Free Republic

One of my favorite projects at the Martin Center is the cultivation of our higher-education library. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I vastly prefer to read books printed on paper instead of words on a screen; the Martin Center’s growing library gives me great joy. At the end of last year, I set a goal for 2022: to have 850 books in the Martin Center’s collection. Thanks to our generous readers and donors, we’re almost there. As of today, we have 826 books. That’s almost 80 more than we had last year at this time. (You can view our catalog here.)...

This is still America, not Stalinist Russia, which means people who try to persecute their political enemies will eventually get their comeuppance. The fifth Twitter file release showed Twitter employees demanded former President Trump be banned from the platform even though the team assigned to evaluate his tweets didn’t believe he had violated any policies. Yesterday, Elon Musk disbanded the group of outside advisors formed to moderate content on the platform. I have every faith that our corrupt Justice Department and FBI will eventually get their comeuppance, too. Lying to the FISA court to get Trump, really? They’re still after...

A reminder that the exploding drug crisis in the United States is not being driven solely by drug traffickers on the border but also by average U.S. citizens too: A Dallas flight attendant pleaded guilty to drug trafficking after she was caught smuggling fentanyltaped to her abdomen at San Diego International Airport. Terese L White, 41, pleaded guilty in federal court, admitting she abused her privileges as a flight attendant to smuggle the deadly drug through Transportation Security Administration screenings. The lady thought she could get away with it because she had special prerogatives as an airline worker. But she...

TAMPA, Fla. - Police arrested a suspect who they said was caught on security cameras threatening workers at a Burger King restaurant in South Tampa on Friday. Tampa police said the incident happened around 5:30 p.m., when 50-year-old Hubert Credit Jr. walked into the restaurant, located at 611 S Dale Mabry Highway, and demanded free food from employees. According to investigators, when workers refused to give in to his demands, Credit pulled a pair of pliers from his pocket and started threatening the employees. Security cameras from inside the restaurant showed Credit banging the pliers on the counter before knocking...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tesla buyers who waited months for their new car have had an unusual choice for much of the past two years: keep the new electric vehicle, or sell it at a profit to someone with less patience. But the days of the Tesla flip are numbered - a potential threat to new car prices that are already getting cut. Prices of used Teslas are falling faster than those of other carmakers and the clean-energy status symbols are languishing in dealer lots longer, industry data provided to Reuters showed. The average price for a used Tesla in...

Gas prices could near or surpass $4.00 per gallon as soon as next May, according to data from GasBuddy shared with CNN. The national average price for gasoline is currently $3.10 per gallon, according to data from AAA. Prices surpassed $5.00 per gallon in June; although costs are not projected to reach such levels, they could see a significant increase in the coming months. “2023 is not going to be a cakewalk for motorists. It could be expensive,” GasBuddy Head of Petroleum Analysis Patrick De Haan told CNN. “The national average could breach $4.00 a gallon as early as May,...

WASHINGTON - House Republicans are readying to attack the Biden administration's efforts to expand U.S. clean energy as enriching the Chinese government. Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Friday they planned to investigate the administration's "pro-China policies" when they take control of the House in January. "Since Day one in office, President Biden has been giving China a pass, particularly with his rush-to-green agenda," the committee members said. Republicans singled out a Department of Commerce report earlier this month that found Chinese firms were circumventing U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels by running their supply chains...

The US Debt is very interest rate sensitive. While the average outstanding maturity of the US Debt is 5 to 6 years, this data reveals much more. Two Year Interval Debt (as of 2021) Treasury Debt. $22.584 trillion Mortgage Backed Securities. $12.202 trillion These are Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mac, ... WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE AGENCY DEBT COST (OFF THE BOOKS DEBT) EXCEEDS THE 30 YEAR MORTGAGES AT 3% AND 4% ? We could easily default on all the agency debt as the short term interest rate we must pay is many times the fixed rate long term mortgages receivable rate....

<p>The FBI on Wednesday finally broke its silence and responded to the revelations on Twitter of close ties between the bureau and the social media giant—ties that included efforts to suppress information and censor political speech.</p><p>Future disclosures will no doubt reveal similar FBI subcontracting with other social media concerns of Silicon Valley to stifle free expression and news deemed problematic to the FBI’s agenda.</p>

INDIANAPOLIS — A gut feeling shared by two Indiana mothers helped capture a kidnapping suspect and saved the life of a missing Ohio baby. Two Indianapolis women, mainly working with each other and their mothers' intuitions, rescued five-month-old Kason Thomas, the missing twin baby who was abducted last Monday night in Columbus. The story began when Shyann Delmar bought toys from a woman going by the name “Mae,” on Tuesday. She then gave Mae a ride to a dollar store, but her passenger's behavior was strange, according to Delmar. So strange that she took a video of her. The pair...

