Free Republic

One of the most important policy battles of 2023 is already happening quietly and outside of the media spotlight. Indeed, many Americans are completely unaware that it is underway. It is over the Left’s ESG (environmental, social and governance)-driven investments and their corrosive effect on the country. Over the past two years, the Left has launched a determined campaign to advance their climate, gun-control, and abortion objectives not through legislation, but through the allocation and denial of capital. The proponents of ESG-driven investments are using woke investment firms like BlackRock to phase out fossil fuels, weaken agriculture, hobble the firearms...

Winter can take some of the blame, but the cold isn't really the cause of the illnesses around us. The real culprit for catching viruses is a lack of ventilation. Let's discuss one significant obstacle to health every winter - the heating. It's true that it's important to keep the body warm so that it remains healthy and stimulates blood circulation, but don't exaggerate. Any doctor will confirm that there's no need to overheat rooms. On the contrary, ventilating the spaces can reduce the chance of infection.

12 February 20236th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, Barcelona Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(I).First readingEcclesiasticus 15:16-21 ©God predestined wisdom to be for our glory before the ages beganIf you wish, you can keep the commandments, to behave faithfully is within your power.He has set fire and water before you; put out your hand to whichever you prefer.Man has life and death before him; whichever a man likes better will be given him.For vast is the wisdom of the Lord; he is almighty and all-seeing.His eyes are on those who fear him,...

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday accused Republicans of playing “brinkmanship” and holding the U.S. economy “hostage” on the debt ceiling. “Four times Democrats, even when Trump was in power, even two times when Trump and the Republicans had the House and Senate, we could have blocked it,” Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week,” talking about suspending the debt ceiling. “We did not play brinkmanship.”

Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said on Sunday that a potential 2024 presidential run would be “an opportunity to change things” and put “a little better attitude” in Washington, D.C. Sununu told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that the nation’s capital “gives me the chills sometimes.” “Well, you might need to get over that if you’re gonna run for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., as apparently you are considering doing,” Brennan said. “Well look, a lot of opportunity to change things, right?” Sununu replied.

The Federal Aviation Administration has declared a "national defense airspace" over part of Lake Michigan, the organization announced Sunday. The FAA has not clarified why it has banned civilian air traffic from the area. The FAA last established a national defense airspace over Montana this weekend in reaction to an unidentified flying object. This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.

“When Bonnie Raitt won the award for Song of the Year at the 2023 Grammys on Sunday night for her track Just Like That,” The Daily Mail reports this week, “some were shocked that the accolade went to the 73-year-old folk singer - over huge artists like Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Harry Styles, Beyonce and Adele, who were also nominated for the category.” Much less shocking, given Raitt’s social and political milieu, is this rock and roller’s propaganda ministrations for the only regime in the modern history of the Western Hemisphere to criminalize rock & roll and herd its practitioners and...

Two climate activists who blocked traffic in the German city of Stuttgart earlier this year missed their court date because they flew to Bali and Indonesia, for a round trip of 23,000 kilometers producing 7.9 tons of CO2 emissions. In September 2022, Yannick S. and his girlfriend Luisa S., both members of the Last Generation activist group, blocked commuter traffic in Stuttgart. The two were cited by police, but when their court date arrived, it was revealed that neither could attend because they were on the other side of the planet on vacation. The two climate activists are now being...

In the unrelenting quest to extract more taxes from the working portion of the population, the IRS is focusing on unreported tips income. Commissioner Douglas O'Donnell pointed out that "legislation enacted last year gave us the funding for an additional 87,000 armed IRS agents. Since unreported tip income has been a thorn in the IRS' side for generations we now have the manpower to track down and punish these tax chiselers." O'Donnell denied that this initiative contradicts the President's ambition to extract more taxes from the wealthiest Americans, saying "trying to go after the wealthiest taxpayers is fraught with risk....

On this date in 2004, the former deputy governor of China’s Anhui province was executed for official corruption. It was just weeks after Wang’s conviction for grifting some 100 million yuan in real estate transactions dating back to the mid 1990’s. We suppose Wang did his appeals no favors by steadfastly denying guilt — although he might have reckoned that the national “determination … to fight corruption” thwarted any such plan....

