Free Republic

Hot government inflation data points to an 8.6% cost-of-living adjustment for 2023, The Senior Citizens League said Friday. That would top a 5.9% boost to benefits that went into effect this year, the highest in about 40 years. Some advocacy groups and lawmakers want to change the way those annual adjustments to benefits are calculated. Image Source | Getty Images New government inflation data came in hotter than expected last week. If record-high prices don’t subside, that will lead to a higher Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in 2023. Yet even with a more generous boost to benefits next year, there’s...

Since the rise of social media, many students have gotten used to discussing difficult topics within the protection of their own echo chambers. Students are often not expected to defend their points of view or engage with others of differing opinions. While universities frequently support such closed-mindedness with “safe spaces” and the barring of certain speakers from campus, some university programs and faculty are attempting to push back against this anti-intellectual trend. One such program is housed at UNC-Chapel Hill, the mission of which, in part, is “to teach a diverse community of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to become...

Democrats have been on defense on the economy this year, and the latest report showing inflation still at a 40-year high hasn’t helped. But a new $4.5 million ad campaign seeks to test whether Democrats can craft economic messages that put Republicans on defense. The six-week ad campaign launched Monday by a group called Unrig Our Economy, which launched earlier this year, targets GOP Reps. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, David Valadao of California, Don Bacon of Nebraska and Ashley Hinson of Iowa. The ads argue that the lawmakers have done more to support corporations than working-class people. “The point...

U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignored warnings that Russia would invade his country ahead of the February 24 aggression. "I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew, and we had data to sustain, he was going in off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelensky did not want to hear it, nor did a lot of people," Biden said on Friday during a political fundraiser in Los Angeles. The U.S. president acknowledged that the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin launching a full-scale invasion may have seemed far-fetched, saying,...

Humanitarians were up in arms last month when Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, came away from a China tour spouting Beijing propaganda. For those who fight for liberty in Cuba, the high commissioner’s performance was no surprise. During the Cold War she was on the side of the Soviets, and she’s a lifelong admirer of the Cuban revolution. Let’s face it: Human rights are not her thing. According to Axios, the 70-year-old Ms. Bachelet “used Chinese government talking points to frame her remarks” on the situation in Xinjiang, where the regime has detained some one million...

I may be asked to work for a company that has federal contracts and they require all employees to be 100% vaccinated. I really want/need this job. I do not want to get vaccinated. I thought that I read somewhere, possibly a Pierre Kory article about Ivermectin partially or totally neutralizing the vaccine. Can anyone confirm this?

President Biden’s energy program is crystal clear: an all-of-government assault on the domestic fossil-fuel industry to further a green agenda. But its economic and political fallout is a muddled contrast. The Biden plan distorts or undermines so many other domestic and international priorities that it is in dire need of a midcourse correction. The administration’s efforts, led by climate czar John Kerry and propelled by the progressive wing of Mr. Biden’s coalition, have included curtailing new leases for drilling, preventing new pipeline development, and expanding the areas off-limits for production. The Securities and Exchange Commission has discouraged new financing of...

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö called Vladimir Putin on May 14 to let him know that Finland was applying to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Kremlin had threatened Helsinki over its prospective application but later played down the news. “Putin was very calm and cool,” Mr. Niinistö says during an interview at the presidential palace last week. “If a Russian is angry, yes, be careful. But if he’s calm, be even more careful.” Like most every other Finn I spoke with, the president is a student of his country’s long and violent history with Russia. But he also has...

Well this is awkward… The Biden administration has been quietly urging agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russian fertilizer, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the efforts. The move comes as fears over sanctions have led to a sharp drop in supplies, contributing to the ongoing ‘spiraling global food costs.’The effort is part of complex and difficult negotiations underway involving the United Nations to boost deliveries of fertilizer, grain and other farm products from Russia and Ukraine that have been disrupted by President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his southern neighbor. US and European officials have accused...

<p>NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana owners of electric or hybrid vehicles could be charged an annual state road usage fee under legislation that won final passage Sunday.</p><p>Governor John Bel Edwards is expected to sign the bill into law since his Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson testified in favor of the legislation.</p>

Democrats are upset that many Republican voters don’t consider the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to have been an assault on democracy, and maybe one reason is that too many Democrats appear to have a double standard about which democratic institutions they want to protect. Jan. 6 was an assault on the transfer of presidential power and Congress’s duty to certify the Electoral College votes under the Constitution. But what about the growing threat to the third branch of democratic government, the Supreme Court, and especially the seeming nonchalance toward last week’s arrest of an armed man outside the home...

