Free Republic

“I refuse to accept the proposition that Donald Trump is the ‘inevitable’ Republican nominee for President,” Eric Levine, a New York lawyer and Republican fund-raiser, wrote in an email to roughly 1,500 donors, politicians, and friends according to The New York Times. “His nomination would be a disaster for our party and our country.” The donor class reflects the pre-Reagan liberalism of the Rockefeller Republicans who were socially liberal yet favored fiscal restraint and have little in common with the current base of the party. Trump’s ascendancy has also deprived them of a base, as millions of liberal-leaning Republicans, particularly...

What is funny – not funny ha-ha, but funny, ironic – is the timing of the resurrected Covid alarm. The new alarms coincide quite nicely with a highly contentious and tenuous election. Jack Posobiec, tweeted this morning, “Amazing how Covid is back just as Trump is up in the polls. What are the odds!” What a perfect distraction from any drama in the White House around the Biden family’s alleged misdeeds. No doubt, Trump’s failures in handling the Covid crisis early on coupled with, of course, no mention of what he did get right, will be highlighted. It’s almost as...

Canada And Germany Are The Latest NATO Nations To Join The F-35 “Club” – The debate over whether the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the world’s best fighter is finished. (Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here. 19FortyFive publishes original videos every day.) The decisions by two “holdout” major Western powers, Germany and Canada, to acquire the F-35 leaves no doubt regarding the unique contributions that this aircraft can make to both national and NATO security. Multiple analyses and flyoffs by these two countries and others have ended with the same conclusion: the JSF is the best choice with respect...

Ukraine is burning through ammunition for 155mm howitzers quickly and it is leaving the United States in a bind, according to a new report by think tank CSIS. It could take up to five years for the industrial base to produce enough rounds to replenish American stocks. It is not just cannon shells. Javelin and Stinger missiles could take six to eight years to normalize for the U.S. inventory.

Election denialism runs rampant in the U.S. Some deniers claim all the ballots weren’t counted. “Once we have that full and accurate account of the ballots casted, then we will know who our next president is and our country can move forward.” Others have said that they should delay conceding a lost race. “[He] should not concede under any circumstances, because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch.” And, “I did win my election. I just didn’t get to have the job.” And “We were...

Perhaps as many as 90% of China’s 1.41 billion people will come down with COVID-19, said Feng Zijian, former deputy chief of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, to Bloomberg News. Feng predicts 60% of the population will be infected in the first wave.

Now all eyes are on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He is also coming off a big reelection win in a state that has become a symbol of his party’s governance nationwide. He and Newsom were putting themselves in position to run for president while respecting the frontrunner status of former President Donald Trump and Biden, respectively. Though weakened by the midterms, Trump has already announced he is running for president again in 2024. Biden was strengthened by them, and while a final decision is still forthcoming, he appears to be leaning heavily in favor of seeking a second term.

Disney Announced Hiring Freeze and Layoffs as Cost-Cutting Measure. Why?: Disney Resorts may be known as the “Happiest Place on Earth,” while Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is the “Most Magical Place On Earth.” However, the magic could soon disappear for workers while many others might not have much to be all that happy about as the Mouse House announced plans to institute a targeted hiring freeze, along with some job cuts.

We have extensively discussed China’s fifth-generation fighter – the J-20 Mighty Dragon, which is now based at all regional theater commands in China to deploy in times of war quickly. It has radar-evading characteristics allowing it to join the exclusive club of stealth fighters to challenge F-22s and F-35s. China seems to be pumping out more J-20 models each month. Now Beijing’s air force is raising the stakes with its sixth-generation fighter on display at the Zhuhai Airshow. This is again to match the planned American Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter. When it looks like the United States Air Force...

The ‘Foxconn Great Escape’: Workers Flee China’s ‘iPhone City’: Hundreds and perhaps thousands of workers fled a Chinese manufacturing complex that accounts for 85% of iPhone assembly capacity. The mass migration, which began this weekend, called into question that country’s COVID-control measures and, more broadly, its reliability as a part of global supply chains. “Something snapped over the weekend,” Bloomberg News reports. Employees suddenly fled the Zhengzhou plant of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., better known as Foxconn. Videos show, in what is now called the “Foxconn Great Escape” or the “iPhone Long March,” workers scrambling over high chain...

