Free Republic

The eurozone’s annual price inflation rate hit 5 percent in December 2021 and (as of this writing) the consensus is for 5.1 percent in January 2022. Eurozone industrial producer prices were up 26.2 percent in 2021.This has been pressuring the European Central Bank (ECB) to adopt a tight monetary policy (or at least a less loose one). On February 3, the ECB announced its monetary policy decisions regarding the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) and the Asset Purchase Program (APP), its asset purchase programs, and interest rates, with no major changes compared to the previous announcement in December.The Pandemic Emergency...

It looks like the CCP is again beating the bushes and shaking the trees to find more incriminating evidence of corruption and illegality - and other 'dirt' - involving Ant Group and its founder, Jack Ma. About a month ago, Ma and Ant Group were implicated in one of China's biggest corruption scandals in recent memory: it involved a former top CCP official in Hangzhou, the city where Ant got its start. Now, the CPP has ordered the country's banks and other firms to scour their records for any more 'evidence' of any potentially corrupt dealings involving Ant. Beijing has...

Chilling 15 minutes of masked armored police surrounding a lunch cafe in Ottawa, presumably to arrest a Freedom Convoy participant. Police said they were there for an "inspection". Owner will not let them in.

Trudeau invoked 1988 Emergencies Act to target truckers and other Canadian citizens. The Trudeau government went public last week with a condemnation of Cuba over its lack of free speech protections as the government deployed unprecedented powers to crack down on Canadian truckers and their supporters. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the 1988 Emergencies Act for the first time to freeze accounts of truckers and contributions by other Canadian citizens. It was entirely unnecessary and, while the media is largely supportive of Trudeau, the powers have been condemned by civil liberties groups in Canada. As noted by the Miami...

Canada has moved to make the asset freezing part of its Emergencies Act, which was used to target supporters of the Freedom Convoy protests, a permanent fixture.Wow, who saw that one coming?In order to stop what the Trudeau regime referred to as “illegal blockades,” the government threatened to freeze the bank accounts of demonstrators and anyone who donated money to them.Under the Emergencies Act, bank are required to freeze accounts without a court order, while all crowdfunding platforms and payment providers are mandated to provide information to FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada).Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland...

Another example of a God loving man refusing to open the door to his business to the thug cops who threaten to break his window. It only takes one person to stand up to tyranny.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday said she believes sanctions on Russia would absolutely deter President Vladimir Putin, despite she and President Biden saying that he has already made up his mind on a potential invasion.

Russian President Putin to address the nation today.

The Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate has proven a tough battle ground for pro-lifers, with losses and wins in the session’s first 30 days.As Virginia rounds the corner in its first session of 2022, legislation passed in the state’s pro-life House faces major challenges in the Senate. Although Virginia ushered in a pro-life governor this January, the Senate is still controlled by pro-abortion Democrats.Last Tuesday’s “crossover” day marked a turning point in the 60-day session, as bills passed in the House and Senate moved down the hall for further votes. The Republican-controlled Virginia House passed HB 304, the Born Alive Infant Protection...

AOC portrays herself as "working class" person from humble roots. 'I'm proud to be a bartender. Ain't nothing wrong with that'. She tries to convince you that she grew up poor. “Well, you know, the president is from Queens, and with all due respect — half of my district is from Queens — I don’t think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx,” Ocasio-Cortez said this week on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.... “I wasn’t born to a wealthy or powerful family — mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx. I was born...

An economic analyst for MSNBC’s Morning Joe ripped President Joe Biden for evading his responsibility behind the current inflation crisis. Willett Advisors LLC CEO Steven Rattner accused Biden of passing the buck on inflation in a guest essay for The New York Times headlined, “Biden Keeps Blaming the Supply Chain for Inflation. That’s Dishonest.” Biden told NBC anchor Lester Holt in an interview that “[t]he reason for the inflation is the supply chains were cut off.” Rattner didn’t mince words: “Well, no. That’s both simplistic and misleading.” Rattner mocked Biden for pointing to supply chain issues as the cause of...

