Free Republic

As part of his new administration, President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to revive Schedule F — an ultimately unsuccessful effort from the end of his first term that sought to remove civil service job protections for potentially tens of thousands of career federal employees. But based on survey data, one famous GOP pollster argued that the public would not support such a policy. Frank Luntz told attendees at a National Academy of Public Administration conference on Nov. 14 that 61% of respondents — including majorities of Democrats, Independents and Republicans — would prefer a “non-partisan, nonpoliticized civil service...

U.S. President Joe Biden has submitted to Congress a statement of intent to cancel half of Ukraine's economic aid debt, a sum of around $4.65 billion, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a press briefing on Nov. 20. The supplemental security assistance package worth $61 billion that Congress provided to Ukraine in April included about $10 billion in economic aid as a loan, rather than a grant. The terms of the offer gave Biden the authority to forgive up to 50 percent of the loan. "We have taken the step that was outlined in the law to cancel...

The Russian media is in a state of panic as inflation soars and the Ruble slumps, leaving many to struggle. Moscow's print news outlets, heavily controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin, were uncharacteristically negative in their coverage as they raised concerns about the economic well-being of ordinary Russians. As reported by the BBC's Russia Editor, Steve Rosenberg, the front page of Russian newspaper Nezavismaya Gazeta said: "Some products have gone up in price this year by tens of percent." The report highlighted that butter is 6.6% more expensive than it was in September, and 30% more expensive than this time...

FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas didn't show up or offer testimony at an annual Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing that took place Thursday.Their absence marked the first time in 15 years that both heads have not attended the annual hearing, according to the committee's chairman, Rep. Gary Peters, D-Mich."Their choice to not provide public testimony about their departments' efforts to address wide-ranging national security threats robs the American people of critical information and the opportunity for public accountability of what the federal government is doing...SNIP

For decades, it's been a common belief that the Ancient Egyptians were responsible for the very first alphabet. Now, a shocking finding challenges this assumption, pushing back the age of the first known alphabetic writing by about 500 years. ... The finger-length cylinders were found at Tell Umm-el Marra, a former city located in today's northwestern Syria, once a bustling crossroads for two trade routes. Carbon dating techniques reveal that the objects date back 4,400 years to 2400 BC – preceding any other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years. ... However, the academic admits he 'can only speculate' exactly...

8 minute youtube video. Daniel Penny Police Interview

Republican strategist Karl Rove said President-elect Trump will pay a price over the “chaos” he’s caused by picking controversial Cabinet members. In a Wednesday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Rove said Trump’s nominations started “so quickly and so promisingly” with the first female White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. As the other choices came rolling in over the next several days, Rove argued that while the choice of former “Fox & Friends Weekend” personality Pete Hegseth “raised questions,” generally the nominations were coming across as “purposeful, focused and energetic.”

The Small Business Administration's Disaster Relief Program has NO FUNDS. I was told this by their representative as well as from a disclaimer when you apply for a disaster loan. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is sending hundreds of millions to the Ukraine and Gaza while Florida and North Carolina are reeling from devastating hurricanes Helene and Milton. Such BS when they say they are doing everything they can. FEMA is being its usual dysfunctional self, failing TWICE to activate the Blue Roof Program, preventing rented dumpsters with storm refuse from dropping off material, leading to additional damage when the second...

In the world of science fiction, this culture war has been evident in online forums, publications, and awards campaigning. The fight is for ownership of the genre. In the mid-2010s, the Hugo awards served as the primary battlefield for this front of the culture war. A group of right-wing science fiction fans and creators calling themselves the Sad Puppies formed a voting bloc to advocate the return to the genre’s supposed roots: pulpy outer-space hero stories. The Sad Puppies’ campaign was a populist one: they argued that elites, disparagingly referred to as “literati,” were pushing a political agenda and were...

California businesses — and households that pay payroll taxes on domestic employees — are waking up to the reality that they are being forced to pay for the state’s default on $20 billion in federal loans to cover a COVID-era shortfall. The issue came to light this week with a social media post by restaurateur Andrew Gruel about unexpected costs: The Hoover Institution, based at Stanford University, had warned about the problem more than a year ago: Little did California businesses know that they were cosigners on the state’s nearly $20 billion loan from the federal government that was used...

Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged about firing a new kind of ballistic missile at Ukraine early Thursday — while threatening to also use it against other powers arming Kyiv, including the US. In an unscheduled televised address to the nation, Putin said he sent a hypersonic missile called Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree — to strike a facility in Dnipro in response to Kyiv’s recent use of British and American missiles to attack Russian territory. -snip- he threatened to use it against anyone supplying missiles to Ukraine — and warned that US air defenses would be powerless to stop...

It's time for Democrats to stop screaming at people to “get with the program,” and instead make a program worth getting with.

Let's all be clear on one thing. Gary Gensler is evil. He should never again have a position of influence, power, or consequence. Any company, university, or organization that hires or works with him post-SEC is betraying the crypto industry and should be boycotted aggressively. This the only way to prevent this kind of misuse of government power from happening again in the future. Gensler’s behavior can't be explained away as a good faith mistakes. It was entirely thought out, intentional, and purposeful to fulfill his personal, political agenda at any cost. Even if this meant nuking an industry, tens...

A stunning fossilized world containing remnants of amphibians, skin prints, plants, and seeds was discovered in the melting glacier ice of the Italian Alps.Experts date the now-exposed lost world to about 280 million years ago.The site was found by a hiker over 5,500 feet above sea level...Scientists are learning that in real time after discovering an entire Paleozoic-era ecosystem, which had previously been hidden under snow and glacier. The paleontological site—located in the Orobie Valtellinesi Park in the Italian Alps—is so well-preserved that researchers discovered everything from footprints of amphibians and reptiles and fossilized plants and seeds to skin prints...

New research by scientists at the University of Exeter and King's College London has made significant progress towards understanding the complex process of prenatal human brain development..The study focussed on the molecular "switches" that regulate the way that genes are activated without changing the underlying DNA blueprint. These processes, known as epigenetics, direct the way in which different cells and tissue types develop, and help differentiate brain cells from those in other parts of the body. Significant changes in DNA methylation across brain development were found at more than 7% of the 400,000 genomic sites assessed. ...

‘Devout Catholic’ Joe Biden Awards Medal of Freedom to Former President of Planned ParenthoodJoe Biden has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the former president of the abortion provider Planned Parenthood.Biden, who likes to describe himself as a “devout Catholic,” awarded Cecile Richards the medal during a private ceremony on Wednesday.“Carrying her parents’ torch for justice, she’s led some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes – to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote,” Biden reportedly said during the ceremony.“A leader...

Humans, when we consider space travel, recognize the need for gravity. Without our planet, is artificial or antigravity even possible? A wormhole is the one way, in the context of general relativity, that immediate transport between two disparate, disconnected events in spacetime can occur. These "bridges" are mathematical curiosities only at this point in time; no physical wormholes have ever been found to exist or have ever been created, and would require some sort of negative energy, or "antigravity" source, in order to be physically real. Credit: vchalup / Adobe Stock Key Takeaways * Here in our Universe, under general...

Matt Gaetz, the former Florida representative and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, announced Thursday that he is withdrawing as Trump's pick for the top prosecutor. Who is in consideration now for the top spot?

An 18-year-old Briton faces up to 20 years in a Dubai prison for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old British girl while the pair were on holiday in the emirate, a human rights campaigner has said. Marcus Fakana, of Tottenham, north London, was on holiday with his family when he began a secretive holiday romance in September with another Londoner, who has since turned 18, according to Radha Stirling, of campaign group Detained in Dubai. After returning home and seeing pictures and chats, the girl's mother reported the relationship to Dubai police, who then arrested Mr Fakana at his...

Comcast is finally cutting ties with MSNBC, the media conglomerate announced Wednesday. That's bad news for the exorbitantly compensated and increasingly unhinged personalities who call the left-wing network home (for now). MSNBC and other declining television assets—but not the reality TV powerhouse Bravo—will be spun off into a new publicly traded company by the end of next year. That means MSNBC will soon be divorced from the ostensibly more serious and less overtly partisan NBC News, which routinely shares reportage, fact-checking (if you can call it that), and contributors with its sister network. Comcast brass on Wednesday told MSNBC staffers...