Free Republic

After the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and the Warsaw Pact fell apart a friend of mine succeeded in getting a look at the records the secret police kept on his family when he was a child in Eastern Europe. His father had been a dissident and the authorities had arrested him numerous times. What my friend discovered was that essentially everyone his family came into contact was reporting to the secret police, the butcher, the lady across the hall in their apartment building, and even members of his own family. This is a tried and true...

Several electronics companies, including iPhone and Macbook makers, have halted production in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan, adding to supply chain woes under Beijing’s strict zero-Covid measures. The business hub of Shanghai has become the heart of China’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak since the virus surfaced more than two years ago. The city of 25 million has remained almost entirely locked down since the start of the month, while other areas have rolled out less severe restrictions to stamp out Covid flare-ups. “Local operation in Shanghai area has been temporarily suspended in response to Covid-19 prevention measures,” said...

On Monday, the Biden Administration asked a federal appeals court to allow the reinstatement of the controversial vaccine mandate for all federal government workers. According to The Hill, the request to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was made after the Louisiana-based court overturned a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown in Texas back in January that blocked the policy from being implemented. On Thursday, the Appeals Court ultimately determined by a 2-to-1 vote that Judge Brown’s ruling be reversed due to a lack of jurisdiction. The administration’s lawyers demanded that the court speed up its...

It also isn't supply chain issues alone. The core inflation rate in Europe has remained well below that of the United States; the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was 5.9% in February 2022 in the Europe area, compared with 7.9% in the United States. For its part, the Biden administration blames Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. White House press secretary and incipient MSNBC employee Jen Psaki announced, "we expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin's price hike," and blamed gas prices alone for the spike. That, of course, is ludicrous. In February...

Is it a message from above? Joe Biden was the recipient of a "gift" from the heavens Tuesday when a bird seemingly pooped on him during his televised speech. The president was speaking in Menlo, Iowa, during the first stop of his administration's new "rural infrastructure tour." As Biden said, "It's not hyperbole. It's about being made in America," an apparent bird dropping that itself was made in America suddenly appeared on the left shoulder of the president's blue blazer near the neckline.

The First United Church of Oak Park is on a mission to end “racism, injustice, and violence,” and the strategy is exactly what you’d expect from ideologues of the America Left: more racism and hypocrisy. Under the leadership of Reverend John Edgerton, the congregation has been “fasting from ‘whiteness’” in observance of Lent. According to the official press release: Justice must be loved into existence. It is the only way. White people absolutely have a place in the redemption story. White people were even at the foot of the cross: they were the Roman guards. As white people we must...

Putin’s price hikes! Putin’s price hikes! Putin’s price hikes! No matter how many times Dementia Joe Biden and his caregivers at the White House try to blame out-of-control inflation on the bogeyman du jour, not even low-info Democrat voters seem to be buying into this week’s Big Lie from Deep State media. It’s all on Brandon, these “extraordinarily elevated” increases in the consumer price index, as Jen Psaki, his fork-tongued flack with the gasoline-colored hair, put it on Monday. Tuesday’s headline: “Inflation surges 8.5% in March, hitting a new 40-year high.” Let’s go Brandon! I have a weekly segment on...

Elon Musk’s looming battle with Twitter’s board is a source of major anxiety for company employees – many of whom are reportedly worried that billionaire’s campaign to force changes is just beginning. Musk’s surprise rejection of a Twitter board seat emerged ahead of a scheduled “day of rest” for company employees, according to a report. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal broke the news on his account the previous night, describing Musk’s decision as “for the best” even as he warned workers they would face “distractions ahead,” Bloomberg reported late Monday. The uncertainty left Twitter workers feeling “super stressed” about the future,...

The Colorado Republican Party gathered in Colorado Springs at the World Arena over the past weekend to conduct official party business. The Multi-County District Assemblies were held Friday, April 8 at the Double Tree in Colorado Springs, CO. The first order of business was the State Central Committee Meeting followed by Congressional District assemblies. The early morning of Friday April 8th began with delegates arriving to obtain credentials so that they may cast a vote for the candidates of their choosing in the Congressional District assemblies. The highly controversial but ‘apple of the grassroot conservatives’ eye, Lauren Boebert, swept CD3....

If this isn't viewpoint discrimination by a public school, then what is? Imagine if a school in a conservative rural American town displayed a "MAGA" flag while banning all Nike products because of Nike's political affiliation with the America-hating ideology of Black Lives Matter (BLM). Now imagine the exact opposite, and you'll find the reality of a school in Randolph, Vermont that displays the BLM flag boldly but canceled a high school baseball team fundraiser for using Chick-fil-A products. In an email to the community on April 11, school superintendent Layne Millington stated: Chick-Fil-A as a company has stirred significant...

