Free Republic

Federal grant recipients broke the law while spending an estimated $246 million in taxpayer dollars for cannabis and e-cigarette animal experiments, a new report by a group opposing publicly-funded animal testing finds. White Coat Waste Project’s report, published Wednesday, highlights 10 instances of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funneling money to researchers experimenting with getting animals high on THC or making them consume nicotine. “The blunt truth is that tens of millions of tax dollars are going up in smoke for half-baked marijuana and vaping experiments on animals and NIH-funded white coats are breaking federal law by not disclosing...

Data-driven weather forecasts help leaders know when to deploy resources to respond to hurricanes and individuals decide whether they need to bring an umbrella with them when they go out. Similarly, the CDC's new disease forecasting center aims to guide decisions about broad public health needs like developing vaccines or deploying antivirals, and helping individuals decide whether it's safe for them to go to the movie theater George and a small team of colleagues are faced with tackling a "critical need" to improve the government's "ability to forecast and model emerging health threats." "In short, we need to use data...

“When porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) showed up, I was boots on the ground. When porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) rolled in, I was boots on the ground,” [Scott] Dee says. He’s served the pork industry as a swine practitioner for 12 years, a university professor for 12 years, and a researcher for 11 years – allowing him to see the industry from so many different perspectives. Maybe it was that unique vantage point, combined with his different way of looking at the problems at hand that helped him achieve legendary success over the years and is behind his...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A compromise $10 billion measure buttressing the government’s COVID-19 defenses stalled in the Senate Wednesday and seemed all but certainly sidetracked for weeks, victim of a campaign-season fight over the incendiary issue of immigration. Republicans were demanding that Democrats allow a vote on an amendment preserving immigration curbs imposed by President Donald Trump that the Biden administration is slated to end on May 23. A vote on extending the immigration restrictions would expose Democratic senators, especially those facing tight reelections in November, to dangerous fissures. Liberal immigration advocates want Biden to erase the curbs, but doing that...

Basically nobody would support funding these things if they were put to a vote on their own. In a sad commentary on the state of America’s priorities, the $1.5+ trillion spending legislation passed by Congress last week barely made headlines. Little attention was paid to the 2,700-page spending bill or the fact that it was released at 2:30 a.m. on the day of the vote, meaning most members of Congress voted on it blindly without even having skimmed the legislation. In a less dysfunctional country, this would be an outrage. Yet there’s even more scandal lurking beneath the surface-level incompetence...

Growing up, the answer to can pork be pink? was an absolute no. The only pork we ate was gray, tough and chewy. That's not a knock to my mother's cooking; she followed the guidelines established at that time, cooking pork to the safe temperature of 160°F. Sadly, that "safe" pork was also overcooked. Luckily for pork lovers, the United States Department of Agriculture—the organization responsible for determining minimum safe food temperatures—revised their recommendations for food-safe temperatures in 2011. Now, pork is safe to eat when it reaches 145°F. The lower temperature means your pork will be juicy, tender and...

Today I'm going to introduce you to the kimchi pork ribs (deungalbi-kimchijjim: 등갈비김치찜) that I make in the winter when my well fermented winter kimchi is abundant in the fridge!

Bacon lovers might be in for a sizzling surprise as pork supplies in cold storage tumble to an 11-year low as prices rise due to declining hog herds. The latest United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) pork data in cold storage as of Dec. 1 was approximately 399 million pounds, a drop of 4.1% from a year ago and now at the lowest point since 2010."The drop came before the spreading omicron virus variant prompted slaughterhouses to slow down in recent weeks as more workers called in sick, further limiting meat production and likely keeping prices for the meat high,"...

CAPE CORAL, Fla. – Cape Coral police officers arrested a man at a Waffle House on Wednesday after they received calls about a disturbance. When officers arrived, they said they heard a man identified as 28-year-old Martin Jose Alvarez yelling expletives at the staff about how his bacon was cooked. Officers said Alvarez screamed, “You better cook the f****** bacon right!” Officers asked Alvarez to come outside, but said he resisted until they threatened to use a taser. Alvarez was later arrested and charged with disorderly intoxication, resisting arrest and intent to do violence. He is being held at the...

You know that when a recipe has 'smothered' in the name, it's going to be easy. It's a beautiful combination of dark, rich onion gravy covering pan-fried pork chops. Serve over hot cooked rice. Ingredients Original recipe yields 4 servings 4 large bone-in pork chops, about 1 inch thick 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 tablespoon butter 1 large yellow onion, sliced 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 ½ cups chicken broth ¼ cup buttermilk ¼ cup water • DirectionsInstructions Checklist Step 1 Sprinkle pork...

