Free Republic

n 2010, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen called the national debt "the greatest national security threat facing our nation." At the time, the national debt was around $13 trillion. Eleven years later, the national debt exceeds $29 trillion—that's bigger than the gross domestic product of the United States! Yet almost no one in Washington is at all serious about cutting spending. The Democratic Party is so devoted to massive spending increases that those Democrats who "only" want to spend $1.75 trillion on the so-called Build Back Better Plan are considered "fiscal conservatives." Republicans may vote...

In the movie Moneyball, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane queries his team of scouts when discussing a prospective player, “If he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit good?” The scouts all have solid explanations, at least in their minds, of why a prospect might be a good hitter, from the sound of the crack of the bat when they hit the ball to the player’s good looks. These explain why the player should be a good hitter, but what if the numbers, from batting average to on-base percentage, tell a different story? The question Billy poses is obvious...

November 21st, 2021 Memorial of Blessed Baldji Oghlou Ohannes Christians Catholic Church, Khuzestan province, Iran Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White Readings for the feriaReadings for the memorialThese are the readings for the feriaFirst readingDaniel 1:1-6,8-20 ©Daniel and his companions are trained to be the king's servants in BabylonIn the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched on Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hands, with some of the furnishings of the Temple of God. He took them away to the land of Shinar, and stored...

The Biden administration’s more lenient approach to illegal immigration is now showing up in the nation’s immigration courts, where over the final three months of the last fiscal year, judges issued deportation directives in less than a third of cases. That’s down dramatically compared to 2019 and 2020, under the Trump administration, when 80% of cases resulted in either removal orders or grants of voluntary departure. Department officials said the numbers are the result of the administration’s push to expand the reach of “prosecutorial discretion,” cutting thousands of migrants loose, even though judges did not rule in their favor....

Speaking to Bret Baier, Christie said Biden and his administration are not up to the job. “They ran based upon uniting the country, bringing greater competence to the White House in their view, and they failed miserably on both. They’ve gone far left on all their policies. This is like we elected Bernie Sanders,” he said, noting crime, inflation, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and more. “Biden knows that Republicans are gathering momentum. I don’t know how Joe Biden running in 2024 would be the least bit intimidating to Republicans or the least bit reassuring to the American people.” [cut] Baier asked...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Traveling across Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken saw firsthand the limits of America’s influence abroad. Blinken confronted authoritarianism, growing threats from newly energized extremists, and persistent challenges posed by COVID-19 and climate change, all of which have stubbornly resisted various U.S. interventions. And, nowhere on his three-nation tour last week — to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal — was he able to escape obvious signs of the intense competition between the U.S. and China:...

Kyle Rittenhouse says said that his case was not about the contentious issue of race — and that, in fact, he supports Black Lives Matter. “This case . . . had nothing to do with race, had to do with the right to self-defense,” Rittenhouse (inset), 18, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview set to air Monday. “I’m not a racist person. I support the BLM movement and peacefully demonstrating.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) claimed that Democrats can only get funding for “their giveaway programs,” apparently including provisions in their roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate bill, from the middle class. “The only place Democrats can get the money to fund all of their giveaway programs is from the middle class, because that's where the money is,” Johnson said Sunday in an interview with John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM. Johnson claimed that even if taxes on corporations were raised, the middle class would ultimately end up shouldering the costs... In the interview Johnson also discussed spiking inflation in...

Lowlife CBS 6 alum thinks horrific incident at Waukesha, WI Christmas Parade is the PERFECT opportunity to make garbage takes about Rittenhouse Posted at 8:33 pm on November 21, 2021 by Sam J. Even as local authorities are telling people to shelter in place, this jagoff was busy making disgusting comments about the horrific scene where a red SUV drove through a Christmas Parade leaving at least 20 injured in Waukesha, WI. Information is all over the place as they are trying to piece together what happened, and he thought this was the right time to make a joke about...

House Democrats just passed President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar "Build Back Better" spending agenda. They're pitching it as a historic investment in the middle and working class. So why is its second-largest provision a tax cut for the rich? That's right: The latest version of the Build Back Better plan includes $125 billion for healthcare subsidies and $130 billion to expand the child tax credit - yet it allocates $280 billion to fund tax relief for wealthy residents of blue states. The only item bigger than this tax relief for the rich is the funding for pre-k and childcare, which comes in...

