Free Republic

America’s $28.5 trillion in accumulated debt and likely $3 trillion in debt this year alone speaks loudly to the utter failure of government to be efficient and rational allocator of resources. Yet, in the face of failure, Joe Biden’s is pushing out executive orders “promoting competition in the American economy” as if government is going to manage private enterprise better than the actual CEOs of America’s biggest and most successful corporations. These executive actions are creeping socialism. They will be harmful to economic growth and American competitiveness going forward. Government has no business meddling in the free market and private...

There seems to be a lot of confusion today about inflation. Pick up the paper or follow an internet site and you will read that the inflation rate this year is expected to be 2% or 3%. What they really mean is that prices are expected to rise 2% or 3%. But is that inflation? Inflation is an increase in the money supply. So why is the difference in definition critical? Prices rise because of inflation; they are the result of inflation but they are not inflation, nor are they the cause of inflation. This is important because the government...

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The Monty Python boys, dressed in red frocks, once irreverently boasted, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! ... Amongst our chief weapons are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope!" If you switch "pope" to "woke" and the "Spanish Inquisition" to "Authoritarian Imposition," I think that old comedy sketch nails our present situation in America pretty well. Consider how our D.C. despots, with their stern expressions of disapproval and general sense of entitlement, have responded to 75 million Trump voters who insist on auditing the 2020 election. Have they done so with...

This email scandal reveals that the NSA is a threat to democracy itself. Well, everyone could see it coming. It turns out that the National Security Agency (NSA) didn’t just eavesdrop “incidentally” on the emails and text messages of Tucker Carlson, one of the few journalists in America willing to stand up to the Deep State. Anyone with half a brain could see the lizard-like lawyering in the NSA’s “non-denial denial.” As Bill Clinton famously put it, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” “Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency,” the...

Though a reported 600,000 Americans died from COVID, 400,000 small businesses were bankrupted by the lockdowns ordered to "flatten the curve," and millions of workers were forced into unemployment, it will no doubt hearten everyone to learn that the "pandemic was a tremendous personal benefit" to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY). "I'm not a guy who likes to focus on the negative," Cuomo said. "Admittedly, some people died, but I'd rather look back on the positive things that happened. First of all, the health emergency enabled me to govern without the encumbrances of the constitution and the law. Rather than have...

As I write, a Franciscan priest I know is in a courtroom in Ohio. Father Fidelis Moscinski was charged with criminal trespass for walking into an abortion facility in Cuyahoga Falls. It's called a Red Rose Rescue: He goes inside, offers women roses, and when asked to leave, says he's happy to -- once the doctor performing abortions does. In other words, once the abortions stop. So the police wind up getting involved. The pain of abortion can be a miserable cross to bear, not just for a woman but for all in her life. Death creates distance, especially when...

This has been building for some time now, but it's finally out in the open: To be overtly patriotic and show public support for the American flag is now a sign of conservatism. Not the longstanding traditional "good" conservatism of small government, fiscal discipline, and a strong military. No, these days, to be a flag-respecting, America-first patriot is to reveal oneself to be a white-privileged, Trump-supporting, LGBT-phobic, terminally non-woke ignoramus of the lowest kind. Rehabilitation from such a position is impossible in the eyes of the enlightened Progressive. In the current social climate, to be patriotic is a permanent brand...

“I’m going to personally execute you!” (A furious Che Guevara to a captive 25-year-old freedom-fighter Roberto Martin-Perez, June 1959 in Havana’s La Cabana prison.) “Go ahead and shoot me! After all, I came back to Cuba to SHOOT YOU! Seems fair! So go ahead!” (Roberto Martin-Perez’s reply to the blustering Che Guevara.) “Don’t shoot! I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!” (A fully armed Che Guevara upon encountering a Bolivian soldier, Oct. 8, 1967.) Hollywood produced movies celebrating the courage of only one of the above. Moving along: One was a dope-fiend and convicted criminal who held...

The question of whether America is still a great power will strike many as foolish. Undeniably, there is no doubt the United States of America is still the preeminent power in the world. America has the world’s largest economy in terms of gross domestic product, our companies lead the world in investment and innovation, and our country has high living standards. The United States has the most powerful and technologically advanced armed forces in the world and spends considerably more than most countries on defense. Adopting this classic framework to measure a country’s power would surely lead to a positive...

