Free Republic

When criticizing socialism, don’t bring up the Soviet Union or Venezuela to Bernie Sanders. Sanders, I-Vt., dismissed the connection between the failed socialist states and his own vision for America, during an interview on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” Tuesday. “Obviously, Soviet Union was an authoritarian society with no democratic rights, and I think if you know history, you know the democratic socialists fought and stood up against that,” the 2020 Democratic hopeful said. “You can look at what existed in the Soviet Union or Venezuela, that is not what I’m talking about at all.”

“Chernobyl,” the HBO mini-series that ends Monday in the U.S., isn’t easy to watch as someone who lived in the Soviet Union in 1986 and who has since visited the Chernobyl exclusion zone. But, like many of my compatriots, I’m watching it — and thinking it should have been made in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, not by an American entertainment channel. There are two reasons for this. One is authenticity — despite a valiant attempt at it, the series falls short. But the other, more important reason is that this kind of harsh sermon on the importance of listening to...

Despite opposition from traditionalists, Pope Francis has officially approved a change to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:13 that replaces "lead us not into temptation" with "do not let us fall into temptation." The U.S. Catholic reports that the Vatican enacted the change on May 22 following 16 years of research by experts who found a mistake in the current translation "from a theological, pastoral, and stylistic viewpoint." Pope Francis first signaled support for amending the "lead us not into temptation" part of the Lord's Prayer in 2017, arguing that it portrays God in a false light. "A father does...

My paternal grandmother Masha was a Russian serf. Her happiest moment in the old country was a spell in prison after she was arrested by the Tsar’s police for a religious crime. She had bathed one of her kids (three boys and a girl) upstream in a creek where the Tsarevich was being baptized. She loved the jail. Food twice a day, and a roof. When told that she had served out her sentence, she protested. Wasn’t there some way she could stay longer? Yet, she had to go back to her shanty, her husband, and the four offspring. But...

Seven House Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues Tuesday in voting for legislation that would grant permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship for more than 2 million undocumented immigrants. The American Dream and Promise Act grants amnesty to more than 1 million immigrants brought to the country illegally when they were under the age of 18, including roughly 700,000 migrants shielded from deportation by then-president Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive action. The bill also applies to the hundreds of thousands of migrants admitted to the country under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is intended for those...

Success would give Nigel Farage’s party its first MP just eight weeks after it was formed If the Brexit party wins the Peterborough byelection, it would return its first MP to Westminster just eight weeks after it was launched – a trajectory that took Nigel Farage’s previous party, Ukip, more than two decades. And in a further sign of the fast-shifting fault lines of British politics, while Labour hopes it can retain the seat, the Conservatives, who held it for 12 years until 2017, are widely thought to be completely out of the running. Thursday’s contest seems likely to hinge...

BRUSSELS -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has promised to hold a referendum on NATO membership -- a move strongly opposed by Moscow -- as the country embarks on a path of European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The recently elected Zelenskiy said Ukraine and its people had the right as a sovereign nation to choose the alliances they desire, regardless of outside opinions. Fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014, shortly after Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has called Ukraine a "highly valued partner." But...

This year, the birthrate in the United States has fallen yet again, to 1.7 children per woman—well below the 2.1 replacement rate. With the exception of Hungarian President Viktor Orban, most leaders in the developed world seem to shrug at this news and focus on other matters.Part of the collective indifference to this otherwise-alarming statistic is the way it’s treated. Most often, a low birthrate is framed as a long-term economic problem that might affect the labor market, pensions, productivity, and the like. Occasionally, it’s seen as an environmental issue and not really a problem since each new human...

Fix the Supreme Court by Following the Constitution The Democrats don’t want to fix the Court, they want to break America. June 5, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 60 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Mayor Peter Buttigieg took a break from running the worst city in Indiana to call for raising the number of Supreme Court justices to fifteen. The plan comes from the same Rhodes Scholar who claimed that we should move to a popular vote system "if we're going to...

This article lays out details of Washington's new Democratic Party Primary System. Previously the state has used the caucus system to select delegates, and the primary was a "beauty contest". Under those rules in 2016 Bernie won 75% of the delegates at the caucus, but Hillary won 51% of the vote in primary (but didn't get any delegates because of it). Other important background to what is happening here is the the Democrats have had pretty much total control of the state for 20 years now, and as Democrats are wont to do, have slowly changed the rules to favor...

