Free Republic

Sweden's Covid-19 strategy for schools is complex, but nonchalant attitudes and a lack of systematic protection for schoolchildren can only be described as irresponsible, argues Lisa Bjurwald in this opinion piece.In the US, liberal news media are reporting with horror that several Republican-led states will penalise schools that require masks. This despite the number of infected children soaring, not least in Republican states such as Florida and Texas, and despite leading public health experts including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending universal indoor masking in schools this year. In Swedish schools, you’d...

The co-founder of fact-checking website Snopes has apologized for plagiarizing more than 50 articles and writing under a fake name. David Mikkelson, a computer science graduate who founded the site in 1994, blamed the behavior on a lack of journalistic training. 'I didn't come from a journalism background,' he said. 'I wasn't used to doing news aggregation. A number of times I crossed the line to where it was copyright infringement. I own that.' Following an investigation by BuzzFeed News, he is no longer allowed to publish articles on the page - although he retains his position as chief executive....

Biometrics in future of vaccine passports Any kind of document, especially a passport, needs to be built on a foundation that allows it to operate across borders and jurisdictions. Biometrics could be the easiest and fastest path to get started. It can add convenience and security, while identifying a person’s vaccination status easily. Modern biometric solutions have many different modalities at their disposal, from fingerprints and face to voice and iris recognition. The biometric modalities most likely to be used for vaccine passports, however, are anticipated to be face or voice recognition, as these can easily be performed on an...

All five GOP members of Iowa’s congressional delegation voted to certify President Joe Biden’s election on Jan. 6. They actually made history and Iowa unique that day. Only two states have multiple Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives with none voting to object — Iowa and Washington. Washington, of course, doesn’t have any GOP senators, whereas Grassley and Ernst are both Republicans. This means Iowa is the only state in the entire country with multiple Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to not have one single congressional representative object to the 2020 Presidential Election. Carlin is actually...

More than half a century since they were modernized, hate crime laws in the U.S. are inconsistent and provide incomplete methods for addressing bias-motivated violence, according to a new report by advocates for better protections. The report, first shared with The Associated Press ahead of its Wednesday release, is a comprehensive national review of hate crime laws that shows gaps and variances in the laws. Due to the complexity of hate violence, certain statutes meant to protect racial minorities and marginalized groups are less effective, as a consequence of bias in the criminal justice system, the report says. The existing...

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced some "big news" on Monday. He's running for re-election. "We’ve been through a lot," Pritzker wrote in a tweet, "and I’ve been so proud to see Illinoisans come together during the toughest of times." Pritzker said he's "excited to fight for the state I love" alongside Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, "and there’s no limit to what we can do going forward."

First Lady Jill Biden — who is featured on the August cover of Vogue after the fashion magazine broke a decades-long tradition by snubbing former First Lady Melania Trump during her four years in the White House — says people can “breathe again,” now that former President Donald Trump is out of office. Mrs. Biden said President Joe Biden came in and “heal[ed] this nation.” “During the campaign, I felt so much anxiety from people — they were scared,” Jill Biden told Vogue. “When I travel around the country now, I feel as though people can breathe again.”

Appearing Wednesday on NBC’s Late Night with host Seth Meyers, former President Bill Clinton argued that suspending the Senate filibuster would be an act of “preserving democracy” in the United States.

Sen. Joe Manchin on Tuesday said he will support a Democratic show-vote on an election reform bill after getting fellow Democrats including Stacey Abrams to voice support for voter ID rules that they had previously denounced as racist. The vote will fail and a final bill wasn’t even drafted ahead of a doomed 5 p.m. motion to invoke cloture, which requires 60 senators to agree to proceed. Democrats hold just 50 seats and the only major unknown was whether they would stick together in the base-rallying gesture designed to show pushback on Republican state election reforms that President Biden claims...

Tennessee is the latest state to ban teachers from teaching certain concepts of race and racism in public schools, where teachers risk losing valuable state funding if they violate the new measure. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a measure into law Monday after it attracted some of the most impassioned debates inside the GOP-controlled General Assembly this year. He signaled his support after it cleared the Legislature, arguing that students should learn “the exceptionalism of our nation,” not things that “inherently divide” people. “We need to make sure that our kids recognize that this country is moving toward a more...

