Free Republic

With some pundits advocating for price controls to fight inflation, it suddenly feels like the 1970s again. This type of overbearing intervention has never worked as marketed, something President Richard Nixon discovered in 1973 when he lifted the wage and price controls he had implemented two years earlier. Still, to those unwilling to learn from history, such controls will always seem sensible. Inflation amounts to rising prices, they say, so locking in prices is a supposed easy fix. But treating inflation this way is like masking a symptom rather than curing the illness. Inflation can no more be controlled by...

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Pray For The Peace of JerusalemEphesians 6The Armor of God 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your...

Americans are fed up with racial preferences. More than three-quarters of Americans believe resident Joe Biden should consider "all possible nominees" to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, rather than only Black women, according to a new poll. Likewise, nearly three-quarters of Americans, including a majority of Hispanic and Black people, oppose affirmative action. They don't want Black and Hispanic college applicants favored over other applicants who have higher test scores and grades, according to Pew Research. A group of Asian victims of Harvard's affirmative action are suing, represented by the nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions. The Supreme Court...

Lockdowns had “little to no effect” on saving lives during the pandemic — and “should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy,” according to economists in a new meta-analysis of dozens of studies. A group led by the head of Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics analyzed studies from the first surge of the pandemic to investigate widely pushed claims that stringent restrictions would limit deaths. Instead, the meta-analysis concluded that lockdowns across the US and Europe had only “reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average.” Worse, some of the studies even suggested that limiting gatherings in safe...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. It is expected to affect 16 million Americans by 2050. The hallmarks of AD are amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. Efforts to develop new drugs that directly target amyloid or tau proteins haven’t yielded significant clinical benefits for patients. Another approach to developing AD treatments would be to seek existing drugs that could potentially be repurposed. A team of researchers led by Dr. Feixiong Cheng at the Cleveland Clinic developed a computational method for identifying FDA-approved drugs that might be effective against AD. NIH’s National Institute...

Washington -- Do not let the Democrats fool you. They are deeply in the glooms. Even smiling, happy-go-lucky Congressgirl Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in the glooms, at least behind closed doors. It is not just the southern border where there roam more foreign-speaking bipeds than native Americanos. It is not inflation that is eroding the value of the dollar, even late at night when most Americans are asleep. Nor is it crime or the condition of the cities. It is a matter that President Joe Biden once took great pride in, that being his first Black vice president. Kamala Harris is...

OTTAWA -- Manitoba MP Candice Bergen is waking up with a new job today: unifying the Conservative caucus. The party's former deputy leader was elected by her colleagues to serve as interim leader after a majority of MPs ousted Erin O'Toole from the top job. Bergen faces a caucus that has spent weeks divided and angry over O'Toole's leadership since last year's election loss. The party must also start preparing to pick a permanent leader. It will be the third such race in the past five years. Party president Rob Batherson told members that its national council will be appointing...

One way of understanding the 2009-2014 Obama Administration policy of "reset" with Vladimir Putin's Russia is to recall two iconic incidents. The first was the 2009 "reset." Newly appointed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that she would pursue a "reset" detente with Russia. America would relax the prior Bush Administration's mild ostracism of Russia after its 2008 invasion of Georgia and softly start anew. The second was President Barack Obama's hot mic moment in March 2012 in Seoul, South Korea. Obama got caught asking Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to reassure Vladimir Putin. Or as Obama put it: "After my...

“You’re a racist!” We’ve all heard that often enough. In fact, as was once said in saner times about opportunistic patriotism, it’s now racism charges that are the last refuge of a scoundrel. But there is a way to counter these scoundrels and seize the advantage. No, the answer isn’t to explain yourself. It’s virtually always the case that racism-charge hurlers don’t care about Truth, anyway, but simply want to hurt you and win. The actual remedy? Remember that the best defense is a good offense and hit them back — hard. And the following short response should become standard...

Ferrari NV announced that soaring commodity prices would begin affecting the prices of its new supercars. The average cost for an Italian supercar, made by Ferrari, is between $200k-$400k, making it one of the most expensive production automobiles globally (besides French supercar maker Bugatti). During a 60-minute earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Ferrari discussed better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings as shipments jumped during the pandemic. However, the company explained that rising commodity costs would result in continued supercar inflation this year. Susy Tibaldi, a luxury analyst at Swiss bank UBS, asked Antonio Picca Piccon, the CFO of Ferrari NV, since inflation...