Is Report of U.S. Military Weaknesses Silly and Dangerous or Spot-On and Alarming?: According to Politico, an anonymous defense official claims Pentagon leaders are “none too pleased” that The Heritage Foundation’s latest Index of U.S. Military Strength has characterized American hard power as “weak.” The unnamed source also said that Heritage’s scoring is “silly and dangerous,” in part because it is “based on the outdated requirement that the military be able to fight two wars simultaneously,” a metric changed by the Obama administration and maintained by both the Trump and Biden teams.

Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican Leader, spoke plainly about what a GOP House majority would mean for Ukraine aid: Republicans are “not going to write a blank check to Ukraine.” So as the window to distribute aid to Ukraine potentially closes, members of Congress are hoping to attach a chunk of Ukraine aid to a lame-duck session government funding bill. The size of the new Ukraine aid package is $50 billion – a massive increase over last month’s $12 billion package, and a 77% increase in the amount of total aid – $65 billion – so far sent to Ukraine....

Since late August, Ukraine has driven Russian troops out of thousands of square kilometers of formerly occupied territory and are reportedly days from launching a renewed effort to capture the Russian-held city of Kherson. Many continue to write off the Russians, concluding the Ukrainian momentum is “irreversible,” implying Zelensky’s forces are on their way to winning the war by the end of this year. While serious analysts realize the war is far from over, there may be a growing danger to Ukraine few have considered; a vulnerability that could doom Kyiv to defeat.

China also is heading over a demographic cliff. The population has peaked, much earlier than once predicted. With a shrinking population, and a potential two-thirds reduction in working-age population by the end of the century, the PRC might not outstrip the U.S. economically. Still much poorer than America, China is rapidly growing older before it grows rich. That might become its permanent status. The PRC also is rapidly aging and suffers a dearth of women, as a result of the infamous “one-child policy,” which encouraged rural dwellers to abort or kill baby girls.

It’s not surprising that Democrats have been salivating ever since the House panel unanimously voted to subpoena Trump last week. As is ever the case with Trump, be careful what you wish for. There are all kinds of ways in which Trump’s testimony can backfire on his antagonists. First, one of the reasons the Jan. 6 committee hearings have had whatever success they have had is that it is an uninterrupted, one-sided narrative.

As the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) say they hope their offensive reaches the city of Kherson by this winter, Russia continues preparation for a massive counterattack which could begin as early as next month. The results of that battle are likely to be bloody and destructive, but unlikely to settle the war one way or the other.

Trump’s Testimony Could Cripple the January 6 Committee: Following what could be the conclusion of “investigations” ahead of the midterms, the January 6 Committee voted on Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump. It is the culmination of 15 months of work by House Democrats to paint a picture of Republican-backed political violence and an attempted “coup” orchestrated by the former president. While some may have been shocked by the revelation that Trump is now expected to be quizzed by the committee over their wild accusations, the truth is that this was always going to happen. Not only that, but...

We all expected the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would drop an October surprise–but most of us suspected a partisan-tinged election-eve report warning about those insurrectionist Republicans (hint, hint, keep Democrats in majority). Instead, we get a nice headline-grabbing subpoena of President Donald Trump that will never be enforced. The subpoena prompted a predictable tirade from the 45th president. The headlines and the tirade both accomplish the underlying political goal of thrusting Trump into the news cycle as much as possible before the November midterm elections. Rep. Liz Cheney proposed the resolution (of course) to subpoena...

The impact of the use of a nuclear device in Ukraine will depend on the details. Like any large-scale industrial army, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have obvious pressure points that would be vulnerable to nuclear attack. These include logistical centers, command and communications nodes, and concentrations of front-line forces. During the Cold War the Soviet Union expected to use tactical nuclear weapons against NATO (and expected that NATO would use them in return) and it is therefore likely that the Russian armed forces have workable theories as to how they might best use tactical nukes to inflict damage on Ukraine’s...

Something seemed to snap after President Joe Biden asked, “Where’s Jackie?” The snap wasn’t in the president himself, but rather from much of the media, as what had been whispered about in Washington and bandied about on talk radio had become a mainstream topic. (Although a Morning Consult survey in August found that a plurality of 48% believed that Biden was not mentally fit to be president.)