Free Republic

Amid talk of possible compromise, US president says 'it doesn't make sense for Israeli leaders 'to rush this,' given range of threats and challenges country faces US President Joe Biden said Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hardline coalition should not rush their 'divisive' bid to overhaul Israel's judiciary, given the numerous threats and challenges Israel faces, and should instead work to build broad consensus for legal reform. "From the perspective of Israel's friends in the United States, it looks like the current judicial reform is becoming more divisive, not less," Biden said in a statement to the...

A sum of its parts, every U.S. state plays an integral role in the country’s overall economy.Texas, for example, generates an economic output that is comparable to South Korea’s, and even a small geographical area like Washington, D.C. outputs over $129 billion per year.The visualization below by Visual Capitalist's Avery Koop and Joyce Ma uses 2022 annual data out of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to showcase each state or district’s real gross domestic product (GDP) in chained 2012 dollars, while also highlighting personal income per capita.A Closer Look at the StatesCalifornia is by far the biggest state...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) altered its definition of COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated, leading to a lower number of cases classified as a breakthrough, according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times.The CDC in early 2021 defined the post-vaccination cases as people testing positive seven or more days after receipt of a primary vaccination series, according to one of the documents.The definition was changed on Feb. 2, 2021, to only include cases detected at least 14 days after a primary series, another document shows.“We have revised the case definition,” Dr. Marc Fisher, the lead of...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's mission to stop the influx of illegal migrants, drugs and weapons into the United States under Operation Lone Star has resulted in the seizure of over 422 million lethal fentanyl doses and the apprehension of over 394,200 illegal migrants, his office said. Operation Lone Star launched in March 2021, integrating the Texas Department of Public Safety with the Texas National Guard to combat smuggling into the state. Abbott's office on Friday said: "Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 394,200 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 31,300 criminal arrests,...

Police searching the house of Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann have found a soundproof room in the basement, a neighbor claimed - as cops brought cadaver dogs in to search his yard. Police told a neighbor of the New York architect they believed at least one woman was killed in that room, which was unearthed in what state troopers called a 'major excavation'. Robert Musto, 64, one of Heuermann's longtime neighbors in Massapequa, told the New York Post: 'He's got a soundproof room in his basement. What do you think that was for?' 'This guy is a wacko,' the...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop John P. Dolan to LGBTQ Catholics: “I wish to reaffirm your sacred identity.”In an interview this month, Cardinal-designate Víctor Manuel Fernández, the soon-to-be prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, “Without an experience of the living Christ who loves and saves, we cannot shape our ‘being Christian’, and concentrating on arguing and debating with everyone will not help mature this development in people.”After reading this, and considering my humble contribution to Outreach, I wanted to unpack the meaning of “being Christian.” To Catholics within the LGBTQ community, I wish to reaffirm your sacred...

Hunter Biden would dial in his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on speakerphone into meetings with his overseas business partners, according to testimony expected before Congress this week from Devon Archer, the first son’s former best friend. Archer, 48, who is facing jail for his role in a $60 million bond fraud, is scheduled to testify to the House Oversight Committee about meetings he witnessed that were attended by Joe Biden either in person or via speakerphone when Hunter would call his father and introduce him to foreign business partners or prospective investors. snip ‘Can you ring your DAD?’ Soon...

Big Tech companies are deliberately manipulating the outcomes of our elections and the thinking and beliefs of our children. And they are having an enormous impact.If you doubt that, consider this latest snippet of data from my lab, the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT).Consider this: The GOP currently has a slim 10-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Without Google's interference in 2022, it would likely now have a majority of between 27 and 59 seats.The 2022 midterm elections that gave the Democrats a two-vote majority in the U.S. Senate had quite a bit of help from...

Conservative public interest advocacy group Defending the Republic (DTR) has obtained almost 15,000 pages of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data, claiming the data show an “utter lack of thoroughness” of the trials and calls the vaccine’s safety into “serious doubt.”As a result of successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the group recently announced it had obtained—and is releasing—nearly 15,000 pages of documents relating to testing and adverse events associated with “Spikevax,” Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.Since 2022, the group has been involved in litigation against the FDA relating to the production of...

Protests rock Israel July 2023. (Credit: Twitter user hugh_mankind) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushed to the hospital early Sunday for an unscheduled emergency pacemaker implant but announced afterward that he was “doing excellently.” The health scare comes as the country is gripped in turmoil and protests, with a crucial vote on judicial reform scheduled in the Knesset on Monday.Professor Roy Beinart, senior physician and director at the Davidai Arrhythmia Center at Sheba Medical Center’s Heart Institute, said that the patient was doing well:The implantation went smoothly, without any complications. He is not in a life-threatening condition. He...

