Free Republic

A virology team has confirmed the first bird flu infections in elephant and fur seals in the sub-Antarctic region, as the highly contagious H5N1 virus continues to spread around the world. Researchers previously reported the mass deaths of seals and that a number of elephant seals on South Georgia island – a UK overseas territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean – had been exhibiting symptoms of avian flu. But while seabird cases were confirmed, the seal infections were classed as suspected, pending lab results. The first known cases of H5N1 were detected in the Antarctic region in October among brown...

<p>A group of nearly two dozen people waving swastika flags and chanting antisemitic rhetoric marched on the Wisconsin state Capitol grounds Saturday afternoon, performing a salute originally used by Nazis at political rallies, often called the "Hitler salute."</p><p>The group was dressed in red shirts with "Blood Tribe" written on the back. The Blood Tribe is a neo-Nazi group that promotes hardline white supremacist views and "openly directs its vitriol at Jews, 'non-whites' and the LGBTQ+ community," according to the Anti-Defamation League.</p>

BREAKING:The Florida Republican Assembly just passed a resolution calling on GOVERNOR @RonDeSantis TO TERMINATE HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN & RETURN TO FLORIDA TO DO HIS JOB!“We elected our Governor to a 4-year term to take care of Florida. NOT PAY HIM TO CAMPAIGN for higher office.”Cc: @TeamDeSantis @TeamTrump pic.twitter.com/gdakyFGQ3K— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) October 28, 2023

What is an insurrection? Merriam-Webster says it’s “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.” That’s pretty good, but it requires knowing what “revolting” is (other than the major television networks’ current primetime lineups). Merriam-Webster is helpful here: a revolt is “a determined, armed uprising.” What does this mean in today’s context? For the past year, the Left has been united in a continuous drumbeat that conservative supporters of President Trump staged an "insurrection" at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Did they? Now, we should remember that President Trump was indeed holding...

Of the 16 immunizations the CDC recommends for children and teens, all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) mandate diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, rubella and chickenpox. In addition, every state except Iowa mandates immunization against mumps. (The diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines usually are given as a single combined shot, as are the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines.) Except for the chickenpox vaccine, which became available in the United States in 1995, all those vaccines have been around for 50 years or more.

Cybersecurity experts who held lucrative Pentagon and homeland security contracts and high-level security clearances are under investigation for potentially abusing their government privileges to aid a 2016 Clinton campaign plot to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia and trigger an FBI investigation of him and his campaign, according to several sources familiar with the work of Special Counsel John Durham. Durham is investigating whether they were involved in a scheme to misuse sensitive, nonpublic Internet data, which they had access to through their government contracts, to dredge up derogatory information on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign in 2016...

During an interview on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” FNC’s Chris Wallace challenged Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) for opposing President Joe Biden’s mandate for the COVID-19 vaccine but not for other diseases. Ricketts said, “We have been encouraging people to get vaccinated. We’ve been providing information encouraging people to reach out to their neighbors because vaccines work and they will help people. But it should be a personal health care choice. This is not something that the government should mandate, and somebody shouldn’t have to make the choice between keeping their job and getting a job in the...

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The photo used for this article includes an image of Ku Klux Klan hoods made from Kente cloths. These were a part of a collection by Paul Rucker, a multimedia artist, showing the legacy of slavery. More about the collection here.] What a failure. Pelosi’s smug little pandering photo-op of taking a knee wound up on the wrong side of the racism issue. It was bad enough that the Democrats taking a dramatic orchestrated kneeling-in-support-of-George-Flynn opportunity to kneel had it blow up in their face a few different ways. Pelosi looked like the Medic Alert ‘I’ve fallen and...

On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal from the Capitol Building of four portraits of former Democratic House speakers who had ties to the Confederacy. Robert Hunter of Virginia, James Orr of South Carolina, Howell Cobb and Charles Crisp of Georgia. The removal of the portraits is the latest meaningless gesture from the speaker and Democrats following the death of George Floyd. Pelosi sent a letter to House Clerk Cheryl Johnson ordering the removal of the four portraits in observance of Juneteenth, an unofficial holiday commemorating the Republican's emancipation of the last slaves in the Confederacy....

https://gunowners.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/GOA-VCDL-Response-to-Herring-AO-December-26-2019.pdf (Sorry folks, I am unable to post the .pdf document at this time. Can someone else post it? Thanks!)

