Free Republic

Technocracy’s prime directive in the 1930s was to master the “Science of Social Engineering”. Without ethical restraints, Pandora’s Box was opened with “anything goes” in the name of technocratic progress. Gaslighting becomes a primary tool in the propagandist’s toolbox when other propaganda techniques become ineffective. The danger with a gaslit population? Don’t light a match.

Former GOP strategist turned Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt ripped into Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in a new episode of his political podcast, "The Warning." "There he is," said Schmidt, showing an image of DeSantis during his interview with Fox News in which he claimed he would "smash" leftism in the United States as president. "Governor Ron DeSantis. The Mussolini of Tallahassee, using a U.S. Navy war vessel as a visual prop just days after his disastrous launch, which spawned the fantastic hashtag, "#DeSaster." "Who is it that he wants to smash?" said Schmidt. "Is he going to arrest Bernie...

Three teens have been arrested for allegedly killing a swan for family and friends to eat. The female swan, named Faye, was killed at a pond in Manlius, New York. Her four babies, called cygnets, went missing over the weekend.

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas. 🚴‍♂️👍

China's yuan (CNY), one of the five currencies in the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights basket, has depreciated by 2.7% against the U.S. dollar (USD) this month, its worst performance since September. Going back to February, the decline goes to 5% versus the greenback, and investment banking giant Goldman Sachs suggests it could drop further. Historically, yuan devaluation has been considered bullish for fiat currency alternative assets like bitcoin and gold, but the other side of that coin is a strong dollar. The U.S. unit is already on a rising trend and further strength might lead to continued monetary...

Dashcam footage shows the moment missile debris crashed down on a street in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. The incident happened on 29 May and came during a rare daytime attack on the city. No injuries were reported. The way the missile falls suggests it was intercepted by air defences before it could reach its target. The BBC matched the dashcam footage to video from a nearby security camera and photographs in media reports. The fragments were later collected by police for further investigation.

Latest Arctic challenges illustrate the difficulties in predicting climate change effects. Russia’s newest icebreaker—an 82-metre, 4,000-ton naval vessel—has joined its Pacific fleet off the Kamchatka peninsula, just across the Bering Sea from Alaska. But the route the Yevpatii Kolovrat navigated in mid-May has raised some eyebrows. Instead of traversing Arctic waters from the St. Petersburg shipyard where it was built, the ship sailed out into the Atlantic and south to the Mediterranean Sea. It then passed through the Suez Canal and crossed the Indian Ocean into the Philippine Sea before it arrived at its home port in Petropavlovsk in the...

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The bishop of Pittsburgh is calling for a “Pride Mass” to be canceled, emphasizing that “independent sponsors” promoted the event to coincide with the secular Pride Month. The Mass was scheduled to take place on June 11, at 1 p.m. at Duquesne Holy Spirit Chapel, presided over by a Father Doug Boud (who did not respond to requests for comment). Fliers obtained by The Daily Signal said the event was co-hosted by various groups, including Catholics for Change in Our Church and the LGBTQ Ministry at St. Joseph the Worker. Those fliers also stated that the...

Bud Light announced Tuesday that it is donating $200,000 to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce in support of its Communities of Color Initiative, as the company continues to struggle in the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney scandal. The once most-popular beer brand in America continues to hemorrhage market value in the wake of its April partnership with trans Dylan Mulvaney. The partnership sparked protests and backlash and parent company Anheuser-Busch has shed $26 billion in value in mere months. Bud Light's latest donation to the LGBTQ group is an extension of a partnership established last year between the company...

Ronna McDaniel is a subordinate to every one of us Republican voters, and she needs to explain to her bosses – that’s us – exactly what the hell she is doing to break her half-dozen botched election losing streak. Now, understand that calling her a subordinate to every one of us Republican voters is not and is not intended to be an insult, but rather a statement of her relationship with us. She works for us. To the extent she does not understand this, or worse, disagrees, that would explain a lot about the party’s recent unbroken track record of...

The University of Colorado Boulder (Boulder) is under fire this week for a statement on the “Pride Office” website stating that misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence.”The guide on pronouns is reportedly the work of students associated with the office and states that “choosing to ignore or disrespect someone’s pronouns is not only an act of oppression but can also be considered an act of violence.”It is a familiar position for many in higher education.Opposing viewpoints are now routinely declared to be violence. That allows professors and students to rationalize their own act of violence or censorship.The...

