Free Republic

Funny skit from It's a Southern Thing

A year ago, ahead of the consensus, we argued that inflation was underestimated. Now it is time to warn about the coming slowdown. Like then, our view is unfashionable. Indeed, in the past week equity markets staged a strong comeback, a sign that investor spirits are recovering from their soggy start to 2022. As we note below, that bounce back isn’t entirely without justification. But it isn’t likely to enjoy much follow through, either. Several factors have underpinned the most recent recovery of risk assets. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell assuaged fears by offering an unusual degree of clarity about...

Embattled Disney CEO Bob Chapek told employees during a virtual town hall Monday that he regretted not taking a public stance against Florida's controversial 'Don't Say Gay' bill. Chapek, who is already facing leadership problems amid a rift with his predecessor, Bob Iger, and discontent from employees who remain loyal to Iger thanks to his glittering tenure at the helm of the entertainment giant, said that Disney made a mistake by not publicly decrying the bill. 'I and the leadership team are determined to use this moment as a catalyst for more meaningful and lasting change,' Chapek, 61, said during...

The original photo taken of Thomas in the pool features an outline left by swim goggles as well as additional facial imperfections and marks.... The photo appeared on a TODAY Show segment last week talking about Thomas ahead of the NCAA championships, which took place over the weekend.

In my adult lifetime it has been my honor to witness three attempted presidential defenestrations. The first, of course, was Richard Nixon for the unspeakable crime of… yes, just what was it that he did? Anyway, the day came when the senior Republicans drove down Pennsylvania Avenue and told President Nixon that he had to go. Dear old Bill Clinton, of course, was not deserted by his party when the eeevil Republicans impeached him, even though he had committed unspeakable sexual harassments that today would prompt all sensitive souls to declare: “I can’t breathe.” Then we come to Donald Trump....

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. For to us a child is born. To us a Son is given. The Authority to rule will rest on His shoulders. And His...

While a very real conflict is raging in Ukraine, spotlights aren’t shining on the struggles of digital distribution. Yet the advocates of radical world restructuring and total surveillance recognized long ago the potential of this Eastern European country. With the vigorous participation from President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine would be a Mecca for US bio-weapons laboratories and pave the way for digital networking, the Metaverse, and a transparent citizenry. The linchpin is the digital ID app known as “Diia,” an acronym for “The Government and me.” Zelensky’s Social Credit System The journey started in 2019 after Zelensky had only been in...

The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—Thomas Paine The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it. The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer. Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for...

The money - in US dollars and euros - was spotted by Hungarian customs in the baggage of the spouse of controversial ex-MP Igor Kotvitsky, 52, say reports. criminal case has been opened into a failure by Anastasia Kotvitska to declare the removal of the large sum from the war-ravaged country, say reports in Kyiv. Kotvitsky - once Ukraine’s wealthiest MP - said his wife was leaving the country to give birth, but denied reports she was carrying $28 million and 1.3 million euros. 'All my money is in Ukrainian banks, I did not take anything out,' he said, before...

Without hearing more of the speech, I have a sense that Kamala is trying to point out that, given childhood’s brevity, we cannot delay this government project to ensure that kids get high-speed internet during that brief interlude. (That’s my guess.) *snip* Richard Grenell, Trump’s former Acting Director of National Intelligence and former US Ambassador to Germany, knows Harris and has nothing good to say about her. I’ve cued the video so it goes straight to the Harris material but I actually recommend the whole thing. What Grenell has to say about Biden’s foreign policy, Antony Blinken’s qualifications, and Angela...

Approximately 23,000 mail ballots were rejected during Texas' recent primary elections, according to on an analysis by the Associated Press. That’s roughly 13% of all mail ballots from the 187 Texas counties that responded to the AP's survey. County election officials and the Texas secretary of state’s office say most of the rejected mail ballots didn't follow voter identification requirements that came from the state’s new voting rules, which include requiring mail-ballot voters to use the Social Security or driver's license number that correlates with what they used to register to vote. The most rejections were in the Houston area....

President Biden, the former Senator from Delaware, addressed the Business Roundtable on Monday afternoon. "We're at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy, not just the world economy, the world, that occurs every three or four generations," the president said. "[A general told me that] 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946 and since then we've established a liberal world order, and it hasn't happened in a long while."

The dangers of moral exhibitionism. (8:15 Video at link)

Biden says Putin is weighing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, without citing evidence By Nandita Bose and Alexandra Alper WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - Russia's false accusations that Kyiv has biological and chemical weapons illustrate that Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering using them himself in his war against Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday, without citing evidence. Putin's "back is against the wall and now he's talking about new false flags he's setting up including, asserting that we in America have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe, simply not true," Biden said at a...

"When developers change auditors ahead of their full-year results season, it typically raises red flags regarding potential auditing issues and should lead to serious market concerns about the trustworthiness of their financial numbers," Japanese bank Nomura said in a Monday note.

After Donald Trump was caught on video bragging about sexually assaulting women, Mike Pence stayed on his ticket. As the coronavirus ravaged the U.S., the then-vice president praised the administration’s response. And after a violent mob threatened his life during an attack on the U.S. Capitol, Pence rejected entreaties to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. But after years of being a subservient sidekick, Pence is beginning to distance himself from Trump as he takes increasingly overt steps toward a White House bid of his own. Last month, Pence called out Trump by name, saying his former...

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat opened the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, brushing away attacks from Republicans who claimed she had been too lenient on “child porn offenders.” Committee chair Dick Durbin referred to the allegation in his opening remarks, rebutting it as he cited an unlikely source: Andrew McCarthy, a conservative former prosecutor and National Review columnist. In a series of tweets last week, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he had discovered an “alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children.” "In every single child porn...

German producer prices rose in January at their fastest rate since modern records began, soaring 25% as energy costs spiraled and extending a run of sharp increases expected to keep consumer inflation at around 5% for several months more. The jump in PPI, considered a leading indicator for consumer prices, was the biggest since 1949, when West and East Germany were founded and the country’s post-war economic data series began. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the figure, published on Monday by the Federal Statistics Office, to remain at December’s 24.2%. Sharp increases of 18.4% and 19.2% respectively were logged...

After several days of problems, the city of Miami Beach said it was declaring a state of emergency and implementing a curfew starting Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. to deal with rowdy spring breakers. “We didn’t ask for spring break and we don’t want it," Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said Monday. According to Miami's ABC station, WPLG, "five people were injured during two shootings on Ocean Drive" as spring breakers socialized nearby on Sunday. A video posted on social media shows a police motorcade driving slowly down the crowded street when four shots rang out. That sent dozens of...

TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Almost everyone with access to independent media watched in shock and horror as Russian tanks rolled into free, democratic Ukraine. Protests have erupted around the world, volunteers have donated money and rushed to the border to assist refugees, and governments have belatedly begun to unify in response. Europe, in particular, was caught flat-footed by Putin’s invasion, but the failure to prepare for assaults on free peoples by brutal dictatorships is a global problem. The war in Ukraine is forcing the world to face the fact that autocrats don’t play by rules they don’t like; the only...