Free Republic

Following Germany’s post-Weimar record high inflation print, the European Union’s consumer price inflation data this morning surged to a record high at +8.1% YoY (notably hotter than the +7.8% YoY expected). The inflation impulses are broad based across all the major European nations… Source: BloombergThe surge in European inflation is dominated by energy prices rising, and food costs… Source: BloombergFinally, we note that the recently agreed EU import ban on a major portion of Russian oil, meanwhile, risks further stoking pressure on prices. The report comes just 10 days before a crucial ECB meeting where officials are set to announce...

Open Carry, Maryland Interesting experience in Maryland, with the Baltimore Police. The driver is a firearms instructor. He's licensed, got a Glock on his chest and another gun in concealed appendix carry. He also has a full auto, loaded, in his trunk. He got pulled over for a problem with his license plate. Everything ended well. He provides a good example of how best to deal with the police in situations like this.

"1984" had its Ministry of Truth, the Soviets had their Gulag. Today’s Russians, like their kindred spirits among the American left, may be less overt in policing speech but don’t let a less visible barbarity fool anyone into believing that the goal is any less of an assault on free speech. Current Russian law punishes speech or public engagement that questions Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or even protests that call it a war. As University of Massachusetts Amherst Associate Professor Lauren McCarthy puts it, "public activities aimed at discrediting the use of Russia’s military," become "a criminal offense if committed...

A rally is planned outside Granada Hills Charter High School Tuesday to protest the banning of unvaccinated students from graduation events. The protest includes members of GHC Parents United, Moms on the Ground, The Unity Project, Let Them Breathe, and other groups unhappy with the school’s policy. Parents are saying that they are being discriminated against because their kids chose to work remotely instead of receiving COVID-19 vaccinations.

A woman who dubbed herself a “professional booster” after she was nabbed for shoplifting earlier this year has been arrested again — for allegedly robbing the same Manhattan drug store 10 times, police said. Michelle Mckelley, 42, now has 108 arrests under her belt following her latest bust Wednesday, when she was charged with 10 separate petty larcenies from the Rite Aid at Second Avenue and East 96th Street, cops and a police source said. “She has 108 arrests!” the Manhattan cop exclaimed. “What are they waiting for 200 arrests to hold her? When does it stop? It’s making a...

Hours after Whole Foods announced it was leaving Englewood late last month, community members gathered at the Go Green Community Fresh Market on 63rd Street for an event with the rapper Freeway. The event at Fresh Market, which the nonprofit Inner-City Muslim Action Network opened in March, had been scheduled before the Whole Foods announcement was made public. But the evening turned into “an oasis and a hub for healing,” said Sana Syed, IMAN’s director of strategic initiatives. “There was a lot of hope, there was a lot of healing and there was a lot of drive,” Syed said of...

Pfizer has asked a U.S. court to throw out a whistleblower’s lawsuit on the basis that the company can’t be guilty of fraud, abuse, and protocol violations in its COVID Vaccine clinical trials because its contract with the U.S. government allowed them to skirt regulations and federal laws that typically apply to government contracts. In other words, Pfizer was allegedly able to make false statements to the government, and lie about the safety and efficacy of its product, “because the government was in on it with them!” according to Robert Barnes, the lead lawyer in the case. The whistleblower, Brook...

Amid a rolling series of calamities and sinking approval ratings, the president’s feeling lately is that he just can’t catch a break — and that angst is rippling through his party. WASHINGTON — Faced with a worsening political predicament, President Joe Biden is pressing aides for a more compelling message and a sharper strategy while bristling at how they’ve tried to stifle the plain-speaking persona that has long been one of his most potent assets. Biden is rattled by his sinking approval ratings and is looking to regain voters’ confidence that he can provide the sure-handed leadership he promised during...

Rewarding the FBI with a half-billion in tax dollars would not just be a slap in the face to Republican voters but also to every victim of the FBI’s shoddy, unaccountable practices. The day before FBI Director Christopher Wray explained to a Senate appropriations subcommittee why his department deserves a $527.8 million raise in 2023, his agents were credited with foiling an ISIS-linked plot to assassinate George W. Bush. An Iraqi national was arrested on May 25 and charged with attempting to smuggle four other Iraqis into the United States then “murder” the former president in retaliation for the war...

The Illinois Department of Public Health has long shielded from the public the full picture of who gets an abortion in this state. The department provides some statistics online, including the county where Illinois patients live, the states where other patients come from, age groups and even whether they’re married. But patients’ race and ethnicity — a key metric that helps illuminate potential disparities, identify trends and plug in gaps in health care — has never been revealed. It’s not clear whether this restriction is legal. A 2013 state rule forbids releasing even aggregate data, meaning a summary of information...

