Free Republic

Jonathan and Diana Toebbe pleaded guilty for a second time on Tuesday to federal charges that they tried to sell secrets about U.S. submarine nuclear propulsion systems to a foreign country. The couple originally pleaded guilty in February but a judge threw out the plea agreements last month after deciding the sentences called for were too low. At the time of his plea, Toebbe conceded he sent a package to a foreign government, listing a return address in Pittsburgh that contained a sample of restricted data and instructions for establishing relationship to buy additional restricted data. Toebbe said he began...

Treasury Bond yields have broken a downtrend stretching back to the 1980s.The Fed told us it would be a bad year for Treasury bonds when it announced earlier this year it would reduce the number of bonds held on its balance sheet to help curb inflation. Nevertheless, their poor performance has been jaw-dropping. The 20-year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) is down 34% from its peak in December, and 2-year Treasury bond yields (yields move inverse to bond prices) have spiked from below 0.80% to 4.3% this year alone. Bonds' rapid decline has caused steep losses for investors who built...

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nS0Fdayj8YYet another electric vehicle disaster is making the rounds on the internet, this time as a YouTuber with over 1.4 million followers tried towing an ancient 1930s Ford Model A truck with a contemporary Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup. Despite setting the bar ridiculously low – he just wanted to tow it just over 100 miles round trip – the entire experiment failed in a spectacularly “complete and total disaster.” Youtuber Tyler Hoover says in the video, seen below, that “[i]f a truck towing 3,500 pounds can’t even go 100 miles — that is ridiculously stupid. He then...

When Ukrainian national Kateryna Rietz-Rakul first heard that Germany wants to take in Russian deserters, she thought it was a bad joke. "I thought this can't possibly be true, I couldn't believe it at first. Until I watched the evening news," says the interpreter, who has lived and worked in Germany for 20 years. There, she was amazed to see German politicians from all three ruling parties literally falling over themselves with offers of help for the Russian conscientious objectors who are seeking to leave the country since President Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilization last week. "Those who hate...

Two gunmen killed a teenage football player and injured three of his teammates in an ambush-style attack outside of a Pennsylvania high school on Tuesday afternoon, police said. The violence erupted outside the Roxborough High School in Philadelphia just after 4:40 p.m. as the boys were leaving a football scrimmage against two other schools, according to police. The gunmen opened fire from a light green Ford Explorer, killing a 14-year-old boy and striking two other teenage boys. The murdered teenager was shot once in the left side of his chest. He was pronounced dead less than 30 minutes after the...

An increasing number of fake prescription pills that contain potentially deadly fentanyl are helping drive overdose death rates to record levels in the U.S., including some now manufactured in rainbow colors designed to look like candy, federal officials said Tuesday. Drug Enforcement Administration agents are working to crack down on violent drug cartels in Mexico believed to be trafficking the drugs into the U.S., Attorney General Merrick Garland said. Between May and September, the DEA and local police around the country seized more than 10 million fentanyl pills and hundreds of pounds of powder, he said.

The US government expects households to see their heating bills increase by 54% compared with last winter. U.S. consumers will spend more to heat their homes this winter than last year due to surging energy prices, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected in its winter fuels outlook on Wednesday. US natural gas has climbed to its highest price since 2014 and is up roughly 90% over the last year. The wholesale price of heating oil has more than doubled in the last 12 months. The biggest reason for this winter’s higher heating bills is the recent increase in prices...

The “partial mobilization” of Russian men to fight in Putin’s War in Ukraine is shaping up pretty much the fiasco we thought it would be (see Vladimir Putin to Address Russia; Annexation of Ukraine Provinces and Mobilization Seem to Be on the Table). It is equal parts black comedy, political thriller, and tragedy. But, don’t worry, the comedic and thriller elements will go away very soon. The war in Ukraine has left Russia facing a military personnel crisis. About 75% of Russia’s regular ground forces participated in the opening act of the Special Military Operation (SMO). These were reinforced by...

HAS ANYONE HEARD THIS REPORT? PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT: “PUTIN LEFT MOSCOW TO HIS SECRET PALACE NEAR LAKE VALDI BETWEEN MOSCOW & ST PETERBURG WHEN RUSSIA & RUSSIA’S ADMINISTTATION WAS IN SUCH A MESS! LEAVING HIS COUNTRY WITHOUT A LEADER WHHILE HIS COUNTRY WAS ON FIRE & CITIZENS WERE WAITING FOR A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS. PRO-PUTIN POLITICAL OFFICIALS STATED THAT THE RUSSIAN LEADER WENT TO THE LUXURY COMPLEX TO REST HIS BODY AND SOUL.”

