Free Republic

Economic discontent is hurting President Joe Biden and his party's midterm election prospects, with six in 10 Americans reporting inflation hardships, three-quarters saying the economy’s in bad shape and a nearly 20-point lead for the Republican Party in trust to handle it. Biden has other problems, with underwater ratings for his handling of the invasion of Ukraine, a split on the pandemic and weak scores on personal attributes including leadership, handling a crisis and mental sharpness. But 40-year-high inflation leads his headaches: Americans are twice as likely to say they’re worse off than better off under his presidency, by 35-17%...

A few caveats. All I write here is based on limited information on conditions on the ground, predictions are dicey because I do not know exactly what Putin is thinking, and let me say clearly I do support Ukraine and I loathe the Putin regime. Some MisconceptionsI think the whole “Putin is afraid of Ukraine as a post-Soviet democratic example to Russia” is exaggerated, if not plain wrong. Very, very few Russians want Russia to be like Ukraine, because Ukraine is a poor country burdened by grossly ineffective government. And note: there are about a million Ukrainians who live and...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced sharp hikes in the country's defence spending. Speaking at an emergency session of the German parliament he said €100 billion ($113 bn) will be added to Berlin's military budget this year. It means Germany will now spend more than 2% of its annual GDP on defence, a longstanding NATO target the country has previously failed to meet - despite pressure from the US, and in particular former President Donald Trump.

resident Joe Biden is absolutely committed to punishing Russian President Vladimir Putin for his aggression in Ukraine. You can’t turn on the TV without some clip of the silver haired, senile embodiment of Jeff Dunham’s puppet Walter insisting he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make the butcher of Moscow pay for his evil actions. In spirit, I agree with him. In spirit, Biden actually imposed sanctions that matter, that hurt. In reality, he didn’t do a damn thing. Putin’s power comes from money, most of Putin’s money comes from oil and gas. It stands to reason that if...

The Talk Shows February 27th, 2022 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Guest anchor Harris Faulkner: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Panel: Peter Doocy; Jonathan Turley; Whine Williams; Charles Hurt. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Hosted by Chuck U. Toad: U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.); Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio); Richard Engel, reporting from Ukraine; Keir Simmons, reporting from Russia. Russia and Ukraine: Kori Schake; Clint Watts. Panel: Jeremy Bash; Andrea Mitchell; Danielle Pletka; Kristen Welker. Panel: Former chief of staff to Leon...

Politico Is Wrong: It’s The US-Led West, Not President Putin, Who MiscalculatedThe new geostrategic reality that the US-led West is solely responsible for triggering through its irresponsible miscalculations in refusing to encourage Kiev to implement the UNSC-backed Minsk Accords for ending the Ukrainian Civil War and its lack of interest in respecting Russia’s security guarantee requests is expected to accelerate the decline of the US’ unipolar hegemony over International Relations. It’ll of course take time for that to more fully unfold, but it appears inevitable since the US cannot simultaneously ‘contain’ Russia and China, with the second-mentioned expected to take...

A few years back in 2018 (which seems like the age of innocence considering what the world has devolved into currently), President Donald Trump had a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Unlike most meetings where polite banter occurs before TV cameras, and core dealings occur behind closed doors, the cameras were allowed to remain for the entire duration of the meeting. After the customary pleasantries, Stoltenberg emphasized the importance of NATO for the EU, he thanked Trump for compelling others to contribute more to NATO, and said he looked forward to Trump’s meeting with President Putin. It was at...

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem2 Thessalonians 15 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our...

Ukrainian forces have regained control of the key city of Kharkiv, the regional governor has said. In a post on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: "Control over Kharkiv is completely ours! "The armed forces, the police, and the defence forces are working, and the city is being completely cleansed of the enemy." Russian troops were able to enter the city, Ukraine's second largest, overnight. Footage circulated on social media showed street fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops. The situation on the ground remains fluid and claims of control are hard to verify - but civilians on the ground have also told...

