Free Republic

Anti-capitalism is flooding TikTok as young people question a life that prioritizes productivity over well-being In a TikTok video with 1.8 million views, a user who goes by the name Rama beams at the camera. "Like many young adults, I used to want an enjoyable and meaningful life," Rama says with a smile, "that is, until I discovered capitalism. "Now, I live in a society where my productivity matters more than my well-being, and so I'm just depressed and anxious all the time. I'm smiling, but I'm deeply wounded. I work three jobs, and I still feel like I'm not...

Coke Freestyle machines seem to have all of the soda flavors you could ever want. But not even the Coke Freestyle dispensers can bring back the discontinued sodas of yore. From the inventive (Coca-Cola combined with coffee, anyone?) to the truly strange (we're looking at you, bacon soda), the beverage industry has come up with some wild creations over the years. Here are a few soda flavors that have gone the way of the dinosaur. We can't say we miss them, but it's fun to reminisce about these vintage options.

Melinda Gates reached a breaking point before filing for divorce from Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates. During conversation with Gayle King on CBS Mornings—which is set to air March 3—Melinda shared that she was an emotional wreck after announcing their divorce after 27 years of marriage, telling Gayle that she shed "a lot of tears for many days" and would lie on the carpet thinking, "How can this be? How can I get up? How am I going to move forward?" In a March 2 preview, Gayle asked the billionaire philanthropist about the New York Times report that her former husband...

KYIV, UKRAINE — Most of the world lined up against Moscow in the United Nations on Wednesday to demand it withdraw from Ukraine, as Russian forces renewed their bombardment of the country’s second-biggest city and besieged its strategic ports. Russia reported its military casualties for the first time since the invasion began last week, saying nearly 500 of its troops had been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Ukraine insisted Russia’s losses were far higher but did not immediately disclose its own casualties. The U.N. General Assembly voted to demand that Russia stop its offensive and immediately withdraw all troops, with...

Retired Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor joined Tucker Carlson on Fox News Tuesday to discuss the latest developments of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, noting that the first phase of Russia’s incursion is over, marking the “beginning of the end of the Ukrainian resistance.”“The first five days, we witnessed a very slow, methodical movement of Russian forces into eastern Ukraine,” MacGregor said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Tuesday.“That is Ukraine — the third of Ukraine, which is on the eastern side of this river, called the Dnieper. They move slowly, cautiously. They try to reduce casualties among the civilian population, tried to give as...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russian troops move deeper into Ukraine, President Joe Biden is taking steps to rein in rising energy costs even if those moves run counter to his agenda for addressing climate change. The focus on high gas prices and increased oil flow is a far cry from Biden’s pledge to wean Americans off oil and other fossil fuels and cut planet-warming emissions in half by 2030. Still, it reflects political realities. Biden’s hourlong speech Tuesday night touched only lightly on climate and he offered no new policy initiatives to address global warming. Republicans, seizing the political advantage,...

Taylor Schabusiness, 24, was charged Tuesday with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and third-degree sexual assault. She's accused of choking the man to death during sex and then allegedly used a bread knife to dismember his body. Schabusiness then placed his head and penis in a bucket, while she dumped other body parts in a large crockpot box, according to a criminal complaint. The grisly scene was discovered by the victim's own mother when she returned home. Schabusiness told investigators she did not mean to kill the victim but as she was choking him, she liked it and kept...

Video at link................. Hundreds of Ukrainians have likely been killed in a nonstop Russian attack in Mariupol that has already lasted more than 15 hours, officials said Wednesday. The southeastern port city is already suffering mass casualties as Russia continued its shelling onslaught on residential areas, Mayor Vadym Boichenko revealed in a live Ukrainian TV broadcast. Authorities haven’t been able to go in and retrieve any bodies, but deputy mayor Sergiy Orlov told BBC News that hundreds were feared dead after an entire district of the city was “nearly totally destroyed.” Orlov’s father is among those who live in the...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stated that President Joe Biden’s solutions to inflation in the State of the Union were the agenda of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that “they’ve been trying to do all year” and will make inflation worse.

Ruling Class laptop war-hawks commence a dangerous new weaponization of money. Among the cognoscenti of the Western capitals of politics and finance, the chorus screams unanimously for ever-escalating economic sanctions against Russia. Lost amidst the cacophony of those calling for a historic financial bloodletting is a dispassionate and careful analysis of the potential peril of such unprecedented collective actions. Specifically, for the first time ever, the powers of the Western World align to purposefully and willfully destroy the currency of a major power – and not just any power, but the most armed nuclear force on earth. The decision to...

