Free Republic

A calm assessment of the covid pandemic reveals that the "cures" offered were worse than the disease. From an economic perspective, one of the worst "cures" was the decision to shutdown much of the economy. Small businesses were decimated and millions of jobs exterminated. A "cure" for this previous "cure" was massive government spending to provide some compensation to those hurt by the shutdown. It now appears that $191 billion (about 20%) of this compensation was stolen. Labor Department Inspector General Larry Turner said "one example of where the money went where it shouldn't have was to prison inmates. In...

California’s fiscal wildfire is here. The flames are licking the highest levels of the state capitol in Sacramento. The flames surround the Democrat super majority-run legislature. Democrats’ profligate spending, greed, and lack of imagination on how to run America’s most populous state have been disastrous. An investment research group says California’s “tax policy is killing the Golden Goose in the Golden State.” And that’s not the only problem. Governor Gavin Newsom sent billions of Joe Biden’s specially printed, inflation-causing Covid money to voters for “inflation relief” before his latest election. He teed up “free” kindergarten for four-year-olds, and gave out...

Florida Governor DeSantis just received the kiss of death. George Soros has endorsed DeSantis for 2024. This could not be worse for DeSantis. ..... Snip..... "My hope for 2024… Trump and Governor DeSantis of Florida will slug it out for the Republican nomination. Trump has turned into a pitiful figure, continually mourning his loss in 2020. Big Republican donors are abandoning him in droves. DeSantis is shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious. He is likely to be a Republican candidate,” Soros said. Watch the video:

Kang and Kodos on The Simpsons say, “Foolish Earthlings.” Lefties say foolish right-wingers. CNN reported, “A federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves, a source of indoor pollution linked to childhood asthma. “Richard Trumka Jr., a U.S. Consumer Product Safety commissioner, set off a firestorm this week by saying in an interview with Bloomberg that gas stoves posed a ‘hidden hazard’ and suggested the agency could ban them.” Sounds goofy, but the story said later, “A December 2022 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that indoor gas stove usage is associated with...

President Joe Biden appears to have run out of time to pass a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Not only has he lost control of Congress, where he had focused his legislative efforts to stop the sales of modern sporting rifles, but he is losing the support of the public in his bid to take away the most popular firearm ever. In the latest Quinnipiac University poll, 48% oppose Biden’s ban, 47% support it. While obviously the nation is split, the numbers do not show the overwhelming support that the president and liberal democrats have been banking on. Quinnipiac’s findings...

A member of Biden’s own administration called U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s claims about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — in which he blamed former President Donald Trump — “misinformation.” On Tuesday, while addressing the rail disaster, Buttigieg falsely claimed he is “constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation” and cited a “braking rule” that was withdrawn in 2018, under the Trump administration. Buttigieg was referring to the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrawing a proposed rule requiring trains carrying certain dangerous chemicals to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. After that, social media users circulated...

A court filing made public this week reveals that Fox News hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham were privately critical of Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen, with Carlson going so far as to call the former president "demonic." -snip- Carlson called Trump "a demonic force" and worried the president would "destroy" Fox News Carlson, in other conversations in the wake of the election, privately took aim at Trump himself, calling the then-president "the undisputed world champion" of "destroying things," and worrying that he would "destroy us if we play it wrong." By Jan....

CNN — Tiger Woods handed Justin Thomas a tampon after outdriving his playing partner in an apparent prank that some on social media are saying has sexist overtones. Thomas immediately discarded the tampon before the two men laughed and hugged as they walked off the tee on the ninth hole at the Genesis International on Thursday. Woods’ reasons for handing Thomas a tampon are currently unclear.

VIDEOOn February 16, 2023 the CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki announced she was resigning. As you can see in this video the day before, in a tweet forwarded to such members of Congress as Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Anna Paulina Luna, I stated that there are many things for the House to investigate about YouTube when the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government looks into the connections between YouTube and the federal government as well as Big Pharma. Among those things that need to be investigated is the over-the-top censorship of the...

Four U.S. service members were wounded by an explosion during a helicopter raid in northeast Syria on Thursday night. A senior ISIS leader was killed in the mission, officials said. "Last night, during a partnered U.S. and Syrian Democratic Forces helicopter raid in northeastern Syria, an explosion on target resulted in four U.S. servicemembers and one working dog wounded," said a statement from U.S. Central command. "The U.S. service members and working dog are receiving treatment in a U.S. medical facility in Iraq," U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The ISIS leader who was targeted in the raid and...

