Free Republic

Today is primary day — and recall day — in California. I’m writing this on the East coast before any election returns are in. But there is some modest hope of a slight retreat from the worst excesses of progressivism. Joel Kotkin — professor at Chapman University out there — weighs in with a June 5 column at Spiked, sounding a small note of optimism. The headline and sub-headline are “America’s great cities are gripped by decline and disorder. Voters have had enough of ‘progressive’ leaders who are presiding over spiralling violence and crime.” Excerpt: For the past decade, America’s...

There was a major problem with the 2020 Census, and most people probably haven’t heard about it, even though it has enormous implications. At the end of May, the Census Bureau admitted that it miscounted 14 states in the 2020 Census. Why didn’t the media make a big stink about this story? Maybe it was overshadowed by the recent mass shootings, that’s certainly a possibility, but I have another theory. Here are the states that the Census acknowledged it overcounted: Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, Minnesota, New York, and Massachusetts. Here are the states that the Census acknowledged it undercounted: Texas,...

On Monday, I reported about the ongoing investigation into the alleged suicide of former Clinton adviser Mark Middleton, who was found hanged and had s shotgun blast to the chest. I’m sure all suicides happen like that, especially when one is tied to the Clintons. However, news is out now that another woman who drowned, but was found with an extension cord wrapped around her ankle tied to a cement block is facing an outcry for a new inquiry into her death. Kellyanne Richardson reports at Defiant America: Ashley Haynes was found drowned in the Arkansas River with an extension...

The signs of decline are everywhere: violent crimes, corruption, riots, all with little or no consequences for the perpetrators, election fraud, medical mandates for vaccines that do not work. “If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.” Voltaire The signs of decline are everywhere: violent crimes, corruption, riots, all with little or no consequences for the perpetrators, election fraud, medical mandates for vaccines that do not work. “Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.”...

Americans at the low end of the income rung are once again struggling to make ends meet. A confluence of factors — the expiration of federal stimulus checks and surging inflation on staples like gas and food — are driving an even bigger wedge between the haves and have-nots. While wealthier shoppers continue to splurge, low-income shoppers have pulled back faster than expected in the past two months. They’re focusing on necessities while turning to cheaper items or less expensive stores. And they’re buying only a little at a time. It’s a reversal from a year or so ago when...

The reality of hard-left governance proves to be much less appealing than the theory and promises. In 2019, Chesa Boudin openly campaigned on a hard-left, soft-on-crime platform—and got elected as San Francisco’s chief prosecutor. On Tuesday, San Francisco voters gave him the boot, having discovered that the reality of hard-left governance is much less appealing than the theory and promises. Boudin comes by his leftism honestly, being descended from a long line of leftist academics and activists. His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were members of the Weather Underground, a Marxist terrorist group during the 1960s, and were the...

Institutional home purchases are pricing potential homeowners out of the market. Homeownership has customarily been one of the core and fundamental pillars of the American dream. The financial benefits that accompany homeownership are plentiful and include the ability to accumulate wealth, access to credit, the accumulation of long-term savings over the cost of renting, and the potential reduction in housing costs through mortgage interest deduction. Home, and other asset ownership conventionally improves the well-being of families by empowering them to increase their prosperity and delegate wealth to future generations. SNIP In the first quarter of 2021, one in every seven...

Voters in San Francisco have chosen to recall embattled District Attorney Chesa Boudin following a recall effort centered on his handling of rising crime across the city. San Francisco voted to recall Boudin with 61%, compared to 39% who wanted him to stay as the district attorney, according to results at the time the Associated Press called the race. Boudin was elected in 2019 with 50.8% of the vote and was sworn in as San Francisco's 29th district attorney on Jan. 8 2020.

IPray For The Peace of JerusalemGenesis 16Hagar and Ishmael 16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a major reason that US drivers are paying record prices for gasoline. But it's not the only cause of the spike. Numerous factors are pushing prices up, with regular gasoline hitting a record $4.87 a gallon Monday according to AAA's survey — up 25 cents a gallon in just the last week. Gas prices were already expected to breach the $4 a gallon mark for the first time since 2008, with or without shots fired in Eastern Europe or economic sanctions imposed on Russia. But now the national average is expected to hit $5 a...

