Free Republic

“State intervention is always bad, because it’s based on coercion, on force, and nothing based on coercion can be good.”~ Javier Milei, speaking at The Hoover Institution in May, 2024Today we take a break from our road-tripping adventure to offer a quick update from the other End of the World...Long time readers will recall our fascination over what we’ve been calling, with immodest grandiloquence, The Greatest Political Experiment of Our Age. The story so far is that, down at the southern end of the Americas, in our chosen country of self-exile, Argentina, the locals have sensibly chosen to “throw the...

Javier Milei’s triumph in the first round of the Argentine elections last year—the first of three that make up our tortuous process of electing a president—provoked not just shock, but confusion. Immediately, WhatsApp threads were bursting with different versions of the same question: Was he “far right”? Or was he something more bizarre—the first libertarian candidate in the world with a chance to win? The question was—and is—far from foolish. Milei presented himself as a central part of a new right-wing international, expressing solidarity with world leaders like Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. Everyone was happy then: The global...

The discovery of butchered bones belonging to a glyptodont, a giant relative of the armadillo, suggests that humans were living in Argentina 20,000 years ago. Ancient humans may have butchered and eaten a giant armadillo-like creature around 20,000 years ago in what is now Argentina, a new study finds. The discovery of the butchered bones supports a growing body of evidence that people spread throughout the Americas much earlier than previously assumed. During the Late Pleistocene epoch (129,000 to 11,700 years ago), ice sheets and glaciers covered much of the planet, particularly during the Last Glacial Maximum, a period around...

ROME — Pope Francis warned Sunday democracy is in “crisis” around the world, likely with an eye to a rise in right-wing parties across Italy, Austria, Argentina, Netherlands, and Germany. It is evident that in today’s world, democracy “is not in good health,” the pontiff told a group of 900 participants in the 50th annual Social Week, celebrated in the northern Italian city of Trieste. The pope went on to compare the modern “crisis of democracy” to a wounded heart that has suffered a heart attack, manifested by “various forms of social exclusion” that “limit participation.”

Argentina’s Senate narrowly passed President Javier Milei’s sweeping economic reform bill, delivering a tentative legislative victory to the right-wing leader even as protesters clashed with riot police. Lawmakers in Argentina’s upper house on Wednesday voted 37 to 36 to approve the bill after a marathon debate, with Vice President and head of the Senate Victoria Villarruel casting the deciding vote in favor of Milei’s economic measures. The bill, which was initially backed by the lower house in April, will now be studied point by point before it is expected to be fully approved on Thursday. The reform bill is a...

Hundreds of security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at rioting demonstrators outside the National Congress building in Buenos Aires on Wednesday as protesters called on senators to reject President Javier Milei’s sweeping reform plan. Demonstrators who were protesting against the proposed reforms, which are being debated by lawmakers in the lower house, were dealt with aggressively by riot police and Border Guard officers. As the protest turned ugly, two cars were set alight by what appeared to be protesters. Police later said that at least 18 people, 16 men and two women, had been arrested amid the disturbances....

Democrat US Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania at fault in that accident... In Buenos Aires clashes between demonstrators and police with at least 33 arrests... Politics in Washington US Attorney General Merrick Garland held in contempt by a vote of the Republican-controlled US House... At least 80 dead following a boat accident in Congo... The United States Treasury expanding economic warfare against Russia targeting trading on the Moscow Exchange... In the Red Sea off Yemen a merchant vessel attacked and sinking... US politics in the latest mix of polls and Economist/YouGov national poll giving Donald Trump 42 percent... The US...

Just six months into his term, we're running out of accolades for Argentinian President Javier ' El Loco' Milei, but as long as he keeps governing the way he campaigned -- a.k.a, by taking a chainsaw to wasteful and pointless government agencies -- we'll keep a Thesaurus handy to congratulate him even more. In March, Milei announced plans to fire 70,000 government workers. By April, he had already fired more than 24,000, and all recent signs indicate that he has every intention of following through on his promise. The latest agency to feel the chainsaw's cut? Argentina's Ministry of Women,...

[Catholic Caucus] "Ecclesiastical Oddities": Héctor Agüer, Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata, tries to understand what is going on in the Argentine episcopate under Francis[La Plata, Argentina: Immaculate Conception Cathedral in central Moreno Square]The corresponding adjective is "odd" ("rare"), which has several meanings in the dictionary; I choose one: odd is that which has little density and consistency. Although it also refers to extraordinary and extravagant things. I mean: it is an oddity that the Pope is Argentinian, what is also odd is the fact that in over a decade he has not had the concern to visit his homeland. John...

Argentine authorities are working with El Salvador, a pioneering nation in bitcoin adoption, aiming to boost cryptocurrency adoption in Argentina. High-ranking officials from Argentina's National Securities Commission (CNV), the country's securities regulator, met with El Salvador's National Commission of Digital Assets on May 23 to discuss the use of cryptocurrencies, according to an official announcement by the CNV. The talks focused on El Salvador's experience in adopting bitcoin and its regulatory framework. "El Salvador has emerged as one of the leading countries, not only in the use of bitcoin, but it has also stood out in the world of crypto...

