Free Republic

SINGAPORE— Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war, likely after he visits Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin , according to people familiar with the matter. The meetings with Messrs. Putin and Zelensky, the latter of which is expected to take place virtually, reflect Beijing’s effort to play a more active role in mediating an end to the war in Ukraine, some of the people said. "The meetings with Messrs. Putin and Zelensky, the latter of which is expected to...

President Joe Biden insisted Monday that the nation’s banking system was safe, seeking to project calm after the collapse of two banks stirred fears of a broader upheaval and prompted regulators to offer emergency loans to banks to stave off additional failures. “Your deposits will be there when you need them,” Biden said. Despite the message from the White House, investors continued to dump shares in bank stocks. Shares of First Republic Bank plunged more than 70% even after the bank said it was accessing emergency funding from the Federal Reserve as well as additional funds from JPMorgan Chase. […]...

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he will “slowly roll out” the security footage recorded during the Jan. 6 Capitol breach to news outlets.“We will slowly roll out to every individual news agency, they can come see the tapes as well,” McCarthy told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”“Let everyone see them to bring their own judgment,” he added. “The first thing I found is that the January 6 committee was not honest with us. That it’s not 14,000 hours of tapes, there’s 41,000 hours of tapes.”McCarthy has provided Fox News host Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of surveillance...

The fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is beginning to spread around the world. Startup founders in California’s Bay Area are panicking about access to money and paying employees. Fears of contagion have reached Canada, where the bank’s loan book has doubled in the past year. SVB’s unit in the UK is set to be declared insolvent, has already ceased trading and is no longer taking new customers. On Saturday, the leaders of roughly 180 tech companies sent a letter calling on UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to intervene.“The loss of deposits has the potential to cripple the sector...

Costa Titch died suddenly last night South African rapper Costa Titch has reportedly #diedsuddenly on stage at a music festival. VIDEOS AT LINK.......................

Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t an ordinary bank. It became the go-to bank for venture-funded technology startups in the most fertile business environment for innovation over the past 50 years, Silicon Valley. As business boomed over the past few years, Silicon Valley Bank made a big bet; it would invest in a virtual risk-free investment: government debt. The bank would earn just under 1.80% by committing capital for a relatively short duration (< 3-4 years).But management failed to account for a few critical yet tectonic shifts. The first major underestimation was that the Federal Reserve would hike rates as rapidly and...

Former top Trump administration official Kash Patel said the former president’s number one iTunes song, “Justice For All,” featuring the “January 6 Prison Choir,” “broke the music industry” because they put “America First values back front and center.”LISTEN: January 6 Prison Choir“Justice For All,” is a tribute to the January 6 prisoners that features the “J6 Prison Choir,” an ensemble of prisoners who can be heard singing the national anthem while Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance.As Patel told Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle, he and the teams over at Pyramid Records and Real America’s Voice were able to...

‘It turns out there’s quite a bit of video you haven’t seen. And that video tells a very different story about what happened on Jan. 6,’ Carlson said last week.If you watched CNN and MSNBC last week, you might have thought Fox News’ Tucker Carlson painted the 2021 Capitol riot as a harmless peace parade, with a minotaur as its patriotic grand marshal. But Carlson said nothing of the sort. (That’s how former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkin described the deadly anarchy that gripped her city in the summer of 2020.)This is how it's been for much of the day. CNN...

Skip Science should not be trusted in general, but we need to be especially diligent in acknowledging science as suspect when the science of the matter concerns the possibility that scientists, health science funders, and managers overseeing science in labs in Wuhan, played a role in killing 18 million people. Such an investigation is ripe with conflicts of interest and reputational risks, as prior to a science-caused accident there will be many coteries of scientists who played some role in encouraging, conducting, funding, and/or overseeing the research that caused harm. Yet, despite the massive body of evidence making a spillover-scientist...

Have you or someone you know ever suffered a miscarriage or lost a young child? Do you have a loved family member who has mental challenges and can’t understand things like you and I do?You’ve heard it said all the time in Christian circles that no one is eternally lost because of their sin, but rather because they fail to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. Fine, but what happens to those who are unable to make that decision, such as infants and those with mental handicaps, when they die? Are they lost?Short answer: no. Long answer: keep reading.The...