The Facebook CEO has lost more than half his fortune since last year.

Russian-installed officials in occupied regions of Ukraine reported huge majorities on Tuesday in favour of becoming part of Russia after five days of voting in so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. Hastily arranged votes had taken place in four areas - the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and to the south Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - that make up about 15% of Ukrainian territory. Luhansk authorities said 98.4% of people there had voted to join Russia. In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian-appointed official put the figure at 93.1%. In Kherson, the head of the voting committee put...

Democrat Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order Tuesday banning the carry of guns — even by concealed permit holders — in city parks and recreational centers. FOX News reported the signing of the executive order, quoting Kenney as saying, “This gives them some protection, some peace of mind, some ability to call the authorities when some knucklehead decides they want to bring a gun into a rec center, and they see it, that’s part of what this is about.”

Thank you USA BTW, there's no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia to Western Europe, including Germany. Nordstream's only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity. All Ukrainian and Baltic sea states have opposed Nordstream's construction for 20 years. Now $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine. Someone, @MFA_Russia, did a special maintenance operation.

A taxpayer-funded organization called Zero to Three is promoting transgender identity on two-year-olds, a report from the Washington Free Beacon has found. The top early childhood development organization in the country argues that children as young as two years old can exhibit signs of “transgender identity” and urges teachers to “use tenets of Critical Race Theory” when working with newborns. One session intended to address “the development of gender identity, including how early the process begins (ages 2–3), and how parents and professionals can distinguish gender exploration with the emergence of a transgender identity. ”The organization promoted their leftist views...

Salon published an article on Sunday warning that the term “Latinx” is neither popular nor “inclusive” enough to be used anymore. “‘Latinx’ is used as an individual identity for those who are gender-nonconforming,” Professor Melissa K. Ochoa wrote, but said after the term became popular only with academics and young Americans rather than Spanish-speaking people, it should be retired. The article, titled “Stop using ‘Latinx’ if you really want to be inclusive,” was republished from The Conversation. […] In October 2017, Salon published a piece headlined “Forget About ‘Latino’ — why I’m all for ‘Latinx,’ and you should be, too.”...

Claudine Roberts, Than Than Htwe, Michelle Go. All three were women, all were racial minorities, and all were viciously killed by strangers on the subway in the past two years. In response to soaring violent crime underground since March 2020, women and girls, correctly fearful of riding the subway, have stayed off the trains if they can and adopted coping mechanisms if they can’t. Claudine Roberts was stabbed to death on the A train in February 2021. Than Than Htwe was pulled down the stairs to her death in Union Square that July. Michelle Go was pushed under a Times...

Former president says material ‘offends all women and the creator who made them’Former president Mary McAleese has called on Pope Francis to remove “awful material” from a Vatican website set up in 2016 which she said “offends all women and the creator who made them”. The document, which blames all human ills on women, including the death of Jesus Christ, appears on the website of the Dicastery (Department) for the Laity, the Family and Life. It appears in English, French and Italian, but not in Spanish or Portuguese translations. Written by Tertullian, one of the early church fathers who died...

Modern Day Stockholm Syndrome Courtesy of the Elites and questions you should ask yourself to ensure you don't have it: 1) Are we looking to a leader for our Freedoms and Liberties under the banner of them saving us from that which they themselves created? 2) Are we grateful to the perpetrators of this evil for the temporary relief from restrictions and as such their imposed threats? 3) Am I full of anxiety? Confused? Stressed? Fearful and Depressed because of Covid and the abuse and torture that it continues to inflict? 4) Have my feelings changed as a result of...

Cuban priest Jose Conrado Rodríguez Alegre sent an open letter to Pope Francis in which he reprimanded him for his silence in the face of outrage by various totalitarian regimes.Especially Cuba. According to the Catholic parish priest of the San Francisco de Paula Church, in Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, “We know very well that when the Holy See does not explicitly and firmly defend the victims, totalitarian governments feel free to take action against their victims.” “I must admit that it has become more difficult for me to honestly affirm that ‘The Pope often surprises me, but he never lets me...

The Vatican has turned down a request from some U.S. bishops to add a feast day celebrating the marriage of Joseph and Mary to the Church’s universal liturgical calendar. The Vatican has turned down a request from some U.S. bishops to add a feast day celebrating the marriage of Joseph and Mary to the Church’s universal liturgical calendar. The U.S. bishops' conference told bishops earlier this month that “a number of bishops have written to the Holy See in support of a petition to add the Feast of the Holy Spouses, Mary and Joseph, to the Church’s universal calendar. This...