- United States closes airspace over parts of Lake Michigan, NOTAM states "national defense airspace

My 40-year-long career as a scientist in a federal research laboratory has left me with an almost inexhaustible source of topics. Today I discuss some of the absurdities of the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Put simply, the Federal Acquisition Regulations, affectionately known as the FAR, is a body of rules governing how federal employees procure goods and services to carry out the tasks set out for them by the powers that be. The purpose of the FAR is unassailable: it exists to protect the taxpayer from waste, fraud, and abuse. Folks who work in the federal government have an obligation to...

Description: While the news often focuses on the role of large, expensive systems in the Ukraine war (think of the attention given to tanks, aircraft, or MLRS and SAM systems in recent weeks and months) some of the most omnipresent and disruptive systems have actually been terrifyingly cheap and accessible. Off-the-shelf commercial drones converted for military use have been deployed by the truckload, while some of Russia's more successful weapons have been comparatively cheap loitering munitions and kamikaze drones like the Iranian Shahed and Russian Lancet. Videos of equipment destroyed by drones that might cost a thousandth of the price...

Well, the Chinese have done it again...or have they? Recently, Biden's spokespersons announced the shoot-down of an "object" over far Northeastern Alaska, shot down where it would land on an ice floe in Prudhoe Bay. The Pentagon was quick to "not call it" a balloon, just as they were careful not to call where it crashed down "ice." Instead, they called the balloon an "object" and called it "frozen water." Why did Biden permit a massive balloon, with an equipment pod as large as a commercial airliner, to overfly the entire United States — including our nuclear missile silos in...

Archbishop Wolfgang Haas boycotts the synodal process. What do you say to this, Cardinal Mario Grech? Curia Cardinal Mario Grech (65) is "Mister Synod": The threads of the synodal process run together in his office. A conversation about his experiences in Prague, Cardinal Müller's criticism - and what he says to disappointed Catholics of Synod 72. Eminence, what is the most important message coming out of Prague? Cardinal Mario Grech: We learned that we have different backgrounds and different positions. But we managed to walk together and work together. That has proved to be very productive.

In a recent article about the moral decline of the U.S., Michael Bresciani noted that a recent Gallup survey indicated that the respondents selected poor leadership, inflation, and immigration as the most important problems facing our country. Sadly, he also noted that at the bottom of the list in terms of significance (ninth place) was ethics, morality, and family decline. Based on Bible priorities, he rightly says, “we can safely conclude that Americans have it backwards, or upside down.” The decline of the item at the bottom of the Gallup list is the real reason why we are in decline...

Now that you all have placed your Super Bowl bets and don’t want to be a chalk-eater, here’s a good underdog wager: A Democrat will win the Mississippi governor’s race this year. Yeah, sounds crazy. The deep-red Magnolia State went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1976, for a U.S. Senator in 40 years — and not for a Democratic governor in almost a quarter century. But incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves is not very popular. A Siena college poll last month showed 57 percent would prefer someone else, and Reeves barely leads the Democratic candidate,...

Maryland Delegate Pam Queen (D) is pushing legislation that would require an “embedded tracker” to be added to firearms before they can be transferred in a sale. Queen’s bill, HB 704, says: FOR the purpose of prohibiting a person from engaging in a certain bulk firearm transfer unless each firearm that is part of the transfer contains a certain tracker; requiring a seller or other transferor who engages in a bulk firearm transfer to transmit to the Secretary of State Police certain information; providing that a violation of this Act is a civil offense; requiring the Secretary to establish a...

As Twitchy readers know, a Lefty ad group supported by Microsoft was (is) actively targeting right-leaning media sites in an effort to defund and de-platform them. THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS WERE RIGHT AGAIN. *adjusts tinfoil hat, ties bow on top* Welp, sounds like Microsoft has ‘suspended’ its relationship with GDI and is launching an internal reveiw. Because you know, they TOTALLY had no idea and stuff. Totally. BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft, which subscribes to the State Department-backed Global Disinformation Index's blacklist of conservative news, has suspended its relationship with GDI and is launching an internal review, @dcexaminer confirmshttps://t.co/kRvZqxptpY — Gabe Kaminsky (@gekaminsky)...

Playing Risk while drunkFor too long Washington has refused to think strategically about some of the major foreign policy issues of our time. In the rare instance where Washington’s policymakers do think strategically, the strategies they concoct seem less like realistic attempts at applying state power and more like they were conceived over a game of Risk while under the heavy influence of alcohol.Such is the case with the current American preoccupation in Ukraine.The Russians have invaded Ukraine. They’ve committed their entire society to the war. In the words of popular geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan, this is “Russia’s last war.”...