Free Republic

It is easy to predict what the Russian president will do in any given situation. Biden is making it easier for Putin to act with aggression. or all his caginess, dissimulation, and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is more or less predictable. Putin’s aims? The Russian president’s two-decade dilemma has been how to reclaim the prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—but with only 75 percent of his country’s former territory and 140 million fewer people. When does he strike? First, Putin moves on neighboring former Soviet republics when the world price of oil is high, and his coffers are full....

What is behind recent pessimistic appraisals of democracy's future, from Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Brian Williams and other elite intellectuals, media personalities, and politicians on the Left? Some are warning about its possible erosion in 2024. Others predict democracy's downturn as early 2022, with scary scenarios of "autocracy" and Trump "coups." To answer that question, understand first what is not behind these shrill forecasts. They are not worried about 2 million foreign nationals crashing the border in a single year, without vaccinations during a pandemic. Yet it seems insurrectionary for a government simply to nullify its own immigration laws. They...

It’s just the flu, bro. Ukraine update: Ukrainian President declares a state of emergency even bough there are still no reports of 18-wheeler transfer trucks parked in urban areas. Importantly though, only 35% of Ukraine is vaccinated. And only 2% is boosted. This is hugh and series as people will be crowded together. Supply lines of N95 masks will be compromised as well. If the internet goes down then that is when the real trouble hits because then Ukrainians won’t be able to access the CDC website.

NATO will activate its defensive Response Force in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. The decision was made by NATO's North Atlantic Council. "Peace on our continent has been shattered," Stoltenberg said. "We now have war in Europe on a scale and of a type we thought belonged to history."

If you offered people $100 to name a Supreme Court Justice, I bet you’d lose quite a bit of money. If you challenged random people to name a Cabinet Secretary, you’d still lose money, just not at much. If the challenge was to name any Postmaster General other than Benjamin Franklin, your money would be safe. Unless you happen to be an activist liberal, that is, then the name will roll of your tongue with venom: Louis DeJoy. Since November 5, 2020, I have received 238 fundraising emails from left-wing groups about just how awful Mr. DeJoy is. Missing from...

I really don't care. Where's the UN??

Maybe the elites are more responsible than you and I. In almost every chapter of 2 Kings in the Old Testament is the recurring announcement of a king's passing. It begins with how King So-and-So "slept with his fathers" and his son became king. The follow-up reads, "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and did make all Israel sin." Until COVID and Critical Race Theory, my view of Israel sinning was that Israel was predisposed (as we all are) to wanting to sin. The kings didn't so much "make" them sin as gave...

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe...

The prime minister revoked the utterly disturbing Emergencies Act last night, but Canada's problems might be just beginning. What in the world is going on in Canada? Just last night, P.M. Trudeau revoked the Emergencies Act that he'd been using since last Monday to crack down on protesters. But the Parliament had approved those "emergency" measures, as we saw in news reports. The Emergencies Act was approved in parliament by 185 to 151, with the minority Liberal government getting support from left-leaning New Democrats. The special measures, announced by Trudeau a week ago, have been deemed unnecessary and an abuse...

The Victorian government is urgently drafting retrospective legislation to address an administrative error which has resulted in more than 1,000 police officers being invalidly sworn in over the past eight years.The error has affected 1,076 police officers as well as 157 protective services officers and up to 29 police custody officers, all of whom have been performing their duties without having the legal powers to do so. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said the "administrative oversight" arose after changes in the law, which took effect in July 2014, meant deputy commissioners could no longer appoint colleagues to the position...

Putin has sent has 100K+ troops into the fake separatist regions of Ukraine, and that’s bad. But the morphing of Canada into a fascist state before our eyes is exponentially worse. A garbage elite on our border – with the disgraceful support of 65% of American Democrats – has declared war upon the working class, outraged that mere peasants are refusing to submit to their betters. Due process, free speech, not beating the brains out of old ladies with walkers – these basics have gone by the wayside and our senile president, with his coterie of aspiring Castros – though...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the Emergencies Act that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently invoked to quell the trucker convoy protests is "very, very dangerous" and warned against similar legislation that exists in the United States. "I think statutes that allow presidents or heads of state to invoke emergencies are very, very dangerous," said Paul during an episode of the BASED Politics podcast that aired Sunday. "We have the same sort of statutes here, and I have long-time been an opponent of these. We actually have in the United States an Emergency Act that allows the president to shut...