The creature's shape is striking, as it has not been connected with any known animal. Residents of Totoras in the province of Santa Fe report that a creature is wandering the streets and has even slain two dogs. The photograph, taken and night and somewhat blurry, has already made the rounds of social media to warn against the possible danger. An audio broadcast expains that the beast squared ofrf against a Pitbull and a German Shepherd who lost the encounter and died. The creature subsequently vanished. ... Dentro Irime Cydar noticed that the image matches that of a character appearing...

... A man in his 60s is alleged to have thrown burning rags into the women’s shared bedroom of a boarding house in Buenos Aires early on 6 May. Neighbors say they were woken by the women’s screams as an inferno ripped through the building. The suspect, Justo Fernando Barrientos, is alleged to have fought with the women in an attempt to stop them escaping the flames, before fleeing to the roof where he attempted suicide, and was later arrested. Pamela Fabiana Cobas, 52, died almost immediately. Her partner, Mercedes Roxana Figueroa, also 52, suffered burns on more than 90%...

President Javier Milei of Argentina continues to stun his critics with an economy that has outperformed expectations and continues along an ambitious path for national security, including pursuit of a NATO global partnership. "The fact that you have a president, head of state, who is defending the free market, who is defending the role of entrepreneurs and businessmen as creators of value and just defending deregulation when the tendency in Latin America and much of the West has been to regulate the economy . . . I think that's very positive, not only for Argentina, but for the region as...

– Contents of this video ---------------------------- 0:00 A Century of Underachievement 4:11 The Land of Silver 9:29 The Power Vacuum 11:16 The Pampas 14:42 As rich as an Argentine 19:30 The Decline of Liberalism 23:46 The Infamous Decade 27:20 The Rise of Populism 29:49 Isolation & Favoritism 36:31 Dynamic Stagnation 42:25 Fear, Secrecy and Sweet money 49:40 Democracy & Depression 57:33 A Nation Trapped by History

Nicaragua’s Communist dictator, Daniel Ortega, has authorized the installation of Russian military bases on his territory. The decree is reported to have been signed on Monday, August 21, according to the Russian state news site “Avia.Pro”. Avia.Pro reports: The President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, signed a decree according to which the deployment of Russian military bases and deployment of cruise missiles will be allowed in the country. This decision could become an important factor in the geopolitical balance of the region, especially given its close proximity to the United States. The Russian news site also highlights the distance between Nicaragua...

In Peru tonight the prosecutors office opening a preliminary investigation against President Dina Boluarte...follows the arrest of the president's brother... Dozens of people hurt in a train collision in Buenos Aires... Eight wounded in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Belgorod... The Pentagon this week formally ordering one thousand US combat troops out of the African nation of Niger... North Korean ruler Kim Jong-Un guiding live fire testing of a modernized multiple rocket launcher system (MLRS)... Police blocking an attempt by protesters to storm a Tesla factory outside Berlin... South Africa making an urgent request to the International...

Argentina has historically been a country of failed governments, economic collapses, and debt defaults. Yet incredibly there are signs that – against all the odds – the bold, free market reforms of its libertarian President Javier Milei are beginning to work. With inflation falling, interest rates coming down, and the peso on fire in one market, Milei is already proving the global Left-wing economic establishment – addicted to bigger government and endless deficits – wrong. Indeed, it may provide a template for other countries to escape from zero growth. First, what’s changed in the country: inflation has fallen to 11pc...

President Javier Milei has flawless timing. Argentina’s shale boom has reached industrial take-off just as he embarks on his extreme libertarian experiment: a Hayekian free market assault on the delinquent Peronist state and all its works. The long-suffering nation is swinging very fast from a costly dependence on energy imports, and a chronic leakage of hard currency, to the happier condition of net hydrocarbon exports. The prolific shale basin of Vaca Muerta is finally delivering. After years of talk and many dropped balls, this arid expanse of northern Patagonia is suddenly starting to look like the next Texas, promising to...

President Javier Milei entered office like Jack Nicholson breaking his way into the bathroom in "The Shining" — with an axe. Armed with emergency powers granted by the Argentine Congress, he balanced the country's out-of-control budget in one month, fired government workers by the thousands, eliminated more than 200,000 "corrupt" social welfare programs, and even cozied up to NATO. “There’s a lot more chainsaw" to come, Milei promised in March, and I momentarily almost became gay.The usual fearmongers mongered the usual fears.A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an opinion piece — complete with a demonic-looking, high-contrast black-and-white...

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted last August that a drop in the importance of the U.S. dollar was "irreversible"—but there appears to be no sign that the global economy is turning its back on the greenback. "The U.S. Dollar was used in 48% of international payment transactions last year, the highest level in more than a decade. But Brics...," it said next to the graph, which showed the euro making 23.2 percent of transactions and the Chinese yuan way behind at 3.47 percent. "BRICS countries would like their currencies to be used in world trade, but each has a major...