Free Republic

This war need never have happened if Kissinger’s, and many others’, proposal for a neutral, non-NATO Ukraine had been accepted by the US in 2021, as Russia reasonably requested, and if Ukraine, at America’s direction, had ceased its eight year, US-sponsored war on the Donbas Russian speakers and Russian ethnics, and had enforced the Minsk II accords.But the US Military Industrial Complex wanted a war and got one. The object: To bleed and weaken Russia with a Vietnam-like quagmire.Russia appears to be surviving US sanctions quite comfortably, as new customers pop up in Asia for its natural gas and other...

In 2020, one hitherto unknown report accurately predicted what was to follow Biden’s election. It also laid out a plan to preserve democracy in an uncertain future. Weeks before the 2020 election, a secret 87-page document outlined in matter-of-fact language the threat posed by Donald Trump’s still-to-come campaign of election denial. The private paper — the existence of which has not been reported before — forecast with chilling confidence the likelihood of violence during the presidential handover and proposed a far-reaching set of political reforms to thwart Trumpism in the future. Americans remember that dark winter well. But the impetus...

Financial regulators have closed Silicon Valley Bank and taken control of its deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Friday, in what is the largest U.S. bank failure since the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago. The collapse of SVB, a key player in the tech and venture capital community, leaves companies and wealthy individuals largely unsure of what will happen to their money. According to press releases from regulators, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation closed SVB and named the FDIC as the receiver. The FDIC in turn has created the Deposit Insurance National Bank...

Back in mid-December, we did a show on OpenAI, a research organization founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015 as a challenger to Google. As we noted at the time, their mission was to create artificial intelligence to benefit humanity as a whole. The most notable part of OpenAI is a function called ChatGPT. It’s a chat room like you’ve never seen before. Within a few days of launching, it hit a million users despite a total media blackout and zero publicity. It now has over 100 million sign-ups. But there’s another, darker side to ChatGPT that has...

There was no text relating to the video at the link However, a short summary--Biden Admin is trying to pass another gun ban for "assault" weapons. In the meantime, Maryland is proposing a law to ban filing any charges for felony murder against those under 25 years old.

Legislative select committee opens inquiry into high energy bills.. Colorado’s high energy costs are partly due to a high-stakes regulatory "game" being played largely outside of the public’s view, said the official advocating for customers before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. A joint committee hearing on high energy costs at the statehouse Wednesday provided insights into the regulatory process that determines how much money investor-owned utilities make and how much utility consumers have to pay. “I would say if a rate payer is deciding between paying their heating bill or paying their prescriptions this month, then yes, something is wrong,”...

Newly-elected Miami-Dade Commissioner Sabine Covo, who Florida Democrats have praised as being not only the future of their political party but as the first win for them in taking back the state, does not know the Pledge of Allegiance. During a March 9 County Commission meeting, Commissioner Covo was asked to recite the Pledge. "Commissioner Covo, could you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please," asked someone within the Commission "You don't know it? Ok," responded the same official to Covo, who could not be heard to answer the first question about reciting the Pledge.

Our friend Julie Kelly gave us a heads-up there was massive drama in the Proud Boys January 6 trial yesterday after an FBI agent was caught lying on the stand and concealing evidence from defense attorneys. It turns out that Special Agent Nicole Miller (or someone) deleted thousands of messages in FBIs "Lync" messaging system--messages relevant to investigation and required to be produced to defense counsel. This brazen lawlessness at FBI in its biggest January 6 case, observed Ms. Kelly, because it appears Special Agent Miller’s “Boss” instructed the FBI agent to "destroy" hundreds of items of evidence. If this...

A judge in Canada expressed outrage after a man was arrested on the grounds of "criminal harassment" for making a rude gesture in public. A feud between neighboring families became an internationally known court case when a Canadian man was arrested for making a pair of middle finger gestures toward his neighbor.

WASHINGTON — A group of ultraconservative House Republicans on Friday sketched out their demands to tackle the debt ceiling, pushing to repeal much of President Joe Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act and roll back the latest government funding deal. The Freedom Caucus, chaired by Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., proposed to nix Biden’s $400 billion in student debt relief, rescind unspent Covid-19 funds, cut the climate change funding and $80 billion for added I.R.S. enforcement under the Inflation Reduction Act and to cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels for a decade. Perry estimated that would save about $3 trillion over...

