukraine’s already battered infrastructure. Fresh power cuts were announced in all regions “due to the consequences of shelling,” national electricity provider Ukrenergo said on Telegram.

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemMatthew 17The Transfiguration 17 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. 4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”...

If extraterrestrial life sent us a message tomorrow, how would humanity respond? According to researchers, we don't know yet — and that's a problem. That's why, for the first time in 35 years, a team of policy experts and scientists have united to establish a set of alien-contact protocols for the entire world to follow in the event of a sudden encounter with E.T. "Science fiction is awash with explorations of the impact on human society following discovery of, and even encounters with, life or intelligence elsewhere," John Elliot, a computer scientist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland,...

The Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi is nearly complete and mere weeks away from opening its doors to Chrislam and the One World Religion The world now accepts the idea of a Roman Catholic peace covenant brokered between a pope and an imam, and within this covenant a room is reserved for the Jews. Like all movements of man, it has a palatial headquarters, known as the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, which is now just week away from being completed. It is considered one of the marvels of our age, alongside of the Abraham Accords. The stage...

As mentioned in the last post, my new energy storage report, The Energy Storage Conundrum, mostly deals with issues that have previously been discussed on this blog; but the Report goes into considerable further detail on some of them. One issue where the Report contains much additional detail is the issue of hydrogen as an alternative to batteries as the medium of energy storage. For examples of previous discussion on this blog of hydrogen as the medium of storage to back up an electrical grid see, for example, “The Idiot’s Answer To Global Warming: Hydrogen” from August 12, 2021, and...

A $27 billion EPA fund meant to curb planet-warming emissions should be used to support climate projects in disadvantaged areas — and use an existing network of financiers to do so, say community development advocates and green groups. At issue is the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a key provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to leverage federal dollars to provide communities across the country with low-cost, flexible financing for clean energy projects. The EPA-administered program will work by granting billions of dollars to nonprofit organizations, who then will dole out the money to local lenders that specialize in...

In November the EU proposed to give impoverished Ukraine — with over 80% of its nation without electricity, among other necessities — $18.6 billion in critical humanitarian aid, including support for energy and healthcare facilities.But Hungary has vetoed the transfer of the critical aid package.Budapest has stood out as the only member of the 27 country organization to block the EU package, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban having effective veto power because EU budget rules require the unanimous approval of all 27 member countries.American and European officials have been noting Orban's "persistent pattern" of obstructionism in aid to Ukraine,...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)“Jesus said to his disciples: “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” Matthew 18:12This Gospel passage goes on to say that the man who finds that one stray sheep “rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.” At first, this might seem unfair. Why not primarily rejoice over the ninety-nine who did not stray? Saint Hillary, in commenting on this passage, interprets the man who sought...

On 30 November, Shamsul Hoque announced a target of injecting 9 million Bangladeshis with Covid “vaccines” under a week-long special campaign beginning 1 December. He said vaccine doses will be administered during the week 1-7 Dec at 15,984 centres across the country during the drive. Hoque is the member secretary of the vaccine deployment committee of the Directorate General of Health Services under Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health. The World Health Organisation (“WHO”) recommends that 70 per cent of the population be vaccinated, Hoque said. The announcement came a day after the country had recorded 11 new cases of Covid and...

Tipping at restaurants and coffee shops can be tricky business. Technically, it isn’t mandatory, but it’s increasingly looked down upon if you skip it altogether. That’s exactly the pickle customers are finding themselves in with the new tipping system at Starbucks. The world-famous coffee chain announced the initiative in May as a way for customers to “recognize their favorite baristas.” They began rolling it out in some stores in September, where customers paying with debit or credit cards can give the barista a $1, $2 or custom tip—prompting some strong feelings in the process. A Reddit thread about the tipping...

Anyway, Jimmy Arturo Paiz is accused of shooting a 15-year-old in the leg. The youth was campaigning for Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Of course, that means all systems were go for a screed against white heterosexual Christian males who go around shooting anyone in the leg for challenging the patriarchy. According to the Post Millennial, several prominent Democrats were quick to blame Republicans, including Kaivan Shroff, writer Molly Knight, and the leftist activist group Occupy Democrats. I honestly didn’t know they were still around. Weren’t they bought by the Chinese, or Disney, or something? The Leftists in question lamented that...