Hatem Fariz’s trips to Israel seem to be becoming more frequent. He was just there in March, and now he is back, only two months later. This time, he is on tour with New Orleans resident and fellow ex-convict Ahmad Hindi. But regardless of who he is with, what is important to understand is that Fariz, a man who went to prison for providing material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is traveling through Israel, the nation whose Jewish citizens PIJ targets with death, via such repulsive acts as rocket attacks and suicide bombings. No doubt, given his background, Fariz...

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) reported recently that it had “just obtained a never-before-seen ‘unclassified’ October 2018 memo entitled, “Notes From ‘Iran and the US: An Off-the-Record Conversation with Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif.’” This was during the Trump administration, but Obama’s former Secretary of State was busy conducting foreign policy. “The newly obtained memo,” the ACLJ noted, “regarding the secret meeting between Zarif and these former U.S. officials, included discussions of nuclear weapons, potential prisoner swaps, Afghanistan withdrawal and negotiations with the Taliban, Houthi rebels, Syria, Suleimani’s popularity in Iran, and the ‘region in turmoil.’” Imagine...

Former President Donald Trump’s media company is planning on launching a new streaming service featuring “non-woke content.” According to a May 16 filing by Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the former president’s media company plans to launch a subscription-based streaming service called “TMTG+” that features “non-woke” content, aims to “cancel ‘cancel culture,’” and commits to not censoring content creators for their political ideology. “TMTG believes that there is a need for quality programming that does not lecture its viewers or only presents one ‘acceptable’ approach on a topic. Entertainers, comedians, and creators have frequently been agents for change in...

The Washington State Patrol says drivers are increasingly refusing to stop for troopers - and other law enforcement agencies also say this is becoming a common occurrence. The Northwest News Network reports that from January 1 to May 17 of this year, the agency logged 934 failure-to-yield incidents. While the patrol didn’t track this in the past, veteran troopers say there’s been a dramatic uptick in drivers fleeing traffic stops. “Something’s changed. People are not stopping right now,” said Sgt. Darren Wright, a WSP spokesperson with 31 years on the job. “It’s happening three to five times a shift on...

After the Uvalde school shooting, the CDC and the media are pushing a misleading claim that, "firearms were the leading cause of death for kids one and older for the first time in 2020." There’s no statistical reason for the CDC to group infants and teenagers together into the same category except to push a gun control agenda. 1-year-olds and 19-year-olds don’t have much in common when it comes to gun violence. And when the numbers are broken down, teenagers have catastrophically high murder and suicide rates, while babies are much less affected. The CDC’s letter to the New England...

In the wake of the horrific massacre of 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a number of commentators called for more measures to protect students. Some suggested reinforced doors and windows. Others called for more armed security officers. Still others called for trained and armed school staff. All these measures make sense, but “hardening” the schools doesn’t solve everything. As several of the commentators observed, mass killers tend to choose easy targets—such as a school filled with vulnerable children. But if the schools themselves are “hardened,” the killers will likely turn their attention to more vulnerable targets:...

The jury in the Michael Sussmann criminal case resumes deliberations today after the long Memorial Day weekend. While prosecutors presented overwhelming evidence over the last two weeks that Sussmann lied to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in 2016, an acquittal by the D.C. jury still seems likely. Judging the success of Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the investigation of President Trump and those associated with the Trump campaign and administration should not rest on the outcome of the Sussmann prosecution, however. In fact, even if the special counsel’s office scores a conviction in its false statement case against Sussmann,...

The Bible In Paintings 2 ENCOURAGEMENT FOR APPRECIATING AND APPLYING GOD'S MESSAGE 2nd SAMUEL CHAPTER 13 Absalom went to the king and said, “Will the king and his officials please join me?” “No, my son,” the king replied. “All of us should not go; we would only be a burden to you.” Then Absalom said, “If not, please let my brother Amnon come with us.” The king asked him, “Why should he go with you?” But Absalom urged him, so he sent with him Amnon and the rest of the king’s sons. Absalom ordered his men, “Listen! When Amnon...

Run for cover! Markets opened after a long (and expensive) Memorial Day weekend, with the 10-year Treasury yield up 8.1 basis points (to Meanwhile, banks continue to park funds at The Federal Reserve in the form of reverse repos as global inflation soars. And then we have US gasoline prices rising to the highest in history. Its like banks know something that the rest of us don’t. Although we do know about the highest gasoline prices in history.

On election night in 2016, Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya set fire to a bulldozer and construction equipment at a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site in Iowa. Over the next few months, the activists used oxy-acetylene torches to melt holes in pipeline valves at three other locations in the state. It was at the height of the Indigenous-led protests against the 1,172-mile-long pipeline, which opponents like the Standing Rock Sioux tribe argued would pollute local water sources and contaminate soil. When Reznicek and Montoya’s actions failed to halt pipeline construction, they held a press conference and publicly took responsibility for...