Free Republic

CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz attempted to get some answers from Uvalde Independent School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo on Wednesday, confronting him outside his office, but Arredondo dodged his questions. [cut] In the video clip aired by CNN, Prokupecz can be seen walking up to Arredondo as the chief exits his car, and saying to him that they wanted to talk to him about his decision. Arredondo rebuffed the question, saying that they were “not going to release anything,” because “we have people in our community being buried.” “How do you explain yourself?” Prokupecz asked him for his response to McCraw...

Another 10 basis point jumps in Treasury yields, this time at the 2-year Treasury Note. The 10Y-2Y Treasury slope just flattened to +26 BPS. Another step in rising mortgage rates! Washington DC is anything but Harmony Hall.

Bureaucracy Doesn’t Allow Courage The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, has shifted dramatically in the last few days from the horror of young lives needlessly snuffed out by a gunman, to the horror of why more wasn’t done to save them. Finger-pointing and blaming abound, particularly toward the police who responded to the shooting. Video footage and firsthand accounts have left many wondering why officials were so slow to respond and save the teachers and children who eventually died at the hands of the shooter.We can rant and rave and shout “coward” or “defund the police” as many on Twitter are...

John is joined in conversation by Peter Hitchens to discuss the current leftist ideologies infiltrating western society, his understanding of the Ukrainian war, his insight into the future during a time of international unrest, and the decline of education in Britain. Once a correspondent living in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union; Peter reveals his critiques on the current state of political affairs in Russia and the rest of Europe. 00:32 Introduction 1:34 Moscow after the Soviet Union 7:44 The Marshall Plan 10:32 Russia at the start of democracy 11:24 The consequence of Prejudice 17:28 What the west...

Some thoughts on the distorted view of global events we receive from the mainstream news media, and the consequences of media manipulation.

Statism is nothing more than gang rule. A statist dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country.” – Ayn Rand, War and Peace, The Objectivist Newsletter, Oct 1962 What is statism? Merriam-Webster defines it as the “concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry.” In essence, statism is the belief that the state or government, regardless of its size or the amount of control it exerts over its subjects, is legitimate to at least some extent. In practice,...

A Facebook sperm donor fathered 15 children but never told the mothers he has an inheritable condition that causes learning disabilities. James MacDougall, 37, fathered children with lesbian women through private donations advertised on social media despite knowing he had incurable Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that leads to low IQ and developmental delay. MacDougall’s identity came out in a family court battle in Derby, United Kingdom, after he applied for parental responsibility and child arrangement orders for four of his children — even though he originally signed an agreement saying he didn’t want contact with some of his...

U.S. petroleum refining capacity has declined and few plants have been built thanks to the projected decline in fuel demand and increased burdensome regulations. “There was already some contraction happening in the industry as a result of projected declines in U.S. gasoline demand into the future and companies just deciding that the assets were better used as other projects or shut down completely,” said Geoff Moody, the vice president of government relations at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers. “They just throw lots of red tape at these folks,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research,...

The most unlikeliest of places continues to signal a possible inflection point in the left ugly woke culture war against our nation. Netflix, the streaming service, had gained a reputation for being the King of Woke. Like many other American companies, they seemed more concerned with genuflecting to leftist activists and placating them by focusing on Democrat-approved political programming. First it was Disney, which in March embarked on a disastrous adventure by taking a very public stand in woke politics as they pledged action to defeat a Florida bill meant to empower parents. Their stock crashed and Americans of all...

MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough on Wednesday reacted to former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann being acquitted of lying to the FBI when he fed it false information about supposed “collusion” between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 campaign. Scarborough called special counsel John Durham’s probe into the “Russian collusion” hoax “asinine” and declared that it was time “to shut this down.” He added the investigation was “a joke.”

The Biden administration unveiled a policy Tuesday evening making it cheaper for green energy developers to build and maintain projects on federal lands. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the federal government would reduce rents and fees charged for wind and solar projects on public lands during a roundtable Tuesday with U.S. and state officials in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) expects the policy to reduce rents and fees by more than 50% when implemented. “Clean energy projects on public lands have an important role to play in reducing our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and lowering costs for families,”...

Rep. Matt Gaetz @RepMattGaetz BREAKING: In response to a letter sent by Rep. Matt Gaetz and @Jim_Jordan, Perkins Coie, the legal arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton, admits they have been operating an FBI workspace in their Washington, D.C. office since 2012.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge is set to preside over an important hearing for John Hinckley, the man who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and is on the verge of being released from all remaining restrictive conditions. U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman said in September that he would free Hinckley from restrictions on June 15 as long as Hinckley continued to do well.

Just at the end of the Six-Day War, when all of east Jerusalem, which includes the Old City and the Temple Mount, came into Israel’s possession, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan made a fateful decision. He decided that Muslims could continue to visit the Temple Mount, which they call the Haram al-Sharif, at all days and times. Jews, however, who had been barred from visiting either the Western Wall or the Temple Mount when the area was ruled by Jordan from 1949 to 1967, would be severely circumscribed in their visits, which would take place during a three-hour period in the...

President Joe Biden welcomed socialist New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to the White House on Tuesday to discuss economic ties, gun control, and “space exploration” — but not, reports indicated, Ardern’s decision to use Chinese coronavirus measures to delay the 2020 New Zealand election. Discussions surrounding a potential delay in elections gripped many countries around the world that year, including the United States, where then-President Donald Trump received stern condemnations from the left for suggesting changing the election date. Ardern followed through with what Trump had mused about, but received no similar criticism. Ardern’s New Zealand – though the...

People should reduce their number of sexual partners to help fight the spread of monkeypox, the World Health Organization has urged. ... Dr Kluge said that while cases have been concentrated in men who have sex with men, there was nothing stopping it from spreading to other groups. ... The LGB Alliance — a trans-exclusionary gay rights group — attracted criticism on Monday after calling for all commercial sex venues to be closed ahead of Pride month, which begins today. ... 'Based on the case reports to date, this outbreak is currently being transmitted through social networks connected largely through...

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he has been charged in a new criminal case and faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty. In posts on social media, Navalny said he had been charged with creating an extremist organization and inciting hatred towards the authorities...

A Russian official on Tuesday claimed that Poland is planning to take Ukrainian territory. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said during a press conference that he believes Poland plans to annex parts of western Ukraine, according to Russian news agency Interfax.He said he believes that "already a number of states are actively working on [Ukraine's] dismemberment," though he did not specify which countries. Nearly every other European country has backed Ukraine amid the invasion, many offering military and humanitarian aid.

Washington — The Justice Department on Tuesday called on a federal appeals court to reinstate the national mask mandate for public transit and airplanes after a U.S. district judge found the requirements to be unlawful in April. In a brief filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Biden administration argued the January 2021 order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requiring travelers to wear masks on public transportation and in transit hubs to prevent the spread of COVID-19 "falls easily" within the agency's statutory authority.

Moscow appreciates Beijing’s support in its efforts to uphold Russia’s principal approaches to the formation of Europe’s security architecture and values China’s stance regarding the situation in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. "We highly appreciate the balanced and unbiased stance of our Chinese friends regarding the situation in and around Ukraine," Lavrov said in a video address to participants of the ‘Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era’ conference. "We are supported by Beijing in efforts to defend Russia’s principal approaches to the security architecture formation in Europe," he continued.