Free Republic

We may be condemned to repeat the hangover from still another Socialist inebriant. Philosopher Georges Santayana would be rueful that yet another generation may well fall prey to the truth of his famous maxim. Yet, today’s inhalers of Keynesian hot air—the AOCs, the Sanders’ acolytes, and Bidenites sworn to progressivism—all think the crazy stuff of yesterday’s fools failed only because smart people like them didn’t control the levers of power. Author Amity Shlaes has recently given us Great Society, in which she reminds us that the economic distortions of yesterday’s “experts,” beginning with those on Kennedy’s New Frontier, season the...

USA Today claimed Tuesday that Georgia Senate Democrat candidate Raphael Warnock’s sermon calling for America to “repent for its worship of whiteness” is “missing context.” USA Today wrote how Warnock has come under “intense scrutiny from conservative groups who seek to paint Warnock’s religious sermons as radical.” The outlet claimed that the video of Warnock’s controversial remarks is “missing context” from the rest of his sermon. Warnock said in an address at Atlanta’s Candler School of Theology right before the 2016 presidential election, “America needs to repent for its worship of whiteness on full display.” USA Today claimed Warnock’s use...

Will 2021 be a better year than 2020? We shall see. But the question I’m leaving open for discussion is this: Which was worse? Covid or The Steal?

The figures underscore what many have described as an ongoing liquidity squeeze in Bitcoin, where large buyers suck up any available supply and remove it from circulation, sending it to cold storage for long-term hodling. As Cointelegraph reported, the phenomenon was already visible in November, but December saw a clear increase in demand from Grayscale and other institutional entities.

Twenty states are raising their minimum wage rates — some by pennies, others by a dollar or more — as part of previously-scheduled efforts to adjust for cost-of-living gains or to ratchet up toward goals like $15-an-hour minimum pay.In New Mexico, the minimum wage will increase to $10.50, up $1.50 from the current $9 wage. And in California, the rate for employers with 26 workers or more will rise from $13 to $14 an hour, the highest state-wide baseline in the country. In Minnesota, the gain is just 8 cents, to a $10.08 hourly rate for large employers.

The IDF is concerned that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization will likely attempt a major terrorist attack on northern Israel in the near future, a senior Israel security official warned Friday. Speaking with Israel Hayom in a report published Friday morning, a senior officer in the IDF’s northern command said that tensions are rising on Israel’s northern frontier, with a major escalation between Israel and Hezbollah expected. “The northern border is heading towards an escalation event, even perhaps to multiple days of combat,” the senior officer said. “I am convinced that an event is going to occur that will be...

Threat Matrix is a thread where global and domestic threats and trends to America are noted and commented on. Goal it to peel back the BS and get to the root of things.

From 2008 until 2016, there was a shortage of civilian small arms ammunition. It began in late 2008 and continued through nearly all of 2010, and then began again in 2012. Almost all popular calibers including 9mm, 7.62mm, and .45 caliber were impacted – and it impacted the once cheaply priced .22 LR as sport shooters turned to the smaller caliber weapons. It doesn’t take a serious study to note that the ammo shortage began with the election of President Barack Obama, who was often noted to be “the greatest gun salesmen” in the history of the United States. Fears...

Louisiana Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, who died of COVID-19 complications, was operated on for a blood clot before he succumbed to a heart attack, according to a new report. The 41-year-old Republican underwent two procedures to treat a blood clot that he developed while he battled the coronavirus...The second operation appeared to be successful on Tuesday but he died later that day from a heart attack at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport...

If you could wish for anything in 2021, what would be at the top of your list? I don’t mean millennial-type wishes, such as, “I wish for peace on earth and no more conflicts.” Or, “I wish that no one will get sick in 2021.” Those are wonderful wishes, yet they must await the Second Coming. But if you could wish for anything within the realm of earthly possibility, however farfetched, what would you wish for? Here’s my top 5 list. 1. May we have a definitive, indisputable outcome to the presidential election.As things stand today, we are not just...

Has anybody here been watching the series Yellowstone on the Peacock channel?

The son of Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin has died, the congressman’s office announced Thursday.Thomas Bloom Raskin, 25, was a graduate of Amherst College and a second-year student at Harvard Law School. The news release does not list a cause of death. “Tommy was pure magic. His brilliance and compassion knew no bounds. He passionately loved his family, friends, and animals, and was devoted to the cause of the global poor,” Raskin and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, said in a statement. “We are devastated and demolished to be without him.”In addition to his parents, he is survived by his sisters,...

Life in the Year 1999. Fascinating video made in 1967. Lots of predictions that came true too! As predicted in the year 1967. Basically a glorified commercial for Philco-Ford, it does reflect the optimism of that time that technology would make life better. Such predictions at that time normally thought technology would change rapidly while our social relationships would remain static. Attempting to peer into the future is always a fools effort, since we are all children of our time, even those of us who are highly critical of our time. The past is a different country and the future...

As it happens so often, the Left accuses the Right of committing crimes that the Left themselves have actually committed. In practice, it's a dead giveaway: Anytime they accuse the Right of any crime, that is a crime which the Left has committed over and over. Antifa is a stunning case in point. Antifa, short for "anti-fascist," is actually among the most fascist organizations in the world. As Old as the RomansThe concept of fascism dates back to the time of the Romans. Originally fasces, referring to a bundle of weeds or wooden rods tied together, with an ax blade...

What would I have done without it? Now I can pay it back to the givernment in taxes. Anyone else?

The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe. The G.E. machines will have a generating capacity that would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes. The race to build bigger turbines has moved faster than many industry figures foresaw. G.E.’s Haliade-X generates almost 30 times more electricity than the first offshore machines installed off Denmark...

As we end the year, reality has the ring of a novel with twisting turns, intriguing characters, and a page-turning mystery where the outcome is still unclear. Who will be left standing to lead us after the January 20th inauguration? The media and political pundits are sure it will be Biden. Trump keeps pointing to developments on January 6th as the state electoral slates make their decisions known. The future will be revealed one day at a time. But the end of any year requires a view into the rearview mirror. Millions of Americans are grateful for Donald Trump and...

Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo intends to attend the first home playoff game by the Buffalo Bills in nearly a quarter of a century after banning in-person attendance all season. Cuomo announced the reopening of sports events for fans on Wednesday, saying that the Bills’ playoff game would serve as an initial test of reopening his state while vaccinations remain relatively low. The governor, who has orchestrated one of the strictest lockdowns in the U.S., also said he will be attending the game with the extremely limited audience. “It can’t be that we start 2021 with the expectation that...

With critical test and evaluation work still unfinished, the full-rate production decision will be left to the future Biden administration. In a setback for the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter program, the U.S. Department of Defense has formally decreed that a decision on full-rate production of the jet is on indefinite hold. The Milestone C decision on whether or not to ramp up the manufacture of Joint Strike Fighters had been due in or before March 2021, but has now been on hold pending completion of the final phase of operational testing of the F-35. ... more than 600 F-35s...

Catherine Austin Fitts gives a remarkable and thought-provoking explanation of the reasons for "the lockdown."