At the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Donald Trump demonstrated, once again, why he remains leader of the Republican Party. He made it clear that he should not be displaced until long after his 2024 presidential primary victory.Trump showed the rhetorical brilliance that vaulted him from political outsider to the heir to Ronald Reagan in an instant. At a time when too many Republican politicians stumble over each other for positions just to lurch back toward the middle and lose their mettle, Trump gave the base the red meat they needed to hear.“And if you put me back in...

Analysts Christopher Allen and Alessandro Balbo from Citi raised their rating on the bank's stock to Buy from Hold as investors consider the fallout from the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. After a roughly 23% decline over the past two trading days, the stock is trading at compelling levels, the duo said, citing its price-to-earnings ratio. The stock was trading at nearly 13 times the per-share earnings expected for the coming year, FactSet data show, which represents a nearly 45% discount to its average P/E ratio of 23.5. The highest valuation the discount broker has recorded in...

THIS is the moment Vladimir Putin's warlord Ramzan Kadyrov shook uncontrollably as he met with the tyrant. The Chechen brute, 46, feared he had been poisoned just weeks ago after it is reported he became seriously ill with kidney problems. Footage shows Kadyrov shaking as he talks to a puffy-looking Putin - who, rumoured to be battling his own health issues, gripped the table as they spoke. Bloated Kadyrov can be seen unable to control his quivering as he chats to the Russian dictator while reading from pre-prepared handwritten notes with huge writing. A translation by BBC journalist Francis Scarr...

The Fed (Bernanke, Yellen, Powell) kept rates too low for too long (their new moto?), and hell is now being paid. US financial conditions index collapsed on the 3 bank failures … so far. Despite what Resident Biden said about banks, bank stocks fell again today.

President Xi Jinping wants to parlay China’s success in brokering a diplomatic deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia into a more active role in global affairs. China should “actively participate in the reform and construction of the global governance system” and promote “global security initiatives,” Xi said on Monday in a speech to the legislature. That will add “positive energy to world peace and development,” he claimed. And in a blend of statecraft and blunt force, Xi spoke of turning the People’s Liberation Army into a “great wall of steel.” “We should comprehensively promote the modernization of national defense and...

A calculator created to facilitate COVID-19 vaccination rates amongst Australians has been updated to include the latest information on vaccines for kids in order to increase child vaccinations. Launched by the Immunisation Coalition, and made up of a team of GPs, medical scientists, public health physicians, epidemiologists, and statisticians, the COVID-19 risk calculator (CoRiCal) was created to help people see their risk for getting COVID-19 under different transmission scenarios. University of Queensland virologist and one of the tool’s lead researchers Kirsty Short said users can access the tool and input their age, sex, community transmission and vaccination status to find...

Evidence is accumulating that the Chinese Communist Party is poised to add a shooting war to the pre-kinetic “unrestricted warfare” against America in which it has long engaged. Increasingly shrill rhetoric about the United States – including Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s recent comment that conflict is “inevitable” if we do not change course – is being accompanied by, among other things, the stand-up of defense mobilization offices across China. Center for Security Policy expert Dr. Bradley Thayer says dictator Xi Jinping is preparing his people for the sacrifices associated with a long conventional, or even a nuclear, war with the...

Betting against the stocks that CNBC host Jim Cramer promotes appears to be a surefire way to make a fortune in the current stock market. Cramer dumped a new load of bad stock advice during the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse. He tweeted March 10 that “[First Republic Bank (FRC)] is new focus... very good bank.” However — just three days after Cramer’s tweet — FRC’s stock value took a 65 percent nosedive during premarket trading on Monday morning after declining 33 percent the prior week, according to CNBC. Cramer just can’t seem to catch a break...

VIDEOIf Benny Hill did a bit on road rage, it would probably look something like this real life example. The really funny thing is that the Road Rage Guy in the video looks a lot like Benny Hill.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is worried about what may be next to topple following the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history, and stocks are swinging sharply Monday as investors scramble to find someplace safe to park their money. The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading, but only after tumbling 1.4% at the open. The sharpest drops were again coming from banks. Investors are worried that a relentless rise in interest rates meant to get inflation under control are approaching a tipping point and may be cracking the banking system. The U.S. government announced a...