Free Republic

Far-left Rep. Rashida Tlaib was officially censured last night in a 234-188 vote, with 22 Democrats joining Republicans, and four Republicans voting against the censure. Four lawmakers also voted “present.” Tlaib was censured after she used the anti-Israel slogan “from the river to the sea,” a reference to the desire for Palestine to control the entirety of Israel’s territory from the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The same leftists accusing Israel of “genocide” came up with some creative interpretations of the slogan in an attempt to sanitize its genocidal intent. Among those Republicans who voted against the censure was...

Speculation that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin could run for the 2024 Republican president nomination gets little encouragement from voters. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 19% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Youngkin should enter next year’s presidential campaign, while 55% think he should not. Another 26% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Although most voters expect to watch next month’s debate among Republican presidential candidates in Miami, more than half of GOP voters agree with a suggestion that the Republican National Committee should cancel “all future debates.” The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters are likely to watch the November 8 Republican debate, including 26% who are Very Likely to watch it. Forty-two percent (42%) they’re unlikely to watch the next GOP debate, including 21% who are Not At All Likely to watch it. Two-thirds (66%) of Republican voters are at least somewhat...

Hamas Covenant 1988 The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement 18 August 1988 "Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is just, and ye forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in Allah. And if they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors. They shall not hurt you, unless with a slight hurt; and if they fight against you, they shall turn their backs to you, and they shall...

U.S.—Women all over America have suddenly abandoned their feminist ideologies and are now advocating for traditional gender roles now that World War III has begun. They've quit jobs and, if single, have begun searching for a man to marry so they can have as many kids as possible as quickly as possible. "I don't know what we were thinking!" said Millie Walruscatcher of Los Angeles, CA. "I used to think being strong and independent was important but ever since I realized I might have to go and die in a war on foreign soil it's been a lot less appealing."...

OTTAWA—As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues his effort to impose authoritarian rule in Canada, he is beginning to face some challenges. “The Royal Canadian Mounties are just not that good at goose-stepping,” said a disappointed Trudeau. “For some reason, it doesn’t come naturally to them, which is such a shame since goosestepping is very intimidating to racist, homophobic insurgents calling for ‘freedom,’ whatever that is.” Reports have begun to surface that a new “Intro To Goose-Stepping” course has been made mandatory at the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) Training Academy in Regina, Saskatchewan. Training instructor Reginald Breslin told reporters, “It’s...

The Sixth Circuit Court has denied the federal government’s motion to transfer the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) vaccine-or-test requirement lawsuit to a different court, while also rejecting the White House’s bid to dissolve a stay on the mandate, delivering a blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to press ahead with implementation. In a Dec. 3 ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court denied the government’s motion to transfer the case to the Fifth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit, while also rejecting as “moot” the Biden administration’s attempt to overturn a hold on the mandate. OSHA on Nov. 5 published an...

A new Department of the Interior (DOI) report on oil and gas leasing in federal lands and waters advises the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to raise royalties, rental rates, and other fees on oil and gas companies but has not moved to halt new leasing entirely. During his 2020 presidential run, President Joe Biden’s campaign website claimed that his climate plan would include “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.” The DOI report (pdf), issued in response to Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order, was quietly published on Black Friday after months of delays. DOI...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called on United States’ oil companies to increase production to try to help bring down the elevated prices Americans are paying at the pump. Granholm’s comments came during a Nov. 23 White House press briefing, hours after President Joe Biden ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)—the largest ever release. “We want to encourage [oil companies] to increase supply,” said Granholm. “We want supply to be increased both inside the United States and around the world so we can reduce the pressures at the pump.” Domestic oil production continues...

Fox News commentators Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes have quit the network, upset over a documentary about Jan. 6 that was produced by Tucker Carlson. “With the release of ‘Patriot Purge,’ we felt we could no longer ‘do right as we see it’ and remain at Fox News. So we resigned,” they wrote in a joint post at The Dispatch, where both work. “Patriot Purge” is a documentary series from Carlson about what took place on Jan. 6, when protesters and rioters breached the U.S. Capitol in Washington, interrupting a joint session of Congress that was certifying electoral votes. A...