Consider U.S. farmers happy. They are exporting record volumes of products to China. Shipments of soybeans, corn and pork are bringing smiles back to the American heartland. Or, to put this another way, Beijing is effectively acknowledging it cannot feed the Chinese people. China's leader, Xi Jinping, recently made such an admission. Last August, he announced what became known as the "clean your plate" campaign to end what he called a "shocking and distressing" waste of food. Just about everyone saw this effort, to get the Chinese people to eat less, as a warning of food shortages to come. Chinese...

For Immediate ReleaseTuesday, October 5, 2021Office of Press Relationspress@usaid.govToday, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching an ambitious new project that will work with partner countries and the global community to build better preparedness for future global health threats. Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens - Viral Zoonoses (DEEP VZN), a five-year, approximately $125 million project (pending availability of funds), will strengthen global capacity to detect and understand the risks of viral spillover from wildlife to humans that could cause another pandemic.The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how infectious diseases threaten all of society, up-ending people’s lives and...

The Washington Free Beacon reported: A solar energy company owned by a Biden megadonor received a $500 million government loan to build a manufacturing facility in India, the Biden administration announced this week, raising questions about whether the company’s political clout played any role in the financing decision. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation granted the loan to First Solar, which is owned by billionaire Walmart heir Lukas Walton, to build a solar module plant in India. Walton contributed over $300,000 to President Joe Biden’s campaign last year, and over $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee, according to campaign finance...

The Labor Department reported Friday the U.S. consumer price index rose 0.8% in November, compared to October. The increase marks a 6.8% increase over the previous year, the department also reported, marking the highest annual inflation rate since June 1982. Wall Street expected the month-to-month index to reflect a 0.7% gain for November, according to CNBC. Under the Biden administration, the CPI increased 0.9% in October, compared to the previous month. The index report from the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics gauges inflation by measuring the cost of dozens of items from such everyday goods as gasoline and food to...

Musk's finally ready to admit that government subsidies distort markets and that government actors are terrible at capital allocation."Say tomorrow, you get a phone call from Joe Biden," asked Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern to Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a Monday night forum. "And he asks: What are your needs from this [$2 trillion spending] bill? How do you answer him?" "We don't think about it at all, really," Musk said, channeling Don Draper to the tune of the audience's uneasy laughter. "It might be better if the bill doesn't pass," Musk added. "The federal budget deficit...

The Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, natural disasters and wonky global weather patterns combined to wreak havoc on global supply chains. Food prices have since been soaring: up 40 percent in the 15 months ending in June 2021. Needless to say, this problem will hurt those at the bottom of the economic food chain the most. People living on five dollars or less a day simply cannot afford to pay 40 percent more for food alone. If this continues to escalate, it is inevitable that there will be food riots and widespread civil unrest around the globe. Even China is telling...

After Friday night's 11th-hour vote in the House resulted in the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill - thanks to 13 uniparty Republicans who joined the Congressional Black Caucus in short-sheeting House Progressives - the Wall Street Journal and Forbes have published refreshers of what what America is supposedly getting out of the largest investment in infrastructure in more than a decade.From 10,000 feet, investments span refurbishing aging roads, bridges and ports, replacing lead pipes, upgrading and hardening the nation's power grid, and of course - a healthy investment in 'infrastructure' to battle the ever-looming man-made climate change disaster...

As the Biden White House and Congress’ radical progressives continue their efforts to reach an agreement with Capitol Hill moderates and conservatives on their proposed $1.75 trillion social spending bill, it’s becoming more apparent than ever that their pie-in-the-sky agenda is anything but fiscally responsible. And that’s putting it very gently, believe you me. On Thursday, the White House released its final version of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending plan, which includes billions in funding for universal preschool, child care, public housing and climate initiatives and pins it all on the wealthy to — say it with me...

Impossible Foods, the plant-based meat company, is releasing a long-awaited new product — but unlike the wildly popular Impossible Burger, it won’t be certified kosher. The largest and most influential certifier of kosher products in the world has declined to endorse Impossible Pork, even though nothing about its ingredients or preparation conflicts with Jewish dietary laws. “The Impossible Pork, we didn’t give an ‘OU’ to it, not because it wasn’t kosher per se,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, the CEO of the Orthodox Union’s kosher division. “It may indeed be completely in terms of its ingredients: If it’s completely plant-derived, it’s...

The first outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in the Western Hemisphere in four decades began on July 28 in the Dominican Republic and was confirmed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The presence of ASF has led to massive hog culling on the Caribbean island that borders Haiti. Bloomberg notes the island may have to slaughter more than half a million pigs to prevent the deadly swine fever virus from spreading. Pork supplies are dwindling, and Dominican importers are panic buying from U.S. slaughterhouses. The latest USDA data shows U.S. exporters shipped a whopping 3,500 metric tons...