Free Republic

"Get off our front porch. Get out of our front yard. And stay out of our backyard."This might stand as a crude summary of two draft security pacts Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov delivered last week as Russia's price for resolving the crisis created by those 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's borders.Ryabkov's demands appear to be a virtual ultimatum, designed to be rejected by the U.S. and NATO and provide Moscow with a pretext for an invasion and occupation of part or all of Ukraine.Among the maximalist Russian demands:Written guarantees from NATO that it will not admit into the...

Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), praised Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) as a “profile in courage” who rejected offers for self-enrichment while guest-hosting for Monday’s edition of Sean Hannity’s eponymous radio show alongside GAI colleague Eric Eggers. Schweizer and Eggers reflected on their research of political corruption in Washington, DC, while examining Manchin’s recent refusal to join other Democrats in passing the $4.91 trillion spending proposal in the “Build Back Better” legislation pushed by the Biden administration and left-wing news media. Manchin rebuffed attempts to be purchased or rented by political supporters of the Build Back Better...

The Taliban is pushing China to mine in Afghanistan, according to The Global Times, a Chinese state-controlled media outlet. Afghanistan is home to an estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion worth of rare earth metals. China is home to about two-thirds of rare earths, and the communist country already provides more than 85% of rare metals and minerals globally, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). The Global Times touted the most recent development in an article Thursday titled "Chinese firm's copper mine project in Afghanistan hasn't started, despite Taliban's push." Work on the copper mine has been reportedly...

Pentagon targets extremism in the ranks with new rules https://t.co/YtmuIyBdwU pic.twitter.com/xo9SqK96Ev — The Hill (@thehill) December 20, 2021 WASHINGTON (AP) — Warning that extremism in the ranks is increasing, Pentagon officials issued detailed new rules Monday prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. According to the Pentagon, fewer than 100 military members are known to have been involved in substantiated cases of extremist activity in the past year. But they warn that the number may grow given recent spikes in domestic violent extremism, particularly among veterans. Officials said the new policy doesn’t largely change what is prohibited but...

The recall campaign was bruising. Both the recall supporters and Sawant defenders spent roughly one million dollars each. The Kshama Solidarity Campaign set up pop-up tents around the district to convince voters to print, sign, and submit their ballots against the recall. This tactic, along with ballot harvesting, is legal in Washington state. Some Kshama supporters were accused of bullying and intimidation against those who openly supported the recall.

Chile held a presidential election yesterday. This was a run-off between the two top vote-getters in a prior round. The candidates were José Kast of the Republican (conservative) Party, and Gabriel Boric of the Social Convergence (leftist) Party. Boric won easily, by about 56/44, and Kast promptly conceded and offered congratulations. Boric will replace Sebastián Piñera, a conservative. Chile is one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America, with per capita GDP for 2020 estimated at $13,232 by the World Bank. In Central and South America, only Uruguay tops it, and just barely. And that $13,232 figure likely represents...

For the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no officially approved outpatient treatments for combating the disease. From March 2020, when the virus first emerged in the United States, until that November, when the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of monoclonal antibodies, health authorities advised that the infected do little but quarantine themselves, drink plenty of fluids and rest unless hospitalization was necessary.

For many Americans, this Christmas season is turning out to be too much like last year's. A new strain of COVID-19 is now forcing families and friends to forgo the fellowship so much a part of this holiday season. Headlines such as "National Guard called to alleviate shortages of hospital workers ... " are causing canceled celebrations. The pandemic isn't the only problem. There's also rampant inflation, supply-chain shortages, stock market gyrations, new vaccine mandates, riots, arson, mass shootings, smash-and-grab robberies, political dissent, attacks on traditional values and serious threats from Russia, Iran, North Korea and Communist China. We're U.S....

On November 1, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), in an unusual move, granted certiorari (agreed to hear the arguments) before judgment in a case challenging the new Texas abortion law, known as S.B. 8. On December 10, extremely fast for SCOTUS, they delivered an opinion. The Court granted certiorari before judgment in this case to determine whether, under our precedents, certain abortion providers can pursue a pre-enforcement challenge to a recently enacted Texas statute. We conclude that such an action is permissible against some of the named defendants but not others.In the opinion, SCOTUS said neither...

Political observers long knew of Biden's authoritarian leanings before he took office, but now they are on full display. Less than one year since he assumed office, Joe Biden has managed to turn his presidency into a deeply unpopular monarchy. No longer is he the genial but generally harmless buffoon who entertained most of us while he was in Congress with his mispronunciations, misquotes, and embellished tales of dubious authenticity. As a result of the 2020 presidential election that was, at best, questionable, Biden was elevated well past his ability, and he proceeded to wreck virtually everything he touched as...

