Free Republic

The Biden administration refuses to take responsibility for inflation. Biden blames everyone but himself. He blames railroads, energy companies, shipping companies, meat producers, business owners and Vladimir Putin. He denies the central role Democrats had in creating this problem: out-of-control wasteful spending, paying people not to work, ending American energy independence, and proposing trillions in new tax increases. The Left is now saying that tax increases are needed to help solve inflation. But Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon taught us that tax hikes make the problem worse. Inflation is running rampant. The consumer price index increased by 8.3 percent in...

Progressive activists have long fallen on the tactic of resorting to violence, destruction, and even bloodshed to get their points across. With the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on abortion, I feel assured they will once more pull this oft-used tool from their belt, and once again resort to carnage and mayhem. Already, they vandalized several Catholic churches last weekend, and firebombed a Right to Life group’s headquarters. A bullet was fired into the office of the Virginia Attorney General this week as well. Violence is already here. These were all pre-game activities as they warm up for what is to...

Last June, the Biden administration unveiled its "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism." Despite its anodyne-sounding name, the "National Strategy" was anything but anodyne. The pamphlet represented the logical culmination of the Left's cynical use of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot as a means of ginning up large-scale, nationwide anti-Republican/anti-Trump voter sentiment. The result, evinced again by Attorney General Merrick Garland's disgraceful October 2021 memo directing the FBI to intrude on local school board meetings and crack down on anti-critical race theory parental revolts, has been a roiling cold war waged by the ruling class against us "deplorables"...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s extensive ties to Big Tech firms have raised the specter that the powerful Democrat has put the brakes on much-sought antitrust legislation being pushed by his own party. More than 80 former paid staffers of the longtime New York lawmaker have leveraged their time with Schumer to secure prestigious jobs, working directly with companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple, according to data compiled for The Post. The information was collected from publicly available filings of congressional staffers on LegiStorm — an online repository of data about congressional staffers and their compensation. The analysis reviewed...

Elon Musk has said his $44bn deal to buy Twitter is temporarily on hold pending further details on the number of spam and fake accounts.The billionaire tweeted he was waiting for information "supporting [the] calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users" on the social media site.

The family of a 10-year-old girl who choked herself to death as part of a TikTok challenge is suing the video platform for negligence and having a 'defective design.' Nylah Anderson of Philadelphia was found unconscious in her mom's bedroom closet on December 7. She hung herself from a purse strap after seeing videos related to the 'blackout challenge' on the app's 'For You' page, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Pennsylvania. The challenge encourages users to asphyxiate themselves, pass out and regain consciousness on camera. Nylah's mother Tawainna says the company is to blame for...

Mark Esper, President Donald Trump's last confirmed secretary of defense, has been the toast of all the networks this week for his new memoir, starting with the high-profile debut on "60 Minutes" with CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell. Then came CNN and MSNBC and PBS and NPR and Fox News. That doesn't even count the massive sharing of soundbites from these interviews, mostly dedicated to the unending hunger for "tell us all the crazy crap Trump said next" anecdotes. The last president's failure to accept the certified election results and his failure to call off Jan. 6 rioters may be the...

On Thursday night, Justice Samuel Alito spoke remotely as he addressed a crowd at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, according to Tyler O'Neil at Fox News. All eyes have been on the justice since POLITICO reported on a leaked draft opinion that he authored signaling that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade. O'Neil also cited coverage from Robert Barnes and Lauren Lumpkin with The Washington Post, who took a different tone with their headline and reporting. "Alito reluctant to discuss state of Supreme Court after Roe leak," their headline read. As they...

Roman poet Juvenal purportedly said, “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” This phrase expressed the strategic blueprint of Roman officials, one which sustained civic approval through misdirection and diversion – attention was directed towards the pleasures of hedonism and entertainment rather than the neglectful government. Sound familiar? The presence of fast-food establishments, fully-stocked grocery stores, and microwaves, provide convenience to such a degree, few of us would be able to survive in the event of a total collapse of the supply chain. We live in a world of perpetual distractions, from social media, to streaming services...

If you wondered why liberals can be shown demonstrable, provable facts and not change their minds, wonder no more: They are not listening. It is not simply a case of them listening and holding on to their opinions; they are, in fact, just not listening to you. I was watching Charlie Kirk on a very recent Young Americans for Freedom video on YouTube. During the Q&A, a very confident 20-ish student asked why blacks are imprisoned at higher rates than whites. She insisted it was due to "white privilege" and "institutional racism." Kirk presented facts and actual verifiable statistics and...

In the movie Jaws, the Roy Scheider character (Chief Brody) famously declares "we're gonna need a bigger boat." With today's Democrat party, they're going to need a much bigger clown car. Democrat "thought leaders," influencers, politicos, and voters all speak the same progressive patois -- sustainability, equity, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, white fragility, and of course racism. United in kneejerk conformity, they have all mastered the vernacular of victimhood and meaningless platitudes. Bumper sticker slogans abound, and yard signs -- science is real; love is love -- loudly proclaim Democrat voters' cheap moral virtue and confirm their mindless banality. It would...

Recent pictures from Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover show an intriguing feature which looks like a doorway nestled in the rocks on the Martian landscape.

Let's have some fun!

Click on link

A Chinese chemical engineer was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing trade secrets on drink can coatings to establish a Chinese company backed by the Chinese government.Xiaorong “Shannon” You, 59, was sentenced on Monday by a federal judge in Greeneville, Tennessee, on the charges of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, possession of stolen trade secrets, economic espionage and wire fraud. In addition, she is ordered to pay a $200,000 fine and serve three years of supervised release. “Stealing technology isn’t just a crime against a company,” Acting Assistant Director Bradley S....

Executioners in Arizona needed 25 minutes to get an IV into a death row inmate to administer a legal injection in what one expert says is the sign of an 'unqualified executioner'. Clarence Dixon, 66, was put to death on Wednesday at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the 1978 killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin. He was the first inmate to be executed in the state since 2014. It appeared to follow the state's execution protocol. After the drug was injected, Dixon's mouth stayed open and his body did not move. He...

The death has been confirmed of the last major Rwandan fugitive indicted by a war crimes court for his role in the 1994 genocide.Protais Mpiranya was head of the presidential guard and was accused of ordering the murder of the then-Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana. His officers also murdered the 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers guarding her. Investigators tracked him down to Zimbabwe, where a recently exhumed grave confirmed he had died in 2006.

A Georgia death row inmate set to be executed for the 1976 murder of an 8-year-old girl and rape of a 10-year-old girl has made his last meal request, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections Virgil Delano Presnell, Jr. is scheduled to be executed on May 17 at 7 p.m. Presnell, 68, was accused of abducting and attacking the two girls as they walked home from school in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, on May 4, 1976. Presnell asked for four hamburgers, four French fries, two vanilla milkshakes, four sodas, and 8-piece bucket of chicken, potato salad and two...

My song this week is the modulated sound of a supermassive black hole. No foolin'. (Thanks to freeper Gene Eric for pinging me to the original story.)

A 58-year-old Palo Alto man died after falling out of a boat into the chilly waters of Lake Tahoe on Thursday, May 5, the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office said. Theodore Fletcher, 58, was on the boat with another person whom officials did not identify near Meeks Bay when they both fell into the water, a statement from the sheriff's office said. Rescue crews with the U.S. Coast Guard, El Dorado County Sheriff's Office and firefighters responded to the scene at 9:20 a.m. and found Fletcher at the bottom of the lake under about 15 feet of water. The other...