China’s economic recovery seems to have stalled, and the CCP’s standing at home still depends on Xi Jinping’s government creating a “Chinese dream” of a middle-class lifestyle. The end of Covid restrictions, just eight months ago, seemed to mark the start of a powerful bounceback in consumption; travel agencies were besieged by people booking holidays they had been denied for nearly three years. But in the past few months there have been more worrying signs. Youth unemployment is growing: about one in five of China’s 16- to 24-year-olds were unemployed in June. Many university graduates have had to take jobs...

A baby was rescued from a searing hot car in southern Texas earlier this week after the kid’s family accidentally left the keys in the vehicle. Footage of the rescue taken by a bystander shows the scene unfolding in the parking lot of an HEB in Harlingen, which is at the southernmost tip of Texas. [snip] The bystander who filmed the scene told outlets that what was not recorded was a woman who climbed through the broken front windshield to reach the baby and hand the child out. The heat index for that day was more than 100 degrees.

Nearly 22 years after al Qaeda terrorists hijacked and crashed four U.S. passenger jets in the worst attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the FBI has disclosed that it is actively investigating an apparent attempt to hijack a fifth plane on 9/11.@media(min-width:0px){#div-gpt-ad-floridabulldog_org-box-3-0-asloaded{max-width:728px!important;max-height:90px!important;}}The plane, a wide-bodied Boeing 767, was operated by United Airlines. At 9 o’clock that morning Flight 23 was scheduled to make a nonstop transcontinental trip from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Los Angeles. Aboard were about 160 passengers, eight or nine crew members and more than 50,000 gallons of jet fuel.@media(min-width:0px){#div-gpt-ad-floridabulldog_org-medrectangle-3-0-asloaded{max-width:580px!important;max-height:400px!important;}}That Flight 23 in...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Has Systematically Dismantled John Paul II's LegacyIf there was ever a pope whose legacy within the Church seemed irreversible, it was Pope St. John Paul II. At his funeral Mass on April 8, 2005, which set records for crowd size and number of heads of state in attendance, the crowds shouted, "Santo Subito!" ("Make him a Saint Immediately!") After his death, a number of clergy and laymen proclaimed him "John Paul the Great." He was duly beatified only six years after his death. John Paul II ascended to the papacy at a time when great evil threatened...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS” that Ukraine has retaken about 50% of the territory that Russia initially seized. Partial transcript as follows: ZAKARIA: Tell us what you can sense of what is going on in the counteroffensive that Ukraine is manage– attempting with Russia. The – so far, the reports seem to be it is very slow and very tough going.

One of the signs of the slow and uncertain development of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is the large number of destroyed armored vehicles, including those of NATO origin. Despite this, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (OSU) continue to put pressure on the first line of defense, ignoring their own losses. At the same time, one can already assume what could serve as a sign that the counter-offensive is beginning to wind down after all.

The Biden administration is cracking down on water heaters by imposing greater efficiency standards. Consumers will have to shovel out thousands of dollars more to install a heat pump water heater rather than a conventional storage water heater in order to fall in line with new standards released on Friday by the Department of Energy. If the proposal is adopted, by 2029, all new electric water heaters must deploy heat pump technology and all gas-fired ones will use condensing technology.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which has taken a leading role in the House’s inquiry into Hunter Biden, is not fond of the idea of a special counsel being appointed to investigate the president’s son. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the Oversight Committee, said he doesn’t want to see a special counsel appointed by the Department of Justice to investigate Hunter Biden because his committee, along with House Ways and Means and Judiciary Committees, are already doing the work. “I have no confidence in special counsels,” Comer said this week. “I have no confidence in...

The second Russia-Africa Summit will take place in St Petersburg’s Expo Forum from 27-28 July 2023, with leaders from the majority of African countries expected to attend. The Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum due to take place alongside it will provide a platform for business meetings and includes a programme of more than 30 panel sessions and thematic events.

The Miss Italy competition will not allow transgender women to compete, with its patron saying that contestants "must be a woman from birth," weeks after Miss Netherlands crowned its first transgender winner. "Lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news by also using strategies that I think are a bit absurd," Miss Italy Official Patron Patrizia Mirigliani said this month during an interview with Radio Cusano, Il Primato Nazionale reported, according to a translation from Google. "Since it was born, my competition has foreseen in its regulation the clarification according to which one must be a woman from...