Some conservatives have suggested a boycott of Chick-fil-A after the fast-food chain was discovered to have a vice president of “diversity, equity, [and] inclusion,” or DEI. In a previously issued Chick-fil-A news release, the company said that Erick McReynolds serves as its vice president of DEI, saying: “Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognized as a place where people know they will be treated well. Modeling care for others starts in the restaurant, and we are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding, and dignity everywhere we do business.”DEI is a set of principles that large corporations, government agencies, and schools have...

The recent indictments of two suspected Chinese agents in California are examples of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to turn the United States into a “hunting ground” for dissidents, according to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.). The two individuals attempted to bribe an undercover officer posing as an IRS agent, in a plot to revoke the tax-exempt status of an entity run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners, according to the Department of Justice. They were arrested at their residences on May 26 and face charges of conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering.“This is another example of just how...

A transgender teacher's Pride flag was burned at a Los Angeles elementary school where furious parents have vowed to boycott an LGBT event. An intruder broke into Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood over the weekend and set the flag on fire. The full-time teacher, who is a transgender man, discovered its remains in a plant pot which was also broken. He has now been removed from the school by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) over concerns of his safety, according to the Los Angeles Times. Anger has escalated among the school community due to an upcoming Pride...

Hannah Arensman, a 35-time national cyclocross winner, decided to retire at the age of 25 following a loss to a transgender competitor. She shared her decision along with 67 female athletes and supporters in a recent Supreme Court amicus brief filing (pdf) in support of a West Virginia law that would keep biological men out of women’s sports.“I have decided to end my cycling career,” Arensman declared last Wednesday.In her statement, Arensman recalled her final race in the elite women’s division of the UCI Cyclocross National Championships in late December, where she finished in the 4th place, flanked on either...

In all the sturm und drang about the debt ceiling deal, how this passed under the outrageous outrage radar, I have no idea, but it tickles me to death. Now, I had only heard the bloviating about how the agreement did nothing to truncate Biden’s student loan give-away and snarl snarl snarl. But, in and of itself, that would seem like a waste of negotiating ground to me as there’s a fair chance SCOTUS will deep-six it in any event. What I think is really nifty is what McCarthy and his fellows got in this package as far as the...

As if you didn’t have enough to worry about. Who will bring down America’s power grid first? Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin? Biden has a head start, to be sure. But some Russian hackers have reportedly cooked up some new malware designed specifically to target electrical grids and cause disruptions. The new threat was discovered by Mandiant, a cyber threat intelligence specialist firm. They believe that this new malware system “poses a plausible threat” to the operational technology behind various electrical grid assets. (Security Week)Mandiant on Thursday detailed a new piece of malware that appears to be linked to Russia...

The Department of Justice under the Biden Administration has become nothing but a tool of the regime.Actually, the Justice Department under both Obama and Trump was already a corrupt organization, and by the regime, I don’t mean the elected officials in office, but the permanent government that has come to be characterized as the “Deep State.”The Deep State isn’t a cabal, per se. They aren’t gathering a (now marijuana) smoke-filled room plotting the downfall of America. Rather, they are a bunch of high-level bureaucrats who believe that they have the wisdom and the power to run the country, all the...

The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it was suing West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice to collect allegedly-owed funds stemming from environmental and health violations by his family's coal empire. The agency seeks $7.6 million in total restitution, which the DOJ says belongs to the Department of the Interior, according to the Washington Times. In the suit, the DOJ names 13 coal companies under the control of Justice and his son, James C. Justice III. Under intense scrutiny from Republicans over its alleged political biases, the suit has intensified claims of a partisan DOJ because of Justice's status...

Stock is a reasonable voice in a political debate where many appear to be living in some sort of fantasy world. Her views are what many would consider to be mainstream. For example, that human beings are sexually dimorphic, and it is sometimes appropriate to provide separate services for each sex. But by voicing those ideas, Stock has been subjected to opprobrium. In 2021, she was hounded from her job at Sussex University. The scenes surrounding Stock’s talk last night were depressingly familiar. Young people – who seem to think that disagreement is hate – made lots of noise to...