Free Republic

The city of La Vernia is considering the replacement of its two electronic voting machines. The proposal to replace them, at a cost of $9,385, elicited lengthy discussion during the Jan. 14 La Vernia City Council meeting, held virtually. City Secretary Brittani Porter presented a proposal to replace the city’s aging Dominion machines with new ones from Election Systems & Software (ESS). “Everyone’s pretty much doing away with Dominion,” Porter told council members, referencing allegations of voter fraud surrounding last November’s presidential elections. Also, Dominion is no longer supporting maintenance for the machines the city has now, she said. When...

A majority of GOP voters support the prospect of former President Trump forming a new party, a Rasmussen Reports survey released Tuesday found. The survey, taken January 21 and 24, 2021, among 1,000 likely U.S. voters told respondents, “Former President Trump has suggested he may start a third party. Is this a good idea or a bad idea?” While a plurality of likely voters, or 45 percent, believe it is a bad idea, a majority of GOP voters, or 53 percent, consider it a good idea, as do 41 percent of those surveyed overall. The survey coincides with rumors of...

Discord has banned the r/WallStreetBets server, the company confirmed to The Verge. Reddit’s WallStreetBets subreddit is the driver of an unprecedented rally of GameStop stock, and has received a great deal of attention in the press as the stock continues to soar. Discord says it did not ban the server for financial fraud — rather, it was banned because it continued to allow “hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.” The Verge gained access to the server and can confirm the claim that users of the channel were spamming hateful language, including racial slurs. Here is Discord’s full statement: The...

Politicians saying one thing and doing another is a story as old as, well… politics. Some examples are a bit more egregious than others, however. Take for example the burgeoning raft of executive orders being signed by President Biden during his first week in office. Did you know that there was a time when Status Quo Joe didn’t really sound like a fan of circumventing the normal legislative process and ruling by the pen and the phone? Yes, yes… I know what you’re thinking. It’s really not fair to dig up some dusty old quote from a politician that was...

Total Doses Distributed: 47,230,950 Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses: 20,687,970 Number of People Receiving 2 Doses: 3,801,053 Doses Administered in Long-Term Care Facilities: 2,904,840

The Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism bulletin Wednesday warning of the potential for lingering violence from people motivated by anti-government sentiment after President Joe Biden’s election, suggesting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol may embolden extremists and set the stage for additional attacks. The department did not cite a specific threat, but pointed to “a heightened threat environment across the United States” that it believes “will persist” for weeks after Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. It is not uncommon for the federal government to warn local law enforcement through bulletins about the prospect for violence tied to...

The Biden administration was hit with an immediate lawsuit Wednesday over its decision to halt oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters. The Western Energy Alliance, a group representing fossil fuel producers active on federal lands, sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, alleging President Biden exceeded presidential authority. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Alliance, described Biden's action as a "ban," despite his administration describing the order as a temporary moratorium on leasing while the administration reviews how to better balance oil and gas with developing renewables on federal lands and waters. The administration...

WASHINGTON – The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin today after consultation with the intelligence community and law enforcement partners. There is currently a heightened threat environment across the United States that is likely to persist over the coming weeks. DHS does not have any information to indicate a specific, credible plot; however, violent riots have continued in recent days and we remain concerned that individuals frustrated with the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances and ideological causes fueled by false narratives, could continue...

As soon as Donald Trump entered office, he set to work toughening up our border security situation and making it harder for illegal aliens to enter (and remain in) the United States. Last year, after the pandemic arrived, he took the additional step of instituting a zero-tolerance policy for illegal border crossings, with the perpetrators being immediately sent back to Mexico without waiting for a hearing. Of course, now that President Joe “Open Borders” Biden is in charge, things had to change. Biden’s acting Attorney General released an announcement this week that the zero-tolerance policy is ending. Moving forward, we’re...

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, is defending former White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx amid scrutiny of her time under former President Trump. In an interview with The Atlantic published Wednesday, Fauci, who unlike Birx is staying on in the new Biden administration, was asked whether she should have spoken out more forcefully against the former administration’s COVID-19 response after she criticized it in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “It’s a tough situation. I will defend her. Unlike the situation that the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] commissioner and the CDC [Centers...

