Free Republic

Seen this morning because I went to Twitter and clicked on "Kavanaugh" in the "What's happening" sidebar.If you're wondering whether writing "Really fuck you" on someone's photograph and posting it on Twitter is a protected speech under the First Amendment, read the Supreme Court's new "true threats" case, Counterman v. Colorado.

Now that the pandemic has ended, researchers are urging regulatory agencies to consider the safety issues associated with the rapid approval of COVID-19 vaccines—and to correctly classify messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines as gene therapy products (GTPs) to prevent pharmaceutical companies from bypassing regulatory standards. According to a paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences on June 22, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, by mode and action, are gene therapy products and should adhere to different regulatory standards. Yet U.S. and European regulatory agencies have not classified COVID-19 mRNA vaccines as gene therapy products, which has allowed them to be regulated...

“As a businessperson, you're saving lives…why politics?” I ask. "I think there is an opportunity to drive a national revival in our country,” he tells me. "I couldn't think of a better way to do it than to...get elected U.S. president.” Ramaswamy is obviously a long shot, but his arguments--that America has become a nation of victims, and that some on Wall St now collude with government to cripple capitalism--made me want to learn more about him. Here is our full interview.

Riots sparked by the death of a teenager in Paris who was shot dead by police during a traffic stop has spread to cities in Switzerland and Belgium - but the streets of France were eerily quiet on Sunday evening. The alleged 'execution' of Nahel Merzouk, 17, who was of Algerian and Moroccan descent, has fuelled days of arrest and forced President Emmanuel Macron to hold crisis talks on Sunday night. Some regions have banned the sale of fireworks and restricted street access in a bid to curb the ongoing unrest - and there are 45,000 extra police have been...

We tend to forget but prior to candidate Donald J. Trump, in 2015, it was very rare to see presidential rallies with more than a few thousand attendees.Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders each had sporadic big venue rallies at mostly schools and universities where attendance would top 10,000; however, no one consistently has rallies anywhere near the scale of Trump rallies.According to the Greenville News, citing the police chief in South Carolina today, over 50,000 people showed up to support President Donald Trump in Pickens. That is a massive crowd of people traveling to one town venue.[Greenville News] – […]...

French President Emmanuel Macron favors “shifting the center of European gravity towards China,” according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “I do not quite understand the concept of strategic autonomy if it means de facto shooting into our own knee,” Morawiecki said Thursday. “European autonomy sounds fancy, doesn't it? But it means shifting the center of European gravity towards China and severing the ties with [the] U.S.” Morawiecki did not identify Macron by name, but the reference to the French leader’s signature “strategic autonomy” concept made the rebuke unmistakable. And it punctuated a wider denunciation of traditional powers of Western...

Five Moms for Liberty protesters were arrested Sunday morning for blocking traffic outside the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, and a sixth for waving a flag over a barricade set up outside the hotel, according to activists. Philadelphia police said the six people were arrested on charges of failure to disperse, but did not provide further details. ACT UP Philadelphia, the AIDS activism group, provided photographs of five people, who were holding hands while standing in the middle of the intersection at 12th and Filbert Streets. “They were chanting for Moms for Liberty to go home and blocking traffic,” said Aaron Bodiford,...

New analysis of the long-term impact from Section 301 tariffs triggered by President Trump against China, shows just how consequential economic nationalism can become.Our own analysis of U.S. consumer prices in 2019 showed that prices of imported goods actually declined despite the tariffs. A recent report from CPA takes a look at the impact to Chinese exports to the U.S. [SEE DATA HERE] Bottom line, the tariffs worked to reduce Chinese imports.CPA – […] Since the Section 301 tariffs were imposed, the share of imports from China has steadily declined from 21.6% in 2017 the year prior to the tariffs...

A group of UK islands could become a territory of Norway under dramatic new proposals. Orkney, off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a population of less than 23,000 people spread across its 20 inhabited islands and makes up one of the country's 32 council areas. But next week a motion will go before the council, exploring "alternative forms of governance" including changing the archipelago's status within the UK or becoming a self-governing territory of the Scandinavian nation. "We are looking for the very best position for future generations and our place in the world," council leader James Stockan told...

SNIP Seven years later, as the battle against wokeness has supplanted the war on terror in the right-wing imagination, conservative sympathies are reversing. “Republicans are wooing Muslim voters by promising to protect them from LGBTQ rights advocates whose demands conflict with their faith,” David Weigel reported in Semafor this week. The Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who once called for banning Muslim immigration from the Middle East, recently ran a sympathetic segment about Muslim parents in Maryland who want their kids to be exempt from reading books with LGBTQ characters or themes. “Us Catholics and other Christians, other people of...