After the end of the Cold War, foreign policy experts across the spectrum assured us that things had changed. Wars of pure border conquest were over. Wars over oil would soon be a thing of the past. Instead, the increasingly intertwined world would move toward peace. Thomas Friedman suggested in his massive 1999 bestseller "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" that no two countries with McDonald's would go to war with each other; Francis Fukuyama stated in "The End of History and the Last Man" that we had reached the "end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western...

The Russian Defense Ministry gave its first official accounting of casualties in the war in Ukraine, saying late Wednesday that 498 soldiers had been killed and more than 1,500 wounded. It also said that more than 2,800 Ukrainian troops had died in the fighting. Ukraine’s military said more than 5,800 Russian troops have been killed in action. Kyiv hasn’t said how many of its own service members have died. Neither the Russian nor Ukrainian figures could be verified independently.

When I was a kid, growing up in the foothills of the Appalachians, one of our pastimes was crawdad hunting. It usually happened when the weather was scorching hot and contrary to popular belief it gets hot and humid in the mountains. Once there weren't enough kids around to play stickball, or our bikes were down for repairs, the creek beckoned. Mom and Dad warned us time and again to stay out of the creek, but keeping an eye on me and my brother was a full-time job in and of itself. Growing up out in the country certainly had...

A recent alleged assassination plot against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was foiled over the weekend and the Chechen servicemen sent from Russia were “destroyed,” a Ukrainian security leader said Tuesday. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said during a broadcast marathon airing on Ukrainian TV channels that officials were recently tipped off that a unit of Kadyrovites, elite Chechen special forces, was on its way to kill Zelensky. After Ukrainian officials were informed by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the Chechen special forces were killed Saturday on the outskirts of Kyiv, Danilov said. “We are...

Among the bleak, often harrowing images coming to us from Ukraine as it suffers a vicious invasion by Russia, there are images of hope and strength. Pictures of civilians lining-up to receive firearms or forming makeshift assembly lines to assemble Molotov Cocktails, are examples of something that many Liberals simply fail to grasp as a moving force of human nature – acts of self-preservation against those who would take away individual liberty. “The first and strongest desire God planted in men, and wrought into the very principles of their nature, [is] that of self-preservation,” John Locke wrote in 1689. The...

A rare spinal cord condition could be amongst the vaccine’s adverse side effects, according to an EU drug regulatory authority. The committee even, who reviewed the data over a three day conference, made a suggestion addressing vaccine manufacturers to add a warning and spread awareness.A change to the product information has been indicated by the European Union’s drug regulator, for COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, recommends to include a warning of a rare spinal cord condition called transverse myelitis.Transverse Myelitis is a rare condition that involves inflammation of one or both sides of the spinal cord. Symptoms...

Ever wonder why you really are given Ashes today, and walk around with that smudge on your forehead? Ever wonder why?, when you saw people with those smudges walking around... This YouTube video explains how and what Ashes represent beginning in the Old Testament, traced through into the New Testament with Jesus and his disciples and why it is an important practice of our Faith for today. And it goes much deeper than just "Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust" 31 min. Educational YouTube video link below:The Biblical Roots of Ash Wednesday

Carmel, California – This tourist town’s Ocean Avenue main street is lightly trafficked on a Monday morning despite 65-degree weather and bslue skies. COVID rules daily life here. A few, masked pedestrians walked the streets, home of some of northern Californian’s most beautiful beaches. Shops are plastered with signs requiring masks to enter. Store attendants bark at patrons to pull their masks over their noses. Store traffic is light. A continent away in Naples, Florida and the central, 3rd Street shopping area is bustling with people. Pedestrians browse shops, jam restaurants, and masks are rarely seen. Despite similar weather and...

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Joe Biden pledged to build 500,000 electric charging stations across the country. "We’ll create good jobs for millions of Americans, modernizing roads, airports, ports, and waterways all across America. And we’ll do it all to withstand the devastating effects of the climate crisis and promote environmental justice," Biden said. "We’ll build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations." On Twitter, Biden touted Ford and GM for their production of electric cars. Tesla founder Elon Musk, who the White House has been ignoring, took notice and fact checked Biden...

Conservative radio host Mark Levin tore into President Joe Biden for projecting major weakness in his foreign policy by placing “harsher sanctions” on American energy than on Russian energy amidst the war in Ukraine. During the Feb. 28 edition of the Mark Levin Show, Levin reiterated a major point he made Feb. 25 on Biden’s ongoing phony war against American energy. Levin replayed a recording of his original comments ripping Biden for putting “greater sanctions on the American energy industry than he has on the Russian energy industry. He has prevented drilling on federal lands. The problem is the federal...