Chinese official has told Newsweek that the issues of Ukraine and Taiwan were entirely separate, but at the same time has stressed that the self-ruling island is a part of China in language mirroring Russian President Vladimir Putin's own speech questioning the sovereignty of a neighboring country against which he has since ordered military action. "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory and there is only one China in the world," Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for Beijing's embassy in Washington, told Newsweek. "This is an irrefutable historical and legal fact." Asked if China saw comparisons in Washington's approach to sending...

The Russia-Ukraine crisis has revived the charge that the new Ukraine, far from being an embattled pro-Western seeker of liberal democracy, is a haven for fascists and Nazis. Once upon a time, the “Ukrainian Nazis” narrative was pushed mainly by the far left. In 2014, after the Euromaidan revolution in Kyiv ousted a pro-Moscow government and Russia responded by annexing Crimea and sponsoring separatist enclaves in Eastern Ukraine, it was old-school tankie Seumas Milne in the Guardian, historian Stephen Cohen in the Nation, Max Blumenthal in Salon, and their ilk who made these charges. Fast-forward to today, and the most...

Edible oil prices soared this week, prompting fears that record-high food prices could be imminent. On Wednesday, soybean oil futures in Chicago hit their highest levels since 2008, and palm oil, the commodity used in thousands of food products, jumped to new highs. Soybean prices increased 1.4% to 71 cents per pound, the highest level since 2008. US canola futures are also on the verge of an all-time high, and palm oil in Malaysia hit a new record high of $1,434 per ton.“Drought has crimped soybean crops across South America this season. Rival oilseeds like palm and canola have also...

The history of Islam and the West has been one of unwavering antagonism and seismic clashes, often initiated by the followers of Muhammad. By the standards of history, nothing between the two forces is as well documented as this long war. Accordingly, for more than a millennium, both educated and not so educated Europeans knew—the latter perhaps instinctively—that Islam was a militant creed that for centuries attacked and committed atrocities in their homelands, all in the name of "holy war," or jihad. In the words of Konstantin Mihailović, a fifteenth-century Serb who was forced to convert to Islam in his...

Click on link

MADISON – Wisconsin's governor would no longer have sole authority to spend federal funds that flow into the state under a proposed constitutional amendment the state Assembly approved on Wednesday. Federal spending would instead be required to gain approval of the Legislature by a joint resolution or a legislative rule, neither of which the governor can veto. A previous version of the proposal would require a committee of state lawmakers to approve the spending. "Usually I hear Republicans talking about wanting to do away with red tape, but here we are with a proposal before us that would do nothing...

Although he certainly did not intend to, the drugged and despondent 17-year-old who wandered through a failing Florida subdivision on a rainy February night ten years ago Saturday launched a new phase in the American civil rights movement. This was to be the Jacobin phase, the phase in which traditional civil rights standards such as equality before the law and innocent until proven guilty yielded to mob rule and race-based outcomes. Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin would not live to see this transition. The 28-year-old man who shot and killed Trayvon, George Zimmerman, has lived in the shadows of Jacobin justice every...

World stock markets plunged and oil prices surged by nearly $6 per barrel Thursday after President Vladimir Putin launched Russian military action in Ukraine. Market benchmarks tumbled in Europe and Asia and U.S. futures were sharply lower. Brent crude oil jumped to over $100 per barrel on unease about possible disruption of Russian supplies. The price of U.S. benchmark crude briefly surpassed $98 per barrel. The ruble sank 7.5% to more than $87 to the U.S. dollar. The future for Germany’s benchmark DAX index lost 5.3% and London’s FTSE 100 was off 3.3% as Europe awakened to news of explosions...