Raymond Ibrahim’s 2018 book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, was recently translated into French and published in France. In connection, Arnaud Imatz of the French website La Nef, interviewed him. An abbreviated, English version of that interview follows: SNIP La Nef: Is the hostility between Islam and Christianity an accident of history or is it part of the continuity of Islamic history? Ibrahim: It is most certainly part of a continuum. The problem is that modern historians tend to sideline this religious aspect, and focus instead on national identities. For example, we know...

In my previous post, I noted that non-economists who know almost nothing about socialism are the ones who seem to talk about it the most. Whereas economists who know a lot about socialism rarely talk about it at all. And that’s a problem. Another area where economists have abandoned public discourse is in discussions about economics and race. Economists know an enormous amount about income and race. They have been studying the subject for years. But when was the last time you saw an economist expressing a public opinion about what all economists know on this subject? All I have...

A huge rough diamond, an impressive stone with a silvery sheen that fits in the palm of a hand, was discovered in June in Botswana, the Canadian company Lucara said Wednesday. The 1,174-carat gem, discovered on June 12, steals third place on the podium of the world's largest diamonds from another exceptional stone found a few days earlier, on June 1, in the same country but by another mining company. This is a "historic discovery, for us and for Botswana as well," commented Lucara's Managing Director, Naseem Lahri. "In the hierarchy of large stones, it ranks third," she proudly told...

Zaila Avant-garde is the new national spelling bee champion, but it's not the first time she's been on top of the world at something. The 14-year-old from New Orleans was named the winner of the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, spelling words such as "querimonious," "ancistroid," "solidungulate." It was "Murraya," a genus of flowering citrus plants in Asia, that won Avant-garde the competition after runner-up Chaitra Thummala misspelled "neroli oil" in the 17th round. 13-year-old Zaila Avant-garde of Louisiana is your 93rd Scripps National #SpellingBee champion ‼️ The first African-American winner of the competition 👏 pic.twitter.com/y2Y5dAGcVN — ESPN...

WFMZ's Sara Madonna sat down with the victim's brother to get his thoughts Louis Colon is on a quest for justice for his sister. The pregnant woman's body was found on a riverbank in Carbon County back in 1976. But her identity remained a mystery until recently, and then came the arrest of the man who was her boyfriend at the time - 63-year-old Luis Sierra of New York - for her murder. "I don't want to go to trial, I want him to plead guilty and that's it," Colon said. Local Trending News But, Colon knows that it won't...

The WerteUnion (Values Union) was founded in 2017 by members of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) who believed that Germany’s last big-tent party had moved too far left. The movement followed a similar path to that of the Tea Party, which emerged in 2009 within the US’s Republican Party, bringing together libertarians and right-wing populists focused on challenging the leadership of the Republican Party, which they felt wasn’t doing enough to confront Democratic President Barack Obama. In contrast, the WerteUnion focused its ire within the center-right CDU on Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom adherents saw as being too liberal. Expansion...

Los Angeles County inn Friday reported 1,107 new Covid-19 infections, double the number it reported a week ago and the county’s highest daily figure since March. Those higher cases counts are being detected despite a big fall in testing since the start of the year. There are 320 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized; an increase from the 280 hospitalizations reported last Friday. The county is also reporting five more Covid deaths, for a pandemic total of 24,530. One of the more trusted numbers, the 7 day average daily test positivity rate, was 2.4% on Friday, a jump from last Friday’s...

News host Tucker Carlson, asked his millions of viewers why I, an Australian journalist based in the United States, had not been arrested for allegedly “misreporting” hate crimes in India. “My question is this – why isn’t Indian law taking action against CJ Werleman?” asked Goswami during a segment titled ‘Unfollow Twitter’ which was telecasted last Friday. The point Goswami was driving home is why hadn’t Indian authorities laid charges against me, like it had against three Indian journalists, all of whom are Muslim – including Washington Post columnist Rana Ayub – and three Muslim members of Congress, for sharing...

“He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Proverbs 10:4).

...Johnson’s religious life has been as chequered as his political career. Baptised as a baby into the Roman Catholic faith of his mother, Charlotte Johnson Wahl, he veered off at Eton into Anglicanism and was confirmed into the Church of England. Little is known of Johnson’s faith in the years that followed, apart from that Chilterns gag: he was busy editing the Spectator, becoming an MP, performing tripwire stunts as mayor of London, and developing a reputation for a rackety private life. But now the radio signal seems to be coming through loud and clear, although it’s been retuned to...