Free Republic

For a long time I have thought that the public in Western countries would wake up to the absurdity of fossil fuel suppression when the price of energy to the consumer rose high enough. And to a substantial degree that has begun to happen. But the cost of fossil fuel suppression is not merely a modest degradation in our comfortable lifestyles and impoverishment of the poor. As the situation in Ukraine is now demonstrating, fossil fuel suppression in the U.S., Europe and other Western countries also entails significant empowerment of our most significant geopolitical adversaries, and poses major risks to...

To quote a screaming John McEnroe: You cannot be serious! Last week, the Biden administration requested another $30 billion for COVID relief programs. Yes, I know that these days, $30 billion is a rounding error in the $6 trillion federal budget. But isn't that precisely the problem? But, as Joe would say: Come on, man! The White House's latest plea for more money on top of the $4 trillion to $5 trillion is an insult. Biden wants $18 billion for antivirals, $5 billion for testing and $3 billion to combat future viruses. Isn't that already the job of the $7...

Russia’s aggression against its neighbor isn’t just power politics and geostrategy, it’s about core issues of faith and identity. It’s finally happened. Early today, after weeks of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on his neighbor and launched a major, multi-pronged invasion into Southern, Eastern, and Northern Ukraine. This is just the first military phase of many to come, only a small amount of the vast forces that Moscow has marshalled on Ukraine’s frontiers have entered action yet. Any judgements about the progress of the war would be premature (though this newsletter will be providing regular assessments on...

As of today, thirty member countries comprise the NATO alliance. Between 1999 through 2020, fourteen countries were admitted into NATO in the following order: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Much of that real estate borders Russia, and the U.S. is committed to defend those lands against Russian aggression. Alliances can be powerful deterrents to war, but they can also be dangerous. After the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, the Serbians agreed to a long, demeaning list of Austrian demands to avert war. Nevertheless, the Austrians insisting on crushing Serbia...

After starting with 150 trucks in southern California on February 23, the convoy has grown to over 250 trucks and is on track to reach the Capital Beltway by March 5.. The U.S. cross-country trucker convoy, which was organized to call for an end to all authoritarian COVID mandates and restrictions, is on track to reach the outskirts of Washington, D.C. as planned on March 5. After passing through Texas and Oklahoma over the weekend, the so-called “People’s Convoy,” which began in southern California on February 23, reached Cuba, Missouri for an overnight stay Monday night. The truckers will then...

This is one of those times when the word “intelligence” seems like a serious oxymoron as applied to people tasked with protecting Britain. Something called a “Mission Critical” toolkit has been disseminated amongst British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6, and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), according to the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail published the leaked documents showing that the intelligence agencies are promoting inclusive language, attempting to do away with verbiage that could “reinforce dominant cultural patterns,” and urging Britain’s spies to declare their preferred pronouns and add them to their email signatures. This new guidance was allegedly approved by...

Greg Abbott is America's second-best governor. When the competition for #1 is Ron DeSantis, that’s nothing to scoff at, but when the rest of the competition is a field of Asa Hutchisons and Kristi Noems, suddenly it's less impressive. My Republican friends in Austin and Washington DC don’t understand why I’m not content with Abbott. Not only has he kept up with DeSantis’s opposition of COVID tyranny, they say, but he has made unprecedented progress in the fight against so-called ‘wokeness.’ The list of Abbott’s supposed accomplishments is long, but his two greatest are the signing of a bill banning...

PHILIPSBURG, Pennsylvania -- For over a decade, Pat Romano drove past the former Mallard Motel on his way to and from the construction business he owned in town. And the more he saw the motel fall into disrepair, the more he wanted to buy it -- which he admits was a bit crazy. Perched on the cusp of the Port Matilda Highway (and dormant for decades), Romano, a hardcore Philadelphia native who grew up with a steady diet of cheesesteaks and attitude, decided he'd go with crazy. Despite opening at the height of the pandemic in 2020, Romano has not...

