Free Republic

Entries from early 2020 in a now-exposed personal diary kept by Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic show that he privately estimated the death rate from the illness was significantly lower than what he told Congress under oath only weeks later. Fauci, 85, has come under intense scrutiny for years regarding his approach leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, and his alleged links to the Chinese lab where the virus originated. He will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to speak about his newly publicized personal records. "The...

US President Donald Trump said that the United States is currently negotiating with Iran and will return to war if the talks fail, in an interview with Axios on Monday. "We are in very deep talks with Iran," Trump told Axios. "If they don't work out, we will go back to very strong military action."Trump said that he paused US strikes on Iran to give negotiations another chance, Axios reported, with the president adding that he would not give the talks with Tehran "much time." "Either it goes fast or not at all," said Trump. Trump added that countries involved...

The Houthis enacted a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabian-linked ships and ports, dealing another blow to shipping in the Middle East.Transits in the Strait of Hormuz were down this week compared to the previous week as the U.S. struck Iran for the 13th straight day. London-based Lloyd’s List Intelligence tracked 78 transits between July 13 and Sunday compared to 174 between July 6-12.Both east and westbound transits took a hit with 44 eastbound transits between July 13 and Sunday compared to 101 the prior week. Westbound transits dropped from 73 to 34 in the same period. Numbers may fluctuate as...

The Senate is the only game in town on Capitol Hill for the next two weeks, with the House gone already. The late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) memorial service is Tuesday afternoon at National Cathedral. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are all expected to attend. There’s also a Capitol Rotunda ceremony on Tuesday morning. The Senate has a full plate during its two-week sprint to August recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is under pressure from competing factions of his conference — and the White House — over the SAVE America Act,...

Oil prices plunged and stocks surged in early trading on Monday after the U.S. paused attacks on Iran over the weekend, opting against a major escalation of the war. Global prices fell 6% on Monday, briefly crossing below $90 a barrel before moving slightly above that benchmark. The decline reversed a days-long run up in crude prices as fighting threatened to worsen a historic global oil shock. Stock prices climbed in response to the drop in oil prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 570 points, or 1.1%, while the S&P 500 jumped 0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq increased 0.6%.Crude costs...

Blogger and author Meg Keene sat down with The Honest Take to discuss the "achingly Jewish" novel she wrote in seven days after October 7. It drew four competing agent offers, then died on submission after one agent said it could survive if she stripped the Judaism. Meg Keene, the bestselling wedding-blog author of A Practical Wedding, wrote an “achingly Jewish” novel in seven days after October 7, drew four competing agent offers, and then watched it die on submission. One agent she respected told her the book could survive if she stripped the Judaism out of it and renamed...

The socialists will swallow hard and take her. There’s some talk about AOC, but she’s going to take noted burger chef Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat. AOC’s sell-by date is fast approaching. She’s not really left enough for the socialists, and here’s a hard truth: SHE'S GETTING HEFTY. The attraction was that she was young and cute. They auditioned her for the job, and the key was that she was attractive. Between losing her hotness and the fact that every time she opens her mouth, she says something stupid—like how the Senate was constituted to enshrine Jim Crow about a century...

The latest revelations from Sen. Rand Paul’s investigation into the origin of Covid expose what may be one of the most consequential scientific deceptions in history. The 1,123 pages of private Slack messages exchanged among the authors of the highly influential “Proximal Origin” paper reveal that the scientists who publicly declared that a laboratory origin of Covid was not plausible privately held a very different view. They repeatedly acknowledged that a laboratory origin remained possible, discussed flaws in their own arguments, and struggled to defend the natural origin theory. In the first batch of Slack messages between the authors, which...

Three women, including one who was pregnant, were stabbed in a broad-daylight knife attack in Paris on Monday after a man armed with two kitchen knives targeted passers-by near Porte de Clichy. The women, aged 19, 24 and 36, suffered serious injuries and were taken to hospital, where at least one of the women is in critical condition. A 31-year-old man was arrested at the scene by an off-duty police officer after bystanders helped restrain him. The suspect repeatedly said, "It was Allah who ordered me," while being restrained. Videos circulating on social media appear to show him lunging toward...

They’re baaack. “They” being communists, or for the academics, Marxists. Hairsplitting. Communism is the implementation of the ideology Karl Marx advanced in his 1848 thesis, “The Communist Manifesto.” The resurgence started with intersectionality, cultural demands, and the redefinition of words like racism, gender, and homeless. Aided by funding from the Chinese Communist Party, and the growth of organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, the far left added violence and dismantling capitalism. Today, radical leftists pursue the full communist agenda, fused with antisemitism and radical Islam. Turn up your nose at the Red Menace, but during the 20th century, communists...

