Free Republic

McCarthy plans to make good on his threat to kick Democrats off House panels The new Speaker will prevent Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff from serving on the Intelligence Committee and Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee Comes as pay back for Democrats kicking Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar off their panel assignments in the 117th Congress Freshman Rep. George Santos, who is under criminal investigation, will also get committee assignments Kevin McCarthy will make good on Republican threats to kick Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off the Intelligence Committee, as well as blocking Ilhan Omar...

The last time we looked at the massive money-printing (literally) hedge fund that also moonlights as the Swiss National Bank, we were stunned to learn that its US equity holdings had exploded to a record $177 billion at the end of Q1 2022, orders of magnitude more than the mere $27 billion it held as recently as 2014.Since then things haven't gone exactly as planned for the massive asset gatherer, and the value of its US equity longs has tumbled by almost $50 billion from the record high in Q1 to $139.8 billion as of Q3, a two year low......

ROME, N.Y. -- New York State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-C-Rome, and the New York State Senate Republican Conference announced Monday its 2023 “Rescue New York” legislative agenda. The agenda includes a range of policies targeting the decline in public safety, a depleted workforce, high taxes, business regulations, inflation and increased costs of goods. The plan will try to improve public safety, ease the financial burden on middle-class families, small business owners and restore the quality of life in communities. “New Yorkers continue to flee the state because of the damaging policies that have been put in place by the legislative...

In recent weeks, viral artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT has lit up the internet, gathering millions of users as its imitation of human conversation sparked speculation about its potential to supplant professional writers and even threaten Google’s core search business (Google's management even issued a "code red" over the potential rival, the The New York Times reported in December).OpenAI, the organization behind it, was co-founded by Elon Musk and Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman in 2015, and makes money by charging developers to license its technology.the first day of openai, seven years ago today pic.twitter.com/4kQUQtgb6t — Sam Altman (@sama) January 4,...

ussia has appointed Colonel-General Alexander Lapin as chief of staff of the country's ground forces, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Tuesday, despite fierce criticism from leading hawks over his performance in Ukraine. Lapin, previously commander of Russia's central military district, was blasted last October by hawkish allies of President Vladimir Putin after Russian forces were driven out of the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, a key logistics hub. His promotion - widely reported across Russian media but neither confirmed nor denied by the Kremlin - drew mixed reactions from the influential Russian war bloggers who provide often critical...

Russian forces appear close to capturing a small but strategically important town on the front lines of the war in eastern Ukraine. Russian soldiers and the Wagner group's mercenary fighters were engaged in bitter fighting for the mining town of Soledar, officials in Kyiv and its Western allies said Tuesday, control of which could finally hand them a breakthrough in their bid to seize the key nearby city of Bakhmut. Moscow’s troops had escalated their assault on defensive positions around Bakhmut, the officials said, after months of fierce fighting that has left the once-thriving city in the industrial Donbas region...

Nishad Singh, the former head of engineering at the collapsed exchange FTX, met with the US federal prosecutors seeking a cooperation deal, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter. Singh, Bankman-Fried’s former roommate in the Bahamas and a significant donor for Democrats’ election campaigns himself, could reportedly provide insight into the campaign finances of FTX. Since 2020, he has donated over $9.3 million to Democratic candidates and committees, with the largest recipient being Mind The Gap, a political action committee founded by SBF’s mother, Barbara Fried, which last year received a $1 million donation. According to...

To be state licensed in Minnesota starting in 2025, every teacher must personally advocate critical race theory and transgender ideology.Minnesota’s teaching licensure board will soon require all teachers to be card-carrying Marxists. The card will literally say “licensed teacher,” but recently approved revisions redefine state licensure in expressly Marxist terms: Academic knowledge is out, and power struggle among the classes is in. To be licensed in Minnesota starting in 2025, every teacher must not merely teach about, but personally advocate, the core tenets of critical race theory and transgender ideology.The state’s insistence that every teacher positively affirm homosexual behaviors and...

I grew up in a household with parents who were of the Greatest Generation. They lived and shouldered through the Great Depression, and then their lives and families were thrown into turmoil on Dec. 7, 1941. My grandfather worked for the War Department in Washington, D.C., and during World War II, my father served in the Pacific Theater. Both my mother and father made a solemn vow that as long as they lived, they would never buy a German or a Japanese car. No matter how well they were made. They were the enemies. They were the ones who killed...

After more than 24 years in the Illinois legislature, House Republican Minority Leader Jim Durkin is resigning his seat. In November, the day after the election, Durkin announced that he was resigning as House Minority Leader. During the midterm election, Durkin suffered embarrassing losses, giving House Democrats once again, supermajority control in the Illinois House. In media interviews after announcing his resignation as House GOP leader, State Rep. Jim Durkin attempted to place all of the blame on the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump. “As long as we continue to say that we are the party of...

