Free Republic

he health commissioner has asked the state’s Attorney General and lobbyist watchdog to launch a ‘formal inquiry.’ Prompted by a New York Focus article last week, Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration is seeking investigations into the mysterious funding behind a $10 million campaign targeting the governor’s plan to remake New York’s home care industry. As first reported by Gothamist, State Health Commissioner James McDonald sent a letter on Friday to Attorney General Letitia James and Sanford Berland, executive director of the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, urging a formal inquiry into “what appears to be a concerted effort...

During the COVID pandemic, nearly half of all Democrat voters told pollsters for Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute that they backed measures that would require "the unvaccinated" to live, at least temporarily, in detention facilities. The national telephone and online poll surveying 1,016 likely voters found that 45% of Democratic voters favored such measures for unvaccinated Americans. A shocking 59% of Democrat respondents – 3 out of 5 – favored a government policy requiring citizens to "remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies" if they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine – which later turned...

March marks the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, a collective trauma that New Englanders faced together. For an upcoming story to mark the anniversary, the Globe is asking readers to share their memories of moments from the pandemic. Examples: Memories of being sent home from school or work, losing a loved one, new routines you created in isolation, including on Zoom; getting your first vaccine, going back to school or work; seeing someone without a mask for the first time. Please share photos, videos, social media posts and written recollections of no longer than 100 words.

As the COVID pandemic swept across the United States and in the years that followed, scientists, informed commentators, and journalists who questioned the origin of the virus and subsequent COVID policies were summarily dismissed, censored, blacklisted, and even canceled without serious consideration. From ineffective masks to "social distancing," to corporate lockdowns and school closures, those among us who relied on unbiased facts and valid information have been vindicated, as one COVID canard after another has gone up in smoke. Now, new study results published by the Journal of Infection further undermine the lies and obfuscations told by the former head...

NATO must expand its role to prepare for new threats provoked by the impact of global warming energy shortages and the spread of nuclear technology, the alliance's top diplomat warned Tuesday.Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance must look beyond the day-to-day running of its operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo and focus on longer-term threats to its 26 members

Across the world, public finances are stretched dangerously thin. Per-person growth continues dropping while costs are climbing for pensions, education, health care and defense. These urgent priorities could easily require an additional 3%-6% of GDP. Yet green campaigners are loudly calling for governments to spend up to 25% of our GDP, choking growth in the name of climate change. If climate Armageddon were imminent, they would have a point. The truth is far more prosaic. Two major new scientific estimates of the total global cost of climate change have been published recently. These are not individual studies, which can vary...

Are we seeing the end of global leftism? Probably not. For one thing, politics is sort of a fuzzy spectrum; there will always be a left and a right, although things are a little more complicated than that. But there is a reason the Overton Window is a thing, and it can't go all the way to one side or another, and there will always be people and systems to the left and to the right of that window. But modern leftist politics, defined by socialism and its fuzzy-headed cousin "progressivism" (which may be taken to mean "progress on the...

"Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation"Joe Biden’s farewell address was one of the least notable events of the year. It’s doubtful that anyone outside the media even sat through the whole thing. Not necessarily because it was badly written. The image of the Statue of Liberty was even poetic. But the speech was delivered by a shambling wreck of man pushing blatant self-serving lies like a 50-year-low crime rate and an economic recovery that no one believes.Not one single human being believes this stuff.So Biden had to swerve into warning about “an oligarchy is taking...

When did COVID start for you? Personally, I trace the beginning to Feb. 13, 2020. My wife and I were waiting for a plane at O’Hare when a group of Japan Airlines flight attendants walked past, wearing those masks I’d read about. I snapped a photo and sent it into the city desk. Look: news. Emotionally, it really began in March. The stripped Target shelves. A few hours before Gov. JB Pritzker shut down the restaurants, I popped into Kamehachi for a last sushi fix and was surprised to find myself the lone diner at 12:30 p.m. Watching the chef...