After Rand Paul received a suspicious package containing white powder at his home on Monday, the Kentucky Republican senator pointed the finger at an improbable alleged instigator: the 1980s pop star Richard Marx. “As a repeated target of violence, it is reprehensible that Twitter allows C-list celebrities to encourage violence against me and my family,” Paul said in a statement. “Just this weekend Richard Marx called for violence against me and now we receive this powder-filled letter.” After Paul said on Sunday he would not get vaccinated against Covid-19, Marx tweeted that if he ever met the senator’s erstwhile neighbor,...

A Tennessee Republican falsely declared Tuesday that an 18th century policy designating a slave as three-fifths of a person was adopted for “the purpose of ending slavery,” commenting amid a debate over whether educators should be restricted while teaching about systematic racism in America. During lengthy debate on the GOP-controlled House floor, several (b)lack lawmakers expressed concerns about the bill’s impact on how certain subjects would be taught in schools, specifically highlighting the Three-Fifths Compromise. The policy was made during the nation’s Constitutional Convention in 1787 and classified that three-fifths of a state’s slave population could be counted toward its...

In a sharp rebuke to Trump-era policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday formally scrapped a blueprint championed by his predecessor to limit U.S. promotion of human rights abroad to causes favored by conservatives like religious freedom and property matters while dismissing reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Blinken said a report prepared for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that sought to pare down the number of freedoms prioritized in U.S. foreign policy was “unbalanced,” did not reflect Biden administration policies and would not guide them. The report from Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights had been harshly criticized by human...

With a 50-50 split in the United States Senate, there are two things Joe Biden cannot afford: Democrat defections and a filibuster. Senate rules require 60 votes for cloture to move on legislation, and recent years have turned the filibuster into an obstruction tactic by the minority party. Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from the very red state of West Virginia, has found himself in a very powerful position. His support or opposition to key legislation could make or break Joe Biden’s agenda in Congress. So, it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow at the fact that Joe Biden...

Biden hires Joe Manchin’s wife…

Eight slain in Atlanta, now 10 in Boulder. Your town could be next. Can the nation finally do something about weapons of war on our streets? President Joe Biden called Tuesday for Congress to move immediately to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” It’s a start, though he’ll have to reach across party lines for real this time, since some Democrats are as anti-gun-control as the bulk of today’s GOP. The New York Post does not see this as a conservative or liberal issue — it’s an issue of life and death. Curbing guns is what led to New York...

White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press. There were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters, according to Wednesday’s report. That’s nearly double the 2,724 instances reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much harder to quantify, and it’s likely those cases reached into the millions, the anti-hate organization said. The ADL, which was founded more than a century ago, said that last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda...

An independent forensic audit of the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Maricopa County, Arizona found that there was “no evidence of vote switching and concluded that the equipment tabulated and adjudicated ballots accurately” in the 2020 presidential election, according to government reports produced Tuesday.“The audits clearly dispel the notion that somehow the November election was rigged,” said County Supervisor Steve Gallardo. “Whether you liked the results or not, the will of the people was represented. Our equipment worked. Our people were above reproach. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: 2020 elections in Maricopa County were safe,...

Violent protesters descended on Portland late Saturday, an almost weekly occurrence, this time rioting over President Joe Biden's administration reopening a controversial migrant center designed to house minors who illegally entered the United States without their parents. What happened? Violent protesters, who were reportedly associated with Antifa, marched down the streets of Portland's Pearl District smashing cars and vandalizing businesses. More from KOIN-TV: Businesses in the district have been coated with graffiti decrying police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Demonstrators also broke windows at some businesses. A Chipotle on Northwest Lovejoy Street had its windows smashed out at around 9:30...

Billionaire Warren Buffett encouraged investors to maintain their faith in America’s economy and the businesses his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owns in a reassuring letter to his shareholders Saturday. Buffett hardly even addressed the coronavirus that ravaged many businesses last year, instead focusing on the long-term prospects for the railroad, utility and insurance businesses and stocks that belong to Berkshire Hathaway. But he said U.S. business will thrive over time in spite of the pandemic. “In its brief 232 years of existence, however, there has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America. Despite some severe interruptions, our country’s economic...