I once respected Vladimir Putin for his effectiveness, although I emphatically did not like what he did to neighboring countries, and also Russians with whom he disagreed. One can similarly respect the effectiveness of other despots such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great without liking how they treated other countries or even their own people. When Peter the Great built Saint Petersburg, for example, tens of thousands of workers died from disease and privation, and some were eaten by wolves in the streets. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, however, demonstrates a colossal lack of judgment that reveals him to...

Another example of the softness, feminization and infantilization of our culture. Even in an aging population, finding an actual mature adult is an increasingly difficult task. A February 25 tweet from National Public Radio purported to address how Americans should deal with traumatizing headlines about the ongoing war in Ukraine. NPR noted, "Russia’s attack on Ukraine means there’s a stressful news cycle ahead of us. The reality of conflict is always a shock to the system.” Patriotic Ukrainian citizens are dying in the streets defending their families and their nation against an overwhelming Russian invasion of their land and we...

The reason I'm not a libertarian is because I'd like to be free. The libertarian says he does, too, but is living proof that wanting something and getting it are two completely different matters — and his theory stands directly in the way of his practice. His first problem is his dislike of government, which he shares many times with other "conservatives." This means he's the least likely to actually go into it (and who wants to hire a man who doesn't believe in his job?), and since he forfeits the position, all kinds of important bureaucratic and so-called "oppressive"...

'When you look at all of the evidence together, it's an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market,' Worobey told the New York Times. Worobey and his team said that they focused on about 156 cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan in December 19. They continued by mapping cases in January and February using data from Chinese researchers of over 700 cases that popped up away from the market in Wuhan, particularly those with a lot of older residents. The team then studied mutations in what's known as the virus' family tree and concluded that they had...

It’s certainly a novel way for him to deal with the fact that Americans are watching their money vanish. Hard-left podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen interviewed Biden. The topics were what would expect—Biden’s race- and sex-based Supreme Court nominee, claims that Trump and other Republicans support Putin, boasts about his strategic genius, etc.—but the real surprise was Biden’s claim that COVID has made Americans so psychologically unstable they can’t understand that the Biden economy is wonderful. Here’s what Americans know: They are facing hard times. The economy is creeping back, but it’s nowhere near what it was under Trump before COVID....

Leftist nonprofit organizations are training cadres of young journalists to do their bidding. For years, local journalism has been collapsing. Between 2018 and 2020, nearly 6,000 journalism jobs and 300 newspapers vanished, a longstanding trend which accelerated with the COVID pandemic. But, not to worry, help is on the way. Enter Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit organization. They are “a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.” They will pay half of the salaries of the “talented” journalists they propose to place in your communities....

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Word from the battlegrounds in Ukraine is scattered and cannot always be confirmed, but some credible accounts give every indication that Putin may have blundered and faces a stronger defense than he (or the Biden administration) imagined possible. The bravery of a former comedian elected the Ukrainian President and a multimillionaire former boxing champion, now the mayor of Kyiv, who refused flight and stayed to defend their homeland at great risk of their lives, is part of the story. But to my mind, the memory of the Holodomor in which Russia’s Stalin starved to death millions of Ukrainians plays an...

"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him." "And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold...

The First Casualty Of War Is Truth... COVID Cranium Cleanings Lead To Drilling Brains With Ukraine After all the false COVID narratives that saturated our minds for two years, it's time for a new set of false narratives about Ukraine... Four Bullet Points Of Truth World War I was a horrible mistake Communism and Naziism came out of World War I Modern Ukraine was formed out of Communism snd Naziism Vladimir Putin is acting to change that through violent means... There Are Fakegressives Alongside The Fakeservatives... And now the latest total of the dead and injured no I'm not talking...

February 27th 2022 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time St. Nicholas Cathedral, Kyiv, Ukraine Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First readingEcclesiasticus 27:5-8 ©The test of a man is in his conversationIn a shaken sieve the rubbish is left behind, so too the defects of a man appear in his talk.The kiln tests the work of the potter, the test of a man is in his conversation.The orchard where a tree grows is judged on the quality of its fruit, similarly a man’s words betray what he feels.Do not praise a man before he has spoken, since this is the test of...