How much do solar, wind and electric vehicle companies get in federal handouts and tax loopholes in resident Joe Biden's Build Back Better bill? Well over $100 billion in taxpayer largesse. If all the tax credits are included, that number could reach half a trillion dollars. No other industry in American history has ever received this lucrative a paycheck. The folks at the Institute for Energy Research calculated that this is on top of the more than $150 billion in subsidies these industries received from Uncle Sam in the last 30 years. The umbilical cord to taxpayer wallets never gets...

Good luck getting anything done in liberal America without miles of government red tape — even if you're a liberal. Government is a most discouraging aspect of existence because it is a pervasive given. In the hearts of 99 percent of readers is the desire to be left alone by government. My daughter-in-law started a small charity venture several years ago, and it has grown wildly. She was originally of a liberal bent but now sees government negatively intruding into her efforts. She may not be on board the Trump train, but she has jumped over to the libertarian track....

Bette Midler has come under fire from both conservatives and liberals after she tweeted that Senator Joe Manchin ‘wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia…poor, illiterate, and strung out.’ She infuriated thousands with her snobbish missive which said: 'What #JoeManchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible. He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.' Criticism for Midler's high-handed comments quickly poured in from...

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) amounts to the complaint that there are too many white males on the faculty and the demand that this be radically changed, forthwith. It would appear, at least to the grievants, that females, "people of color" ("colored people" is no longer allowed to be said at university, despite the continued existence of the National Association of Colored People), and members of the LGBT community cannot really learn from straight white male professors. Students with these characteristics, it turns out, need role models in the professoriate from their own demographics if they are to prosper in higher...

The new rules against extremism are very broadly written but, when taken in conjunction with other activities and pronouncements, their intent is clear. The Biden Pentagon is obsessed with “extremism.” The moment Lloyd Austin was confirmed as Biden’s Defense Secretary, he put the entire military on a 60-day stand down to purge “extremism” in the ranks. Apparently, that stand down was ineffective because Austin is back again, this time with new rules that are again meant to counter “extremism” by preventing troops from engaging in “extremist” activities. The wise and/or paranoid among us believe that those new rules are an...

Source: Official White House Photo by Andrea HanksBROWNSVILLE, Pennsylvania -- Just before 10 a.m., cars begin pulling into the parking lot of the Country Thrift Market, a sprawling former grocery store 40 miles from Pittsburgh. Normally, folks in the area shop for gently used clothing, toys and deeply discounted home goods here. But today is different because Santa Claus is on site along with free cookies, provisions, frozen turkeys and hundreds of brand-new winter coats in every child's size. Most of the cars and trucks that pull in have seen better days, but the children inside them look excited, seemingly...

The abject failure of Russian policy toward Ukraine over the past seven years suggests Vladimir Putin has a flawed understanding of the country. At dinner at the American ambassador’s residence in Moscow some years ago, I asked a former senior foreign policy official if anyone in the Kremlin understood Ukraine. He replied that someone there understood Ukraine very well. He then added “but nobody listens to him.” The abject failure of Russian policy toward Ukraine over the past seven years suggests the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin have a flawed understanding of the country. On Dec. 17, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov...

It’s ‘go time’ once again in America – time for the unvaccinated to roll up their sleeves...not to get an injection, but to fight against a new ‘variant’ of political and medical hysteria. Unlike the COVID variants, which have symptoms that grow progressively milder with each wave, the authoritarian variants tend to grow harsher with each progressive mutation. Indeed, the battle over vaccines has been waged through successively more draconian waves of pressure to see the whole world come to the saving knowledge of the grace of vaccines. Those who have thus far stood firm in their resolve to retain...

Rejection used to be common for medical sociologist Thomas LaVeist when he tried to get his research published on the effects of racism on the health of black people. “Now,” said the 60-year-old dean of Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, “I have those same journals asking me to write articles for them.” LaVeist’s experience illustrates the transformation in medical research. While few would dispute that black Americans are more prone to chronic health problems and have shorter life expectancies than whites, the medical community generally sought answers in biology, genetics, and lifestyle. Research, like LaVeist’s, that...

“right” curriculum and the “right” teacher mindset will magically cure low student achievement and all social ills. I can’t think of a dumber outlook. For those that still cling to this fantastical notion, how many more decades of tax-payer scammed ineptitude must they be presented with before changing their minds? Of course, how many people still think Covid will be resolved with a 5th or 6th booster? As Mark Twain once observed, it is easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled. Insofar as I can tell, participating in the government monopoly on education is one of...