Free Republic

The Biden administration backtracked on reports that it is resuming the federal oil and gas leasing program in light of a recent appeals court decision. On Friday, Reuters reported that the Department of the Interior (DOI), the agency tasked with overseeing the leasing program, was planning to resume the previously-delayed program. But a DOI spokesperson pushed back on the report, saying it overstated the administration’s position that it would begin planning the next steps, not that it had already resumed the program. “The article overstates our next steps (we did not say we were resuming leasing but instead the planning),”...

If a midday slump has you reaching for a pick-me-up, you might want to think twice before picking up coffee. A recent survey of 2,005 Americans focused on people’s beverage drinking habits and pinpointed popular alternatives to a cup of Joe to get over the post-lunch dip. While coffee connoisseurs undoubtedly have the most drive in the morning (65%), only 29 percent keep that motivation going into the afternoon. Meanwhile, 41 percent of those who favor tea claim they are typically brimming with that P.M. drive. Nearly as many people who prefer juice (81%) and water (78%) remain as productive...

[Biden's] liberal internationalism is proving to be costly. In case you missed it amid the war news, the Journal this week reported that Saudi Arabia is edging closer to accepting the yuan as payment for oil shipments to China. This is one more cost, and a potentially significant one, of the Biden Administration’s bungled handling of a strategically important ally. Details of the potential new Saudi-Chinese oil-trading arrangements remain vague. The two sides have talked for years about pricing some oil sales in yuan, and it may not happen. Some 80% of global oil sales are priced in U.S. dollars,...

The four US Marines who were killed in a helicopter crash during a NATO training exercise off the coast Norway on Friday have been identified. The Marine Corps, in a Sunday statement, identified the dead as Cpl. Jacob M. Moore, 24, of Catlettsburg, Kentucky; Gunnery Sgt. James W. Speedy, 30, of Cambridge, Ohio; Capt. Matthew J. Tomkiewicz, 27, of Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Capt. Ross A. Reynolds, 27, of Leominster, Massachusetts. All four men were assigned to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing stationed at Marine Corps Air Station in New River, North Carolina. The victims’ MV-22B Osprey was reported missing...

An illegal alien is charged with brutally murdering a couple who were riding bikes back to their home in Daytona Beach, Florida. Jean Robert Macean, a 32-year-old illegal alien, was arrested and charged late last week for the murder of a husband and wife — 55-year-old Brenda Aultman and 48-year-old Terry Aultman. According to the Daytona Beach Police Department, the Aultmans were riding their bikes back to their home following a day at the Bike Week festival when they were encountered by Macean. Police said the Aultmans were found in a grassy area next to a sidewalk with slashes and...

Matt Pottinger, an architect of Trump’s security strategy, sees Ukraine as analogous to Korea, a ‘hot opening salvo’ in a global conflict between the free world and a bloc of dictatorships. ...snip... Is this [the war on Ukraine] the summer of 1914, with great powers stumbling into a horrific global conflict? Or is it the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939? What about Moscow’s 1939-40 Winter War against Finland? ...snip ... ....snip... Mr. Putin’s attempted conquest, and his burgeoning partnership with China’s Xi Jinping, reminds Mr. Pottinger of the Korean War. “In 1950, Stalin and Mao and Kim Il Sung...

Oscar-winning actress Rita Moreno attacked critics of Hollywood celebrities who speak out about political and social justice issues, proclaiming, “f ’em!” during her acceptance speech after winning the Stanley Kramer Award at the PGAs on Saturday. “We are in the throes of yet another award season,” the 90-year-old actress said, according to a report by Deadline. “Some in our tribe have been known to use the spotlight to advocate for issues addressed in their nominated works — climate change, universal health care, voting rights, LGBTQ advocacy and others — and I know for some in the audience, in some audiences,...

California’s urban water users and farmers who rely on supplies from state reservoirs will get less than planned this year as fears of a third consecutive dry year become reality, state officials announced. Water agencies that serve 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland, will get just 5% of what they’ve requested this year from state supplies beyond what’s needed for critical activities such as drinking and bathing. That’s down from the 15% allocation state officials had announced in January, after a wet December fueled hopes of a lessening drought. But a wet winter didn’t materialize and unless several...

