Free Republic

Here’s the quick and dirty take of the U.S. Supreme Court’s two COVID-shot mandate decisions on Thursday: If one works for a private company with more than 100 employees, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) may not order them to get jabbed with a COVID shot, but if you’re a health care worker at a health facility that receives Medicare and Medicaid funding, you can. Apparently, Americans cease to have bodily integrity and religious rights if they work at hospitals that serve Medicare and Medicaid patients, but not if they work for private companies. There’s a word for that:...

US officials accused Russia on Friday of planning 'false-flag' attacks to justify invasion of Ukraine Agents trained in urban warfare and sabotage are preparing to hit Russian proxy forces as first step, they said It would mimic the Russian playbook used in 2014 when it annexed the Crimean peninsula Kiev has been on alert since Moscow moved 100,000 troops, missiles and heavy weapons close to its border Meanwhile, Ukrainian websites were hacked with the message 'be afraid and expect the worst' The Kremlin denied it was preparing to launch false-flag attacks, calling the reports 'unfounded' And Russian foreign minister Sergey...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- For the second time this week, the Ohio Supreme Court has thrown out a Republican-drawn political map as an illegal gerrymander. In a 4-3 decision on Friday, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered state lawmakers to draw a new congressional map, saying the one signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in November violates the state’s new anti-gerrymandering rules, approved by voters in 2018. Justices sided with voting-rights groups and a group led by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder who had sued, saying the map disproportionately favored Republicans while “unduly” splitting three Democratic counties -- Hamilton, Summit and Cuyahoga...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. John Katko, a respected Republican moderate whose congressional career seemed to be on the rise, announced his retirement Friday, the third of the 10 House GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach President Donald Trump last January to say they won’t seek reelection. The New Yorker, 59, was in line to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee if, as seems likely, Republicans win control of the chamber in November’s elections. Lawmakers seldom step aside with such opportunities looming. But his decision comes as Trump has remained a dominant force in the GOP, retaining the fealty...

If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children. Today’s Californians often hold up equity — the goal of a just society completely free from bias — as our greatest value. Gov. Gavin Newsom makes decisions through “an equity lens.” Institutions from dance ensembles to tech companies have publicly pledged themselves to equity...

CNN anchor John King on Friday sounded off on President Joe Biden’s presidency heading into the midterm elections. King provided a grave outlook on Biden given his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy. He said the country and his party are both “frustrated” with Biden and argued it is “very dark for him right now.”

Details show Google employees fretting its ad tech auctions were ‘untruthful’ and based in ‘insider information’.. Google misled publishers and advertisers for years about the pricing and processes of its ad auctions, creating secret programs that deflated sales for some companies while increasing prices for buyers, according to newly unredacted allegations and details in a lawsuit by state attorneys general... Google pocketed the difference between what it told publishers and advertisers that an ad cost and used the pool of money to manipulate future auctions to expand its digital monopoly, the newly unredacted complaint alleges. The documents cite internal correspondence...

Before she became vice president, Kamala Harris had a bad habit of ignoring prepared briefing materials. She does not appear to have kicked this habit, even after making it all the way to the White House. “Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared,” the Washington Post reports. One former staffer told the paper, “It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work. With...

The Ohio Supreme Court struck down the state's congressional district map, saying Republicans violated the Ohio Constitution by drawing districts that favored GOP candidates. Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor was, once again, a key vote in the 4-3 decision to reject the map, which would have given Republicans a 12-3 advantage in a state that leans Republican.

Retail sales in the U.S. declined sharply in December, indicating that the worst inflation in decades is hitting consumers harder than analysts expected. Total retail sales dropped 1.9 percent in December, typically a month of robust holiday shopping, Commerce Department data showed Friday. The figures are not adjusted for inflation, suggesting that price-adjusted purchases were even weaker. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in December. The results were far worse than analysts expected. The median estimate by analysts was for sales to be flat to down just one-tenth of a percentage point. Retail sales were better than expected in...