Harassing people at the library is a “protest” when it’s done by idiots on the left, but a “hate crime” when it’s done by idiots on the rightThis video was filmed in 2015 at a library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dartmouth is an Ive League college which will be charging $60,687 in tuition (plus an additional $1,971 in “fees,” $10,881 for housing, and $7,218 for food) for the 2022-2023 school year.$7,218 for one year’s worth of food? When I went to college, I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Maybe instead of forgiving student debt,...

Amidst his push to freeze handgun purchases in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed that the right to self-defense with a gun does not exist in Canada. Trudeau told the left-wing podcast “Pod Save America” that in Canada guns can be used for hunting or recreational shooting, but not self-defense. He made these comments when comparing Canadian gun culture to that in the United States. “We have a culture where the difference is, guns can be used for hunting or for sport shooting in Canada, and there are lots of gun owners, and they’re mostly law-respecting and law-abiding, but you...

Soaring gasoline prices (they’re up 49 percent since President Biden took office) are due to “Putin’s price hikes,” claims Biden. But last I checked, Putin wasn’t stateside canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, pursuing efforts to end federal oil and gas leasing programs, and careening our country toward more Covid-like lockdowns, social isolation, supply chain shortages, and another summer crime wave. A brief recap of Biden’s oil and gastastrophe: in January 2021, during his first days in office, the president revoked the Keystone Pipeline permit and issued an executive order that, in his own typically eloquent words, directed the “Secretary of...

The January 6 Select Committee sought on Monday to highlight that Rudy Giuliani was “inebriated” during election night of 2020 in an apparent effort to discredit him and former President Donald Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said, “President Trump rejected advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani to just claim that he won and insist the vote-counting stop, to falsely claim everything was fraudulent.”

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church Matthew 5:38-42 Friends, today, in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord exhorts us to nonresistance to evil. Martin Luther King Jr. was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s techniques, and Gandhi learned them, largely, from the Sermon on the Mount. Both Gandhi and King appreciated that the text dealing with the nonresistance to evil has nothing to do with passivity in the face of injustice, but rather with a new and distinctive type of resistance. Consider the Lord’s injunction, "When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn...

Allegations of racism are at the heart of the sudden resignation of trans Lutheran Bishop the Reverend Dr. Megan Rohrer, but court documents also reveal allegations of corruption tied to a now-closed San Francisco church that they once led. The catalyst for Rohrer's resignation as bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was their firing of a Latino pastor at a church in the Central Valley last December. But documents and court records show Rohrer's brief tenure was marked by controversy, with some incidents, such as the closure of their former church in San...

Target has announced that it will cut prices and cancel orders for thousands of its products, as part of a frantic effort to clear out billions in backed-up inventory. The pent-up products consist of bulky items such as furniture, that were a commodity during the pandemic but have fallen out of favor now that restrictions have loosened, Target said Tuesday. The company says it had nearly $15.1 billion of inventory as of April 30, the end of the first first fiscal quarter. The amount serves as nearly 50 percent more than that seen just a year ago. Some of the...

Boric acid is a low-toxicity mineral with insecticidal, fungicidal, and herbicidal properties. Boric Acid, which kills roaches, water bugs, ants, fleas and silverfish. With boric acid powder, insects walk through the dust, ingest it, and die within hours. While boric acid is a pesticide, you'll find boric acid used in fertilizers, household cleaners, laundry detergents, and even personal care products. You also may be surprised to know that boric acid is a component of a baby's mattress, and even food, but it is! Boric acid is an antiseptic. The trick is that you must use boric acid in a diluted...

A California city councilman says he was attacked with a hunk of concrete while hiking with his family in San Francisco — leaving him with neck injuries and a 2-inch gash to his skull. Anders Fung, a Hong Kong native representing voters in Millbrae, insists he was targeted in an unprovoked assault Saturday at Lands End in northwestern San Francisco, where two young men in hoodies allegedly tossed a concrete block at him from above. “When my family confronted the perpetrators demanding them to stop, one of them gave my family an obscene hand gesture before fleeing the crime scene,”...