Free Republic

The Biden administration exported more than 5 million barrels of oil from its emergency reserves that were released in order to combat sky-high gas prices here at home, according to a report. The US sent the oil, which was taken from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that the Biden administration tapped into in hopes of getting mounting energy prices under control, to Asia and Europe, Reuters is reporting. The release of around 1 million barrels a day from the SPR through October has had a minimal effect in decreasing the price of oil. At the same time, it has depleted...

As Americans, we must continue to stand with Ukraine in their war against Russia. As time goes by this will become more difficult as the cost of that support literally goes up for us all. Regardless, practically and philosophically, it remains in our nation’s best interests to pay that price.As I conceded above, I am under no illusions that supporting Ukraine over the long haul will be easy. Doing so will come at a significant economic cost to the world, America included, as energy and food prices continue to go up in response to their protracted warThe costs of standing...

“I talked to him 13 hours before [Monday’s massacre]. That’s why I guess I’m in such shock. … Like, did he have a psychiatric break or something?” the father said of his son. On Tuesday, Steven Greenberg, who previously represented R. Kelly in the fallen singing superstar’s federal sex-trafficking case out of Brooklyn, announced that Crimo Jr. and his estranged wife, Denise, had retained him in the wake of their son’s arrest. The father, a onetime local mayoral candidate who used to run a neighborhood sandwich shop, has faced a wave of criticism for sponsoring his son’s gun license application,...

Emmett Till protesters stormed a senior living facility in search of the woman who has been accused of setting a lynch mob on him after a 1955 arrest warrant was unearthed in a Mississippi courthouse. Carolyn Bryant Donham, now in her 80s, of Raleigh, North Carolina, reportedly accused Till of whistling at her in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. A week later, the 14-year-old Till was abducted, tortured, fatally shot and dumped into the Tallahatchie River, where his body was found swollen and mutilated three days later. His open casket shocked the nation. Donham's husband, Roy Bryant,...

Source is ok.ru-a Russian video channel, but the only one I can find to play in its entirety

VIGANÒ’S DECLARATION regarding the apostolic letter “Desiderio Desideravi”In an editorial titled “Cancel Culture: The Eternal Gnostic Dream of Starting Over from Zero,” that appeared on June 30, 2022, in the Bulletin of Social Doctrine of the Church of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory (here), Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi stigmatized, with great clarity of analysis, the “attitude that favors the new over the old, which makes virtue coincide with adhesion to historical novelties and sin coincide with the preservation of the past,” and which consists in a systematic and ruthless damnatio memoriae of all that is opposed to modernity. The Archbishop...

I can’t think of a single world leader who has done more damage to humanity, since 2019, than Boris Johnson. And yet, his reign of terror over a once great empire was not enough for the proponents of The Great Reset and Build Back Better agenda. Johnson generated more COVID hysteria than any other world leader. He pursued two full years of authoritarian rule, pursuing ruthless lockdowns, implementing vaccine passports, installing a surveillance state, and making a mockery of the unalienable rights of U.K. citizens. He catered to every slogan and policy initiative of the World Economic Forum globalist mafia....

(CNSNews.com) - The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $1,049,100,000 with Russia in the month of May, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. During May, the United States sold $77,400,000 in exports to Russia and purchased $1,126,500,000 in imports, resulting in the trade deficit of $1,049,100,000.#stickypbModal625{ position : relative; z-index : 30; margin:0px px; padding: 9px; background: rgba(0,0,0,0.0);} @media only screen and (max-width: 1024px) {#stickypbModal625 { flex-wrap: wrap;}} The last time the United States ran a monthly trade surplus with Russia was in December 1995, according to Census Bureau data. That month, the United...

"Denzel tested positive for COVID and so he was unfortunately unable to attend the Medal of Freedom award ceremony," a rep for Washington says.

**SNIP** 1. City officials have long claimed that Portland’s form of government makes it impossible for them to do their jobs well. 2. When the Portland Charter Commission was formed, members settled on their own set of goals. 3. The commission emerged with three proposed reforms. No city in America has tried to achieve all three at the same time. 4. Perhaps the most popular aspect of the proposed reforms is that Portland would be run by a city administrator. 5. The reform measure calls for ranked-choice voting, an unfamiliar and controversial method, to elect city commissioners. 7. Portland voters...