Mark 8:34-38, Mark 9:1Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus lays down the conditions of discipleship.A few verses before our reading, Jesus predicted his Passion for the first time. He will sacrifice himself in love for the other—and in this, he will come to deeper life and become a source of life to others. Ronald Knox talked about the sign of the cross this way: the first two gestures form the letter “I,” and the next two cross it out. That’s what the cross of Jesus meant and means.In this scene, he gathers the crowd with his disciples and pronounces the formula...

What a disaster. The CNN morning show is in shambles as reports of in-fighting and Don Lemon’s self-destructive behavior find their way to the front page of every news site. Lemon’s Thursday remark about presidential candidate Nikki Haley must have rubbed some execs the wrong way because “Don has the day off” today.More likely —Don no-showed.He did attempt a Twitter apology, but it didn’t exactly take. From Breitbart News:Don has the day off…Yeah, I bet he does…CNN This Morning is doomed. Lemon is imploding, and Kaitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow have all the charm of a first wife. The...

Thousands of workers at Facebook parent Meta reportedly didn’t get a like from Mark Zuckerberg on their performance reviews — an ominous sign that more layoffs are in the offing. The tech company, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, gave some 7,000 employees, or 10% of Meta’s workforce, subpar reviews, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Employees who score low on the key performance metrics often leave the company, sources told the paper. Zuckerberg will consider another round of layoffs if not enough depart, the people said. Last November, Meta culled 11,000 jobs — or roughly 13% of its 87,000...

More than half of Black Californians said there was a time in the last few years when they thought they would have received better health care if they had belonged to a different racial or ethnic group, according to a report released Thursday. By comparison, 27% of Latinos, 12% of Asian people and 4% of white people responded the same way, the report said. The report from the California Health Care Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on health issues in the state, summarized results from a survey that asked more than 1,700 Californians about their views on health equity, health...

MSNBC anchor Joy Reid said Thursday on her show “The ReidOut” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is implementing “literal government thought control.” Discussing DeSantis, Reid said, “What do you make of the fact he seems to be putting the whole weight of his appeal on attacking black people and brown immigrants and gay people and trans people?” Political panelist David Jolly said, “Ron DeSantis is tapping into the bloodstream of a party that wants to take America back 50 years.”

SINGAPORE: The death of a 28-year-old man 21 days after his COVID-19 vaccination has been ruled a medical misadventure, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday (Feb 17). It is the first death related to COVID-19 vaccination locally, MOH said in a press release. The Bangladeshi national received his first dose of the Moderna/Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine on Jun 18, 2021, and died on Jul 9 after collapsing at his workplace earlier that day. The State Coroner on Wednesday certified the man's cause of death as myocarditis, said MOH.

CLAIM: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is blaming former President Donald Trump for the train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, claiming, “we’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation,” and citing a “braking rule” that was withdrawn under the Trump administration. VERDICT: False. While it is true that in 2018 the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrew a proposed rule requiring trains carrying certain dangerous chemicals to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes, this rule would not have applied to the train that derailed in East Palestine on February 3. In addressing the train derailment on Tuesday, Buttigieg...

We are going to need a new industry that simply spends its time fact-checking the so-called “fact-checkers.” That’s the story after a new landmark study published in The Lancet offered vindication to everyone who touted natural immunity to COVID-19 as an alternative to vaccination. For years, the powers that be, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House, and the press, dismissed the idea of taking natural immunity into account when debating vaccine mandates and vaccine passports. They were wrong, so much so that even the mainstream media are having to admit it. ... This study also puts to rest another...

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued G1-Minor and G2-Moderate Geomagnetic Storm Watches that will run from Feb. 16-18 due to the continuing effects of the Coronal Mass Ejections (CME). According to the SWPC, the geomagnetic storm may affect satellite operations and could even lead to weak power-grid fluctuations. In addition, migratory animals could be affected, and the Northern Lights may be visible farther south than usual, like in northern Michigan and Maine. A second CME was also observed on the sun on Wednesday, and officials said the effects could begin to impact Earth starting late Friday morning or Friday afternoon.

Small pico balloons typically range between $12 and $180 while an F-22 Raptor is estimated to be around $200 million ... Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter Thursday to criticize Joe Biden for ordering an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down what may have been a hobby club’s science project off the coast of Alaska earlier last week. Cruz, R-Texas, joked that Biden’s decision to authorize the $200 million fighter jet to use a $400,000 missile to shoot down what may have been a $12 balloon serves as a "powerful deterrence" to high school students interested in creating their own...