“He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend. The eyes of the LORD preserve knowledge, and he overthroweth the words of the transgressor. The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets” (Proverbs 22:11-13).

Adele takes a swipe at her exes during UK TV special Australia to reopen to foreign visa holders in bid to revive economy The US has raised the alarm over alleged plans by China to establish a military base in Kenya and extend its grip beyond economic and investment ties. It claimed that the planned base in Kenya is part of China’s pursuit of a global military logistics network to counter the existing interests of superpower nations, including the US. China opened its first military base in Djibouti in 2017, with the latter’s location on the northwestern edge of the...

The Apollo-class asteroid, called 3361 Orpheus, is 984 feet wide and is travelling at around 18,000 miles per hour. NASA will be keeping a close eye on the huge space rock, which has made it onto the space agency's 'Close Approach' list. But there's no need to panic just yet – the asteroid will pass through a distance of 3.5 million miles from our home planet. Anything that passes within 120 million miles is considered a Near Earth Object (NEO), a term used to describe "comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into...

Geologists have measured a devastating 'four-leaf clover' pattern of earthquake shockwaves in greater detail than ever before – and the resulting findings could be crucial in making our buildings and cities more resistant to large quakes in the future. This four-pronged pattern has been analyzed before, but never in as much depth as this. The team behind the new study is hoping that it might remove some of the mystery surrounding how earthquake shockwaves spread out across different frequencies. Crucially, the cloverleaf shockwaves spread at low frequencies of under 10 hertz, a level of vibration that many buildings and structures...

The crew, known as Crew 4, will be the fourth group of astronauts on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft mission to the ISS, and Watkins hopes her voyage into space will provide inspiration for others... ...Jessica Watkins will join the crew and live aboard the ISS from next April. The Maryland-native will spend spend six months there as a mission specialist in what will be her first mission in space. ..Jessica has experience of working in astronomy-based labs, as she spent time working with the science team for the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, while also gaining a postdoctoral fellow...

SOURCE — ALEX BERENSONThe brown line represents weekly deaths from all causes of vaccinated people 10-59, per 100,000 people. The blue line represents weekly deaths from all causes of unvaccinated people per 100,000 in the same age range.The conclusion — Vaccinated people under 60 are twice as likely to die as unvaccinated people. And overall deaths in Britain are running well above normal. I don’t know how to explain this.The basic data is available here, download the Excel file and see table 4: New Study from Germany — Higher Vaccination Rate leads to Higher Mortality SOURCE — STEVE KIRSCH The...

Since the start of the pandemic - edging ever closer to two years now - 428 children aged 4 and under have died 'with COVID', according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Putting that number in context, there are around 73 million children in America.Dr. Daniel Rauch, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston, summed things up rather succinctly:“The good news continues to be that this is not a common problem for kids." Source: CDCSo why oh why is all-knowing and unquestionable 'science'-soothsayer Dr. Anthony Fauci now openly discussing that, even though he "can't...

The University of California (UC) Board of Regents announced Nov. 18 to eliminate standardized tests from the admission process, without any alternative exam to be adopted in the foreseeable future. The board originally approved in May 2020 the removal of standardized testing—for applications for admission to the nine UC colleges—and planned to put an alternative test in place of ACT and SAT by 2024. During the board’s meeting on Thursday, the regents reached a consensus to keep exams out of admission requirements for a longer time, in favor of practices promoting educational equity and quality. “UC will continue to practice...

Women have been banned from appearing in television dramas in Afghanistan under new rules imposed by the Taliban government. ...The latest set of Taliban guidelines, which have been issued to Afghan television channels, features eight new rules. They include the banning of films considered against the principles of Sharia - or Islamic - law and Afghan values, while footage of men exposing intimate parts of the body is prohibited. Comedy and entertainment shows that insult religion or may be considered offensive to Afghans are also forbidden. The Taliban have insisted that foreign films promoting foreign cultural values should not be...

AP News calls them "far-right," but tens of thousands of freedom-loving people marched against new tyrannical public health measures, such as partial and full lockdowns and health passports and mandatory vaccinations, across Europe. Demonstrations against new virus restrictions were observed in Austria, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Outside of Europe, protesters were seen in several cities across Canada, Australia, Japan, and even the US. Some marked Saturday as part of a "Worldwide Freedom" rally to protest COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates.Some of the most intense rallies, which turned into riots, were in the port...