Free Republic

In February 2021, politicians and activists celebrated Oregon's implementation of Measure 110, the nation's first law to decriminalize drugs like fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and meth. It's not a surprise what happened next: a dramatic increase in overdoses. Fast forward to last week: Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency in Portland due to sharp rises in overdose deaths, public drug use, and crime. Though the state of emergency is a step in the right direction, more must be done to undo the harm caused by Measure 110 and help more Oregonians live safe...

France’s President Macron had a plan to make millions of electric vehicles a year. Chancellor Scholz planned to put 15 million on Germany’s roads by 2030. President Biden trumped the lot with a $174bn (£138bn) plan to make the US the world leader. Even Boris Johnson Get info without leaving the page. – remember him – had a £1bn plan to beef up our charging network. Rewind only a couple of years, and almost every president or prime minister was making electric vehicles the cornerstone of an industrial strategy. And yet, this week we have learned that Renault is abandoning...

Grade inflation is rampant and has been so for many years. Back in 2011, an in-depth study by three Ivy League economists looked at how the quality of individual teachers affects their students over the long term. The paper, by Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia, tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years, and, using a value added approach, found that teachers who help students raise their standardized test scores have a lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates, greater college matriculation, and higher adult earnings....

The far-left Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are losing tens of millions of dollars annually. Tee hee. After decades of spreading bias, lies, conspiracy theories, and political violence, the chickens have finally come to roost at these dreadful publications. “A new report saying billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has sunk hundreds of millions of his own money into an unprofitable Los Angeles Times underscores how desperate the news industry is to chart a plan for survival in the digital era,” reports the equally dreadful Axios.

Russia continues to import large volumes of Western technology critical to its war against Ukraine, even as sanctions show some signs of taking hold, new analysis shows. Western-origin technologies accounted for almost half of all Russian imports of critical components and “high-priority” battlefield goods in the first three-quarters of 2023, according to KSE Institute. Included among the producers were various U.S. tech majors, with some of their trade values increasing versus 2022 levels.

Can't really make out the heckler's gripe, something about a sex offender in a FL school? @livenowfox

VIDEORonna ROMNEY McDaniel has FAILED once again. This makes the fourth time in a row that the useless grifter RNC Chairwoman has FAILED in the elections. What else does she have to do to be REMOVED from her beloved lucrative office? I'm not a big fan of Vivek Ramaswamy but if there is one candidate who might DEMAND that McDaniel be FIRED in the middle of the Miami GOP debate, it would be him. Please do us that favor, Vivek!

and a half months during which no one was allowed to leave this industrial city of 11 million people, or even leave their homes. Until the Chinese government deployed this tactic, a strict batten-down-the-hatches approach had never been used before to combat a pandemic. Yes, for centuries infected people had been quarantined in their homes, where they would either recover or die. But that was very different from locking down an entire city; the World Health Organization called it “unprecedented in public health history.”

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.)

Rep. Jim Jordan won’t pursue another speaker vote for now as House looks to empower temporary speaker Rep. Patrick T. McHenry

Women’s lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret is reportedly pulling back from its recent woke ad campaigns featuring obese models, transgenders, and anti-American gay soccer star Megan Rapinoe after sales plummeted. In 2021, the sexy underwear company moved away from what it called a “hyper-sexualized” image and dove face-first into a woke remake of its brand. But apparently, the results of this rebranding was a steep loss of revenue, Fox News reported. The rebranding kicked off in July of 2021 when the company named Rapinoe and transgender model Valentina Sampaio its brand ambassadors. At the time, hard-core, left-wing activist Rapinoe had blasted...

Picture a large family living in one house. They may have been a cozy tight-knit family once, but years of resentments have turned them against each other. The mother and father are both having affairs. The in-laws have long resentments built up that evolved into seething hatred. The kids are dysfunctional, anti-social and escaping into their own delusional fantasy worlds or getting high on drugs. And then one evening, someone opens fire on the house. Shards of broken glass and shrapnel fill the living room. Many of the family members are injured. Some are killed. In the throes of the...

Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) announcement this week that he would not seek re-election won’t change the 2024 Senate math for Republicans — who are as bullish as ever about a red run. In contrast to their beating in the 2022 midterm elections — the GOP is insisting that 2024 will be a better year. In November, the GOP lost a seat in Pennsylvania and failed to pick up any new ones, leaving it two votes shy of taking the majority.Party leaders say the 2024 map — when 33 seats are up for grabs — offers uniquely rosy prospects. “We are...

SALEM, Ore. — A new report released by the Oregon Health Authority shows health care costs are on the rise, and Oregonians are struggling to keep up. The OHA’s report, released Thursday, shows that on average, Oregonians are spending about 22% of their budget on health care costs. The new report also looked at household spending on health care in 2021 and found Oregonians are paying on average $8,000 a year on their health. That’s a 5% increase since 2019 and about a 40% increase since 2013. The report, for example, found that 17% of Middle Eastern or North African...

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - As the wildfire in Lahaina spread, the Pacific’s top disaster management leaders were together with many of Hawaii’s emergency officials at a meeting on Oahu educating them about how to respond in crisis situations, FEMA confirms to HNN. The revelation is the latest twist in the ongoing effort to determine how Maui emergency management officials responded to the wildfires, as thousands were in the crosshairs of an inferno that claimed the town of Lahaina and more than 100 lives. HNN Investigates has learned that on Aug. 8, the day of the wildfire, several of the nation’s top...

Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and smashed into moon. Russia's state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft shortly after a problem occurred as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit on Saturday. 'The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon,' Roskosmos said in a statement. Moscow had earlier reported an 'abnormal situation' with the craft. 'During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which...

Disney, our favorite left-wing corporate punching bag, is having a(nother) bad month. The company just reported fiscal fourth-quarter losses of a cool $710 million. Don’t worry, I’m sure its new woke live-action version of “Snow White” will fix things. Let’s see what the new Snow White, the outspoken Hispanic feminista Rachel Zegler has to say about the new movie that will save Disney from disaster. “It’s no longer 1937,” Zegler said. “She’s not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can...

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running ads to promote the impending one-on-one debate against rival Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom amid their ongoing coast-to-coast feud. "Ron DeSantis is debating Gavin Newsom to highlight the choice facing American voters next year," the talking points added later. The campaign also released ads to promote the debate and encourage voters to "choose their fighter." "Who do you support?" the arcade game-themed advertisement reads.

A Ron DeSantis administration would begin with a bureaucratic bloodbath, the Florida governor vowed – using language that had some potential supporters feeling queasy. We’re going to have all these deep state people. You know, we’re going to start slitting throats on Day One,' he said. That came after a pledge about cracking down on Mexican drug cartels. 'At the border, they’re going to be shot stone, cold dead,' he said, according to New Hampshire's NPR affiliate .

MIKE CERNOVICH: [DeSantis] is maybe the first candidate that became less popular when he ran for office. There was a lot of enthusiasm from people, myself included, with the DeSantis campaign, because we wanted a competitive primary. We wanted a primary, not a coronation. If you're me, or other people, you're probably pretty frustrated because you see a lot of denial from DeSantis supporters. You see a lot of frustration from them, a lot of rage.