Free Republic

Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that former President Donald Trump is an “agent of chaos who’s trying to restrict our freedom.” Partial transcript as follows: SHAPIRO: Joe Biden is going to be our nominee, and I’m proud to support him. He talks about being a bridge — and let me tell you something, he helped us repair that bridge on I-95 in 12 days. He was my partner in that, and he’s been a partner to many of us across the country in moving our country forward and saving our economy from ruin and helping...

Fabio Panetta, an Executive Board Member of the European Central Bank (ECB), has proposed that users of the digital euro should only be allowed to spend €50 per transaction and have a maximum monthly spending limit of just €1,000 if they want to avoid having their transaction data recorded by the ECB. The digital euro is the European Union’s (EU’s) proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC) and officials involved with the project have already confirmed that it will have less anonymity than cash.

CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen said Wednesday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that President Joe Biden should “go further” in placing restrictions on Americans who have not gotten COVID vaccines. Wen said, “I think what we will see with Omicron is a very large number of infections due to Covid-19.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, is warning against “overreacting” to a mutated strain of coronavirus spreading in parts of the United Kingdom and does not yet want restrictions on flights to and from the country. In a Monday interview with CNN, Fauci, who also serves as a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said that the United States should “without a doubt keep an eye” on the new strain, but “we don’t want to overreact.”

RALEIGH The Senate, after a long debate that invoked faith, constitutional rights and health statistics, approved a bill that would restrict abortions by stepping up requirements for clinics and doctors. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 29-12 as opponents filled the gallery above and hundreds more waited outside. The bill now goes to the House. After the vote, people in the hall began chanting, “Shame, shame, shame.” A woman in the gallery who yelled “Shame on you” was arrested. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest ordered the gallery cleared moments before the Senate adjourned.

Colorado Democrats have gone too far, and the time to stop them is now. On Monday morning the Colorado Senate will take up a package of anti-second amendment measures, four of which have already been passed in the House. It is time for conservatives to take a stand against this assault on our rights. The Democrats in Colorado control both chambers of the legislature and the Governor’s office. They assume that this gives them the right to subvert your constitutional rights. They seek to limit your capability to defend yourself by banning concealed carry on campuses and limiting the capacity...

FREMONT, Neb. – Voters in the eastern Nebraska city of Fremont on Monday approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants, the latest proposal in a series of immigration regulations taken up by communities around the country. About 57 percent of voters in Fremont supported the proposal, according to unofficial results that still must be certified by the election commissioner. The measure is likely to face a long and costly court battle, with the American Civil Liberties Union saying it will try to block it before it even goes into effect. The town of about 25,000 people...

The same sloppy legislative writing that created so many unintended consequences in ObamaCare also plagues the DISCLOSE Act, the effort in Congress to tighten spending rules in the wake of the Citizens United decision — and that’s the generous take on the situation. Reason’s Bradley Smith and Jeff Patch warn that the perhaps-unintended consequences of legislative language will allow the FEC to regulate political speech online. The fact that media entities like the New York Times have specific exemptions built into the bill makes the intent, or lack thereof, rather murky: Last week, a congressional hearing exposed an effort to...

WASHINGTON - The House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to delay a Bush administration plan to allow Mexican trucks full access to U.S. highways. The trucks would have to be declared safe first, the lawmakers said, and Mexico would have to give U.S. truckers the same access south of the border. The House voted 411-3 to approve a three-year Department of Transportation pilot program that would restrict opening the border to 100 carriers based in Mexico. They would be allowed to use a maximum of 1,000 vehicles under the pilot program. The Bush administration wanted to start a pilot program this year...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic senators introduced legislation that would bar US use of cluster bombs in or near civilian areas or that have a "dud rate" of one percent or greater. Human rights groups urged speedy action on the bill sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record) of California and Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont. Dropped from aircraft or fired by artillery, cluster munitions open above ground and disperse dozens to hundreds of tiny bomblets over a wide area. Although designed to stop armored assaults, bomblets have fallen on civilian areas and littered fields long...