Twitter troll Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, was arrested on Wednesday and faces ten years in prison for "tweeting" and "retweeting" joke memes on Twitter telling people they can "text" in their votes.

Facebook has hired Roy Austin, former Obama administration official and a member of President Joe Biden’s transition team, as the social media company’s vice president of Civil Rights and deputy general counsel. Austin used to serve as civil rights prosecutor and supervisor in the Department of Justice (DOJ) before becoming a deputy assistant to President Barack Obama for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice and Opportunity in 2014. In 2017, he went into private practice as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis. In November, Biden named him as one of the volunteers on the...

President Joe Biden’s brother Frank promoted his relationship to the commander-in-chief in an Inauguration Day advertisement for the law firm he advises. Frank Biden is a non-attorney senior advisor for the Berman Law Group. The firm is based in Boca Raton, Fla. Its ad featuring Frank Biden was printed in the Jan. 20 edition of the Daily Business Review, which is also based in Florida. The ad focuses on a lawsuit the firm is leading against a group of Florida sugarcane companies. It features a photo of Frank Biden, along with quotes regarding his relationship with the incoming president and...

States have many factors to consider when allocating their scarce vaccine doses: the age of recipients, medical conditions that put people at risk, and jobs that put workers in contact with the public, to name a few. A committee in Oregon is considering an unusual recommendation to allocate vaccines by race. The proposal is intended to address inequities but would invite legal challenges to a vaccination program that has already been off to a rocky start. The state's COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee is a group of 27 individuals tasked with devising "a vaccine sequencing plan focused on health equity to...

Even in Washington, hardly anyone understands what the Office of Management and Budget does. Yet buried in the 2½-foot stack of President Biden’s first-day executive orders is hard evidence that someone in the new administration not only understands the OMB but knows how to use it. As a result, the business climate in this country will be made dramatically worse. Forget reregulation; this is the beginning of hyperregulation. You probably didn’t pay attention to “Modernizing Regulatory Review,” a presidential memo released Jan. 20. Regulatory law is arcane and generally boring, but its effects can be monumental. Congress defers much of...

Five of the largest U.S. banks publicly committed to mandating a diverse slate of applicants when hiring employees, part of a push to diversify an industry whose top ranks remain largely white and male. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp all said they would either adjust policies for considering job candidates or disclose the ones they already have in place. Their policies mirror the so-called Rooney Rule, which started in the National Football League as a way of making sure people of color are considered for coaching jobs. In recent years, the rule...

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduces a bill aimed at making Washington D.C. a state. Carper took to Twitter Wednesday to discuss his efforts to “give the over 700,000 D.C. residents a voice, vote and full representation in Congress.” The so-called ‘Washington D.C. Admissions Act‘ has received support from several members of the Democrat party. However, Republicans are concerned making D.C. a state will place two more Democrats in the Senate. Democrats would need at least 60 votes in the upper chamber to pass the proposal, but they may only need a simple majority if the filibuster is abolished.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is “surprised” to learn people believe the conspiracy theory that he wants to use the COVID-19 vaccine to put microchips into Americans, and called such baseless ideas about him “crazy” and “evil.” “Do people really believe that stuff?” Gates asked during an interview with Reuters Wednesday. “I’m very surprised by that. I hope it goes away.”

Climate Envoy John Kerry and National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy told reporters in the White House briefing room that oil and gas workers who are laid off as a result of President Joe Biden’s new climate policies will find “better” jobs. Biden caused widespread layoffs — and potentially tens of thousands of lost future job opportunities — when he revoked the Keystone XL pipeline permit, and suspended oil and gas leasing on federal lands, on his first day in the Oval Office. Asked by a reporter what their “message” was to workers in the fossil fuel industry, Kerry and McCarthy...

Do we get a vote on which corporations own our government? I’d take Chick-fil-A over any of the Big Tech oligarchs. They’re efficient, friendly, and nobody beats their chicken sandwiches.In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the town’s drive-through COVID vaccination system suffered a computer glitch. Quick-thinking Mayor Will Haynie called in the undisputed drive-through champions: Chick-Fil-A.“We asked local Chic Fil A (sic) manager Jerry Walkowiak for help today after a computer glitch backed up things at the drive-through vaccination site. Instead of just giving advice, this video shows what he did,” the mayor wrote.“When you need help, call the pros,” he...