Drunks and violent thugs are evading deportation and getting work permits. The Biden administration has done a lot of damage to immigration enforcement in the U.S., but perhaps its most dangerous move has been its consistent refusal to deport criminal illegal aliens who commit crimes right here in the U.S. The latest example of the Biden administration’s malfeasance came late last month when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) canceled a deportation request for an illegal alien who allegedly killed a teenager in a hit-and-run incident. Heriberto Fuerte-Padilla, an illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested in November 2020 after he...

No. 1: The NATO excuseA widely offered explanation for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that Russia -- which at this time essentially means President Vladimir Putin -- fears the expansion of NATO to its borders, especially Ukraine. The argument is often presented as an analogy: How would the United States react if Mexico had a mutual defense pact with Russia and received weapons from Russia? A second explanation is that Russia is "paranoid" as a result of its having been devastated by the invasions of Napoleon's France in the 19th century and Hitler's Germany in the 20th. This was...

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For an 'empowered, super-successful woman' (her words), 2020 Ms Great Britain April Banbury can be rather daft when it comes to men. She's met goodness knows how many online in the past few years, dated 'more than 100' of them and slept with 'the ones I felt I might have a connection with potentially'. Then . . . 'They just ghost me,' she says with a look that's part fury, part hurt on her very pretty face.

A woman who has been divorced twice before the age of 30 has hit back at critics who mocked her for being a life coach, saying 'mistakes don't disqualify you.' Marissa Baker, 30, from Naples, Florida, has been candid about the work she's done to heal from her failed marriages on her TikTok account. Earlier this month, she opened up about whether she wants to get married for a third time. 'People after I tell them I've been married and divorced twice before 30: "Would you ever get married again?"' she captioned a video of herself dancing to a cover...

Last night, the wife and I attended a dinner party with two other couples. The hosts, old friends endowed with equally large amounts of generosity and common sense, laid out a feast of food and drink, and played Switzerland for the night. They discussed pressing issues good-naturedly and stayed far away from the dangerous third rail of politics. My saintly wife wants nothing to do with talking politics, she’s always made kind, upbeat conversation, or said nothing at all. Despite her peaceful nature, however, she threatened me with severe sanctions on the ride over, should I disturb the dinner party...

It's primary day in Texas. Voters there will decide who to nominate for governor, attorney general and a host of other offices.

I was reading a Breitbart piece about the State of the Union, all about President Biden "plunging both America and the world into chaos." And I thought, yeah, the State of the Union is "Dumb." I mean, ask yourself. Supposing you had been watching the last game of the season on your wall-sized 4K TV. As the U.S. White Oppressors straggled off the field after a disastrous 0 and 10 season what would you think about Coach Biden? You would groan: this guy is as dumb as a post. But obviously, it's not just Biden. It was the Dem hierarchs...

The world has been fundamentally changed by Ukraine. This is true, although nearly all Western coverage has been scaredy-cat and daft. Russia expected to waltz in to Ukraine. It didn‘t. Russian forces have failed in all their objectives. A thousand Russian soldiers die each day of the assault. In the four days prior to this writing, 4,000 have died. This is twice the number of American deaths in Afghanistan over twenty years. (And no, Kyiv was never surrounded, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lives. Indeed, the airport near Kyiv was retaken by local Ukrainian forces; in essence state-level reservists, who retook...

Democrats are using the Russia-Ukraine war to silence their opponents ... On Twitter, you see Democrats pretending that their political opponents are responsible for the invasion and somehow support it. So, Joe Biden and his staff so mismanaged the world that Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine after Biden told us for months he could prevent that from happening, and yet all of it is your fault. So, that's a slanderous lie. ... Joe Biden is telling us he will not commit American troops to Ukraine. Biden also claimed he opposed vaccine mandates. So is he telling the truth? Even if he...

The International Criminal Court has started investigating Russia over potential war crimes the country may have committed during its invasion of Ukraine, after a Ukrainian official claimed that Russia used an illegal weapon during the war, officials said. On Monday, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, told reporters at the U.S. Capitol that during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the former country used a vacuum bomb, in violation of international law, Reuters reported. "They used the vacuum bomb today," Markarova said outside a closed congressional hearing where committee members received an intelligence briefing on the war. "The devastation that Russia...

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