The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures. ... Federal officials have warned Congress that they are facing “a dramatic spike” in unaccompanied minors at the southern border and have asked Congress for $2.9 billion in emergency funding to expand shelters and care. The program could run out of money in late June, and the agency is legally obligated to direct funding to essential services, Weber said. The move — revealed in an email...

Americans view made-up news and information as a bigger problem than other critical issues, including terrorism, immigration, climate change and racism, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center... ...While most Americans blame political leaders and activist groups for creating misinformation over journalists, most say "the news media" is the most responsible for fixing the problem. {Ha!!! See poster's comment} Republicans blame journalists more for the issue than Democrats, according to the survey. {See poster's comment}

June 5 (UPI) -- One of the wealthiest communities in California has become the first city in the United States to ban the sale of tobacco products, after councilors approved a new law that will take effect in 2021. The city of Beverly Hills passed the new law Tuesday. While it doesn't bar smoking inside city limits, it prohibits any business from selling tobacco products beginning Jan. 21, 2021. The new ordinance exempts existing cigar lounges and will allow hotels to sell such products to guests. Councilors said they will consider hardship exemptions for businesses that can prove the law...

Q: - When did you first discover that the "Russian" dossier was a false document? Q: - When did you find out that the dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign? Q: - When you discovered the dossier was false, who did you tell and when? Q: - Did you find any evidence of coordination between between the CIA and FBI during the FBI's investigation of the President of the United States? Q: - Did you discover any foreign intelligence coordination with the FBI or CIA? Q: - Of the many leaks that sprung from your investigation, which did...

Okay, so I may be behind on the times. Maybe the masses all knew actor Randy Quaid has been doing dramatic readings of many of President Trump’s Tweets for months. But I didn’t. I had to read a Tweet from a colleague to become aware of this awesomeness. Call him what you will. A conspiracy theorist? Yes. A mentally unstable man? Perhaps. But what few can deny is that he’s all in for making America great again. He may even give the President a run for his money in how much he hates the fake news media. Reading through his...

Former presidential adviser Dr. Sebastian Gorka blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other “RINO” members of the Senate GOP caucus for opposing POTUS Donald Trump’s decision to levy an escalating tariff regime on Mexico for failing to do more to interdict illegal aliens enroute to the United States. On Tuesday, McConnell told reporters in a classic understatement, “There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure,” when discussing the president’s plan to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports beginning June 10, then steadily raising them throughout the remainder of this year until they...

Far-right parties' hopes of forging a powerful new eurosceptic bloc in the European Parliament suffered a double blow on Wednesday when Poland's ruling nationalists and Britain's Brexit Party both said they would not join such a grouping. Italy's far-right League was one of the biggest winners in last month's EU elections and its leader, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, has sought to persuade Europe's nationalist parties to set aside their differences and form a 10-party European Alliance for People and Nations in the new assembly.Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland's conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), ruled out joining on...

An Ohio doctor accused of ordering excessive and potentially fatal doses of opioids to dozens of near-death patients is facing multiple counts of murder, prosecutors announced Wednesday. William Husel voluntarily surrendered to authorities and was charged in 25 deaths following a six-month investigation by the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office. The patient deaths exposed a stunning case of medical oversight and alleged medical malpractice, and called into question how repeated failures potentially involving 30 or more employees could have gone unchecked for so long. Husel, 43, was employed with the Mount Carmel Health System, one of the largest in central Ohio,...

Mexico is going to cave, and it's not just the tariffs. We've got the Mexicans over a barrel on energy, and if we want, we can wipe their economy out. Without American energy imports, the Mexican economy collapses. This actually doesn't make any sense. Mexico is awash in petroleum and natural gas. But the Mexicans just can't get it out of the ground. American petroleum engineers were critical to the early success of the Mexican oil industry. From 1918 to the late '20s, Mexico was second only to the United States in oil production, and it was number one in...

Russia and China took another step away from the US dollar after the two countries agreed to develop bilateral trade using the ruble and the yuan. It was just one of the major deals reached after the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, held talks in Moscow on Wednesday. “Russia and China intend to develop the practice of settlements in national currencies,” Putin told journalists at the news conference following the talks. He added that the states have signed intergovernmental agreements on expanding the use of the yuan and the ruble in bilateral financial operations. A...