The Job Creators Network (JCN), a business advocacy group, has filed a notice with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals—which is hearing all legal challenges to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement—and sent a letter to the president saying the group expects the White House to comply with a court decision to freeze the mandate. “We expect the White House to respect and listen to the judiciary rather than barnstorming ahead and bullying businesses to comply with this rule whose legal fate is in serious jeopardy,” JCN wrote in the Nov. 19 letter to Biden (pdf). “We expect the White...

The Biden administration has asked China to consider the possibility of releasing reserves of crude oil in an effort to meet supply demands, the White House said on Thursday. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a press conference that members of Biden’s national security team have “discussed with a range of countries, including China, the need to meet the supply demands out there.” “But that is an ongoing conversation and one we’re having with a number of partners,” Psaki told reporters. Other major consumers that the administration has allegedly held such discussions with include India, Japan, and South...

Vehicles from Tesla Inc. and electric sport utilities from rival brands are among the least reliable models sold in the United States, a reflection of the risks of new technology, Consumer Reports said on Thursday. Consumer Reports, a nonprofit organization that evaluates products and services, said Tesla, the world’s most valuable automaker, ranked 27th out of 28 brands, just ahead of Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln brand. “Electric SUVs as a vehicle category is the absolute bottom in terms of reliability,” Consumer Reports director of vehicle testing Jake Fisher said Thursday during a presentation to the Detroit Automotive Press Association. Among...

A “multi-circuit lottery” is expected to be held this week that will determine the fate of the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which set a Jan. 4 deadline for an estimated 84 million private sector workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested weekly and wear a mask. At least 27 states, as well as private employers, religious organizations, and other groups, have filed lawsuits against the administration’s mandate claiming that it is exceeding its authority in issuing the mandate. As a result, there are now OSHA-related lawsuits pending in the...

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a Nov. 12 briefing that rising gasoline prices—which are up around 60 percent from a year ago—are a strong argument in favor of more government spending on green energy solutions, while dismissing suggestions that the Biden administration’s policies like halting new oil and gas drilling leases were causing pain at the pump. “The rise in gas prices over the long term makes it an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options so that we are not relying on the fluctuations and OPEC and...

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says it has no record of people who are naturally immune transmitting the virus that causes COVID-19. The federal health agency was asked during the fall by a lawyer on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network for documents “reflecting any documented case of an individual who: (1) never received a COVID-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with COVID-19 once, recovered, and then later became infected again; and (3) transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected.” SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19. Persons who recover from COVID-19...

<p>The Medicare Part B standard monthly premium will rise by nearly $22 to $170.10 next year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.</p><p>One drug in particular was a major factor. Officials said the uncertainty surrounding the potential use of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm by people covered by Medicare meant they needed to store away a higher level of reserves. The agency in July began analyzing whether Medicare would cover the drug but has not yet finished the analysis.</p>

Before Jones, Duncan, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges. Kurt D. Engelhardt, Circuit Judge: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) “reasonably determined” in June 2020 that an emergency temporary standard (ETS) was “not necessary” to “protect working people from occupational exposure to infectious disease, including COVID-19.” In re AFL-CIO, 2020 WL 3125324, at *1 (D.C. Cir. June 11, 2020). This was not the first time OSHA had done this; it has refused several times to issue ETSs despite legal action urging it do so. See, e.g., In re Int’l Chem. Workers Union, 830 F.2d 369 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (per curiam). In...

Goldman Sachs warned that soaring inflation is a more significant threat to the global economy than the COVID-19 pandemic, adding fresh pressure to the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve to take action. The investment banking giant said (pdf) on Nov. 8 that the Federal Reserve will have to start raising interest rates, coming as the Department of Labor reported this week that the year-over-year inflation for consumer prices reached 6.2 percent in October, or the highest rate of rising prices in about 30 years. Due to medical advancements slowing the spread of COVID-19, Goldman said it expects a reduction...

United States agricultural suppliers are sounding the alarm over the rising cost of fertilizers that threatens to lower crop yields and worsen strains on global food supplies. “It’s put a stranglehold on us,” said John Ortiz, sales manager at BigYield.us in Garden City, Missouri, an organization focused on creating strategies that increase the size and quality of crops grown on the farm using liquid nitrogen-based fertilizers. “You’re always going to need seed. You’re always going to need fertilizer” to grow crops on a large scale, Ortiz told The Epoch Times. “People need to eat.” Fertilizers have been in short supply...