Wildfires, fueled by strong winds, are destroying Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom is begging President Joe Biden to silence “hurricane-force winds of mis- and disinformation.” “It breaks my heart as people are suffering and struggling that we’re up against those hurricane force, forces as well,” Newsom said on Friday in a video call with Biden. “I ask you, we’ve got to deal with this misinformation.” Never mind the actual winds that swept wildfires from the perimeter of Los Angeles to destroy suburban neighborhoods. Still, Newsom expressed concern that “misinformation” could harm Californians. “It infects real people that are...

UK officials are monitoring social media posts by Elon Musk and others as a possible security risk. The monitoring is being carried out by a team in the Home Office's Homeland Security group, which is responsible for reducing national security risks and, according to a government website, "focuses on the highest harm risks to the homeland".

The incoming Trump administration scored an early but possibly illusory victory last month in its effort to reform government overreach when it successfully pressured Congress to eliminate what it termed “sweetheart provisions for government censors” from a measure to stave off a government shutdown. Funding for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center – which Republicans had attacked as a tool of domestic censorship – was stripped from the final bill, and the center announced that it was closed for good on Dec. 23. Days later, however, reporting emerged that the State Department had devised plans to shift the center’s 51...

He will be missed. By no one.. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (D – Canada) finally resigned to spend more time playing dress-up in other countries. In his goodbye remarks, the widely unpopular socialist rumored to have been spawned well south of the border in a binge of Cuban cigar smoke, claimed that he had “fought for this country.” Trudeau unhelpfully did not specify which country. He did list his pandemic crackdown as one of his greatest achievements. Aside from bankrupting many small businesses and making life miserable for countless individuals, a high point of Trudeau’s pandemic policies included silencing a...

The State Department laid to rest the alleged "censorship nerve center" of the federal government last week after Congress refused to reauthorize the interagency Global Engagement Center, known for teaching youth to distrust populism and allegedly squelching American small businesses online. While it may have a peaceful afterlife – State plans to "realign" GEC staff with other entities that handle purported "foreign information manipulation and interference activities" – GEC also faces an unquenchable fire and undying worm on multiple fronts. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Monday against State, with nine exhibits, because it...

President Joe Biden is bestowing the second highest civilian medal on Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry. Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony Thursday at the White House, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president’s longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn. “President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to...

LONDON — He’s branded one U.S. ally's government “fascists” and another leader a “fool.” Now, Elon Musk has labeled Britain a “tyrannical police state” while endorsing calls for a new election and boosting a video from a jailed far-right activist. Musk, not just the world’s richest man but a key adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, has clashed for months with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a time when the U.K. is concerned about its standing with the incoming U.S. administration. Over the weekend the tech billionaire took his feud to a new level, taunting the U.K.'s new center-left leader over...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its final 17,000-page staff report detailing the Select Subcommittee's findings about the Biden-Harris Administration's weaponized federal government.

Press Release: WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its final 17,000-page staff report detailing the Select Subcommittee's findings about the Biden-Harris Administration's weaponized federal government. Final Report on the Weaponization of the Federal Government by the Biden-Harris Administration

SNIP It also amends the Criminal Code to create a new standalone hate crime offence that would allow penalties up to life imprisonment to deter hateful conduct, as well as raise the maximum punishments for hate propaganda offences from five years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide.SNIPHarmful content is defined in the legislation as content that incites violence, that foments hatred, that incites violent extremism or terrorism, is used to bully a child, that sexually victimizes a child, that induces a child to harm themselves, or intimate content communicated without consent.The bill also creates a new Digital Safety Commission, which...

HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WEAPONIZED THE BANK SECRECY ACT TO SPY ON AMERICANS Posted Dec 13, 2024 By Martin Armstrong | SPREAD THE LOVE https://twitter.com/i/status/1865108551611396247 A Congressional investigation committee released an extremely concerning report this week entitled: “FINANCIAL SURVEILLANCE IN THE UNITED STATES: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WEAPONIZED THE BANK SECRECY ACT TO SPY ON AMERICANS” that details how the US government has been monitoring American citizens through bank transactions, with an emphasis on citizens who have expressed conservative viewpoints. “Financial data can tell a person’s story, including one’s “religion, ideology, opinions, and interests” as well as one’s “political leanings,...