Free Republic

Legendary recording artist Dionne Warwick says "flat-out procrastination" by politicians on Capitol Hill over many years is the main reason why recording artists and musicians still do not collect royalties from AM/FM radio. Songwriters, not musicians or vocalists, are paid royalties for the music played on AM/FM radio. "Procrastination, just flat out procrastination," Warwick, a five-time Grammy Award winner, said during an interview after the bipartisan American Music Fairness Act was unveiled. "It should have happened 60 years ago when it was brought to the attention of Congress in the Senate by Frank Sinatra and, for whatever reason, they feigned...

The traditional watching of Independence Day fireworks from the State House lawn won’t happen this year. In its place, several organizations will offer West African dance and music.

About that clash between a British destroyer and Russian warplanes and warships in the Black Sea last week: there are conflicting versions. The Kremlin version is the more dramatic. HMS Defender, says Moscow, entered the Black Sea, made port in Odessa, Ukraine, and then sailed for Batumi on the coast of Georgia. However, the British warship traversed Russia's territorial waters at the tip of the Crimean peninsula, near Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The destroyer, say the Russians, had to be diverted by shellfire from a patrol boat and bombs dropped in its path by Sukhoi...

Beta has followed Alpha and they were joined by Gamma and Delta, too, as WHO-designated Variants of Concern (VoC) of the novel coronavirus. While the world is warily tracking the spread of the Delta variant, or B.1.617.2, which was first identified in India in October last year, India itself is worried about Delta-plus. But the march of variants seemingly continues unabated and experts have in recent days said an eye must be kept on the Kappa and Lambda variants, too, both of which have been labelled as Variants of Interest (VoI) by WHO. WHAT IS KAPPA? It is a variant...

Under the bill, Oregon aims to transition entirely to emissions-free electricity by 2040. The legislation lays out a timetable for the state’s two major power companies — Portland General Electric and Pacific Power — to reduce emissions. Additionally, it bans the expansion or new construction of power plants that burn fossil fuels and allocates $50 million in grants for community-based energy projects, among other measures.

Fischetti said that Vance's team said the probe is ongoing. An attorney who represents former President Donald Trump said that last week he asked Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's team for details regarding any charges under consideration and the team noted that they were weighing bringing charges against the Trump organization and specific workers pertaining to alleged failures to shell out money for taxes for corporate benefits and perks. "We asked, 'Is there anything else?'" attorney Ronald Fischetti informed Politico. “They said, 'No.'" Fischetti informed the outlet that Vance's team noted they will not pursue charges against the former president...

Is it time to start using the tactics of the Left? Do you ever wonder how establishment media can go about not even pretending to be objective, or how Democrat politicians can tell you the current surge in crime, illegal border crossings, and rioting last summer are all a figment of your imagination? The CNNs and leftist politicians can do this because it’s not their goal to get you to tune in or get your vote. The Left now has enough of a coalition of immigrants, racist blacks, young morons, self-hating whites, perpetual victims, and government freeloaders to enforce their...

“What I like doing best is Nothing,” Christopher Robin tells Winnie-the-Pooh in A. A. Milne’s 1928 collection of stories, The House at Pooh Corner. The capitalization of “Nothing” is not a typo. Milne is introducing children (and re-introducing their parents) to a deep philosophical point through the voice of a fictional boy and his anthropomorphic stuffed bear. “How do you do Nothing?” Pooh asks. Christopher Robin responds that being outdoors on a lovely day—as they are—sitting on a grassy knoll, enjoying one another’s company, with birds singing in the trees above, is: “a nothing sort of thing.” He further explains,...

Most successful movies try to cash in on their box office bonanza with a sequel. Some do this well, like The Godfather, with both original and sequel winning best picture. Others simply get old and tiresome, like the Star Wars or Halloween franchises. COVID is no exception, after a wildly successful debut year. Success, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. For those who died or are suffering long haul symptoms, it was a disaster. Same for owners of closed businesses, those still out of work, and individuals and their families dealing with the aftershocks of depression, substance...

What is it to be a conservative? A happy warrior— firm in faith, grounded in goodness and respect, grateful and focused, resilient and other-regarding, someone who lives for the future with unblinking reference to the past. He or she is an undeterred fighter, full of heart and taking a long view in both directions, resolved to high purpose. From Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk, this is the true conservative—a happy warrior. The happy warrior is an American who understands unwavering defense of principle, individual rights, hard work, and an equal shot at “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” aware...