Jesse Jensen, a former Army Ranger and current Task Force Argo president looking to unseat Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA) in the midterms, told SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday that President Joe Biden has embarrassed the country on the international stage. Jensen told Breitbart News’s Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle that he has never been more “embarrassed by my government in my life” following the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, where 13 service members were killed and thousands of Americans and American allies were left stranded in the country. He also said that “Biden ignored military advice,” further explaining that Secretary of Defense...

Family and advocates are outside NY Gov. Kathy Hochul's New York City office calling for jail reform after two more deaths at Rikers Island.

Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, now a leading Republican Senate candidate, was physically abusive and demonstrated such “unstable and coercive behavior” that steps were taken to limit his access to firearms, according to new allegations from his ex-wife revealed in court records on Monday. The sworn affidavit from Sheena Greitens is part of an ongoing child custody dispute in Missouri. A public affairs professor at the University of Texas, she sought divorce from Eric Greitens after a sex scandal that led to his resignation as governor in June 2018. She’s now asking the court to move...

ideo showing the true size of Russia compared to Africa has gone viral on TikTok as social media users learn about the misrepresentation of scale on many world maps. First posted in late February, the video had gained around 8.5 million views as of March 14 with just under 400,000 likes. In the video, footage of an interactive map shows an outline of Russia, which at first appears to dominate a huge section of the map. However, as the outline is dragged down towards the continent of Africa and the equator, Russia begins to shrink. By the time the outline...

A credible deterrent is designed to alter a potential aggressor’s calculations of risk and reward. Vladimir Putin determined that the potential cost of invading Ukraine was relatively low, and on Feb. 24 he attacked. It will be the job of historians to try to understand why deterrence failed. Deterrence involves two factors: capability and will. Capability means having the military strength to deliver intolerable damage to an adversary. Will is the determination to use that strength and deliver that damage. .....snip..... By signaling that the U.S. had no intention of using its capabilities, the Biden administration seriously weakened their deterrent...

Most of the world thinks that when Old Joe Biden indulges in his habit of leaning forward and dropping his voice to a whisper in the middle of a speech, he doesn’t appear persuasive but just weird and creepy. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-School of Leftist Indoctrination), however, has apparently been attending the Joe Biden School of Rhetorical Tricks, as she took to Instagram on Friday to whisper a “secret” to her followers: capitalism is bad, socialism is good. It doesn’t sound any truer whispered than it does spoken out loud.“Let me tell you a secret,” the renowned intellectual Congresswoman whispered....

A detailed list of the destroyed and captured vehicles and equipment of both sides can be seen below. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available.

Authorities in Odesa accused Russian forces of carrying out a strike on residential buildings in the outskirts of the Ukrainian city early on Monday, the first such attack on the Black Sea port city. The city council said there were no casualties although the strike caused a fire.

The Ukrainian people are making great sacrifices fighting against Russia’s war machine, and their resistance is helping the free world. As NATO’s leaders meet this week in Brussels, now is the time for the alliance to repay this fortitude by escalating support for Kyiv. “Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war. That campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine,” concludes the Washington-based Institute for the Study War (ISW) in a Saturday analysis. “Russian forces continue to make...

LONDON (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday it had used high-precision long-range rockets on a shopping centre which the Russian military said was being used as a weapons store by Ukrainian forces.Shelling hit a Kyiv shopping centre late on Sunday, killing at least eight people, wrecking nearby buildings and leaving smoking piles of rubble and the twisted wreckage of burned-out cars spread over several hundred metres."The areas near the shopping centre were used as a large base for storing rocket munitions and for reloading multiple rocket launchers," Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters."High-precision long-range weapons on the night of...

VIDEOIt was just announced that this will be the final season of the "Maury" Show hosted by Maury Povich. This is certainly a sad time since it marks the loss of one of the great cultural landmarks of our era. Maury Povich, you ARE the father of our great cultural heritage! Your reruns will live eternally in our hearts forever.