Xavier Becerra faces a renewed scandal over his tenure as Joe Biden’s health secretary after a whistleblower came forward to expose the horrific levels of abuse and exploitation of hundreds of thousands of migrant children faced while in detention in California. A caseworker at the Pomona Fairplex alleges children faced abuse and chaotic releases, were separated from young siblings, and sent to unverified addresses or secretly moved in the dead of the night — some never to be seen again — while the complex also accepted fake documents from sponsors. During his time as Biden’s health secretary from 2021 to...

The Arlington Heights couple charged with vandalizing the Republicans of Wheeling Township headquarters in January pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges Thursday. Brock McNerney, a 72-year-old retired financial planner, and Moisette McNerney, a 69-year-old retired special education teacher, admitted to criminal damage to property and criminal defacement of property charges as part of a plea agreement. Cook County Judge Thomas Newinski sentenced the couple to 18 months court supervision, 100 hours of community service, a $100 fine and court costs. Newinski also ordered the couple to pen an apology letter to the Wheeling Township organization. Following the hearing at the Rolling...

Iran said on Monday it was still in control of the Strait of Hormuz and not seeking to resume peace talks with the United States, after President Donald Trump halted a two-week bombing campaign that his top brass told him had run its course.Following 13 successive nights of intensifying bombing that provoked Tehran to fire on U.S. bases in response, Trump halted the campaign over the weekend. Iran said it would pause its own attacks for as long as the U.S. pause in bombing endures. Trump's decision to suspend the campaign reflected advice from his top brass that ‌the bombing,...

Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino is stepping down after the failure of her “woke” rebrand last year, which was rolled back following intense backlash from loyal customers, the company announced Monday. Masino will remain at Cracker Barrel in an advisory capacity until October 9 to ensure a smooth transition, the company said. Shares in Cracker Barrel plunged 5.3% Monday morning. Her departure comes after less than three years at the helm, during which diners revolted against the company’s attempts to modernize the Southern dining chain last August by axing its beloved mascot Uncle Herschel and revamping restaurants without its...

Former CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, who also worked with Fox News, reviewed a batch of documents declassified by the Trump administration concerning Chinese election interference. President Trump spoke extensively about the vulnerabilities of our election system in a primetime address on July 16. The president outlined how Beijing has compromised the voter data of around 220 million Americans, paid U.S. reporters to spread anti-Trump propaganda, and cited numerous intelligence officials who kept the extent of the Chinese election meddling operation from him. Herridge appeared on NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich Tonight on July 25 to provide an update on this...

Everybody who wants to gobble popcorn while watching exciting POTUS primary races in 2028 is going to be disappointed, at least in terms of the final outcome. We know how this story ends, but what leads up to it may be hilarious, particularly on the Democrat side. Every weirdo, loser, and mutation in their party intends to try to get the nod, knowing that the fix is already in; it’s just going to be a chance for folks like Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Pete Buttigieg to try to raise their profiles or maybe get picked to be VP....

... The League of Women Voters claimed that keeping men who claim to be women out of women’s sports was “an egregious example of sex discrimination.” Deborah Turner, the League’s black former president, argued that keeping men out was racist and “will disproportionately target women and girls of color” even though Mr. Hecox was a white man and the most notorious men competing against women, like Lia Thomas, have been white men. This senseless argument paralleled the descent of the League of Women Voters from its 1890s suffrage roots into a bland and interchangeable Democratic operation and then, by way...

In the coming months, for the first time in the 191-year history of the Chicago Police Department, white officers will no longer be the largest racial group in the department’s rank-and-file. Data from the city’s Office of Inspector General shows that likely before the end of 2026, Latino officers will overtake white officers as the plurality in the department. For many, the literal changing face of the department will take it further from the ingrained imagery of its past, when the sons of immigrants from Ireland and other points in Europe may have been the first to come to mind....

The courier said that he was given the vials by Yusen Zhou, who worked for China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and that the vials were intended for Fang Li, a researcher at the University of Minnesota. ... The courier said that he was given the vials by Yusen Zhou, who worked for China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and that the vials were intended for Fang Li, a researcher at the University of Minnesota who has co-written papers with Zhou. Laboratory testing from DHS and the FBI confirmed that porcine epidemic diarrhea virus spike protein was in the vials,...

Dr. Courtney Shah, a 7-time champion of “Jeopardy!”, has died at age 52 after a battle with brain cancer. Shah, who was a professor at Lower Columbia College for nearly 20 years, passed away peacefully at her home on Wednesday morning, her heartbroken daughter revealed in an update on a CaringBridge page. “I don’t know what you believe about death, but I like to think that she’s at peace now. We loved her in this world, and we loved her out of this world, and we’ll go on loving her,” Maya Shah wrote.