Tucker’s claim is entirely plausible to me. Nobody else in the media with an audience in the millions dares to explore many of the topics his show raises. And the NSA has been caught spying on citizens repeatedly. If this pans out – and there is good reason to suspect it will – the deepest end of the deep state will be caught breaking the law and interfering with what remains of the free press. Monday night’s edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the highest rated program on cable news, featured a shocking short segment (video below) in which the host...

The techniques of political warfare that Nazi Joseph Goebbels pioneered remain powerful and effective, especially when they go unrecognized and unchallenged. Joseph Goebbels faced a significant challenge when he accepted a prominent party posting in Berlin in October of 1926. While the Nazi party had some strength in the south and north of Germany, it had virtually no support in the capital, where the Social Democrats and Communists effectively competed in elections but the public barely knew the National Socialists existed. Goebbels set out to change this by staging provocations against his political adversaries, marching his uniformed followers into their...

The great humorist, Jerome K. Jerome, suggested many years ago that, “… we all love peace, but not peace at any price.” Peace is only a reality between states that are rational and can in time become friendly towards each other. Today leftists and all those who shout out the vacuous phrase, “peace and justice,” have turned those once noble words into soiled and tarnished rags. They have become the very folk who, through one of life’s supreme ironies, shout down dissenting voices and thus become guilty of the very violent behavior they claim to oppose. The universities and colleges...

Order is not currently being maintained and chaos reigns among the ranks as anti-American indoctrination of active service members runs rampant. America’s top military leaders have thrust themselves into the national spotlight by their overt politization and cowardly acquiescence to the radicalized Democrat Party. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, in Congressional testimony, defended the teaching and promotion of Marxist based Critical Race Theory throughout the military. He also linked what he categorized as rampant “White Rage” to the 75+million supporters of President Trump. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gilday, defended the Navy-wide dissemination of...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki Monday defended U.S. track and field star Gwen Berry's decision to turn her back on the nation's flag, saying Berry was seeking to "peacefully protest" the moments that Americans "haven’t lived up to our highest ideals." Berry, 31, placed third over the weekend in the hammer throw during the U.S. Olympic trials, earning her a spot on the team. As the National Anthem was played, she turned from the flag. "This weekend, Gwen Barry, who hopes to represent the United States as an Olympian on the hammer throwing events, won a bronze medal at...

Registered voters believe Vice President Kamala Harris has failed at her task of addressing the root causes of migration from Central America to the United States, a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll reveals. The results are based on online surveys of 2,006 registered voters between June 15 and 17. The pollsters asked, “Do you think vice president Kamala Harris has done a good job, adequate job, or a bad job tackling the root causes of illegal immigration?” Most voters rated Harris’s performance as inferior, with 44 percent saying she has done a “bad job,” 30 percent a “good job,” and 26...

The need for election audits is proof that our elections are not to be trusted. Republicans seem confident about their chances for taking back the U.S. House in the 2022 midterm elections. Some might even think that victory is a “done deal” because the electorate has finally gotten wise to what the Dems are really up to, and to the true nature of their authoritarian party. Republicans might well be correct in their reading of voter sentiment, but it might not make any difference. GOP strategists need to throttle back their optimism, for the changes to elections that worked for...

No one is paying much attention, but Washington is building up a vast new multitrillion-dollar welfare class: corporate America. Deep inside President Joe Biden's budget are hundreds of billions of dollars of loans, grants and loan guarantees for corporate America. This Aid to Dependent Corporations is most prevalent in the area of renewable energy. Despite more than $100 billion already doled out to wind and solar companies over the past 30 years, the Biden plan would enrich often-very wealthy investors in solar and wind plants with another $100 to $200 billion in the president's green energy scheme. For the past...

Maricopa County, Arizona, announced Monday that it will replace all of the voting equipment handed over to private contractors for an election "audit" ordered by Arizona's Republican-controlled Senate. "The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the county will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections," Maricopa County said in a statement. "As a result, the county will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections." Maricopa County's Board of Supervisors told Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in a letter Monday that it shares her concerns about potential tampering by the GOP-hired...

What matters on Twitter ... often just stays on Twitter. Those who use the platform to voice opinions on faith, politics, guns, culture, the military, the police and a whole host of other issues just aren't representative of popular opinion. They tend to hold positions not just to the left but to the far, far left. Journalists, who are among the worst Twitter addicts, seize on those positions as if in church. They craft ideas from them; they turn out stories based on the thinking that goes on within that bubble. What they produce rarely comes from anything that resembles...