New ideas are on the horizon for making Davis-Monthan Air Force Base a nicer neighbor. From higher aircraft altitudes to different flight routes to annual town hall meetings, a civic committee is considering an array of suggestions and will present the most promising of them to the public next week. The work of the Military Community Compatibility Committee represents one of most extensive efforts ever made to iron out conflicts that have arisen as urban growth surrounded the air base, one the city's largest employers. The group has spent months trying to find workable solutions that will protect D-M while...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2006 – Defense Department installations have begun implementing new cell phone restrictions for drivers on military bases. The new regulation, published in the Federal Register in April 2005, states that anyone driving a motor vehicle on a DoD installation cannot use a cell phone unless the vehicle is safely parked or the driver is using a hands-free device. Many installations already have implemented the new restrictions, and the rest will implement the rules on their own schedule, said John Seibert, assistant for safety, health and fire protection for DoD. There is no deadline for installations to implement...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seeking to combat rampant identity theft, U.S. lawmakers said on Thursday they may clamp new restrictions on companies that amass and sell social security numbers and other personal information. Executives from ChoicePoint (NYSE:CPS - news) and rival LexisNexis (ELSN.AS)(REL.L) told legislators that they had scaled back the sale of sensitive personal information following revelations in recent weeks that identity thieves gained access to more than 177,000 of the consumer profiles they sell. But lawmakers said during the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee hearing that data brokers should not be allowed to sell Social Security...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A key House Republican wants to restrict Indian gambling's most controversial trend - tribes moving off their reservations, sometimes into urban areas, to build casinos. Instead, House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would create "Indian Economic Opportunity Zones" where numerous tribes could build casinos in one area, potentially creating mini-Las Vegases around the country. The ideas are contained in draft legislation Pombo's committee circulated Thursday in advance of a hearing set for March 17. Pombo said he is trying to respond to complaints about the spread of off-reservation gambling. "I don't want to take an opportunity...

 Is the United Nations attempting self-parody?   How else to explain the announcement that a panel has been elected to decide which complaints will be heard by the U.N. Human Rights Commission at its annual meeting in Geneva this spring -- and that three of the five members are Cuba, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia? Placement on the diplomatically-named Working Group on Situations virtually guarantees that these abject human rights abusers won't be criticized, censured or sanctioned no matter what crimes they have committed, are committing or plan to commit. If any senior U.N. officials are troubled by this system, they are too discreet...

One useful fact all Americans should keep in mind is that they have no "right" to be protected by the police. American police are reactive, not proactive. They don't usually "prevent" crime. They catch lawbreakers after they have committed a crime. This was by design of the Founding Fathers. Because, as we see today with the anti-terrorism laws, in order to "prevent" crime, police would need all sorts of obnoxious powers that would trample all over our rights of life, liberty and property. Instead, Americans were intended to have the means of self defense. Put another way, the Constitution does...

Activists Challenge Democrats' Plan to Restrict Protests at Convention NewsMax.com Wires Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 BOSTON – Attorneys are challenging a preliminary security plan for this summer's Democratic National Convention that would limit protesters to a small patch of land virtually out of sight of the convention hall. The plan would restrict protests to a triangle-shaped site near FleetCenter, which attorneys fear could be obscured from view by buses and television satellite trucks, making demonstrations useless. "What's the point to just have a rally when you don't have an audience for whom the rally is organized?" said Urszula Masny-Latos, executive...

Danes restrict imams to stifle Muslim radicals By Julian Isherwood, Scandinavia Correspondent (Filed: 19/02/2004) Denmark will crack down on the immigration of Islamic preachers to try to stifle radicalism among its Muslims. A parliamentary bill does not mention the Islamic faith, but Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, has made the target of the legislation clear in announcing restrictions on "foreign missionaries". It had been "too easy" for them to get a residence permit, he said. "That is why we are now putting forward new requirements for residing in the country, like the demand that imams and others have...