If there was ever proof that Israel is not an apartheid state actively discriminating against its Arab minority, all one needs to do is look at the recent statement of Israeli Arab Knesset member Ayman Odeh. Not only does this reflect the reality that Israeli Arabs are equal parts of Israel’s democracy, that he can make statements that go against the interest and security of the state shows what a hyper-democracy Israel in fact is. As all this has unfolded, the thought I cannot shake is how much Israel’s Arabs deserve better. Odeh used the occasion of a recent Ramadan...

In a small gray trailer plopped in a parking lot alongside I-91 in Hartford, Samuel Wright and Bonnie Allen waited for COVID-19 vaccine-seekers to arrive. It was late Tuesday afternoon, not long before the Hartford HealthCare vaccine clinic Wright and Allen run was set to close, and the site had seen about 30 patients — an increase from previous days but nothing like the crush of patients vaccinators grew used to in earlier stages of the pandemic. “People are coming in,” said Allen, a registered nurse. “Not like that first booster, of course, when we had huge amounts of people,...

"Through confidential sources, undercover agents, and clandestine recordings," the Justice Department announced in October 2020, "law enforcement learned particular individuals were planning to kidnap" Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and "acting in furtherance of that plan." But it turned out those individuals included the government's "confidential sources," who pushed the half-baked scheme and orchestrated acts "in furtherance of that plan" even when the defendants resisted it. The appearance of entrapment, coupled with the difficulty of distinguishing between fantasy and criminal conspiracy, explains the embarrassing outcome of a federal trial that ended last week, when jurors acquitted two alleged conspirators and failed...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching, potentially decisive, battle for Ukraine’s contested Donbas region. Yet the Russian military is making little headway halting what has become a historic arms express. The U.S. numbers alone are mounting: more than 12,000 weapons designed to defeat armored vehicles, some 1,400 shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft and more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, among many other things. Dozens of other nations are adding to the totals. The Biden administration is preparing yet...

Former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace has reportedly been breaking down in front of his crew over the “miserable failure” of the new streaming platform CNN+.The launch of CNN+ has been anything but stellar, according to the latest statistics, with the platform drawing in close to less than 10,000 daily viewers and even fewer subscribers. Per CNBC:Fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, according to people familiar with the matter.CNN+ launched on March 29. The subscription news streaming service, which charges $5.99 a month or $59.99 annually, only became available on...

Source: Townhall Media/Julio RosasMillions of Americans are paying taxes this week. What worsens the pain is to see resident Joe Biden spending our tax money on hotel stays, debit cards and cellphones for migrants illegally crossing the southern border. Biden is rolling out the welcome mat. Illegal border crossers will no longer be treated like criminals but more like customers. The president's fiscal budget, presented March 28, cuts funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement by 8% despite an expected surge in migrants and reduces detention beds. Meanwhile, Biden's increasing funding for a speedier service for migrants entering the country illegally,...

The relatively brief but bloody war in Ukraine is entering its fourth phase. In the first, Russia tried to depose Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and sweep the country into its embrace in a three-day campaign; in the second, it attempted to conquer Ukraine—or at least its eastern half, including the capital, Kyiv—with armored assaults; in the third, defeated in the north, Russia withdrew its battered forces, massing instead in the southeastern and southern areas for the conquest of those parts of Ukraine. For those of us born after World War II, this is the most consequential war of our lifetime. Upon...

The subject of “inequality” is very much in the news at the moment. For a great many professors, researchers, editorial writers and talking heads on mainstream and social media, this is the topic of the day. By contrast, it is of almost no interest to everyone else. For the chattering class, a new book by Thomas Piketty is grist for the mill. Even if they don’t understand Piketty’s complicated economics, they will have no trouble discovering his bottom line: inequality of income and wealth is unquestionably bad. Ordinary people do not think about inequality. They don’t talk about it. They...

Santa Monica police arrested the man suspected of assaulting or harassing three letter carriers in a three-month period - but he is back on the street because authorities say his crimes aren't enough to keep him behind bars. Residents of the 1300 block of 14th Street haven't gotten their mail for half a week because of three attacks by Davon Ray Morgan, 38, on postal workers since January, according to the United States Postal Service. 'Delivery is temp suspended; this is an unusual, but a necessary step to protect our employees,' USPS spokeswoman Natasha Garvin tweeted on Monday. **SNIP** Jim...

The crises of recent years tend to erase from memory those that preceded them. One, as you may recall, was the financial collapse of 2008 -- a collapse deemed by many as the worst since the Great Depression. That collapse swept into power a government like the one we have now -- the White House and both houses of Congress controlled by Democrats. Newly elected President Barack Obama appointed then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, who made popular the saying, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste." Indeed, the new Democrat administration followed this advice and used...