Free Republic

BEIJING--Defiance against the Chinese government’s zero-COVID strategy is escalating in many parts of China, with some protesters even publicly calling for top leader Xi Jinping to resign. It is a rare and astonishing development for a nation that harshly clamps down on protests and any criticism leveled against the ruling regime. Observers said the tumult could further deepen if Chinese leadership mishandles the protests, given the pent-up frustrations among the population over longtime COVID-19 restrictions imposed on the people's daily lives. ... Videos posted on Chinese social media show dozens of protesters on the Urumqi road in Shanghai before dawn...

Don Lemon has unwittingly let CNN's cat out of the bag. Guests aren't there to engage in an actual discussion. They're brought on to express a specific opinion. And if they try to stray from CNN's script, they will be shut down. Lemon gave a perfect illustration of the phenomenon on Monday's CNN This Morning. The guest was Len Khodorkovsky, a former Trump administration official, who is Jewish. And in Lemon's mind, the clear purpose of Khodorkovsky's appearance was to have him criticize Trump for hosting a dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. In fact, in a variety of...

Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?

Protests across the country reveal deep anger and frustration at three years of lockdowns and social control. China’s Communist Party runs the world’s most extensive surveillance and police state, so any public protest against its policies takes courage and runs great personal risk. That’s all the more reason to recognize the widespread demonstrations that broke out this weekend against the Chinese government’s draconian zero-Covid restrictions. They reveal the public’s deep frustration after three years of the world’s most restrictive Covid policies that have shut down entire cities for weeks and months on government orders without public debate or recourse. The...

The owner of hacking forum called Breached told BleepingComputer that it was responsible for exploiting the weakness (originally obtained from another hacker called "Devil") and dumping the user records. It said that it also obtained 1.4 million Twitter profiles for suspended accounts, obtained via another API, but only shared those privately among a few individuals. On top of all that, security expert Chad Loder has revealed that tens of millions more Twitter records may have been collected using the same API. Once again, data collected may include private phone numbers along with public information. Loder posted a redacted sample on...

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is urging congressional lawmakers to pass a new spending bill for the Pentagon, saying a “failure to do so will result in significant harm” to the U.S. and national security. Congress has until Dec. 16 to pass a new funding bill and avoid a federal government shutdown. There has been talk of Congress passing a longer “continuing resolution” or temporary funding measure to give negotiators more time to agree to a new omnibus spending bill that would cover the Pentagon and other government agencies. A “CR” would maintain funding at existing levels, while an omnibus would...

Covid-19 deaths likely fueled an increase in death-benefit paymentsU.S. life insurers paid a record $100 billion in 2021 in death benefits, fueled by another year of Covid-19 deaths, an industry trade group said.Payouts rose 11% in 2021 to $100.19 billion, most likely due to the pandemic, according to the American Council of Life Insurers. The increase was on the heels of a 15% year-over-year rise in 2020, when death-benefit payments totaled $90.43 billion.The ACLI compiles data from annual filings by insurers to state insurance departments. Given limitations in the filings, the group can’t break down causes of death, but it...

This 14-minute clip is gold. SBF, FTX, Soros, the old globalist BCCI banking scandal, the “stablecoin” Tether, and a Clinton Overworld Money Laundering Operation. Watch: Video at link................. Beattie: SBF's FTX Was "Money Laundering Operation" Within The "Clinton-Underworld Democrat Machine"

The unrest — which included open calls in Shanghai for Xi to step down and the detention of foreign journalists — has been well-documented in the international press. But coverage within China has been somewhat limited due to the government’s stringent censorship rules and control of the media. As such, Xi’s CCP could clamp down further on public protests, Green noted. That was the case during 2019′s pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and 1989′s Tiananmen Square protests on the Chinese mainland. The party is also likely to continue pursuing a hard line in its Covid strategy, as cases hit record...

(2 minute video at source) Ed Dowd joined Steve Bannon on The War Room on Frank Speech recently to discuss the excess mortality rates we are witnessing following two years of the COVID vaccine mandates. Ed Dowd, an equity investment executive, joined The War Room back in March with an explosive report on the excess number of deaths recorded in the US since the introduction of the experimental vaccines. Back in March Dowd said that U.S. millennials, aged 25-44, experienced a record-setting 84% increase in excess mortality during the final four months of 2021. It’s still happening! According to Ed...