Concerns over a Chinese invasion of Taiwan continue to mount with Beijing now suspected of involvement in damaging some of the island nation's undersea internet cables this week in another show of deliberate harassment. The disruption to Taiwan’s internet was not only a nuisance for the island’s inhabitants and visitors, it also revealed significant implications for Taiwan's national security.

The much-touted green energy economy and the net zero goals it aims to obtain are built upon a dirty little secret: slavery and child labor. A large percentage of the rare earth elements and critical minerals required for modern electronics, in general, and green energy technologies in particular, are produced and/or refined in countries where, if labor and environmental standards exist at all--and are enforced if they do—the standards are far short of what is required in developed countries. The mining, refining, manufacturing, and transportation of the huge amounts of rare earth elements and critical minerals is a dirty business....

Silicon Valley Bank has been closed by regulators, which have taken control of the bank’s deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced Friday.The California Department of Financial protection and Innovation closed SVB, and named the Federal Deoposit Insurace Corporation as the receiver.The FDIC has created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara, which now holds the insured deposits from SVB.

Rush Limbaugh’s widow, Kathryn Adams Limbaugh, has sold her husband’s longtime Florida compound of 20-plus years for a whopping $155 million. This marks a record for the Palm Beach area, which has seen a slew of big-time deals in the past few years, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2013, hedge funder Ken Griffin paid $129.6 million for four parcels in the area, making that the most recent record — until now.

Former President Donald Trump revealed today that Richard Nixon’s “biggest regret” was giving in to GOP pressure to resign during the Watergate impeachment crisis, a move the 45th president said he wouldn’t have made. “His daughter actually told me that his biggest regret was that he didn't fight, he should have fought,” Trump said, without identifying which daughter. But, he added, Nixon lacked the public support needed to carry on. “I'm not sure that that had an impact one way or the other,” he said, had Nixon resisted. In a media roundtable to discuss the April 25 release of the...

Kanakuk abuse survivors testified at a hearing last month on new legislation that would modify the legal process for reporting child sexual abuse. On February 13, survivors and family members of victims of sexual abuse at Kanakuk Kamps, a popular evangelical camp outside Branson, Missouri, testified before the Missouri House Judiciary Committee in support of a new bill regarding the statute of limitations for sexual abuse. The bill, H.B. 367, proposed by local state Rep. Brian Seitz, offers an extension of the civil statute of limitations. As a result, victims may file civil actions any time before the victim turns...

Fears of a broad financial contagion spread on Friday after tech lender Silicon Valley Bank set off alarm bells over liquidity concerns — sparking share losses across the banking sector worth some $52 billion on Thursday. Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Firm advised clients to withdraw their deposits from Silicon Valley Bank — despite the fact the lender has been a mainstay for tech startups for decades, according to Bloomberg News. Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager, called on the US government to step in and bail out Silicon Valley Bank. Michael Burry, the eccentric investor featured in...

There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who “put America first” everywhere. It’s tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug — to “move on” without ever acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways. But that erasure of personal and public history would be...

The slight asymmetry in the sand dunes shows their steep sides are orientated towards the south. The University of Arizona, which operates the High-Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRise) camera used to take the image, pointed out in a statement(opens in new tab) that this indicates sands are blown southwards, though the Martian winds may be variable. The image was taken on November 22, 2022, at a latitude of 42.505 degrees and a longitude of 67.076 degrees. It comes as part of a series of pictures taken by the HiRise camera that orbits Mars on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft. The...

Right at the same moment the New York Times publishes a shoddy 'officials say' story about alleged intelligence about the Nord Stream terror attack the Germany weekly Die Zeit, which has strong U.S. secret services ties, comes up with an equally unbelievable tale of a 'Ukrainian owned' sailing boat playing the major role in the attack:Nord-Stream-Ermittlungen: Spuren führen in die UkraineErmittler haben das Boot identifiziert, von dem aus die Anschläge auf Nord Stream ausgeführt wurden. Offenbar wurde es von einer Firma gemietet, die Ukrainern gehört.My translations:Nord Stream investigation: Traces lead to UkraineInvestigators have identified the boat from which the attacks...