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi abruptly announced in September that the House was moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry related to President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, it left many long time Washington insiders scratching their heads. After all, since she picked up the gavel a year ago, Pelosi had been persistently pushing back against the hard left squad who were squawking for impeachment even before Inauguration Day, insisting that any legitimate impeachment effort would have to be bipartisan in nature. A savvy politician, Pelosi is well aware of how the Clinton impeachment boomeranged on Republicans when they were in...

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) released an opinion warning Second Amendment Sanctuary counties and municipalities that new gun controls “will be enforced.” ... In all, over 100 local governments in Virginia have declared Second Amendment Sanctuary status. Moreover, Culpeper Count Sheriff Scott Jenkins has made clear he is ready to “deputize thousands” to fight in defense of gun rights.

Attorney General Mark Herring released a statement after resolutions were passed by localities across Virginia declaring themselves exempt from new gun safety laws that the General Assembly may enact. He said localities and local constitutional officers “cannot nullify state laws” and must follow gun violence prevention measures passed by the General Assembly.

Yes, America has a problem. And no, red flag laws will not stop the next mass shooting. Nor is “mental health” the heart of the matter. I am an American by choice. My pride in being an American today is a function in part of choosing to be a citizen of the freest and greatest nation the world has ever seen, and although I may not have been born or raised in America, I am familiar with our history and our cultural heritage. As a result I know that not too long ago, in living memory, gun culture so universally...

If Ralph Northam hoped to use his extraordinary press conference on Saturday to convince top Virginia Democrats to side with him as others call for his swift resignation, the governor failed. Stunningly. Northam's hour-long news conference about a racist photo showing one person dressed in blackface and another in the Ku Klux Klan's signature white hood and robes in his medical school yearbook page was an inflection point in the saga that now drags into its third day. The bizarre press conference at the governor's mansion featured denials that he ever dressed up in a KKK robe and hood, pledges...

A federal appeals judge in Texas is accused of saying minorities are more apt than other groups to commit crime and that complaints of racial bias in death sentencing are a "red herring." Civil rights organizations filed a complaint against 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones this week for remarks they say she made at a February speech to the Federalist Society at the University of Pennsylvania Law School about racial bias in death row sentencing.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) — the official campaign arm of House Democrats — are pushing blatant misinformation in fundraising emails to supporters. “I will NOT allow Putin to set foot in the United States. I need 100,000 signatures to BLOCK his visit and keep our elections safe. I need you to sign before midnight,” Pelosi told Democratic voters in a DCCC fundraising email sent out on Sunday.

And that’s just one of the ways bad guys are putting drones to use, law enforcement officials say. DENVER, Colorado — Last winter, on the outskirts of a large U.S. city, an FBI Hostage Rescue Team set up an elevated observation post to assess an unfolding situation. Soon they heard the buzz of small drones — and then the tiny aircraft were all around them, swooping past in a series of “high-speed low passes at the agents in the observation post to flush them,” the head of the agency’s operational technology law unit told attendees of the AUVSI Xponential conference...

When the first family leaves the White House in January at the end of Barack Obama's presidency, they are reportedly moving into a cozy 8,200-square-foot mansion close by. According to Politico, the Obamas will be leasing the property, which is situated in Washington D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood.

Two big ideas often come up in discussions about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. One is the Drake Equation, which estimates the number of civilizations in our Galaxy whose signals we might be able to detect--potentially thousands, according to plausible estimates. The other is the so-called Fermi paradox, which claims that we should see intelligent aliens here if they exist anywhere, because they would inevitably colonize the Galaxy by star travel--and since we don't see any obvious signs of aliens here, searching for their signals is pointless. The Drake Equation is perfectly genuine: it was created by astronomer...