House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday on whether election denier Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will be the next Democrat House leader. Following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to step down as Democrat leader, House Democrats have scheduled a vote on Wednesday at 9 a.m. to replace her in the position. Jeffries appears to be the chosen Democrat to win the coveted position. A lawyer from central Brooklyn, Jeffries, 52, is a far-left Democrat who appears to have been hand-picked by Pelosi to lead the Democrats in the next Congress. Jeffries was first elected to Congress in 2013 and has...

Crypto firm BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the wake of FTX's bankruptcy. It's the latest in a series of crypto bankruptcies, following FTX, Voyager and Celsius. Distressed crypto firm BlockFi has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey following the implosion of putative acquirer FTX. In the filing, the company indicated that it had more than 100,000 creditors, with liabilities and assets ranging from $1 billion to $10 billion. In the filing, the company listed an outstanding $275 million loan to FTX US, the American arm...

I have written about the cases for and against Donald Trump and for and against Ron DeSantis in 2024, and that leaves only the case against everybody else in the GOP who might run. There is no case for them. The debate in the Republican Party is between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis and what they represent. Everybody else is just a distraction at best, at worst delusional or auditioning for vice president or some cheesy cabinet post. The 2024 election is just too important for this kind of self-indulgent nonsense. Let’s review some of the potential candidates who, in...

A campaign aide for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia got hilariously shut down by a Republican who debunked the sham left-wing talking points she tried to push during their phone call. Dom Lucre, the former state director of the Tennessee branch of Blexit (“black exit” from the Democratic Party), tweeted a video of himself debating the leftist activist who had called to try to persuade him to vote for Warnock in the senator’s forthcoming runoff election against Republican Herschel Walker. “So Senator Warnock’s campaign called me, A TN Resident to Vote in his GA election,” Lucre tweeted on Saturday....

Sam Brinton, one of the first “openly genderfluid individuals in federal government leadership,” was charged with felony theft last month after allegedly stealing a woman’s luggage at MSP Airport. The MIT grad went viral earlier this year when he announced his new role as the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the U.S. Department of Energy. “As one of if not the very first openly genderfluid individuals in federal government leadership, I was welcomed with open arms into the Department of Energy all the way up to the Secretary whom I shared the...

Fed Rollercoaster! Deutsche Bank, my former employer, said that The Fed will slash rates by 200 basis points by mid-2024 after staying hawkish in the short term. Deutsche Bank increased its view on the terminal rate and now sees it hitting 5.1% in May. The Federal Reserve will remain hawkish in the short term but will cut benchmark rates sharply after that, according to a Monday note from Deutsche Bank. The central bank has hiked rates by 375 basis points so far this year, with another half-point increase widely expected next month. Even more tightening will come, with analysts at...

The Russian military clearly assesses that Ukrainian forces could cross the Dnipro River and conduct counter-offensive operations in eastern Kherson Oblast, possibly threatening all of the critical ground lines of communications (GLOCs) from Crimea to the mainland. Russian forces have been digging trench lines and concentration areas in eastern Kherson since early October 2022 in obvious preparation for the withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro River and Kherson City. Russian troops are preparing either to defend in depth or to conduct operational or strategic delay operations. Russian forces clearly do not expect to be able to prevent Ukrainian...

Following a string of Ukrainian military successes in the south, the Kremlin sought on Monday to tamp down speculation that Russian forces would withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex, with President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman saying that Moscow has no plans to end its military occupation of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. “One should not look for signs where there are none and cannot be any,” said the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov. Mr. Peskov’s comments came after some pro-Russian military bloggers wrote posts suggesting that Moscow’s forces would withdraw from the area, and after Ukrainian officials said there were indications...

Payton Gendron pleaded guilty Monday to state charges stemming from the May shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo. Gendron pleaded guilty to 15 charges in all, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, murder and attempted murder. He still faces more than two dozen federal charges, some of which carry the possibility of the death penalty. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 15, 2023. Domestic terrorism motivated by hate carries a mandatory life sentence. He was charged with carrying out a "domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate" along with 10 counts of murder in the first degree, 10 counts...

The World Health Organization announced on Monday that it is renaming monkeypox as mpox due to concerns that the original name could be perceived as racist or stigmatizing. Driving the news: Both the monkeypox and mpox names will be used by WHO over the next year as the term "monkeypox" is gradually phased out, WHO said in a press release. "When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO," the press release stated. WHO began consulting with experts about potentially renaming the...