The December 2010 murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry exposed the bungled “Fast and Furious” investigation, in which agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking the weapons. But the agency lost most of the guns, including two that were found at the scene of Terry’s death in southern Arizona. The U.S. government has heavily pursued prosecution of the men involved in the killing. Mexico says Mexican drug gangs and former officials also participated in or failed to stop the weapons trafficking. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office...

Vice President Kamala is stepping up her media presence through pre-arranged TV interviews, with plans to win chits with elected Democrats through campaign appearances leading up to the 2022 elections following staff turnover. Like President Joe Biden, Harris has a negative approval rating – she was at 40 per cent approval and 53 per cent disapproval in the latest LA Times poll. After a series of staff departures and the arrival of Jamal Symons as her new communications director, and some moves are already taking shape.

A female United States Air Force captain who quit special forces training three times but was reinstated admitted in an April memo that her treatment appeared unfair. The female captain, who has been named in an anonymous letter posted online as Captain Morgan Mosby, had passed the physical fitness test needed to graduate from the special warfare assessment and selection course in January 2021. But when she left for Combat Control School in North Carolina - the most challenging part of a years-long training that entails air traffic control, parachute and dive training - the captain reportedly learned that the...

Joe Biden has nominated three people to the board of the Federal Reserve in what would usher in the most diverse group in the Fed's history - and the most woke. The president is intent on nominating a white woman, Sarah Bloom Raskin; a black woman, Lisa Cook; and a black man, Philip Jefferson. If they are confirmed to their posts, the seven-person Fed board would have four women, one black man and two white men - the most diverse team in the Fed's 108 years of existence.

Michael Avenatti is suing the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) alleging that he was mistreated during his time in federal custody and was given only one book in confinement - Donald Trump's 'The Art of the Deal'. Avenatti, the disgraced lawyer known for his representation of adult film star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against Trump, is seeking $94 million, or $1 million for each day he says he spent in solitary confinement or lockdown while he was in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan in 2020. He is claiming that the federal government is liable for intentional infliction...

Republicans in Congress have skewered the Democrats' agenda to take over elections nationwide – while ignoring inflation, Joe Biden's southern border crisis and more – as revealing of the party's goal: set up biased processes and win elections forever. The comments from the Republicans came even has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, tried a procedural trick to attempt to get their voting takeover plan into law, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, likely created the end of the line for the plan anyway. Just the News reported Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel publicly blasted the...

President Biden is reportedly planning executive actions on police reform for later this month, in an effort revive his agenda that bypasses the logjams of Congress. The orders come as Biden's frustrations grow deeper and his landmark Build Back Better plan and voting rights legislation remain in limbo, sinking his poll numbers to 33%, according to a recent Quinnipiac survey. Congress has not been able to pass police reform since both Republicans and Democrats put forth plans in the wake of the police brutality protests that swept the nation in the wake of George Floyd's death in the summer of...

Nancy Pelosi's son was involved in five companies probed by federal agencies – but has never been charged himself, a DailyMail.com investigation reveals. A shocking paper trail shows Paul Pelosi Jr.'s connections to a host of fraudsters, rule-breakers and convicted criminals. His years-long repeated business dealings raise two troubling questions Nancy's son has been unable to answer: why did he get mixed up with such unsavory characters over and over, and how involved was he with the criminal investigations into his fraudster colleagues?

Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh both acquiesced in the Biden Department of Health and Human Services’ power grab. It’s long been axiomatic in the legal profession that tough facts make bad law. Yesterday’s forked decisions from the Supreme Court in two vaccine mandate cases now add a corollary to that principle: Quick cases make milquetoast opinions. The Supreme Court heard the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Medicare/Medicaid mandate cases in tandem on an expedited basis last Friday. Although court observers expected lightning-fast decisions, the opinions in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor and Biden v. Missouri didn’t...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday reversed the state parole board's decision to grant parole to Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of killing Robert F. Kennedy more than 50 years ago, saying he remains a threat to society. Sirhan was convicted and originally sentenced to death but was commuted to life in prison for fatally shooting Sen. Robert Kennedy, the former attorney general under his brother, President John F. Kennedy, on June 5, 1968, at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel. Five bystanders were also shot, all of whom survived. The presidential hopeful was slain in front of his family, friends...