Why do we have every appearance that there is no actual climate crisis, while seeing growing evidence of where the actual disinformation is found in this issue? When John Kerry, President Biden's special envoy for climate, lamented that the Ukraine war situation would distract the public from the 'climate crisis' and then doubled down later on how 'climate change refugees will outnumber Ukrainian refugees, he seemed to have no awareness of how ludicrous his statement was. NPR and CNBC have both trumpeted the same theme about the war distracting the public from the "true crisis." Then there's Biden's Commerce Secretary,...

Biden’s misbegotten administration is the last of the Democrats’ trademarked “deals”: New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, Great Society, and whatever other branded scam they’ve sold voters since. The dilapidating state of our culture, institutions, and politics (the order is deliberate) have been decades in the making. Blame Boomers -- the culture definers among them -- for getting the ball rolling downhill in the highly romanticized lied about 1960s. They spawned the decadent counterculture, which set in motion every society-rotting development we’re grappling with today. Bill and Hillary Clinton are the aging avatars of counterculture radicals who turned into establishment...

At about 12:43 mark This was on Jesse Watters Primetime last night

Since Karine Jean-Pierre took over from Jen Psaki as White House press secretary last month, the daily briefings have gotten hard to watch.

A GOP congressional candidate suggested how gun stores could circumvent a 1,000% tax on AR-15s. The entails stores selling a Snickers bar for $950 while letting an AR-15 go for $1. The store would then charge a "$10 excise tax" and avoid paying the 1,000% tax on the AR-15. A Republican candidate for Congress claimed this week that there would be a way for gun stores to circumvent Democratic lawmakers' efforts to slap a 1,000% tax on AR-15s. Errol Webber, a Republican congressional candidate for California's 47th district, tweeted on Monday in response to Insider's reporting on the potential gun...

Multiple former FBI officials are coming forward with information suggesting the bureau is "purging" employees with conservative viewpoints, according to House Judiciary Committee Republicans. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the ranking member of the panel, sent a letter to Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday outlining new allegations that relate to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. "In one such example, the FBI targeted and suspended the security clearance of a retired war servicemember who had disclosed personal views that the FBI was not being entirely forthcoming about the events of January 6. The FBI questioned the whistleblower's allegiance to the United States...

Nicolai Patrushev is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest advisers and wields considerable influence on government policy as the head of the powerful Security Council of Russia. The council is where Russia’s security policy is formulated, and it is the center where intelligence from Russian sources and networks from abroad are received. Patrushev is the one who interprets that intelligence. Patrushev often gives interviews to state-owned media about his conspiratorial views of the West and what the Kremlin describes as Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. ... It is those close to Putin, such as Patrushev, who continue to...

Glenn Hirsch, 51, was arrested last Wednesday at his home near Briarwood Hirsch is suspected in the deadly shooting of Zhiwen Yan, 45, on April 30, according to a statement from the NYPD Cops found eight guns while searching Hirsch's wife's home Cops apparently found his refrigerator packed to the gills with sweet and sour duck sauce 'He's a hoarder. And when you open the refrigerator, it's like, condiments — there's duck sauce, soy sauce, ketchup' The Queens man arrested on suspicion of murdering the longtime delivery driver of a local Chinese restaurant over a dispute about duck sauce apparently...

A Russian soldier in Moscow ran up to a nun. Out of breath he asked, "Please, may I hide under your skirt, I'll explain later." The nun agreed. A moment later two military police ran up and asked, "Sister, have you seen a soldier?" The nun replied, "He went that way." After the military police ran off, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt and said, "I can't thank you enough Sister. You see, I don't want to go to Ukraine." The nun said, "I understand completely." The soldier added, "I hope I'm not rude, but you have a...

s great as ground-based solar panels are, occasional cloud cover means that the system often fails to operate at full efficiency. Moreover, areas which receive heavy rainfall all through the year, cannot rely on solar generated electricity. To get around this, a team of Chinese scientists and engineers have been working on a way to build a solar power plant in space which will be capable of beaming the stored energy to Earth. The team behind the project claims that if things work out, such a facility could generate about six times as much energy as if it was located...