A Facebook user by the alias “Pappa Rodger” posted several specific predictions about the Idaho murder case before the arrest of Bryan Kohberger on December 30. And per the probable cause affidavit, Pappa Rodger possesses near psychic abilities. Rodger’s suspicions were so on point that former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffe believes Bryan Kohberger created the account. Last week, Coffindaffer shared a screenshot from November 30 in which Pappa eerily predicted that the Idaho murderer left behind a sheath at the scene of the crime. “I have followed #papparodger comments with intrigue. This comment was of particular interest after the release...

Those sweet shellfish may be tempting, but eating oysters in Florida has been dangerous this year. Oysters have sickened people in the Sunshine State with three different types of illnesses, at least one of them deadly. Federal officials issued a warning recently for raw oysters harvested in Galveston Bay, Texas, and sold in Florida, along with seven other states. The oysters were potentially contaminated with norovirus and sold to restaurants and retailers. About 211 people were infected by the oysters and had diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain within 12 to 48 hours after eating them. Publix Supermarkets said it sold...

The National Education Association – an organization whose state association in Illinois endorsed Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker for governor and Democrat Kwame Raoul for attorney general; promoted mandates during the pandemic, and helped write the controversial sex education standards, has donated more than $1.5 million to Illinois House and Senate Republicans since the start of the pandemic through their political action committee, Illinois PAC for Education (IPACE). At the start of the 2021 school year, Gov. Pritzker announced a mask mandate for students and teachers – and the Illinois Education Association (IEA), the largest education organization in the state, applauded...

"A person's moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one's behavior" -- the dictionary definition of "conscience." Whenever I make the common-sense argument that people need to hold themselves accountable to a morality-giving, morality-judging God -- specifically, the God of the Bible, and more specifically, the God of the Ten Commandments -- a flood of incredulous, frequently mocking, responses immediately appears in the comments section and on atheist and left-wing websites. The gist of the God-is-morally-unnecessary argument is this: "Unlike Prager and other religious people, I don't need God to tell me murder is...

“The riots over the summer, you know, I could make a case that those riots were riots organic to an aggrieved community that perceived that they had various injustices throughout their life,” General Mark A Milley told the J6 Committee. “It was sheer, unmitigated anger that expressed itself in the form of mass violence and rioting. And, okay, I get it, it’s illegal, it’s wrong.”The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had previously justified the study of “white rage”, went on to defend the riots and the double standard at the heart of the J6 Committee.“I don’t think...

The following excerpt was sent out from The Washington Post’s climate and environment editor Zachary Goldfarb; climate and environment deputy editor Juliet Eilperin; and climate/environmental policy, politics and power editor Stuart Leavenworth: We are so pleased to announce that Chico Harlan, one of our distinguished foreign correspondents, is joining the Climate team as our first global climate correspondent. In this new role, Chico will traverse Europe, Africa and the Middle East to uncover the most important stories about how global warming and environmental change are affecting people and societies. Chico has had a highly varied career at The Post, having...

To funnel his demands, Gottlieb used the same Twitter lobbyist the White House did - fresh evidence of overlap between the company selling mRNA shots and the government forcing them on the public. On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb - a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers - saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines. The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine...

A female hiker on Mt. Baldy died after sliding an estimated 500-700 feet down Baldy Bowl’s steep, icy hillside Sunday, authorities announced. Officials with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department received a call from the California Office of Emergency Services in reference to “an SOS message from a Garmin InReach device” stating that a hiker had just fallen down Baldy Bowl, the sheriff’s department said in a news release. A sheriff’s helicopter responded to the scene using coordinates from the woman’s device and was able to locate her on a steep hillside. A medic was lowered down from the helicopter to...

Holy exploitation, non-binary Batperson! Just when we thought the commies hit rock bottom by bringing their kids to drag shows, some miscreant in England said, “Hold my appletini” and took things one revolting step further: Drag Syndrome. Drag Syndrome is exactly what you think it is but wish it wasn’t: adults with Down syndrome dancing in drag. The digital media outlet Mashable has released a documentary about a troupe of drag queens with Down syndrome called Born To Dance With An Extra Chromosome.Meet the artists and performers of Drag Syndrome, the world’s first drag troupe for people with Down syndrome...

A new pilot project to find ways to inject equity considerations into transportation planning in southeast Michigan will focus on how urban flooding affects historically disadvantaged communities. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and partner agencies are launching this research project to better create infrastructure that is more resilient to flooding impacts from climate change. The study’s focus will be to better understand how transportation disruptions during major urban flooding events affect areas already struggling with poverty challenges. NOAA will contribute $150,000 to the study, which includes partner groups the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), Fernleaf Interactive, and...