More than 1.5 million people in the US are waiting for their asylum claims to be heard, as the Supreme Court weighs the merits of the Trump-era Title 42 health policy — and could order it ended as soon as Tuesday. The number of pending asylum applications has exploded in the past decade, according to an analysis of federal data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, and fears have grown that lifting Title 42 could unleash a fresh surge of migration across the US-Mexico border The number of asylum seekers — 1,565,966 — is split between the...

Officials from the Biden administration were “angry” that Twitter didn’t ban several accounts it identified as tweeting coronavirus “misinformation,” according to the latest release of the Twitter Files. The latest batch of the Twitter files were released by author and journalist David Zweig and cover how Twitter suppressed debate about the coronavirs pandemic. “A December 2022 summary of meetings with the White House by Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s Head of U.S. Public Policy, adds new evidence of the White House’s pressure campaign, and cements that it repeatedly attempted to directly influence the platform,” reported Zweig. Zweig then posted a screenshot of...

This situation is officially out of control, though it probably has been for a while and we simply weren’t hearing much about it. Only a few weeks after people shot up two electrical substations in North Carolina, someone took out three of them in Washington State. And they did it on Christmas morning. More than 14,000 buildings lost power in Pierce County, Washington. And at least initially, much like the situation in North Carolina, authorities don’t appear to have any idea who might have done it. Thankfully, utility workers were able to restore power to nearly all of the homes...

EL PASO, Texas — In the middle of the West Texas desert, a giant tent — bigger than a football field — is being thrown up by the US Border Patrol as El Paso prepares for a human tidal wave to cross the border with Mexico as soon as the Title 42 health policy comes to an end. The makeshift facility northeast of downtown will serve as an overflow processing center when Title 42 expires — which could happen as soon as this week, depending on whether the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Biden administration from 19...

Home prices fell for the fourth straight month as high interest rates and stubborn inflation dampen the housing market, according to data released Tuesday. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, a gauge of home prices across the country, fell 0.3 percent in October from September after seasonal adjustments. It was the fourth consecutive monthly decline for the index after home prices peaked in June, said Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a Tuesday release. “Despite considerable regional differences, all 20 cities in our October report reflect these trends,” Lazzara said. “Prices declined...

Stories like this always grab my attention. Thieves exist everywhere but lately it seems thieves in some of our major cities have become convinced they can get away with anything. And, unfortunately, they often seem to be right. The NY Post reported yesterday that upscale Manhattan, retailers are being plagued by these brazen thieves.“There’s a true belief out there among criminals that they’re going to get away with it,” Jim Giddon, whose Rothmans men’s clothing store in Gramercy was once robbed twice in about a week by the same gang, told The Post…Grand larcenies have shot up about 27.6% citywide...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Tuesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape. Adam Fox returned to federal court four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They were accused of being at the helm of a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election. Their arrest, as well as the capture of 12 others, was...

Since the federal government, with the consent of both parties, just lit another 1.7 trillion dollars of imaginary money on fire, the generally quiet period between Christmas and the new year might be an opportune time to consider an important matter that has been almost completely ignored by both elected officials and the media. That would be the national debt. In case you hadn’t noticed, America’s debt has now reached a staggering level of 31.3 trillion dollars. That’s a figure so huge that it’s almost impossible to wrap your brain around it. In the Boston Globe this week, business and...

When Republican George Santos filed to run for Congress in New York’s 3rd Congressional District on Long Island, his profile seemed like a perfect fit in a city that leans decidedly liberal. He ticked all of the demographic boxes. He was young, gay, and Jewish. His grandmother had escaped the holocaust, moving to America for a new life. He had experience in the corporate world, having worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He was a graduate of Baruch College, an affiliate of CUNY. What’s not to like?Santos went on to win a nail-biter of an election, riding the red mini-wave...

Economic conditions just keep getting worse. As we prepare to enter 2023, we find ourselves in a high inflation environment at the same time that economic activity is really slowing down. And just like we witnessed in 2008, employers are conducting mass layoffs as a horrifying housing crash sweeps across the nation. Those that have been waiting for the U.S. economy to implode can stop waiting, because an economic implosion has officially arrived. The following are 15 facts that prove that a massive economic meltdown is already happening right now…#1 Existing home sales have now fallen for 10 consecutive months.#2...