The obligation to vaccinate is abolished. Yesterday, a unamimous decision by the National Council ensured this. Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) justified the measure with "completely different conditions" than when it was introduced. OVP mandater Josef Smolle also referred to the less lethal omicron variant, immunization through vaccination and the availability of medication. The opposition will not go away from the obligation to vaccinate either. At least when it comes to compulsory vaccination, the government botch is coming to an end, said SPO health spokesman Philip Kucher. The liberal health spokesman Gerhard Kaniak thanked not only his own party but...

A Queens man made a death-defying leap from an elevated subway platform to a neighboring store roof as he tried to flee from cops. Kendall Floyd, 25, was initially pulled over for driving without a seatbelt at the an intersection in Brooklyn, shortly after 4pm on Wednesday. But the altercation quickly escalated after Floyd struck his vehicle door open, wounded an officer in the arm, and fled the scene, The New York Post reported. He was then cornered by police at an intersection about three minutes away, but refused to surrender and instead scaled the support beam of a raised...

The story of Babel is the best metaphor I have found for what happened to America in the 2010s, and for the fractured country we now inhabit. Something went terribly wrong, very suddenly. We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past. It’s been clear for quite a while now that red America and blue America are becoming like two different countries claiming the same territory, with two different versions of the Constitution, economics, and American history. But Babel is not a story about...

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio used accounting gimmicks to hide nearly $225 million he poured into the city’s costly ferry system — and forced taxpayers to shell out as much as $14.57 for each ride as overwhelmingly wealthy passengers paid just $2.75 a piece. Those are the key findings of a blistering audit released Wednesday by city Comptroller Brad Lander. In addition, de Blasio wasted $66 million — including $34 million in “questionable vessel acquisition costs” — as a result of bad decisions by his hand-picked officials in charge of the city’s Economic Development Corp., the 50-page report said. Although...

A 51-year-old New York City deli worker was charged with murder after security video showed him allegedly stabbing to death a man who physically attacked him behind the store's counter last week. But the deli owner says his employee — who was being held Tuesday in Rikers Island on $250,000 bail, the New York Post reported — acted in self-defense.

The Navy commander of a joint military base in Hawaii where thousands were poisoned by water contaminated during a massive fuel leak was recently awarded the Legion of Merit upon retirement. Capt. Erik Spitzer, formerly the commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, was relieved of command on June 14 by Capt. Mark Sohaney, according to photos released by the Navy. Spitzer was criticized in the midst of the water crisis for providing conflicting guidance that residents’ water was safe in the days after the fuel leak. But during the change of command ceremony, Spitzer was awarded the Legion of Merit...

Secret Service Director Jim Murray is retiring from the service and heading to the popular app Snapchat, where he'll serve as chief security officer, DailyMail.com confirmed. 'Jim embodies the meaning of service over self, and protected the families of U.S. Presidents like they were part of his own,' said a statement Thursday from the president and first lady. 'We are incredibly grateful for his service to our country and our family.' The Secret Service's Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi told DailyMail.com that Murray delayed his retirement from the service by several months. 'He had the opportunity back in April but...

A special city committee is poised to recommend putting a dome over Soldier Field to keep the Chicago Bears from bolting to Arlington Heights, according to a published report Mayor Lori Lightfoot would only say was “premature” to publicly discuss. Lightfoot’s special committee, the Museum Campus Working Group, is prepared to release a report that suggests a dome could keep the Bears in Chicago, according to Greg Hinz of Crain’s. Capping the lakefront stadium could cost up to $1.5 billion, Crain’s reported, citing sources. A draft of the report, which could be released Thursday, says the dome “almost certainly” will...

As UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to resign – but stay on in a caretaker role – the momentous occasion offers the opportunity to reflect on his legacy of half-baked ideas and unfinished projects. The last 24 hours in British politics can be neatly summed up by the reaction of The Economist, which marked Johnson's demise with the Twitter-trending headline Clownfall. Following a multitude of calamitous moments, including Partygate - parties taking place at the Conservative PM's place of work during the pandemic, breaking rules the government put in place - and culminating in Johnson's appointment of an MP...

Consider the Buryats, one of Siberia’s largest Indigenous groups. Closely related to Mongolians, they were subjugated, annexed, and subsequently colonized by Russia in the 1600s. Russian independent news outlets Mediazona and iStories found that by mid-May, Buryatia had the second-highest number of soldiers killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion—just after Dagestan, another conquest of the Russian Empire. By May 18, Buryatia had lost 117 soldiers (the actual number is likely higher), whereas the city of Moscow, with a population around 15 times Buryatia’s, lost only three. Relative to the population, Buryatia’s rate of battle deaths was the...