Former President Donald Trump pledges to eliminate all “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” (DEI) programs across the federal government to “rigorously enforce” the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions, according to prepared remarks obtained by Breitbart News.On Thursday, the Court held that racial preferences in college admissions violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.As Breitbart News reported:While the Fourteenth Amendment applies only to state governments — which includes state and local public universities — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also extends racial discrimination to institutions that accept federal tax money, such as...

At least 500 active fires are burning around Canada, 257 of which are classified as “out of control,” according to the Canada Interagency Forest Fire Centre. As a result, poor air quality in several areas of the U.S. has in recent days been a hot topic on social media and private conversations. The fires have burned more than 8.1 million hectares, or around 20 million acres, across Canada. The country’s wildfire season typically peaks in late July or August. According to major media, there is only one explanation for the fires — climate change. Similar themes have been heard in...

Aformer JP Morgan worker revealed why she quit her job after six years—because, as she depicted it, there was no “upward mobility” for her. “For other people, there was but for me, there wasn’t," she stated. Her theory? Because she is “mixed with Black.” Then, the content creator revealed how she worked at the company for about six to seven years, is “highly credentialed,” “highly educated,” with a “master’s degree” but it wasn’t enough. During the time she worked there, she contends she didn’t receive any “bonuses, cost of living adjustments, promotions, or raises.” Regardless of how hard she worked,...

THOUSANDS of Trump supporters are lined up early to see President Trump today in Pickens, South Carolina. The rally does not start until 1:00 PM eastern.Pickens has a population of 3,126 according to the latest census.RAV TV host Don Neuen told The Gateway Pundit Saturday morning that around 10,000 supporters had already arrived in town for the rally!The crowd surged to over 50,000 in the small South Carolina town to see America’s most popular president, Donald Trump.In fact the crowd was SO MASSIVE they had to shut down the town!Via Midnight Rider. >

"I'd never seen an animal that fat. She could barely walk"A pig kept as a house pet in a Manchester flat and allowed to gorge on junk food for seven years ballooned to nearly three times its healthy weight. Portly Portia, who weighed a whopping 26 stone, was so overweight she could barely after being fed a diet of biscuits and coke say staff at the animal sanctuary where she was eventually taken. She was also 'utterly depressed' and had 'given up on her life' due to her condition they said. The staff put her on a strict pig-friendly diet...

Melinda French Gates has shared she is 'very nervous about artificial intelligence' being 'baked with bias' because there is a lack of women developing such tools. The comments appear to take a jab at ex-husband Bill Gates, 67, who is leading the charge for the systems and has faced sexual harassment allegations from former female staff. 'We don't have enough women who are computer scientists and expertise in artificial intelligence,' French Gates, 58, told CNN Thursday. She continued to explain that the tech needs to 'take all people's points of view and see society and, quite frankly, see the world...

Kelsea Ballerini can now be added to the list of artists to fall victim to unruly concertgoers flinging objects on stage during a show, following a string of similar recent incidents. The country artist was struck in the face by an object that was thrown at her on Wednesday during a performance in Idaho, as seen in social media videos.n he footage posted by concertgoers on Wednesday evening showed Ballerini flinching mid-song when the flung object hit her in the head. She subsequently paused the song and stepped offstage. “I’m fine,” the singer said Thursday in a statement posted to...

The DeSantis campaign on Friday shared a video, now seen more than 18 million times, that labels Trump as "the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate" Pride month and criticizes him for saying at the 2016 Republican National Convention that he would do everything he could "to protect our LGBTQ citizens." DeSantis' campaign contrasts Trump's record with his own. The video they shared touts the governor's support for controversial restrictions on LGBTQ people, particularly those who are transgender, including banning gender-affirming medical care for trans youth. The new DeSantis video quickly drew bipartisan criticism from the...

While some scholars have argued that the Bible’s description of King David ruling over a great kingdom is exaggerated, new research suggests that the land overseen by the Old Testament king was more well-developed than some experts believe. Prof. Yosef Garfinkel of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University theorized in a paper published in the peer-reviewed Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology that King David ruled over an urban network of fortified cities, which supports the Bible’s description of his kingdom. Garfinkel outlined five different sites in his study — Khirbet Qeiyafa, Beth Shemesh, Lachish and Tell en-Naṣbeh and a country...

President Joe Biden will head to Europe at week’s end for a three-country trip intended to bolster the international coalition against Russian aggression as the war in Ukraine extends well into its second year. The main focus of Biden’s five-day visit will be the annual NATO summit, held this year in Vilnius, Lithuania. Also planned are stops in Helsinki, Finland, to commemorate the Nordic country’s entrance into the 31-nation military alliance in April, and Britain, the White House announced Sunday. The NATO meeting comes at the latest critical point in the war. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says counteroffensive and defensive...