On Presidents Day, it is important to remember the exceptional leaders of our nation, the legacies they left behind, and what we can learn from them today. Presidents Day initially honored the birth of America’s first president – George Washington. Because of Washington’s indispensable role in the founding of our nation, America has celebrated his birth since 1800, following his death in 1799. America’s Founding Fathers held Washington in their highest esteem and knew his moral force transcended politics and personal ambition. Washington commanded the Continental Army for eight years during the American Revolution, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and...

A judge has denied a family’s request for a speech-delayed 3-year-old boy with learning disabilities to attend preschool without a mask. Judge Jeffrey Rabin ruled that the child did not qualify for the emergency relief his mother, Katherine Hart, requested. Hart’s lawsuit against the Medford Lakes School District asked that her son be allowed to start preschool immediately without a mask requirement for the entire school day, on the grounds that he had not attended preschool since Jan 18. The school argued that it was Hart’s choice to hold her son back from preschool. Hart has acknowledged this, saying she...

MOSCOW – The escalating tension between Russia and Ukraine begs the question of what went wrong. The Cold War ended with such fanfare three decades ago that many people assumed the world would become a better place, at least in terms of geostrategic stability, and many diplomats have been deeply disappointed by the latest developments.

In light of the developing Ukraine crisis, the painful inflation crisis, and various other ongoing crises, President Biden's border crisis has received relatively scant attention from much of the news media. The last time the press could be bothered to cover the unfolding disaster at the Southern border in earnest, they had an attractive 'hook' as an angle -- namely, the Biden administration's baseless "whips" slander against US Border Patrol agents. There has been no public resolution to the resulting investigation, which was promised by Biden himself. His DHS chief vowed that justice would be swift. But here we are,...

SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MARK 9:14-29 Friends, today in the Gospel, Jesus demonstrates the power of the prayer of faith. Have you noticed how Jesus, time and again, says to people before working a miracle, “Do you believe I can do this?” Once, Matthew tells us, Jesus was unable to perform many miracles because he was met with so little faith among the people. Lots of people today, especially in the healing ministry, seem able to reproduce what Jesus did, precisely because of the purity of their faith. Is part of our problem simply a lack of faith? We...

Is it a sin to buy a lottery ticket? What about making a bet at a casino – so long as it's a budgeted amount of money and made responsibly? How about dropping a sports bet? Is it a sin to gamble? Some people would argue there is nothing sinful about it. Recently, after posting on Facebook one of my editorials against the legalization of sports betting in the Tar Heel state, a woman said in the comments section: "I've never found any basis in the Bible to oppose gambling specifically, even though I have searched." Another woman wrote, "Nowhere...

A sufficient intake of vegetables is important for maintaining a balanced diet and avoiding a wide range of diseases. But might a diet rich in vegetables also lower the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)? Unfortunately, researchers found no evidence for this. Now, new results from a powerful, large-scale new study shows that a higher consumption of cooked or uncooked vegetables is unlikely to affect the risk of CVD. They also explain how confounding factors might have explained previous spurious, positive findings. The researchers used the responses at enrollment of 399,586 participants (of whom 4.5% went on to develop CVD) to...

A photograph came across my screen today that perfectly encapsulates what's wrong with modern, traditional education. (I use the word "traditional" as a contrast to Montessori or Waldorf schools.) In it, we see that a child gave a correct answer to an ambiguous question, only to be told his answer was wrong because the teacher was unable to see beyond the confines of her answer book. Things like this turn students into the kind of mindless drones who think as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does.Here's the photograph:If it doesn't come through clearly, what you see is that the child was given the...

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki revealed the artificial White House stage was constructed for President Joe Biden due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Because of COVID and because the president was not going to travel as much and not as many people were not going come here, he does a lot of events and actually meetings from there,” Psaki revealed in an interview with actor Rob Lowe on his podcast Literally.