If you were raised correctly, you were told to apologize when you did something wrong, and you did it because your parents were right. Well, now they’re wrong. OK, they’re not completely wrong. If you do something that falls into the category of normal human error or regret, something for which you feel genuinely sorry for, by all means apologize to the person you’ve wronged. But if you do or say anything that the goon squad of fascists running the political left these days deems unacceptable, look them square in their vacant eyes and tell them to go straight to...

A coronavirus pandemic which lasts five years, another pandemic in a decade, and ever more transmissible variants are among the scenarios life insurers are predicting after COVID-19 claims jumped more than expected in 2021. The global life insurance industry was hit with reported claims due to COVID-19 of $5.5 billion in the first nine months of 2021 versus $3.5 billion for the whole of 2020, according to insurance broker Howden in a report on Jan 4, while the industry had expected lower payouts due to the rollout of vaccines. "We definitely paid out more than I had anticipated at the...

If a conservative Congress paves the way, a crusading president elected in 2024 can clean up our deeply corrupt system if he follows a clear, simple plan. Beginning in January 2025, if all goes well, we will have a new president on a mission from the people to clean up the mess in Washington. Congress will have prepared the way. The corruption purge in Washington will have arrived. The final phase of the Seven Year plan will begin. Reform in Washington isn’t new but, this time, the preparation is different. The people have been battling locally and pushing Congress to...

Florida Republicans have rejected a move to create exemptions for rape, incest and human trafficking in their proposal to ban abortions after 15 weeks. A GOP-backed bill advanced Wednesday. Florida's Senate Health Policy Committee, which is controlled by Republicans, blocked a proposed amendment from Democratic Sen. Lauren Book.

Emails show staff concerns about Buta Biberaj's soft-on-crime approach A George Soros-aligned prosecutor in northern Virginia faces mounting scrutiny after an aide criticized her handling of three child endangerment and domestic abuse cases in private meetings with local leaders. Jason Faw, a lawyer who logged 16 years as a Loudoun County prosecutor before stepping down in 2020, told the chairwoman of the county board of supervisors that Commonwealth's Attorney Buta Biberaj and her soft-on-crime policies are a threat to public safety, according to emails obtained by an oversight group and shared with the Washington Free Beacon. Biberaj is separately under...

Thirty-one percent of parents who have children younger than 5 said they plan to get their children vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey published Feb. 2. The KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor is an ongoing survey. The most recent wave was conducted from Jan. 11-23 among 1,536 adults, including 420 parents or guardians of children under 18. Four survey findings: 1. Three in 10 parents with children under 5 said they will get their child vaccinated right away once a vaccine is approved for the age group, up somewhat from 1 in 5...

The old stereotype of Canadians as slow-talking, syrup-slurping igloo jockeys has been dashed this week as our friends to the north have launched a peaceful working class revolt against the blackface-wearing clown they have as their prime minister, as well as against that country’s entire ruling caste. We patriotic Americans stand in solidarity with the big rig truckers pushing back against The Man – although that assumes their oppressor’s gender. But, in this Age of Insanity, there’s always the possibility of chaos – even in Canada. While the good-natured, polite pushback against the globalist establishment has been entirely pleasant so...

Disgraced president Jeff Zucker's resignation yet another humiliation for low-rated entertainment channel CNN president Jeff Zucker abruptly resigned on Wednesday after failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a subordinate. The relationship, which appears to have been an open secret that may have precipitated Zucker's divorce, was uncovered as part of the company's internal review of disgraced former anchor Chris Cuomo's tenure at the scandal-plagued network. In an email to CNN staff, Zucker acknowledged a "consensual relationship" with executive Allison Gollust, who was Zucker's "key lieutenant for the last two decades," according to the network's media desk. Gollust was one...

Lawyer is involved in efforts to redraw congressional districts in New York, Maryland Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias has long decried the evils of gerrymandering. Now, he's getting rich off it. Democratic and progressive groups paid Elias's firm more than $1 million in the most recent quarter, according to Federal Election Commission records released this week. One of Elias's biggest clients, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is leading efforts to redraw congressional districts in New York and Maryland. With polls indicating Democratic losses in November, the controversial gerrymander scheme is seen as the party's best hope of maintaining majority control...